Personal Space ... NOT

A familiar sight!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Fortunately, Mr. Distortion will not be suffering any glaring looks from me. The dinner reservations were made well in advance. Actually, I'm happy just to spend time with my hubby. The dinner is merely icing on the cake.

Whatcha Readin?

Another Lolcats from icanhascheezburger.com

Friend Me -- Pleeeeeeeze!

... and I'm still laughing over this one!
Can we ever really "know" our "friends"? I'm just sayin' ...

Cat Etiquette

more cat pictures

For your Monday enjoyment from I Can Has Cheezburger.

Of Knives and Shoes

Terri B. to Mr. D.: [while browsing at Williams Sonoma] "So ... I see you found the knife section ..."

Mr. D.: "Mm-hm" [he is a man of many words]

Terri B.: "We're not buying knives today ... right? I mean, we have two 8" chef's knives, a meat slicing knife, a meat cleaver, a boning knife, a bread cutting knife, at least two paring knives, and several more knives with mysterious specialty functions. So, you really don't need anymore knives ... right?"

Mr. D.: [looking at me while thinking]

Terri B.: [looking back and trying to appear authoritative]

Mr. D.: "You don't need anymore shoes ... right?"

Score one for Mr. Distortion and the kitchen knife collection. Sigh.

Language Barrier

Thursday I did one of my one day commutes from L.A. to San Francisco for a meeting. Except for the getting up at 3 or 4am thing in order to make a 6 or 7am flight, I really don't mind ... especially if I'm going to San Francisco. I love that city.

This trip I needed to take a taxi from the airport in order to make it to my meeting on time. So I went out to the taxi stand, hopped into a cab and told the driver I needed to get to Front Street and Broadway. He had a very heavy Asian accent and kept chattering something at me that I couldn't quite understand. Eventually I determined that he was telling me what route he was going to take to get me to Fourth Street. So I dutifully corrected him saying that I needed to go to Front Street, not Fourth Street. His reply? "Yes, taking you to Fot Street." OK. Was that Fot as in Fourth or Fot as in Front? Hmmm. I was pretty sure that he still thought I needed to go to Fourth Street. So I tried again. "You are taking me to Front Street aren't you? FronT not FourTH." I tried to articulate the "T" as clearly as I could. Again I got, "Yes, taking you to Fot Street." Fighting back imminent panic, I started digging through my bag for the handy plastic-coated-folding San Francisco street map I'd brought along. I hovered over the cabbie's shoulder and pointed at the spot on the map where Front Street and Broadway meet. I held my breath as he glanced at my map. Had I broken the language barrier? "Ahhhh ... you want FOT Street not Fot Street." Success.

Taunting the Muse

My muse is still on vacation so I thought I'd cause some trouble while she is away. I'm writing blog posts minus her input. Maybe I can embarrass her sufficiently to cut her vacation short and get back here where she belongs.

If you read my post "Waiting for the Muse", you will see the current state of my brain. It is absolute insanity in there right now. And to make matters worse the hormones are about to kick in and make their contribution to the general mayhem. I apologize in advance to anyone that will be having dealings with me for the next week.

So, what does one read when one is in the midst of gray-matter-madness? Weeeellll ... how about this:


This is "That Girl! meets Miss Marple."
This is a "Murder A-Go-Go Mystery."
This is a book for a brain being held together by Dippity-do.
This is It's a Mod, Mod, Mod, Mod Murder by Rosemary Martin.

Our main character is Bebe Bennett (aka Elizabeth Bennett for you Jane Austen aficionados) and she works for Rip City Records in New York City circa 1964. When she's not working as a secretary or going out to "fab" night clubs in her go-go boots, she's solving murders with her friend Darlene. First murder up is Philip Royal of the Beefeaters (think Beatles-esque) and he has been electrocuted with his own guitar. Yes folks, those electric guitars are DANGEROUS! But I have faith that Bebe will solve this who-done-it without even mussing her wonderful Marlo Thomas hair flip.

Yup. This is all my brain can deal with right now. No Trollope or Dostoyevsky for me. And don't even suggest poetry. I can barely deal with prose at the moment let alone any metered or (heaven forbid) free-verse-see-if-you-can-figure-it-out wordage.

HEY, MUSE! Are you embarrassed yet?

Waiting for the Muse

I have nothing to say. Some days I'm not sure I'm actually even thinking, which of course is necessary to having something to say; at least it should. Yes, there is brain activity but it appears to be going something like this:

what time is it? did i pay the phone bill? ow, wish i'd quit hitting my knee on the corner of my desk. desk sure is messy. where did i put that report i was working on? when is that due? better look at my calendar. need to send an email to newspaper about login problem. did i remember to turn the humidifier off when i left this morning? oh yeah, was going to look at my calendar. oops, forgot to tally that last ref question that came to the desk. out of tally sheets. need to request more tally sheets. is it lunch yet? oh yeah, the calendar. phone ringing. hate phone. i can smell someone else's lunch. smells good. need to eat mine. better check calendar before i forget ...

OK, so this is not really thinking. This is a tornado. This is brain synapses firing all over the place. And I never did get around to checking the calendar.

If only this brain storm would quit. If only it would get quiet in there. If only my fairy godmother of writing would pay me a visit and wave her magic wand over my messy gray matter. But my muse appears to be on an extended vacation ...

... so I will hurl my jumbled thoughts toward my keyboard; and I will click the Publish button; and I will carry on.

The Shawshank Conspiracy

I saw the movie. Finally. After thirteen years. This was not an easy accomplishment. So, you might be asking, "Saw what?" and "What was so hard about that?". The "what" is The Shawshank Redemption. You know, the movie that came out in 1994 that everyone but me has seen.

I was busy finishing a graduate degree in 1994. I had no time for movies or pleasure reading until January 1995 when, degree in hand, I was finally free to catch up on movie watching and book reading. I had quite a list after almost 10 years of higher education. I didn't get around to The Shawshank Redemption until about 1999. Since 1999 it has been one thing or another every time I try to see this movie. For instance:

• Attempt #1 - Blockbuster has the movie, but not really. It's checked out. Permanently.
• Attempt #2 - Hollywood Video has the movie. I take it home. The video in the case is not The Shawshank Redemption even though the case says it is. I return to Hollywood Video. The Shawshank Redemption can not be found.
  
• Attempt #3 - The Shawshank Redemption is on cable TV! I sit down with my popcorn and hot chocolate, the movie starts and ... the electricity goes off for about 1 hour.
• Attempt #4 - The movie is on cable again. Unfortunately, I need to be at work. I consider calling in sick but decide to record the movie instead. I plug in the tape and set the VCR. I'm not sure what happened. When I try to play the tape all I get is a blue screen.
• Attempt #5 (last week) - I request the DVD through my Netflix account. The movie arrives. I watch 1 hour and 40 minutes. I get to the part where (SPOILER ALERT!!!) Tommy has just been shot thereby destroying Andy's chance of being released from prison (end spoiler alert) and ... wait for it ... what could possibly happen this time ... the picture freezes. I stare at the screen while holding my breath (as if this might help). Thirty seconds later I decide to breathe again and the DVD begins hopping from one scene to another in no kind of sequential order for about 10 minutes. I either need to remove the disc from the player and walk away from it or risk taking a hammer to something in frustration. I decide that destroying things is not the answer and I calmly remove the disc from the player. Then I go into the other room and scream into my pillow.
  

It's a cosmic conspiracy. I just know it. For some reason the universe doesn't want me to see this movie. Maybe I'll consult with Mary-LUE over at Life, the Universe and Everything. According to Google, Mary's blog will be able to help me answer questions about the meaning of all of this. I truly hope so.
__________________

Postscript

My friend Robin, at Just a Blip, has set the universe right. She owns a copy of The Shawshank Redemption and she rushes her disc to me so I can see the last 40 minutes. And a very important 40 minutes this turns out to be! Just when everything is looking very grim, the movie begins to resolve. Will it be tragic or triumphant?? I've waited so many years for this ....

EPILOGUE: All is now well in my universe (smile).

The Nose

Going home. So happy to be going home. Looong day. Rest soon. Hmmm. Dum dum dee dum, dee dum dum dum .... Christmas music. So nice. Big one in front of me. Can't see much. Why do the big ones always end up in front blocking the view. Dum dum dum, dum dum dum .... Hey. Watcha doing? Hey. HEY. HEY!!! OW!! Why'd dyu hidt by doze?? I was jusdt sidding here. Adt the red lighdt. Binding by ownd busidess. Hey! Chevy Suburband! You lisending? I thingk you brogke by doze. Why you going bagkwardz at a red lighdt andyway?? By poor doze ...

Stranger Than Fiction

BREAKING NEWS: "A stretch of I-10 East of Pomona has been shut down due to a report that a school bus full of teenagers is being hijacked."

This is what I heard as I walked by my television on a sunny Saturday afternoon about 10 or 15 years ago. I remember thinking, "What's this world coming to? Hijacking a bus full of innocent kids. I hope they get this guy. Wait a minute. My husband is on a bus with a bunch of kids. I think they are on the I-10. OHMYGOD! OK, calm down. Breathe. What are the chances that your husband is on a bus that is being hijacked?"

Fast forward about 8 hours.

Mr. Distortion: "I am SO glad to be home."

Terri B.: "So, how did the outing go?"

Mr. Distortion:

Terri B.: "So, how did the outing go?"

Mr. Distortion: "The audience seemed to like the music ... and the kids had a great time at the festival. [pause] Santos got a little crazy today though."

Terri B.: "Did he do that balancing along the edge of the balcony while playing guitar thing again?? Someday he's gonna fall and break his neck. Don't let him use one of your guitars if he's still doing that."

Mr. Distortion: "No. Actually, this was on the bus."

Terri B.: [sinking feeling in pit of stomach] "On the bus?"

Mr. Distortion: "Yeah. He was entertaining the kids."

Terri B.: [intense stare]

Mr. Distortion: "He was messing around with a toy gun up at the front of the bus."

Terri B.: [still staring]

Mr. Distortion: "The kids played along. They raised their hands in the air."

Terri B.: "You didn't happen to be traveling on the I-10 did you?"

Mr. Distortion: "Yeah. Funny thing too --"

Terri B.: "You had the freeway to yourselves for awhile didn't you."

Mr. Distortion: "Yeah. I guess someone on the freeway thought --"

Terri B.: " -- Santos was hijacking the bus?"

Mr. Distortion: "And called 9-1-1 on their cell phone. You've never seen such a deserted freeway."

Terri B.: "Actually, I have. You were on TV this afternoon."

Thanks to Momish for posting How the Mind Races and reminding me of this one time that my neurotic mind wanderings actually came true -- sort of.

Dear Diary

Adolescent diaries. Oh the agony and the ... hilarity. Have you ever tried reading your own teenage writings? You might have a difficult time deciding whether to die of embarrassment or bust a gut laughing. Maybe I shouldn't project too much. Some of you might have been writing prodigies. Needless to say, I was not one of those prodigies and have a difficult time facing my younger self in print. I choose to laugh rather than weep because, after all, I'm nothing like that young thing anymore. Smile.

Let me demonstrate how different I am from that young writer:

"Dear Diary" had entries about the cute boy in my [insert name of class] class, but "Dear Blog" has much more sophisticated (ahem) entries about the cute husband I live with ...

Instead of whining in print about having to stand in a stooopid line at lunch, I whine in print about sitting in stooopid traffic on the freeway ...

Gone are the descriptions of a field trip to look at "cool old stuff," to be replaced by an attempt to convey in words the emotional impact of an old bronze sculpture seen during a trip to a museum ...

And early morning band practice is no longer the topic du jour, but is appropriately replaced by commentary on the late night schedule of living with a musician.

Apparently the topics haven't changed much. Dear Diary was a receptacle for "thoughts and things" (I-kid-you-not, that was the statement of purpose noted January 1st, 197x ... "thoughts and things"). Now I blog, and I talk about the iceberg being a great metaphor for my life, and understand and utilize sarcasm to express myself ... but is that really so different than Dear Diary? Thoughts and things? I can only hope that my perceptions and presentation are more interesting.

I look forward to reading these posts in another 20 years. Wonder if I'll turn beet red with embarrassment and mumble: "What WAS I thinking when I put these things out there in public"??
________________________

Postscript

At Bub and Pie's request, I will now completely humiliate myself by adding some excerpts from Dear Diary. Names have been deleted to protect the innocent:

Sept. 24 I was so bored today. Going to algebra sucks. Mrs. X thinks we should all be excited about math like her [apparently I thought Mrs. X was math??]. American history is cool though. Theres this really cute guy that sits across the isle [wow, we had islands in our American History classroom]. I can't tell if he likes me. [Ouch! Evidently the interest a class held for me had a direct correlate to the presence of cute guys.]

Oct. 15 The lunch line was too long today. Yesterday too. Lines are dumb. [Well, this entry is helpful. At least I knew that the proper spelling is "too" and not "to."]

Feb. 20 My art class took a field trip to the museum downtown. There was some pretty cool old stuff. [And?? Which museum was this? What was the cool old stuff? Did I have a good time? Maybe there was a cute guy on the field trip?]

November 14 I can't wait til marching season is over. I can't believe how early we half [was only half of me present?] to be there. Its always all cold and the grass is wet. Only one more month. [Apparently I forgot all about my entry on this topic from August when it was "too hot" and I couldn't wait until "like October or something when it would be cooler."]

Yes, now you know. I was officially an adolescent at one time.

Fervent Cupcake

"FERVENT CUPCAKE" IS:

1. A teensy little cake that is just dying to be eaten
   
   
2. A passionate female
   
   
3. The subject line of some spam in my email box

You win if you answered "C." Treat yourself to a teensy little cake.

News Break from BREAKING NEWS

Seems like everything is BREAKING NEWS on some 24 hour news channels these days. It used to be if you heard the NEWS ALERT gong come from the TV it meant that something important just happened. Like someone just launched missiles at someone else. Now it seems that the gong goes off every 15 minutes or so and if you are gullible enough to run into the other room to see what is happening, your efforts are rewarded with something like "BREAKING NEWS: THE PRESIDENT IS AT THE WHITE HOUSE"!! Gee, really? The only thing that beats the hyperactive NEWS ALERT gong is the number of car chases that pre-empt scheduled programming in Southern California.

Then there are the FAIR AND BALANCED hostility sessions. I'm all for fair and balanced reporting. But it seems to me that the 24 hour news format for presenting conflicting sides of an issue rarely works and often degenerates into an on-air screaming match between said sides. If I wanted to watch Jerry Springer I wouldn't be tuned in to the news. I guess I have higher expectations from the news channels that are supposed to be bringing us news.

Of course, since the advent of 24 hour news there is an expectation that there will be news. So what's a station to do if there is no new news? Well, you rehash the same story about 5,000 different ways until you get a DEVELOPING STORY. Then you hit the NEWS ALERT gong and let everyone know that there is a DEVELOPING STORY. A DEVELOPING STORY is one in which "nothing has really happened yet, but ... might at any moment, and ... we'll be there if it does." This is the news equivalent of waiting for your elderly dog to finish his business ... nothing really happening, but it might.

So I've turned it off. I'm taking a BREAKING NEWS break. It may even be permanent. I still think it's important to be aware of what is happening in the world around me, so I've found a new ... well, actually a rather old ... way to get my news. It's called the newspaper. Ah, the smell of ink and paper in the morning. Anyway, I figure that if something REALLY BIG happens it will appear on the front page of the paper AND in the local news AND on the radio. Heck, everyone at work will probably be talking about it, so I'm sure I won't get left out.

Now where did that cartoon section go ...

Of Seasons and Marketing

This last week Kvetch, over at Kvetch Blog, wrote a piece called A Fond Adieu to the White Shoe and got me thinking about the seasons as a state of mind. As she puts it, seasons can be "meteorological or theoretical." For some, the seasons definitely tie in nicely with reality. For the rest of us? It's all in the head.

Having grown up in the deserts of Arizona and now living in Southern California, I have no reason to expect traditional seasonality. Here is what I SHOULD expect:

the not-hot-but-might-get-hot-any-minute-OR-might-rain season

the not-hot-and-probably-won't-get-hot-everything's-blooming-allergy season

the hot-hotter-than-hell-aren't-we-in-hell-smog-and-fire season

the hotter-than-hell-but-everyone-wants-to-pretend-it's-cool-and-crispy season

That's MY reality. If you need a translation, talk to an Angeleno.

OK, now that we've got Southern California seasonal expectations all sorted out, let's talk about marketing. Listen up you department store people. Do you really think we don't notice that the weather here rarely gets below 50 degrees fahrenheit?? What is with the bulky sweaters, three-layer look, and parkas rated for 30 below zero? A few stores that specialize in these cold weather items would be nice since some of us travel out of state or go to the mountains and play in the snow when it is available ... but ENTIRE MALLS FULL OF THIS STUFF??? We've got your number. You are $$banking$$ on our ancestral memories of actual seasons. And for those who don't have the ancestral-memory-thingy going on, there is always media reinforcement. Gorgeously photographed catalog depictions of laughing people wearing turtleneck sweaters as they frolic among multi-colored leaves and pumpkins. Or Scandinavian models hanging out in forests full of snow in their fur-trimmed snow boots and parkas. OR indoor shots of huggy couples in front of blazing fireplaces wearing heavy flannel, wool booties, and holding steaming mugs of, well ... something hot.

Since I don't live in any of the places depicted in these photographs, I'm lucky if I get to pull out some fall or winter wear for ... oh ... about a week before waking up one December morning to the radio telling me it will be a sunny 95 degrees out. If I was S-T-O-O-P-I-D enough to actually pack away my warm weather clothing, I will spend a frantic morning trying to find something to wear that won't send me into heat stroke the moment I walk out the front door.

Well, it is September ... and as I hear from friends that live in more traditionally seasoned areas of the country about the "nip in the air," I laugh while the Fall catalogs pour into my Southern California mailbox trying to tempt me into buying for the season. It is 103 degrees out. Can you hear me laughing?