24 February 2007

Attn David Geffen...

...and anyone else who may be trying to call.

I have zero cell phone reception at home right now. Zero. So if you are trying to reach me, leave a message and when I go out I will retrieve them. Or email me at the snackishblogATyahoo address and I will obsessively check my email every 15 minutes (like I don't anyway).

And yes, Mr. Geffen, I think we can deal.

Updated: So. I decided to take Miss Goldie out for a walk and search for cell reception at the same time. Put on my ugly ass yoga pants and ugly ass sweatshirt (a hand me down from my 80-year-old mom - THAT's how attractive it is) to go to the beach.

Drive. No reception. Keep driving. No reception. 2 miles, 3 miles, 5 miles. No freaking reception. We are at about 5 hours with no cell reception. Something is seriously wrong.

So I had to go to the cell phone store in my ugly ass dog-walking clothes to face smirking 20-year-old boys in polo shirts. They took my phone and rolled their eyes and went in the back room to no doubt talk about me. Look, I don't mind being old and hideous - I'm USED to that. Just don't make me feel crazy, too.

Soon enough, my young friends performed some kind of cell phone "master reset" magic, and I got my phone service back, minus my dignity.

Geffen hadn't called though. Hm. Must be busy getting ready for the Oscars.

23 February 2007

On my high horse: a sermon

Why does the idea of karma or "the law of attraction" keep coming back again and again, like a bad penny?

Just because you are good doesn't guarantee that good things will happen to you. In fact, some of the best people on earth (Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Aung San Suu Kyi) have been treated the worst.

If we want to be happy, we do good things because they are the right thing to do, because we want to do our part to make this world a better place. Then we let go of any expectations.

Imagining good things for yourself is fine. Clarifying your goals and working toward them is great. Expecting that you can order stuff from the universe like a catalog - like one guy in "The Secret" says - is one of the stupider things I have ever heard.

Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do good things happen to jerks?

Because here is the Secret Law of Life, my friends: stuff happens. Then some other stuff happens. Good stuff, bad stuff. No guarantees.

All we can do is hedge our bets by using the skills and knowledge we have been given to keep ourselves and our loved ones as safe as possible.

The only thing we can really ever control is how we look at what falls our way. I hope your outlook is good today, no matter what happens.

21 February 2007

Where I Get It: An Homage to Dad

I grew up speaking living in California and speaking English as a second language.

My first language is "Dad."

My dad is often incomprehensible to anyone outside the immediate family. First, his voice is something south of a basso profundo, a subsonic rumble that may trigger small tsunamis. Second, he mumbles, but loudly. These two facts combined have terrified every man I have ever brought home to meet the folks.

"WhaRRRRRRRyah rakkkkkkagah bazzzzfsjn?" He will shout. My gentleman caller will sit sweaty and panicking, trying madly to translate as my dad grows more and more aggravated at him for failing to answer.

"He wants to know if you like to go bass fishing," I will stage-whisper.

Third, he has his own, very creative, vocabulary, much of which is food related. For instance:

Slop Chute = restaurant
Mud = coffee
Buzzard = chicken or turkey
Horse = beef
Slop and Rocks = biscuits and gravy
Axehandles = either a vegetable side dish or pasta
Fur piece = a great distance
200 miles = the answer to "How long before we get there?"
Two hours = the alternate to answer above
Okie Sheriff = speed bump
Okie Chrome = silver spray paint
Slick as a whistle = cool
Stings a little = a life-threatening injury
Quackopractor = chiropractor
Knucklehead = term of endearment
Dumbhead = term of endearment
Tubby, fatso, runt =terms of endearment
Sky blue pink = his favorite color

With inspiration like this, is it any wonder I grew up to be a writer?

20 February 2007

Memory du jour

1986: Most of my friends were male. Once, when we were out dancing, they commiserated to me how awful and soul-crushing it was to ask women to dance and to be turned down.

"If anyone asks me to dance, no matter who it is, I will dance with them," I proclaimed, in a gesture of imagined saintliness. I wasn't going to be one of those Snotty Bitches. I was going to be Sister Suebob of the Dancing Shoes.

Uh oh.

Cut to a vast, crowded club in a college town. Saturday night. A guy came up to ask me to dance. I remember him as being about as attractive as Urkel, a white Urkel. Stringy floppy greasy hair, pants hiked up, windbreaker. Perhaps my mind has embroidered this in the intervening years, but that is how I remember it.

I took a deep breath, smiled my saintliest smile, and went to dance. Big deal - three minutes of my life. What could go wrong? Mmm hmmmm.

At the end of the dance, he gave me a curious little bow. "How old-fashioned," I thought.

Then his hand shot out and honked - HONKED - my breast, giving it a hard squeeze. I expected it to make noise like a bicycle horn almost. He disappeared into the crowd as I stood there, mouth gaping.

I looked around for the little creep but I never found him. Gone.

I told this story to one of my male friends and he said "HE'S THAT GUY! The guy who ruins it for all the rest of us."

******

I was going to post about how much I hate this "The Secret" movie/book thing that Oprah is pimping lately. Basically, The Secret is "what you think about is what you will get out of life."

But I found out that at least 2 blogs have taken it on already: Mike's Weekly Skeptic Rant and The Stupidity Tracker both have nice screeds up. I will post about it myself when I have time.

*******
New posts up at Linkateria AND True Employee Confessions.

Suggest links or leave confessions at snackishblogATyahoo...

19 February 2007

I am not complaining

I am in the midst of a wacky church project. We are on a "complaint diet." We are trying to give up all complaining for 21 days straight.

At first, I didn't think it would be that hard. Then I found out that gossiping counted as complaining. Whoops.

To remind ourselves of this commitment, we are wearing blue rubber wristbands. If I want to complain, I have to move the wristband to my other arm to bring my attention to the fact that I am going to complain.

You know what this means, don't you? A knife through the heart of my blog.

First I decide I can't write about work. Then I determine that I should keep the family and friends talk to a minimum to avoid embarrassing anyone. I'm too shy to talk about sex. And now complaining is banned.

Aren't kittens wonderful? Aren't bunnies cute?

THIS IS KILLING ME.

I guess I will talk about memories for the next 3 weeks. Name a year after, oh, say 1968 and I will hit you with something from the Fascinating Life of Sueb0b.

Here's one: 1989 (I think).

My sister Laura and I are sitting in the front yard in downtown San Luis Obispo on a beautiful sunny day.

Two teen boys walk by, deep in conversation.

Boy 1: (fervently) "There was NO flying. There was NO hidden treasure."

Laura and I looked at each other.

And that, my friends, is one of my most cherished memories. To this day, when my sis and I ask each other how an event was, if it was less than fabulous, the other will say, "Well, there was no flying, there was no hidden treasure."

18 February 2007

Coinkydink

My first job out of high school was working at a movie theater. My manager was really nice guy, but the assistant manager was a guy that will go down in history as the oddest of odd ducks. I could tell stories for hours but I will limit it to one.

He LOVED money. I don't just mean the idea of money, though he loved that too, working one full-time and one-part time job for decades. He also loved the physical aspect of money. He spent hours smoothing wrinkled bills, taping torn ones, fondling the cash.

I once asked him "What would you prefer, money or happiness?" and without hesitation, he answered "Money."

********

I have already talked about my rigorously regular schedule. Almost every morning as I turn onto the main street leading to the freeway, a huge postal truck turns in front of me. It says "Basil White and Sons, contractors to the US Postal Service" on it.

"Curse you, Basil White!" I scream, knowing that, unless I play my cards right, I will be stuck behind the slow-ass Basil White truck as we go onto the freeway. The truck takes FOREVER to get up to speed, so I feel like my life is in danger every time I follow it up the onramp at 5 mph.

I have become so neurotic about the Basil White truck that I have risked life and limb to zoom around him, or stopped for coffee to let him get on the freeway ahead of me, or prayed for a red light to separate me and him.

I know I have blown this stupid truck way out of proportion, but it gives my mornings an element of drama, and you KNOW I love me some drama.

********

I went to the funeral of the manager of the movie theater this afternoon. He had died at age 82 and, even though I hadn't seen him since 1983, I wanted to honor his memory, since we had worked together for 3 very formative years in my life.

The assistant manager was at the funeral, too. He had retired from his full-time job and had quit the theater years before, but he said he still loved working and making money.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Driving a postal truck for Basil White and Sons," he answered.

No freaking way.

"Do you get on the freeway at about 7:12 every morning?" I asked.

"How did you know?"

He made my life hell at the movie theater 23 years ago, and he manages to add an element of misery still. Amazing. A-freaking-mazing.
Back to top