Breaking cleanly from the starting gate

Everyone who is anyone knows that I’ve been reading books about horse racing lately; therefore, I feel it is worth a blog post to advertise the fact that I’m stopping. I know that it’s shocking and that I’ve devoted miles and miles of cyberspace to praising horse books, but I think I finally managed to OD on horse-related non-fiction. At least, that’s what I was thinking when I woke up repeatedly last night from horse-related nightmares.

Now, to be fair not all of my nightmares last night were about horse racing. Some of them were about work and some of them were about some asshole stealing both of the bumpers off of my car. Most of them, however, were about horse racing. I’m not even exactly sure how they were about horse racing; I only know that I kept waking up in a panic, concerned over paddock boots and “break clean” from the starter gate. To make matters worse I was in that hazy intermediate state of coherence and kept having to reassure my soggy mind that there was no part of my life that resembled a horse race.

The terrible thing is that I was on such a g.d. roll with reading horse books. In the last two weeks I’d swept through three, one on Secretariat, one on Seabiscuit, and another on Ruffian. I started a book on Man o’ War last night and I fell asleep reading it. In hindsight I think it was the book on Ruffian that really did me in though…There was a lot about riding towards the light with shattered ankle bones toward the end.

Anyway, this has developed into a very belated and boring post so I’ll stop while I’m still ahead (or at least not that far behind). I’m going to retire with some very tame literature this evening – I’m thinking something about the prairie at about the 5th grade reading level. Any book that mentions the use of sunbonnets to preserve a racially-charged paleness of the skin is like a sedative to me.

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?

And have a nice day.

Because it is early and I’m still waking up, I’ll start off with some preliminary small-talk. The weather today is rainy, after weeks of sunshine, and I am pleased with the shift, excepting some small concern over my dog and the strawberry plants that some guy I live with planted in the backyard. I’m concerned over the dog because she is a demure old lady with no fondness for getting her feet wet but she will have to spend her day (dog-like) outside because I am off to work in a few minutes.

I worked the weekend but I didn’t work yesterday, so in some absurd way this is like the beginning of my week. That’s one of the hardest things for a schedule-oriented person like me to wrap their head around: when you aren’t working a 9-5, M-F job, the week is permeable. It’s virtual heartbreak to my little compulsory-schooled, office-job-since-17 heart.

The whole thing is a little weird, though, when you consider the frequency with which people who invariably work most of the weekends ask each other what their weekend plans are. I have even heard corny “TGIF” lines being exchanged by people who will report, sensible shoes in hand, at 10 a.m. the next morning for an 8-hour shift. I like to think that this is less about being delusional and more about relying on conversational scripts to get through the day. Referencing the weekend is like a “Nice weather we’re having” for the young and fast set.

As a generally awkward person, I love having these scripted conversations. I love asking people what their plans are, how their weekend was, what they are doing for lunch, and remarking with special casualness on how many hours of work remain in the day. I prefer to let other people introduce emotionally strenuous topics of conversation in the workplace; I don’t want to seem presumptuous. (I did break this rule to express, unprovoked, my distress at having to work during the Kentucky Derby and my intention to wear an oversized black hat in protest and mourning. No wonder people think that I’m so awesome.)

The common and unfortunate side effect of these work-time scripts is that they start to be instinctive, especially when your workplace has a set of mandatory phrases for dealing with customers. In the past when I have worked in phone-heavy positions, I used to answer my cell phone with the whole spiel – giving my name and department and asking people if I could help them with something. (Again, no wonder people think I’m so awesome.)

Now that I work in a place where I largely thank people and greet them, I find myself compelled to shout a cheerful hello to any opening door. I almost bit my tongue trying to keep myself from bursting forth in my singsong voice at a coffee shop last week, as the doorbell there was reminiscent of the ding-dong of the door at my workplace. The whole thing was making me mighty nervous, but then maybe that was because I’d been too awkward to amend my coffee order to make it decaf.

Since we are on the topic of work-related humiliations, I’ve been meaning to discuss how I find myself responding to any “Thank you” with a swiftly executed “Thank you! Have a nice day!” and by looking around frantically for my copy of the receipt. This is a particularly embarrassing reaction when made to someone that you are going to be seeing regularly, as it tends to come off a bit…dismissive. Also it comes off a bit weird. And probably it makes me seem just a little bit awesome.

3/18/2010? Whatever.

Because I am melodramatic and because I am, essentially, a glorified chatterbox I tend to enjoy finding my life and burdens very trying. There are other times, however, when I find my life hilarious. This (now, here, precisely) is one of those ignoble hilarious times.

I am sitting at home this evening (home after an afternoon working and a morning of mild Bud-Light-regret) and talking about buying a house. If you are waiting for the hilarious part, please pause further – buying a house is not a hilarious thing, it is a freakishly complicated intimidating thing, worsened by questions of river rock and character.

The hilarious thing is that I am discussing this while dining on a dinner of expired pesto (3/18/2010? Whatever.), peach pie and cookies-and-cream ice cream. The whole thing = deliciously immature.

Just when I think that I am getting the hang of being adult-like, I indulge myself in a little dessert-for-dinner action. Sure, I’m reading a novel that interchanges boring Victorian diary entries with saucy passages on an extramarital affair, but I don’t understand that serving a peach pie with anything other than plain vanilla ice cream is a crime. (What am I trying to prove with my preindustrial novel, you ask? It is only of note because I am reading a book that epitomizes the overlap of boring sentimentalism and pornographic imagery that characterizes the chick-lit market. No teen wizards here, brother.)

Oh, life.

Cleaning the fridge of your subconscious

To continue in my vein of discussing boring things, I would like to take this moment to leap up on my soap box and proclaim that I cleaned out my fridge. It wasn’t a real “cleaning” I suppose. It was more of a search for the thing that smelled foul and was ruining my (halfhearted) appreciation of the sunny day. If you were wondering, indeed, if you are the sort of person who likes to hear disgusting things and stares into the sink as you wash your hands to observe the discolored water running off them, then I’ll indulge your curiosity. There were several rotting items in the fridge to which the smell might be attributed, but far and away the most pungent was a Tupperware of black beans.

So I cleaned out the fridge. I like to chuck out the moldy stuff whenever I go grocery shopping, because it freaks me out to think of the old lettuce rubbing elbows with the new, but that is a pretty wasteful practice. Now if you have wandered into this virtual-saloon before you know that I am no eco-soldier, I’m just a person campaigning against a bunch of people that suck atrociously. Often, but certainly not exclusively, people who are very wasteful suck. This isn’t a connection to be made between their empathy for good old mother earth and their fellow man; it’s more a signal of the fact that a person who is wasteful probably A) doesn’t recognize the value of things, B) possesses a great personal ease that grates on the nerves of less fortunate hermit-types, and C) drives a shiny sand-colored SUV. All three of these things are suggestive of jackassery without taking into account any detriment to the environment.

That being said, I like to throw things away. I find any kind of purging of possessions very cathartic, probably because I have mad hoarding tendencies. I hold onto shirts that don’t fit and have holes under the arms until throwing them away becomes a real production. I do this about twice a year with flannel pants. [Really, how can I have so many pairs? Between the free t-shirts (kept for sentimental value) and the pants, the drawer won’t close.] Some people get their jollies skydiving; I get mine from throwing away flannel pants that say “Sleepy head!” all over them.

(Speaking of flannel pants with things on them, I would like to pose a question. Why are people into the Tasmanian Devil character from Looney Tunes? He seems a frequent figure on flannel pants, the cheap kind that have a drawstring that will fuse into a solid-mass in the dryer and leave your pants knotted, forever, at an uncomfortable size. I’m not trying to showcase my provincial horizons, but my observations seem to suggest that the T.D. and that grumpy Martian are preferred by even the most hoodlum-y young adults. Is there some kind of inherent street-cred in Looney Tunes that I don’t know about?)

I’ve been thinking about cathartic things (like throwing pants away, if you lost my train of thought) a rather lot lately. 2010 has thus far been a somewhat gnarly year (with a few shining html-exceptions) for practically everyone that I know and we’ve been sharing notes on how to best cope. I do this – my rambling discussion with no hope of eventual gain – but not everyone has such a marvelously free and soothing hobby. And a person with no release can go a little crazy.

In short: We all have issues, but we don’t all have the extra flannel pants. This is potentially a problem.

red-flag jerk vocab

I was driving home in the early (the earliest: 12:30) hours of the morning this morning, rocking out to my trademark early-70s jams and it occurred to me that I haven’t been out driving that late in a long while. Okay, well that is not strictly true. I have been out after midnight plenty of times lately, but only when in the glamorous role of designated driver and never by my lonesome. The empty freeway and the Billy Joel reminded me of the fact that once, not so long ago, driving somewhere alone at night would have been notable – I am miraculously antisocial, don’t forget – but wouldn’t have been cause for reflection.

So, I have a couple of notes on this topic and I’m sorry if one of them requires me to say “post-collegiate” and the other one requires me to say “co-dependent,” but I am going to muddle through despite any red-flag asshole vocab. When I was driving last night I was thinking about how I am really passive in the social sense (and the professional/economic/picking-what-to-eat sense) and since moving into the soul-suck suburbs to pursue my soul-suck (ex)career I haven’t been making much of an effort to be social. Part of this has to do with the fact that there isn’t much of a youthful professional demographic here, and that the existing youthful professionals are a little perplexed by a person who quit their professional job to be a shoe salesman.

It also has to do with my strange hatred for my cell phone that developed at some point, causing me to detest using or answering it. But mainly I think the problem is not being a socially proactive person partially because I live an hour away from everyone I know, and also because I live with a person who is very convenient receptacle for all of my socializing needs.

Life, I think, is very hard for post-collegiate co-dependent sorts.

I fall into the bipedal train wreck category

Anyone who knows me is aware that I have certain masochistic tendencies when it comes to movies and television. I only like things that are either absolutely fantastic or incredibly, heart-wrenchingly bad. I am completely indifferent to things that are so-so; I could live without shows that are mildly touching or occasionally funny and movies that worldly but so boring that people actually notice the soundtrack. My tastes are suited for either a masterpiece or a train wreck and nothing in between. (As a personal note, I also apply this philosophy to my friends and associates. Now look within your heart and decide whether you fall into the category of sublime humanity or bipedal train accident.)

The above paragraph, like most of things that I say on this blog, is really just a fanciful disclaimer for what I am about to reveal. Over the last week I have watched – somewhat regularly but always while multitasking, I assure you – a time travel period piece that did a serious molestation job on Pride and Prejudice.

I know, I know. I take any chance that I can get to make jokes about Austen acolytes and here I am hypocritically streaming an off-brand miniseries. Give me a break, it’s not like I’m reading those saucy P&P continuation books, the main purpose of which is to explore the sexual inclinations of the dynamic duo. Actually, I just searched for some of these sequels on Amazon to make sure that I was right about the saucy thing and I discovered one called The Darcys and the Bingleys: The Tale of Two Gentlemen’s Marriages to Two Most Devoted Sisters in which Darcy gives Bingley a copy of The Kama Sutra. Win to me.

In spite of this saucy Austen gunk, no one with a fondness for awful period pieces could have turned down something listed as “Lost in Austen.” Add time travel complicated by the fact that the travel is transporting the character into a fictional realm (another favorite convention of mine) and I couldn’t stop myself.

I guess that’s enough quibbling. I watched the damn thing and it was a marvelous, horrible experience that touched the evilest parts of my soul. The main chick, let’s call her Present-day Austenite, is in love with the fictional Darcy and her strong emotional connection with the novel opens a portal in her bathroom into the world of the novel. (Yes, this is explanation that is given. No pseudo-science or mysticism. Just pure, icky, emotions.)

Things only got more awesome. Present-day chick and Elizabeth Bennet switch places and Present-day chick is able to live out her fantasy of being in love with Darcy. There is an erroneous marriage (resolved eventually through a mysterious lack of consummation) and the obligatory time-travel recovery scene, where the Present-day chick finally becomes acclimated to the time period and learns to use a fan properly. [Fans are the go-to social barrier for time travel movies. Is there a male equivalent for this? Is it sword fighting?] Darcy then travels to modern times, where he is confused by television and anyone who isn’t white!

I won’t gush anymore about the hideousness of the entire affair but I will spoil the ending. The Present-day chick stays with Darcy and the movie closes on a time travel make-out scene (exactly identical to her frequently-referenced fantasies) in front of a mansion. Bam! Time travel neatly concluded, with no discussion of how the alternate reality came to exist or whether she should return to her own time and family.

I can only think of one way that this miniseries could have ended better. If the make-out scene turned into a woodcut illustration and the camera zoomed out to reveal that the woodcut was actually a page in P&P, I would have wept with joy. You can just imagine the rest; the pages would flip in some imaginary breeze and the cover would slam closed on the greatest time travel/alternate reality, low budget period piece ever told.

2 o'clock block

The wall I hit at 2 p.m. is a hearty one. All progress halts as I consider unnecessary snacks and conpulsively check my email. Compulsive email checking for unpopular kids like me is a waste of time and ego; I could check that thing every ten minutes all day long and never get an email that wasn’t a misguided Facebook alert about someone who commented on a status that I also commented on.

Hitting this wall is very disheartening for me everyday, but especially so on Fridays. On Fridays I have a strange desire to earn my weekend through hard work and perseverance. It’s a freaky throwback trait to my 9-5 days and a real indicator that my brain hasn’t fully grasped the fact that I usually work on the weekends now.

Today started off well enough. I was productive from 8 a.m. to noon, and then I ate some food and then did a little more work. I was relatively pleased; I started a new story that might have eventual promise and then hacked away at some unpromising story for about an hour. But as 2 p.m. neared, the barking of the neighbor’s dog became more pronounced and I suddenly became aware that my own dog was licking the floor in the kitchen and producing rending tongue-scrape noises.

I figured that killing my neighbor’s dog would be slightly less PC than the time that I read aloud from the Wikipedia entry about skinheads with the windows open (and I’ve a very carrying voice, you know) so I satisfied my own angst by asking my dog if she wouldn’t mind not licking the floor anymore. My dog, of course, interpreted this request as an invitation to stand beside me and breathe laboriously. And that, perhaps, is why I am writing this blog.

I’m trying to recall if I had anything else of note to mention while I am on here. I haven’t read much lately that hasn't been pointedly instructive and my television (cough, internet, cough) time has been divided between a bad British miniseries about scullery maids and an unforgivably raunchy HBO show about kings.

Something weird that I learned today: In some states there is a wolf hunting season and Montana’s closed today after the 12 wolf quota was met. That brings a tear to my Julie of the Wolves lovin’ eye.