I was tagged by Annie for this.
Oops. I made it 10!!
1. If you are leaving a phone number or an address on my machine for the first time – please leave it twice. I am totally unable to remember a series of numbers – and the only chance I have of getting my act together is to have the chance of hearing it twice.
2. I wish it would rain every day. I feel most at peace when it’s rainy. Sunshine grates. I experience sun as pressure. I resent it.
3. I rarely remember my dreams anymore. I used to be such a big dream-er, vivid, psychedelic, novelistic. Now if I remember one dream every 4 months I’m lucky. I miss my dreams. I really do.
4. I root for Lindsay Lohan. I think she’s really talented, a lovely actress. I’ll stick up for her every time. Come on, Linds! You can do it! You’re the real deal, a real talent!! Loved you in Prairie Home Companion – Loved Parent Trap, Mean Girls – can’t wait to see Georgia Rule … you go, Linds. I got your back.
5. Sometimes I miss having a cat so much that it makes my heart hurt. My cat Sammy died in 2000. Sometimes, when I go to open a can of tuna – I still get a creepy-feeling along the neck – like at any moment I’ll hear Sammy come running. Best cat ever. Next apartment I have will be pet-friendly, even if I have to move to freakin’ Irkutsk. I don’t care. I MUST have a cat.
6. I tune out people if they appear to display the following qualities in any persistent defining way:
— pessimism
— cynicism
— “the world’s going to hell in a handbasket” refrains
— gloom and doom predictions
— the tendency to go from particular to general. It is a fixation with some folks. If it happens sometimes it’s not an alarm bell for me. But if that is one of your defining characteristics? Uhm, do you answer to the name “Big Fat Bore” because that will be how I think of you. This “particular to general” thing goes like this: You tell a particular story about a particular annoying moment. “So I was on the bus and this woman was talking on her cell phone SO LOUDLY – it was so annoying!!” Certain people will always respond (and I’m talking ALWAYS) with, “See, that’s the problem with all of Generation X …” or whatever. Sometimes these sociological trends are somewhat true (somewhat true) … but if you combine the “see, that’s the problem with [insert entire generation/race/movement/decade here]” with persistent moans of “the world’s going to hell in a handbasket” and if you also do it ALL THE TIME – then I will, indeed, write you off as a person who is basically discontented with reality itself, and someone not really to be taken seriously. It’s too much like whining. I whine on occasion. But if I whined 24/7? I would expect a bitch-slap from Mitchell in no time at all. Have MOMENTS of being discontented with reality itself … but if that’s your fixation? Then you’re delusional. And you also sound like you believe in a utopia. And I have made my feelings on utopia-yearners before here on this blog. Either you’re the type of person who believes in a utopia in the future – or you believe that the utopia was in the past … Either way, I don’t trust you. You need to either live by yourself on a mountaintop so you aren’t bothered by your pesky annoying fellow man … or you need to get some therapy … or maybe do some volunteer work. How ’bout that. How ’bout you stop whining about how shallow and horrible everyone is now (as opposed to that utopia of yesterday in your head – that never existed) and do some fucking good? How ’bout that?
Ahhhhhh. That felt good!
7. I went out for tapas last night with a couple other film-blogger critics. It was pouring rain. I had octopus. It was yummy.
8. I can recite the entirety of What’s Up Doc. “I don’t have a badge for a Eunice Burns.” “THIS ….. IS OUTRAGEOUS.” “I love your hair.” “There is only I … Fritz.” “Ohhhh, what a shame ….” “Couldn’t I just kill her?” “My fiance Miss Sleep is still burning …” “Is it possible to break a lung?” “How much is it without the Bufferin?”
9. I was scared to let my parents read the novella I wrote a couple years ago because there’s a lot of sex in it. But they were both really cool about it and picked up on the deeper themes I was going for … what it was really about. I remember calling them after I knew they both had read it and I was … as scared as a little kid. Weird. How needy that moment was. I would have written it ANYway, even if they hadn’t liked it … but that moment … I realized how much I cared about what they thought. A good and a bad thing. But the best thing was that they treated the sex scenes as just another part of the plot … they weren’t all prudey about it. We talked about what the book was about … and I hung up with them, wiped OUT emotionally, and wired … wired … wired from having been understood … from having them see me and also see what I was trying to do. Sniff.
10. I love boy-shorts underwear. (Ahem. The 4th one over to the right in the top row is what I’m really talkin’ about). So cute!!! It has freed me up from the tyranny of thongs and bikini panties. More boy-shorts, please. Thanks.
“The tyranny of thongs.” Hahahaha!
The thing about “hell-in-a-handbasket” people is that their complaints tend to be centered around an arrogant notion that the world is going to pot because everyone in it doesn’t think and act just like they do, or at least in a manner that does not meet with their approval. As if that’s just what everyone should be seeking – their personal validation. Whatever. But I am speaking in generalities, which you noted isn’t exactly fair.
I tried to do thongs. I really did. I find them comfortable …but I don’t like what they look like on me. But boy shorts? Sorry to be vain, but I look adorable in them and I ain’t ashamed to say it. hee hee
Oh, and about the “hell in a handbasket” brigade – I think everyone needs to complain, at times, about generalities … it’s a very human thing … we all do it!! but I know people who take it as a fallback position. Like: it is their overriding outlook on the human race.
And I just can’t go there with them.
One annoying lady on a cell phone does not an annoying generation make. No. I will not concede!!
It just gets tiresome. especially when you’re either trying to tell a funny story – and they have to get all gloom and doomy.
Like: give it a REST!
I have a hard time with pessimism. Not that I am naturally optimistic – it’s actually the opposite. I have a tendency to go gloom-and-doom-y and so that’s why I have a really hard time being around chronically pessimistic people.
I was watching Twelve Angry Men last week, where a couple of the jurors start going off about “these kids today, no respect, their attitude will be the end of us all, blah, blah, blah” and really thought about the gloom-and-doomers today, how the complaints haven’t really changed one bit. The thing is, those guys back then, some of them were older than my grandparents, and “us kids” haven’t seemed to manage to wreck the world yet.
hahaha Yeah. There’s that great quote basically that says, ‘Oh these kids today are all debauched, they only care about materialistic things, they don’t respect their parents … its’ a disgrace!” And someone like freakin’ Sophocles said it.
I truly think the gloom and doomers are taking the LEAST intelligent stance possible. They don’t like REALITY, basically. And you know what? Many of us don’t really like reality. But there are things called psychotropic drugs that help. Volunteer work helps you get out of your own gloom and doom-iness. Also getting laid can be quite helpful.
The generalization thing too goes to gender … “why do men …” etc. Or “why are women such …” God, like give it a REST.
It’s just boring to me. And I guess (in my limited view) that’s the worst crime of all. PLEASE try not to be so boring.
Yeah, I don’t like reality either. It’s why I write fake ones every day, but there’s a way to not take that out on the rest of the world. Some snob blogger a while back wrote about how depressed it made them that “American Idol” was so popular and how this indicated a decline in our culture or what not. Um…yeah. People spending an hour a couple of evenings a week watching a music competition to get their mind off their day and relax a little bit is ushering the end of the empire.
hahaha See? There are people who just can’t stop with the “world’s going to hell in a handbasket” because of … american idol, harry potter, blockbuster movies, whatever. It doesn’t matter that millions of intelligent people also enjoy those things as entertainment or relaxation or whatever.
Because THEY don’t get it … because THEY think everyone should sit around reading Nitszche for fun or reading the Bible for fun … they see the end of civilization.
I don’t like American Idol. Therefore American Idol is “BAD”. The ego on these people!!
I think, too, that a lot of this has to do with people who don’t like growing old and feeling “out of it”. You know. As in: Since I’VE never heard of Eminem … and since when I was a kid I listened to Fleetwood Mac and Joan Baez … and I respected my parents, dammit, and I did what I was told, goldurnit … and since I don’t like feeling “out of it” … I therefore judge everyone who likes Eminem … because I MYSELF DON’T GET IT AND I DON’T LIKE GROWING OLD AND NOT GETTING THINGS ANYMORE … I USED TO BE HIP! I USED TO KNOW WHAT WAS HAPPENING! I’M OLD NOW! I HATE YOUTH! I HATE ANYTHING THAT’S NEW!
Of course these people will never really admit to this – they will go into their graves convinced that the music THEY listened to when THEY were young was better … and I’m just guessing, but I feel a lot of resentment-of-growing-old in stances like that.
And the fact that some people are compelled to piss on the heads of everyone who shows enthusiasm for something that they’re not interested in. I hate reality television. HATE. IT. But a lot of people like watching it and talking about their favorite reality shows. I used to be kind of a jag-off snob about it, until I smacked myself around a bit to snap out of it. Puh-leeze. Like skipping “Big Brother” and popping in a Peter Pan DVD instead is curing cancer. Get over me already.
There’s a certain type of person, the sort that comes off like the only worthwhile pursuits are ones that are academically rigorous or something. There’s a lot to argue about the importance of having substantive interests in your life; they’re more rewarding to both you and the culture at large in the long run, but that doesn’t mean you have to give yourself electric shocks every time you even think about watching something other than PBS or the Discovery Channel. People like that are pretentious, phoney, and dull. Give me someone who talks or writes about something they’re into passionately, even if I’m not, and I’ll take that any day over some dismissive snob who thinks their personal taste is the yardstick of worthy interests. Like…why would you listen to Eminem when there’s all that fine Mozart out there?
The possibility that someone could enjoy Eminem as WELL as Mozart seems way above the mental capacity for these people.
They’re also just busybodies – they’re so CONCERNED about everybody else’s tastes. Like – how on earth do these people rest at night? Worrying that someone somewhere might be roaring with laughter watching Jackass 2?
This conversation we’re having reminds me of the yearly rant that Michele Catalano used to put up during “Turn off the TV” week. It was awesome – a true RANT.
“Wow – my kids watch TV AND they are polite. We watch TV AND we have dinner together as a family every night.”
etc. etc.
In general, I try not to WORRY about what other people are doing, especially if it’s what they do for fun. Like I don’t feel DEVASTATED that I don’t see everyone on the subway reading Ulysses. I don’t wonder WHY everyone else on the planet doesn’t feel compelled to watch Cary Grant marathons every other Saturday.
I have a friend who runs marathons for fun. Do I wonder why she does that? Do I WORRY about it? Do I feel threatened by the fact that SHE is into something I SO am not into?
Uhm … no. Because I am not completely codependent with my fellow man.
I am me. They are they. Whatevs.
Whatever you do on your leisure time is your business. I don’t give a shit as long as you don’t somehow try to enforce your tastes on me.
I think that should be the collective noun for thongs: a pride of lions, a pod of whales, a murder of crows, a tyranny of thongs….
Ken – HA!!!!
I can see the Wild Kingdom spot right now. “Watch Jim wrestle with the tyranny of thongs … as we huddle safely in the van …”
Thongs are of the devil. I mean, isn’t underwear something you DIG OUT of your crack? Why would you PURPOSELY put it there?
I heart the boy short AND the panty girdle. They each have their place.
The thong, though? Has no place.
We must resist the tyranny of thongs! March on Washington this Saturday.
I am also loving the really boyish underwear at the bottom of that Calvin Klein page … I think I have to get some.
Oh and Lisa – I hope you can forgive me my unheeding use of the word “panties”. I hope this will not affect your regard for me.
If thongs are of the devil, I need to find a travel agent with connections in hell.
Here’s to the total annihilation of the tyranny of the thongs! Call Al Sharpton NOW!
Btw — I like 3rd one, 3rd row. Does that actually make me a boy? They’re cuuuute, though!
Lion – hahahahahahaha
tracey – those are adorable! I love how they come down a bit – over the thigh areola. This is crucial in creating the correct, shall we say, “silhouette”.
I’m gonna have to place an order. I have a ton of boy shorts already – but a girl can always have more!
“but I look adorable in them”
That’s big talk, little lady. I say, “Prove it.”
You’ll just have to take it on good authority!
Oh I am with you on the boy shorts. It is pretty much all I buy now. Thongs? uh-uh. no. thank. you. I don’t like wedgies.
2&3: i’m with you, except i haven’t recalled a single dream in years.
10: haven’t tried them yet; maybe i should.
I observe that the busier I am, the less I remember my dreams.
Now, my sons, on the other hand…the my 4-year-old dreamed I punched out a bear, and my 8-year-old dreamed I was the Batman (and he was Robin). Can you say, “looming monumental letdown,” neighbor? Sure you can.
Unless I can somehow score some superpowers in the next couple of years. Anybody got some spare radioactive waste, gamma rays, old hobo wizard? ;-)
Lisa- Actually, thongs DO have a place- IN your crack. (ha ha- i couldn’t resist!!)As much as I do like the thong, I find myself quite interested in the boy shorts…….hmmm, where can I get me some o’those around here,Mere? Cause I don’t wanna spend 18 bucks a pop.
Beth- Walmart
Yeah – I got mine at Filene’s Basement.
Boy shorts rule! Especially when they only cost 6 or 7 bucks a pair.