10-minute prep-time

Today didn’t start off very well. My alarm didn’t go off, there was traffic on the freeway, and through some acrobatic feat of rapid-tooth-brushing I managed to get a splodge of toothpaste on my jeans. But, on the other hand, the day didn’t start off too badly. My alarm didn’t go off, sure, but I got to work right on time, instead of doing like I usually do and getting there a few minutes early and driving the long way through the business park at 8 MPH. And a little splodge of toothpaste on your jeans is nowhere near as demoralizing as a splodge on your shirt. Yup, there was only way thing that could make or break this catastrophic but average day, and that was the investigation and evaluation of my alarm clock’s failure.

You see, today was the first day in the 12 years that I’ve had my alarm clock that it didn’t go off. It went off reliably through middle school when I had to get to the bus stop by 7:10, and in high school when I had a car and would set the alarm for 10 minutes before I had to leave. (A 10-minute prep time is perfectly possible for a teenaged girl. 1-2 minutes for pants and shirt, 1-2 minutes for teeth and hair, 3-4 minutes for finding shoes and agonizing over various zits, 1-2 for debating and deciding not to eat breakfast.) My alarm clock was a supremely reliable sort; it never failed me on early mornings when I had flights to catch, midterms to study for, or job interviews to be ever-so-slightly early for. It even indulged me for the many long years when I left the alarm on during the weekends for the pure joy of turning it off and going back to sleep.

I’m not exactly sure when I got the alarm clock, but I think it was around my 12th birthday. The clunky black plastic seems very 1998, and the sticky tape deck on the front panel matches that time period where CDs existed but cheap stereo companies were still trying to make the tape happen. Anyway, whenever it was, it was back in the time when buttons on electronics still stuck out of the main box of the item, before all of this touch-screen nonsense and the advent of inlaid, flush buttons. My alarm clock has a wire antenna that never works and an excellent sense of humor: I’ve started many hung-over mornings to the tune of Margaritaville.

I realize, in theory, that retiring an aging alarm clock might not be the worst thing. A person needs an alarm clock that can be relied upon to rouse them for work and most everyone I know has already switched to using their multi-purpose cell phone as an alarm. Finally, my alarm clock is old; the tape deck has to be pried open and there is dust between the buttons on that thing that isn’t ever coming off. It’s easy to believe that it might be giving out. Still, I feel bad getting rid of it – it was outdated practically before it came out of the box and I respect that.

Here’s to hoping that this morning was a fluke and that tomorrow will start off better --with a familiar screech from the black, dust-clogged speakers of an alarm clock that doesn’t come with a texting function.

I'll admit a lackluster effort and a fondness for baked goods

As you may have picked up from my posts here, I’m a very shallow person. I don’t spend a whole lot of time having deep thoughts or in self-reflection – mostly I get my jollies by bitching about the state of my immediate surroundings and pitching those thoughts into the cyber-void. But lately (and through no fault of my own) my house has been filling up with books about psychology and other voodoo practices of the same touchy-feely bent and because I’m me and they are free books, I’ve been reading them. And sometimes I even think about what I read after I read it. Things are getting hellsa Zen over here.

Alright, I may not be hellsa Zen yet, but at least I know what being hellsa Zen would look like now. And I also know that there are probably a lot of terrible evil feelings in side of my happy-go-lucky soul, feelings that can only be properly squashed and resolved through self-reflection. I haven’t decided yet whether I am willing to undergo said reflection, but I think that knowing that I should is an improvement.

I read a quote somewhere on the interwebs that said (approximately) that people never know exactly what they are doing; they don’t know how to dress or speak or spell. This seems rather related. Like, if people put a lot of thought and reflection into their actions/decisions they would know what they were doing instead of just stumbling around. This sounds very elementary, I realize, but as a certified stumbler I can definitely relate to the idea of living without a game plan. I’m not purposeful; I’m a wanderer, a guesser and a proficient time waster. And I’m married to the kind of person who buys all of his clothes from one store, so I have plenty of exposure to planners.

This has been an utterly lackluster post. I thought that if I started going off on the topic of self reflection and Zen I would drum up some good material. I wanted to say that I am feeling very proactive lately, despite the fact that I just ate two cupcakes for lunch. I guess wanting to think is a far sight better than trying not to think. Thursday obligation complete. Thoughts?

Strolling

I think I am getting into the habit of writing these things right before I leave for work in the morning and therefore giving the impression that I am always either at work or thinking long, dreary thoughts about work. And that is not the case. I often think long dreary thought about a number of topics. Currently I am thinking a couple of long dreary thoughts about buying houses. (I don’t know if I have mentioned that we are considering buying a house on here yet; if not, surprise!) It’s a shocker to find that after years of looking at tiny one-storey houses that you feel oddly seduced by a two-storey house. Woe to the real estate agent that must conduct us to a 750 square-foot house and a 1,200 square-foot house in the same day.

But I am also thinking dreary thoughts about the feeling this morning when I opened my kitchen door to let the dog out. It was about 7:40 and cool out, but the coolness had a feeling of brevity – I could feel the insane hotness looming just beyond the shade. I felt it when I opened the bathroom window this morning and when I turned on the dusty fan last night. Summer is coming in all of its sweaty, grimy, glory. And when it gets here I’m going to take off my sneakers and be cranky until it retreats.

I was thinking about summer the other day when I was sitting in my car on my lunch break. It was windy outside, but warm enough in the car and after I’d eaten my lunch I felt like taking a nap. To distract myself I watched the cars and the people trouping past my windshield. First, there were a whole lot of them (both people and cars) and they all seemed so shiny in the sun – hubcaps and steel bumpers were reflecting the glare off of reflective plastic strollers, bug-eye sunglasses, and embellished flip-flops.

It wasn’t like the many lunch breaks that I spent in my car during the winter. Since I’ve been working retail the weather has been mostly daunting; people fled from their cars to the Baby Gap overhang with newspapers and purses held over their heads. Watches were checked, lunch hours were maximized and people kept their plump calves and boney feet concealed in weather-appropriate clothing.

But last week people weren’t just shopping, they were making a g.d. day of it. They were strolling and worse yet, they were strolling with strollers. I remembered, idly, that when I was a young teenager my friends and I used to convince our parents to drop us off at the outlet mall for the sheer change of scenery. We would wander, penniless, from place to place admiring toe-socks and platform sandals. Sometimes we pooled our money and bought matching Sailor Moon shoelaces.

In light of this, I’m pretty sure that it is going to be a real ugly summer.

Who in this co-op doesn't own Planet Earth on DVD?

Yesterday I was driving home after an admirable pesto-chicken sandwich and I saw a rainbow, the bright sort that elementary school teachers yearn after but is inevitably only visible from cars on freeways and office windows, stretched over a dilapidated drive-in movie screen. I was in the mood to be contemplative – it was a nice moment to be driving quietly with your radio off, with the freeway wet and the sun shining in that fashion which would be beautiful if it didn’t obscure the dotted lines between the lanes and remind you of all of the spilt oil.

“A rainbow over the drive-in,” I muttered to myself. I’m a huge fan of talking to myself when I’m alone; I react to things very verbally and it is easier on the ego to accept and cultivate my conversations with myself than to try and staunch every “Yikes!” or “Well, thanks” that pops out of my mouth.

Anyway, my mood was such that I wished that “rainbow” wasn’t such a horrifically corny word/natural phenomenon. “Rainbow over the Drive-in” has that special juxtaposition quality (natural/man-made, sensible/absurd, timeless/outdated) that would make a fine title for something, if referencing rainbows wasn’t practically as babyish as name-dropping baby rabbits and cupcakes. If the word rainbow is in your band’s name, you will probably end up dating some washed-up child star, like the youngest brother from Malcolm in the Middle. If your band title includes both “rainbow” and “drive-in,” expect to perform in poodle skirts and roller skates.

Thankfully, I don’t have a band to name. I only write things, and if the word rainbow is in your book/essay title, the light-water majesty is guaranteed to make its appearance just as hope is being restored. I’m not much for being hopeful, so that means “Rainbow over the Drive-in” is headed to the slush pile.

For the sake of curiosity and for the sake of giving me something to do as I finish my cereal, I will place before the jury the essay idea that I would cultivate if I wanted to make use of the corny lyricism of “Rainbow over the Drive-in.” I would write about how I have almost zero regard for nature and an overgrown sense of nostalgia, the elements of which, combined, make me far more moved by the sight of a dilapidated drive-in movie screen than by the rainbow stretched over it.

Having a hollow pit where my love of nature should be is nothing that I am proud of; I very much want to be the sort of person whose eyes well with tears over email forwards of picturesque sights; as things lay currently my eyes only well when there are cute animals doing unlikely things Photoshopped into these pictures, and that’s only because I’m laughing too hard.

Really, though, it’s not like I have absolutely no regard for nature. I believe in the soothing effects of a landscape and I’m going to the forest/coast next week because I think that the removal of a person to nature can be revitalizing. But even in that case I am valuing nature because it isn’t something (the mall) instead of for its innate attractiveness. Of course, I am also going because I enjoy camping for the ridiculous hot-dogs-beer-and-fresh-air aspects – I might want quiet but I won’t live a monkish existence with no condiments.

I was thinking about this indifference yesterday (pre-pesto) while I was chatting online with a friend who is planning a camping trip in the rainforest. (That’s right: I’m the kind of person who has friends that camp in the rainforest. Let me in your co-op.) I was clicking through pictures that she linked, thinking about Jurassic Park when I realized that I would probably never go to the rainforest, just like I’m never going to get stoned and watch the Planet Earth special on Animal Planet. I am pretty much a rotting corpse of a human being.

I was reading some blog the other day that listed something to the effect of “knowing that what is fun for others isn’t necessarily fun for you” as one of the secrets to happiness. There were lots of other things on the list (eat less and better, ect.) but that particular entry really appealed to me, as it would appeal to many other notoriously passive I-don’t-know-what-do-you-want-to-do folks, I’m sure. I guess knowing that some people get into a dither about rainbows and other people get into a spaz over drive-in screens is merely an extension of that.

Sandal Season

It might be silly to write this while it’s raining, but I am willing to overlook present circumstances in my enthusiasm for the big picture. It is sandal season and I’ve got a giant blister on my right heel to prove it…a blister from the pair of brown faux-Pocahontas flats that I was wearing in protest of sandal season.

(Always a mistake to wear cheap, plastic flats when you plan on being sweaty. Not that anyone ever plans on being sweaty, but you know what I mean. )

Man, do I hate sandal season. I like the first part of spring alright, when the sun is just warm enough to make the sidewalk pleasant to stand on and during that 3-weeks of green before everything burns to a dull brown, but I hate the summer. I hate the heat and the way that the sun reflects off the stupidly clean bumpers of the other cars on the freeway. I also hate how I never got around to getting prescription sunglasses when I had eye coverage and how little kids giggle at the way I wear my over-sized sunglasses over my regular ones. There are few things about summer that I don’t hate, and for a long time I assumed that was why I hated sandals.

But recently when I fixed the compulsive gaze of my brain on the many sandals that fill my workplace, it occurred to me that my hate for sandals is an entirely different issue. I don’t like sandals because they are so god-awfully casual and because I have never been able to affix my affections to casual things. I don’t like sandals for the same reason that I don’t like shorts or plans that involve “texting you when I get there”: beneath my attempts at being a bra-burning liberal I have a rigid, propriety-loving soul.

I love people who are overly formal and things that are structured – maybe that’s why I suck so thoroughly at being self-employed. I like people who wear slips under lined dresses and own completely needless business cards. And thus, I hate sandals, the shoes that promote foot nudity.

Or maybe it’s just because I have such pale, fishy feet. Either way, it's going to be a long, blistery summer.

Miffing

I would like to think that I am an adventurous person. I would like to think that I will spend my life seeking greener pastures and making quests, acting bravely and doing, well, things. But occasionally something happens in my life to burst that bubble with a fatal pinprick of reality. Today that bubble burst when I saw that someone in some crap SUV had parked in “my” parking spot at work.

To be clear, my job isn’t the kind of job where there is assigned parking. In fact, I’ve never worked anywhere with assigned parking, though I have worked at three jobs where the employees were considered low-priority park-ers and told to park far away. (Have I mentioned my impressive collection of parking tickets from HR departments and university police? I am also famous for racking these pseudo tickets up at apartment complexes.)

Okay, tangent time! I also worked at a place where the parking was habitual but not assigned and the sort of people who really pay attention to the parking habits of others found this very distracting. I got some flack about parking further away from the building than most, but not as much as I got for declaring that their vendetta to bully a young man from a nearby office out of their parking area by parking diagonally across the spot he usually used was a trifle unnecessary. So what if this guy was a socks-and-sandals type. Underneath that layer of wool and Birkenstocks that guy has feelings too – deep, repressed feelings.

To continue with my initial point, I got to work this morning and found that some crap SUV was parked in the spot that I’ve been using for the past few weeks, ever since I got my first “warning ticket” from the parking authorities. It’s a little spot beside a tree at the end of a row, slanted enough to occasion the parking break and far enough away that it is usually empty when I get there. I’m rather fond of it, actually. I have my lunch there every day that I work.

But today someone was in that spot, despite the amazing plethora of empty spots in the lot. Some red mini-SUV with a Jack in the Box head on the antenna and a gleam of victory in its headlights. Sure, I was a little pissed, but more disappointed than anything. I was ashamed to realize that I am no adventurer; I’m a homebody so thoroughly that I become attached to the parking spot that I frequent and I’m miffed when it is taken.

(P.S.: “Miffed” is all anyone should ever be about parking. Parking-related road rage is just embarrassing. When someone steals a spot out from under you, don’t despair. Be miffed.)

Yo Amo NY

Today is the first day of my tentatively amped up blogging schedule and I would like to note that I am dressed in a way that completely undercuts any attempt to make that sound like an ambitious statement. I know that I don’t usually discuss my writing attire here (it only accents how I will never will my secret dream of being a photo-a-day blogger) but it’s Sunday and as mentioned previously, I am notoriously lazy on the weekends. So, space cadets, to my attire and beyond.

I am seated at my computer desk in a pair of flannel pants, an oversized shirt that reads “Yo Amo NY,” a robe and some slippies. This is not what I usually wear when I blog, or for that matter, what I am usually wearing at 6: 45 on a Sunday night. But tonight is a strange night because today was a strange day; I attended and overdressed for a livestock show today and this, coupled with having a hurried meal at an Applebee’s off of the freeway in Lodi, made me eager to shower.

I stand fully behind the logic of my fashion choice for the evening, but the fact that blogging in my slippies requires mention unearths an entirely different issue. Slippers and blogging go together like biskits and gravy, no? Perhaps for your normal well-adjusted blogger (haha….ha), pj-bloggin’ is a fact of life. That is not, however, the case for me.

I read an essay by Sarah Vowell earlier this week in which she defended her decision not to drive a car by saying that her joy as a journalist didn’t often require her to wear shoes, let alone drive. This passage stuck in my mind because it so keenly contradicted all of the self-help-y stuff that I have read about writing in the last six months – most of the Dear Abbys in the world instruct getting fully dressed everyday to secure productivity, and some of the more romantic suggest that you are getting dressed to honor the art form that you practice; thus I pull on my jeans, socks, and sneakers everyday to honor pounding in frustration at my keyboard. I brush my hair to honor peeks sneaked at my email and I iron my blouses because I don’t want these blog posts to know that they are hours stolen from the golden gauntlet of billable projects.

I am going to shore this sucker up because I have a lot of work to get done tonight, whatever my wardrobe might be suggesting about me. I just caught a glimpse of myself in the yellow-framed mirror hung opposite my desk; I was shuffling back into the office with a water bottle, hair wet and slippers fuzzy, the tails of my robe dragging on the carpet behind me. Although this is probably the last time that I will ever blog thus, I encourage you to picture me writing every blog in this exact fashion.

A More Terrible Metaphorical Monstrosity

I know that it is silly for a person who usually only works five hours a day to make any claim of being rushed, but I felt distinctly rushed last night. I got off of work at 5 p.m. (after that arduous and aforementioned five hours of work) and after wasting a hefty chunk of the afternoon chatting, lanyard-free, in the foyer of my workplace, I made my way home. Once there I ate two hastily constructed burritos, slung my messenger bag over my shoulder and moseyed to class.

No one is surprised, I’m sure, at the length and detail that I employing in describing my evening, but those impatient sorts should be heartened because I am about to reach my point. When I got to class I dropped into my seat, brushed a few mysterious capsules (pills? breath mints?!) off of my desk and felt a very familiar feeling settle over me. The moment that my ass hit that spinning chair, an internal timer blinking “3 hours” instantly assumed the foreground of my mind; the count down to dismissal had begun.

This isn’t a particularly deep revelation, I know. The countdown mentality is no rarity in our society of mulitaskery and especially in my personal demographic of cubicle peons. Who hasn’t sat at their desk imagining the giant timer, ticking off seconds? (The timer, of course, never reflects actual time as we know it. It moves with terrible speed or deliberate slowness and probably reflects our eventual mortality.) When we have too much to do we race against a clock that seems to be ticking away minutes out of spite and we begrudge any task that can’t be completed in that allotted time; by contrast, when we want to go home every minute takes hours for the timer to shed.

So, okay, I’m rehashing all of the problems of the modern workplace and though I enjoy that topic immensely, I’m going to jump ship. My intent in writing this was not to open fire on society, but rather to discuss my reasons for voluntarily taking a class (and paying a hefty amount for the book) and waiting with bated breath for it to end. I don’t have any degree hanging in the balance and my mom is never going to find out if I skip.

I think that this might just be the way that I have learned to attend class. I was an enthusiastic student, an eager beaver in academic waters, but I was never afflicted with a desire for a class to go on longer than its allotted time. I liked learning, the chairs were pretty comfy and I didn’t have anywhere else to be but still I wanted to be dismissed. I sat and waited to leave, my senses dulled by the noisy air conditioned breezes universal to classrooms, in the exact same fashion that I did last night. Canceled classes are still beautiful things and I’m looking forward to having President’s Day off next week.

I don’t know if it is a strange manifestation of rebelliousness or some larger and more terrible metaphorical monstrosity, but the countdown to the end of class is back. Whether or not I have actually missed going to school is going to be measured by the pace of its imaginary ticking because there is no other constant where classes are concerned.