two, no three, random musings

First, i'm in a five-week summer class with some fellow grad students on media ethics. exciting! actually, it is really interesting. in our class is one of the research-track students, a guy from chile. I give him a lot of credit--it's hard writing journalistically in a language not your own.

Anyway, mr. chile came to the first day of class with one of those blue-velcro-soft-cast type things on his foot. When i asked him what happened, he said, "oh, it's really a silly story." Apparently he broke his toe while "taking a nap." His leg fell asleep, and when he woke up, he jumped out of bed too quick and jammed his toe. I tried really hard not to laugh when he told me, but I immediately came home and told RL, who decided he would start telling people that was how he broke his neck. "Well I was taking a nap you see..."

Second, I just started a job waiting tables at a little Mexican restaurant. On Sunday i was there for nine hours (way too long for grandma tplate), and got to meet a variety of very young hostesses and bussers. One of the hostesses, Iris, was telling me that she had tried to quit a few weeks ago, but just kept coming back. "This place is awful. Everyone backstabs and talks about each other. You think you won't get sucked in but you will." Uhhh, ok? Note to self: Don't tell this girl anything.

She told me she was 16 and I asked her if this was her first job. "Oh no, I have a lot of responsibility. I go to school and cosmetology school. Yeah, I've got big aspirations. (Read: I'm not planning on working in a restaurant for the rest of my life and I'm silently judging you right now for your decision to work here at your advanced age.)" Wow! Good for you! I'm pretty hopeful that I won't be in a restaurant for the rest of the my life either. The kicker came when she asked me how old I was. "How old do you think I am?" She said she really didn't know. I told her I was 30. "Oh," she said. "Well that's not that bad." Thanks sweetie.

Finally, I was on the bus home today and noticed this sign. I think it's funny for a variety of reasons.



1) Shouldn't you designate an area TO stand, not an area to NOT stand? I thought that was the point of designating something. As in, "please park only in designated areas." I had to read it a few times to understand the logic.

2) Wouldn't it have been easier to say please don't stand in the yellow area? Instead of having to draw a big arrow to show what you're talking about?

3) And what is Mr. Naked Man doing leaning against that door anyway? Is he trying to look cool? And I'm pretty sure that no person would ever be able to maintain that pose while on a jerky bus. The moral of the story is, don't be Joe Cool. Joe Cool could die when the bus takes a sharp corner, especially embarassed by his nakedness and the fact that he failed to stand in an undesignated area.

RTD Denver, if you need any more signage help, you know where to find me.

This just in...

I got on the bus today, and seated in front of me was a man on his cell phone. Soon after I sat down, he pulled the cord to request a stop. When the bus driver stopped, the guy kindly got off his cell phone long enough to say, "Oh sorry, I pulled it for the wrong reason." Then he got back to his phone conversation.

At first I thought he must have meant he pulled it for the wrong stop, and that he would be getting off at the next one. But no. He was on the bus all the way to the end with me.

So I spent the entire bus ride trying to figure out what the hell other reason you would have for pulling the bus cord other than to request a stop. It's like that Lewis Black bit about overhearing a waitress at the IHOP saying "If it weren't for my horse, I never would have spent that year in college." In his words, don't even try to understand what that means or your brain will explode! So I tried to keep calm as I went over the options.

Did he just get excited and have to pull something? Does he have a tic? Was he about to fall out of his chair and grabbed onto the nearest thing?

This is the kind of language you use when you get into relationships you know you shouldn't be in: I did it for the wrong reason! Or steal some kid's milk money on the playground to get in with the cool kids*: I did it for the wrong reason! This is not the kind of language you use on the bus.

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*Please note I have never, ever done this.

Flight 161, DFW to DEN

I had an unusually eventful trip back from Ft. Worth the other day, and I thought you might find it interesting.

Got to the airport, checked in at the kiosk while 50 other people stood in line for a desk agent. Don’t they know the glories of airport machinery?

Got in security line with the bottom outside pocket of my suitcase open because it has the liquid goods in it that I’m about to remove (more on that in a second). Kindly woman behind me in line tells me that the bottom of my suitcase is open. I just smile at her and tell her it’s okay. Not til I get to the scanner do I see that the actual bottom of my suitcase is unzipped, and clothes are sneaking out. Kind of feel like an idiot. Think that somewhere behind me she must be staring and feeling smug.

Spent the rest of the time in the security line wondering whether they were going to bug me about the fact that my clear plastic zip-top bag was in fact a gallon size, instead of a quart. Picked up the bag they provide and saw that it is actually something more like a pint, not a quart, and there was no way I could fit all of my goods in there. Decide to chance it and get through.

Went to Burger King in the hopes of some ounce of protein/nutrition. Indian guy ahead of me orders a Croissan’wich* without the meat or egg, for which I am grateful because I’m about to order one without meat and I am happy to have someone forge that path ahead of me (a treacherous one at places like Burger King). Started a conversation in my head, which went something like this: Do Hindus also not eat eggs? Why? Are they used to going to Burger King? How awful. Seems like there are plenty of other good things they could eat. A croissant with some American cheese on it just doesn’t seem like it would fit the bill.

Sat eating my Croissanwich, sans meat, and watched the plane before mine disembarking (debarking?). See a guy from my neighborhood get off the plane, a guy who I met once at a community gathering, and whom I always see on the bus in town. Weird.

Went up to the desk to ask a question, but had to wait for the desk agent to get off his cell phone, talking to goodness knows who about some possible emergency at home.

Finally, he gets off:

Me: Is there any way to swap my window seat for an aisle?
Older man who suddenly springs up beside me: Is this where you place your breakfast order? (obviously joking)
Desk agent: Only seats left are middle seats, honey.
Me: Okay, thanks (kind of annoyed that I just got called honey).
Older man: Don’t take the last of the eggs benedict!
Me, looking at the older man strangely: uh, huh, ok.

Older man wanders off too, and I wonder if he came up to the desk when I did just to pull my leg.

Got in line to board and watched the boarding agent tell a passenger, somewhat harshly, that she has to have a stroller tag. The agent’s primary language is something like Chinese, so her exhortations seem even harsher. Then she starts arguing with the other desk agent about who exactly is going to get her the stroller tag. Poor stroller-laden woman doesn’t know what to do.

Later, when everyone is seated, Chinese agent gets on the plane, and tells a little man across the aisle from me that the box he’s checked is not going to make it on. “Your BOX is not going on the plane!” she says. Then the other desk agent tells him that the airline is not responsible for the perishable stuff in the box. It’s not clear why the BOX is not going to make it on, but Chinese agent just keeps saying “the BOX, it’s not coming on the plane. The BOX.” The little man apparently does not speak fluent English, so she just keeps getting louder. Or this woman just likes to yell at people.

Weird. After that everything seemed okay. Meaning, after we got the heck out of Texas everything seemed okay.

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*Is that the correct apostrophe placement? I don’t think I’ve ever eaten a Croissanw’ich before so it’s hard to tell.

yeah, so....

it's been awhile. here are some funnies from our trip to NY.

The sign at RL's favorite childhood sub shop. I had to take a picture of this renegade rooster who has apparently ripped his own leg off, fried it up, and is serving it for your pleasure. I also enjoy the chicken leg necklace. Beware the Renegade Rooster! He will destroy his own kind and feed their body parts to unwitting sub shop customers!




Multiple of these signs were posted in our room at the swanky Howard Johnson outside Toledo, Ohio. They did have a coffee maker (minus the coffee pot. Details, right?) and a hair dryer, but you couldn't use them all at the same time. But what I really love is the use of caps AND parentheses. It's like simultaneously emphasizing and deemphasizing the main point of the signage.



More about our trip later. Good stuff!

Tuesday: Tripping to School

My friend gave me some feedback on my blog and told me she liked the self-deprecating nature of it. In the spirit of that, here's a little more self-deprecation. It's amazing how easy it comes when you're kind of a klutz.

So today I was feeling sort of rushed as I left the house to get to my 9:30am class (so early). I managed to get on the right bus to get to class on time, but didn't manage to get there very gracefully. I got off the bus and was happily walking down the street, coffee in hand, when all of the sudden the sidewalk jumped in front of me and I nearly went down (to be fair, the sidewalks on that part of campus are notoriously frost-heaved*. Everyone knows it).

I don't know what I was looking at, but one of my classmates was about three feet in front of me, so when I almost went down, I nearly took her out. She's all walking down the street, totally not tripping, when all of the sudden she hears "Ack!" from behind her and turns to see me nearly crashing into her.

Some nice older ladies who were just passing stopped to make sure I was ok, and I of course tried to play it cool, but there was just no going back with the classmate. I tried to start a normal conversation as we walked to class, but I think she thought I was a little weird. To make matters worse, I totally cut my toe up on the stupid sidewalk. By the time I got to class it was bleeding and gross.

Ah yes, tripping during my second week of grad school. Reminds me of the time I tripped down the stairs on my first day of high school (true story! In a brand new school and everything). Here's to me learning how to walk better.


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*Meaning buckled, sticking up, whatever you want to call it. Thanks to RL for the whole "frost-heaved" descriptor though. He's very technical when it comes to cold weather problems.

My date with Mr. Entomologist

Or as I called him, “the bug guy.” I used to work for a natural history museum, one of those with a large collection of dead mammals, dead birds, and of course, dead bugs. The entomologists who researched these bugs would display their drawerfuls of colorful beetles, many legged centipedes, and rare stick insects with pride and excitement as they talked about what makes the study of insects just so fascinating.

So one Friday evening, as people from around the museum came together and drank their way into the weekend, I started chatting up one of the guys who worked in the insect collections. I had noticed him before, knew he was a bit older, but thought he had some sort of Clooney-esque charm to him. He was not terribly interesting to begin with, but I hadn’t been on a date in awhile—since I had gotten out of my last long-term relationship—and I thought I could use the practice. He asked for my number and we planned to have dinner the following week.

The evening of the date, I got ready, feeling happy about the simple fact that I was going out on a date. I wasn’t desperate, it had just been a few months, and it felt good to be, well, normal. We met for dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant, talked about our lives, and it seemed to be going okay.

Until he pulled out his favorite bug. Seriously.

I think he felt like things were going well enough that I could be trusted to appreciate the things that made him tick (no pun intended). He told me that this small beetle, encased in its little resin cube, was the reason that he got into his field, the thing that really inspired him about entomology. Blah, blah, blah.

Now, picture me on the other side of the table, mouth somewhat agape and a million things running through my mind: What do I say? Why didn’t I foresee this? I guess it’s nice that he feels inspired, but by that? I don’t even like bugs. How do I get out of this?

After (what felt like) a few minutes I pulled myself together and tried to change the subject. By the end of dinner I was feigning tiredness and trying to play up the whole “I have to be at work early tomorrow” thing. He tried pushing for another drink, but I managed to cut it short.

So you’d think I could put the date behind me, right? Not quite.

By 9am the next morning I had an email waiting for me from Mr. Bug Guy. “I really enjoyed our time last night. You’re smart and sexy and I’d like to go out again. What are you doing this weekend?”

Bad form, dude. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that it’s not cool to contact the girl within the first 12 hours after the date, especially when it was clear that she wasn’t that into you? Wanting to nip the situation in the bud, I quickly wrote him back and said maybe we could be friends, but I didn’t really think we were “relationship material.” Then came a flurry of emails over the next few days, all saying about the same thing: “Maybe I came on too strong. Give me another chance. Won’t you just have one more drink with me?”

After awhile I stopped trying to spare his feelings and just didn’t write back. The next week he began apologizing for the previous emails, saying that he felt like he was digging himself into a hole and he didn’t know what to do. Unfortunately I didn’t know what to tell him. There was certainly a hole, and I wasn’t going to help him out of it.

By then it was comical—I started sharing Bug Guy’s ridiculous messages with my friends, who looked at me with that I-told-you-so look. As in, they told me not to date someone from work. Especially someone from bugs. What was I thinking? In the following months I avoided him as best I could, and tried to seem friendly, but his complete and utter inability to act in a normal social manner made it difficult to overcome what was, possibly, the worst date I’ve ever been on. Since then I’ve made sure that future dates have passed a serious screening and reference process, including a “pocket check” to ensure that there aren’t any unwanted creatures joining us for dinner.

Check out other people’s bad dates at Dating Tales.