Category: Not awesome

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Being a girl Family Fashion Humor Memoir Nonfiction Not awesome

Isn’t it neat?

The other night the three of us were driving back from Lodi and listening to a CD I found in my CD case with no label, no name, and no track list. It could have been anything.

What it ended up being was a pretty good mix of the kind of classics that most people are sure to know: American Pie, Manic Monday, For the Longest Time, Fast Car, Tom’s Diner, etc. A pleasant surprise…a lot of those unlabeled CDs end up being much worse.

Then Part of Your World came on (yes, definitely the best mix ever) and I remembered, as I always do, a Disney trip with my family when I was in…late middle school? Early high school? I was in a big Little Mermaid phase, and I wanted to wait in line to take a picture with Ariel. (I’m already embarrassed about telling this story.)

I was in line, up next, and watching Ariel interact with the little girl ahead of me. She said, “Okay, now smile at the – what do you call it? – photographer!” and I thought that was so sweet. She was made of big arm gestures and smiles and hair flips.

When I got up there though, she was all business in a bad wig. She smiled for the picture but where was all the cutesy stuff? That’s okay, it would have been worse to be patronized. But the photo that came of it – awkward 13-ish-year-old me in a t-shirt and shorts and sandals with socks (oh man, I sat just now and debated including that, but you know, the truth will out) – is all the more embarrassing because of the big gap between the two of us.

Every so often, that photo resurfaces in my “stuff from the past,” and each time I debate throwing it out. Seriously, I don’t know if I need to say this again, but it is a really embarrassing picture. There is no possible reason I could ever want to show it to anyone, or look at it myself. But I just haven’t gotten around to getting rid of it. Maybe someone can tell me why.

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Fiction Friends Memoir Not awesome Theatre Work

Lying at a wedding

We went to a wedding yesterday. At the reception – which was a full-on 9-course Chinese banquet, although I counted 11 courses before the cake – the girl next to me started making small talk. Her date (fiancee? husband? boyfriend?) was part of the band and so he was up and down through most of dinner, so somewhere between the shark fin soup and the abalone with mushrooms, she asked me what I do.

When I told her I work at a theatre company, she asked me which one, and it turned out she’s actually kind of into theatre. She’s actually been to see shows that we have put on, the most recent 3 years ago, but that’s still far better than most people I find myself making small talk with. I immediately upgraded my conversation from the standard “talking about my work with people who don’t care about theatre.”

“What have you seen around here that’s good?” she asked me, and I reached out for anything, anything we’ve seen lately.

But it appears I’m a theatre major failure, because it’s been months since I’ve seen anything. Well, I guess I’ve seen shows at my work. I resorted to fibbing and talking about shows at other companies, that I’m sure were very good, but they closed before I had a chance to see them.

Erin recently saw Chinglish at Berkeley Rep, and she raved about it, so I almost said that I’d seen that, but luckily something stopped me, because it turned out that my tablemate LOVES David Henry Hwang and saw Chinglish last week. Yeesh, that could have been messy.

After the reception I got to thinking: we should really see more Bay Area theatre. There is so much here. It’s just that a lot of it is so spread out and/or difficult to get to. And let’s face it. I’m into being at home and in pajamas by 8pm these days. I missed opening night of my own company’s current show, and haven’t actually managed to see it yet – and this is the last week of performances.

But I think I might see if I can get tickets to see Chinglish. I’ve heard such good things.

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"Other people" Memoir Nonfiction Not awesome Self improvement

You and I

I keep getting all worked up about this, and thinking furiously, I should use my blog to have my say! Then I let some time go by and I calm down and I end up not saying anything.

But this just needs to be said: My biggest grammar pet peeve (and in my top 3 total pet peeves) is when people incorrectly use “and I,” when “and me” is actually correct.

I just feel like I’ve been seeing it EVERYWHERE lately, and I don’t know why that is – but people are constantly doing it on TV and I don’t know how to reach all those people to correct them. Sarah and Vinnie (Alice 97.3’s morning radio show) do it sometimes and I have honestly thought about texting in and telling them they’re wrong. (I have NOT actually done that though.) (Yet.) I see it all over Facebook and oh. em. gee. (Although, I haven’t gone so far as to make my first ever comment to some high school acquaintance, “IT’S MCKAYLA AND ME.”) (Yet.)

I don’t know why, it just grates on my nerves, like no other grammar mistake.

In case you’re not sure what I’m talking about, here’s the breakdown: When you say, “Ramona invited the Countess and I over for brunch,” that’s wrong. You wouldn’t say “Ramona invited I over for brunch.” That’s all there is to it. Take the other person (or people) out of it, and then it’s easy to hear whether “I” or “me” is correct.

Probably you know what I’m talking about and just don’t stress about it. That’s fine. Everyone’s got their thing and this might just be my thing. I’m sure that I respect you as a person, and/or like you as a friend. But this societal increase in things like, “Mom sent a care package to Dan and I” makes me cringe, and maybe want to punch something…it depends on what kind of day I’m having. I’m just saying.

This has been a grammar PSA. Next week: The most irritating spelling error: why are people still doing this?? (Hint: It’s lose/loose.)

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"Other people" Being a girl Children Drew Family Fashion Nonfiction Not awesome Parents Writing

In this case, E stands for “erroneous”

Stuff like this drives me crazy.

I realize this is just one little e-card. It’s not even a physical thing – it just exists as a jpeg. (And however things on the internet exist.)

This was probably a Mother’s Day card at one point. But I just saw it today, because this “your ecards” thing has somehow merged with Facebook and George Takei to create the unholy trinity that I like to call, “Why is my news feed now composed entirely of semi-funny, oft-shared pictures??”

Anyway. “9 times out of 10 children get their awesomeness from their mother.” What’s being said here? Why are we leaving out the fathers?

I’ve been running into a lot of father-bashing (or father-ignoring) on all the pregnancy boards to which I am now addicted. A common occurrence is that a woman will start a thread about being upset with her husband about a specific incident, and then comments will quickly pile up about how “it’s different for the men” and “they don’t understand” and how “they’re not interested in the pregnancy.”

Based on this and similar stories, Drew and I started a running “joke” about how much more important mothers are than fathers, which is basically us just repeating how the baby doesn’t even know who the father is until they’re 3 years old, 7 years old, 10 years old. (We just keep exaggerating because that’s what humor is.)

But this morning, I had to stop and say, “We’re both just kidding…right?” because it’s kind of getting to me. Enough is enough. Dads love their children too, and contribute to their health and well-being and yes, even to their awesomeness.

Maybe I just grew up in a very lucky kind of household, where my parents shared responsibilities and were around us equal amounts of time. I would say I get 50% of my awesomeness from my mom and 50% from my dad. And I would say that with a totally straight face.

It’s possible I’m overreacting to a stupid Facebook share. I mean, such things happen. (Some time last year, a WP blog post about bullying made the FB rounds, and everyone yelled about how their kid is such a special snowflake, and they would kill anyone who said anything mean to their perfect and sensitive child. I’m sure my coworkers enjoyed my attitude that day.)

On the other hand, maybe we’ve seen enough of FB e-cards, and enough of comments under-appreciating fathers. Hmm?

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"Other people" Food Memoir Nonfiction Not awesome Pregnancy Theatre Tomato Work

It’s not rocket science; or, “Sandwiches Snadwiches”

Yesterday I found myself back at the Safeway in Mill Valley, which has given me great stories in the past.

I stopped in there to pick up a sandwich for lunch before the final 2 performances of God of Carnage at MTC. Sandwiches are great, and probably on my favorite things list, even though I’ve been eschewing turkey (and that’s just one of several things) because of potential harmful effects during pregnancy.

So I just wanted to stop by and get a cheddar, avocado, and veggie sandwich on sliced sourdough.

A good sign: there was no one in line when I walked in. So I went straight up to the counter, where a super polite young man said, “I’ll be right with you.” Then, he went on to say, “Good afternoon, what may I get you?”

Wow, such service. I started explaining what I wanted.

“So you want a veggie sandwich – would you like me to describe the veggie sandwich to you?”

“Um, that’s okay,” I said, “What I want is actually a “California Dreamin'” without the turkey and bacon.”

“The “California Dreamin'” now goes by the name “Turkey Bacon Avocado,” he said.

“Okay.”

He began to assemble the sandwich. Kind of sloppily. I don’t understand why sandwich-makers at Safeway don’t know how to make a sandwich. They always pile everything on the center of the bread. Don’t you know you have to spread the avocado to the edges? And you shouldn’t just stack all the tomatoes in the center? It’s not rocket science, people. Make the type of sandwich that you would want to eat.

And it’s not just Mill Valley Safeway. It was in Mountain View that I watched a guy squirt mustard on one slice of bread, and then pick up both slices, one in each hand, and stare at them, puzzled, until he slowly smashed them together and rubbed the mustard around.

Wow.

When Mill Valley guy was finishing up (having just placed a large pile of pickles in two square inches), he said, “Now, our policy dictates that I charge you an extra fifty cents.” For avocado, I assume? “But I’m debating in my head whether or not to charge you that. That policy is in place to deter people from ordering sandwiches like this. But I don’t think we’ll suffer any damages – any long-term damages, that is – because I don’t think many people will order sandwiches like this.”

“Um…okay.”

WTF? For the record, here is the part of the menu that makes me think that it’s acceptable – nay, encouraged – for you to actually order what you want to eat, rather than just choosing from the 8 pre-designed options.

The key word here is “choose”…

Finally he handed it over. And I walked 10 feet away, found the voice memo application on my phone, and dictated what he had just said, because I was worried I’d forget part of it.

Then I called Drew and told him about it.

When I got to the theater, I found he didn’t even cut it in half for me. Which is kind of the most annoying part. I mean, who wants to pick up an entire sandwich?

Apparently the bane of Safeway’s existence – a product of theirs that someone ordered and paid for.

First world problems, am I right?

When the actors started arriving, one of them (with whom I had just bonded over orchids the prior day – I’m starting to think we might be some kind of soulmates or something) started telling a story about how he’d just stopped to pick up a sandwich at Safeway. We then went on to bond over our annoyance at the crazy people working there, and how in New York, you can just order food and then get it and then get out in record time, but here it seems to take people forever to get anything done.

Yeah, we were those people.

Anyway, the sandwich was okay, the shows went great, I was home by 10:30 and in bed by 11:15, and I got to sleep in until 8:30 this morning. So overall…life is good.

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"Other people" Awesome Drew Memoir Music Nonfiction Not awesome Sentiment

Solstice and singing

So, as I understand it, yesterday was the first day of summer. I basically say my favorite season is whatever season we’re currently in (with a slight bias toward spring and fall), but seriously, summer is great. We left Drew’s parents’ house the other day just after 9pm, and it was still sort of light outside. I just freaking love that.

From here on out, the nights are going to start getting longer again. This is bittersweet. On the one hand, I’m enjoying the relative heat (for the most part) and the looooong days. On the other hand, this means we’re on the downhill slope into fall, which I’m looking forward to for a variety of reasons.

To celebrate the beginning of the decline of the summer, we were serenaded last night at 4am. Well, I was. Drew slept through it, thank goodness.

This same thing happened a couple weeks ago. That night, I also woke up at 4am, not sure if it was the music that woke me up or if it started after I was awake. (I wake up a lot in the middle of the night, and usually just fall back asleep.) But there was this vague instrumental music, and I thought, Is the TV on? But it seemed to be out the back window, so maybe it was coming from the house behind us? That night, it played through that instrumental song, then the Partridge Family’s “I Think I Love You,” then “That’ll Be The Day” by Buddy Holly, then something I can’t remember, and then we were on “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” by Paul Simon when it finally switched off.

I assume it’s someone’s clock radio going off, and it just takes them 15 minutes to turn it off. But that time a couple weeks ago, when it also woke up Drew, he sort of freaked out, and then spent the next two hours unable to fall back to sleep, and then had to get up for work.

So last night I tried to ignore it the best I could, and to fall back asleep, although it didn’t happen until it was finally quiet again. The only song I remember was “I Want You Back” by Jackson 5. I’m still not sure if it’s from the house behind us, or from our neighbor. Either way, I’m just really glad it didn’t disturb Drew, and that I wasn’t awake longer than about 20 minutes altogether.

Happy summer! Here’s to sleeping through the night tonight!

6/22 EDIT: I jinxed us! The radio went off again last night, and I got to hear Buddy Holly again, and also “I Can See Clearly Now,” and also about 4 other songs. It woke up Drew this time, and he walked around trying to figure out where it was coming from. He reported that you can hear it best in our room, leading me to believe it’s either our upstairs neighbor or the house out back.

He even opened the window to try and pinpoint it. When the music went off a minute after that, he said loudly, “Thank you.” Which I found hilarious.

The only upside is that this morning I heard what the station number is. So, Dad, it’s 103.7, which appears to be KOSF.  You can listen to it online here. I mean, it’s annoying at 4am, but it does seem like a good station overall. It’s not the station’s fault.

How many times do I let this happen before I start doing some investigating/conversing with neighbors?

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"Other people" Books Children Drew Games Not awesome

Calendar tricks

Tonight we were at the mall, and I was like, “Hey, let’s swing by Barnes and Noble and pick up my book for book club, and also a calendar.” There is a lot of stuff happening in the rest of 2012 and we’ve been talking about needing a wall calendar to keep track of it all.

B&N had zero 2012 calendars – they’re all 2013 – but the guy at the information desk said that they’re 16 month calendars so they cover the rest of this year. (Which doesn’t really make sense since, counting June, there are 7 months left in 2012.) But we liked this Where’s Waldo calendar, and they didn’t have the book I wanted in stock, so the calendar came home with us. (Please note on the cover where it says “16 month calendar.”)

Most of the pages are great and I look forward to being able to use this calendar. I also look forward to studying every month for a long time, not finding any of the characters, then having Drew find them all in about 30 seconds.

However, I can’t use this calendar for 7 more months, because the Barnes and Noble information desk guy tricked me. Having one little add-on page like below, should NOT count as a “16 month calendar.”

For shame, Barnes and Noble! Now I have to go find somewhere that’s still selling 2012 calendars. Also, I have to not forget where I put this one, so I can use it come January.

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"Other people" Not awesome Technology

Fail at life

Okay, maybe I’m being a little harsh.

But I don’t think so.

Today, The Hunger Games posted this picture on Facebook:

It’s nice, right? I mean, it’s kind of a cool poster. People seemed to like it. I think it’s fine.

But Jonathan and I started reading all the comments, and making fun of them. The most random and ridiculous we hit “like.” Some of them were composed of text speak and annoying symbols (~~~*** etc). One of them was like a chain letter in a comment. (We totally followed the instructions, although we didn’t post it on 15 other people’s walls.)

But then this comment popped up:

Uggghhhhhh…this comment really bothers me for some reason. I think it’s partly the combination of absolutely no punctuation (except for the 4-dot ellipse), spelling errors (kmovie), text speak (idk), and blatant ignorance (“are ready” = “already”). But the icing on the cake is that “there were like this big dogs or something,” but, despite this being the climax of the movie, she didn’t really get what was going on.

And yes, I understand that the kids commenting on this FB post are probably all like 14 years old. But since when is that an excuse? This is still life. You can’t get through life like that.

Is this really the generation that’s going to be in charge in a few decades?

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"Other people" Books Celebrities Fashion Not awesome Self improvement

50 Shades of Awful

I get kind of worked up about bad writing. Particularly about bad writing that makes all the bestseller lists. Especially when this bad writing really serves no purpose. And when everyone is talking about it, even though they all admit it’s bad.

The worst is when I secretly want to read it, just in case I’m missing out on something big.

But no. I will not succumb.

When I first heard about Fifty Shades of Grey, I wanted to see what all the hype was about, even knowing right off the bat that it was housewife erotica, and then finding out it was based off of a Twilight fanfiction – ugh. On Amazon, the first two chapters of the book were available for reading online, so I sat down and spent 20 minutes with Anastasia.

Oh. Good. Gravy. From that oh-so-purple way of getting the first-person narrator to describe herself (by staring in the mirror and bemoaning how “unattractive” she is – spoiler alert, she’s bee-you-tee-ful!) to the horrific exclamations (“Holy crap!” etc), this is one of the worst things I’ve read. And people are eating this up? Because…it claims to be erotic? For the record, there wasn’t any of that in the first couple chapters, but I could see where it’s going. And it’s nowhere good.

The articles I’ve read about the book(s – there are three of them) since then have all been making fun of it and talking about how bad it is. The reviews I’ve heard have been mostly, “Meh, it’s all right, but it’s not very good.” So why is this thing doing so well?

The only thing I can do is keep promising myself that I will not spend any money to read it. And that I will not succumb and get it from the library either. (Getting erotica from the library…ew?)

But this is my PSA so that hopefully no one else gets sucked in to this terrible writing. Don’t do it, people! Here is a list of other good series that would be way more worth your time:

  • The Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins
  • The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
  • Harry Potter by JK Rowling
  • The Green Mile by Stephen King (a serialized novel – kind of a cheat)
  • Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
  • Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
  • The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
  • A Song of Ice and Fire (A Game of Thrones, etc) by George RR Martin
  • The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis
  • Earth’s Children (The Clan of the Cave Bear, etc) by Jean M Auel
  • Dexter by Jeff Lindsay

Just a list of ideas, running the gamut from children to YA to adult. I’m kinda just pulling this off of my shelves, so I know there’s a lot that’s not represented. (Let me know if there’s a series you feel I should include!)

For the record, this article about Fifty Shades of Grey from Vulture is kind of hysterical. (Also kind of graphic, so maybe not for everyone.)

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"Other people" cars Children Memoir Nature Not awesome

Whining on Board

Dear people on the internet,

Why do you take such offense against these little yellow Baby on Board stickers that hang in car windows?

I mean, I kind of get it. I used to be one of you. I assumed that the sticker was there as a way to tell me to slow down and drive more carefully around the baby. I thought that was the equivalent of a mom shushing me in a public area where I should be allowed to talk freely, just because her child was sleeping. (In both cases, I should probably just restrain myself a little better. But also in both cases, I disliked having a stern stranger tell me what to do.)

Here’s a little story: once in high school, I was driving from Lakeport over to Fort Bragg. Between Willits and Fort Bragg is a 30-mile stretch of winding road through the trees – it’s gorgeous, but it’s one lane, with a single passing lane available about 10 miles in from the coast. There are plenty of places to pull over and let someone pass you, though.

Photo from http://www.trazzler.com

I was stuck behind a car rattling along with a Baby on Board sticker. This car would not pull over, no matter that it had been nearly 20 miles, which was unbearable to me, a teenager in a 2-door car with a stick shift. Finally we approached the passing lane, which incidentally was on an uphill stretch, and as I moved over to pass…the jalopy sped up! I barely made it past them, and then I continued on my way…at which point that car tailgated me for the remaining 10 miles of the trip.

I reached the coast and pulled into the parking lot of a grocery store…where the jalopy pulled up behind me, parking me in, and an irate woman got out and began yelling at me about “almost running her off the road” and how she had “a baby in the backseat.” All I could do was stand there in shock (I have never been good at confrontation) – but what I wanted to snap back was that she had plenty of chances to let me pass, she didn’t have to speed up while I was passing her, and she certainly didn’t have to speed up in order to follow me the rest of the way.

So. She was crazy, and should not have behaved that way. Because of her I am now totally paranoid about being followed and trapped in a parking lot, and I always have a contingency plan if I think someone is tailing me.

But, here’s what I started out to say. I realized something, many years later.

The Baby on Board sticker is not there to tell you what to do: it’s just to alert you, the other driver, that the car with the baby is likely to drive slower, more cautiously, and to view yellow lights as “stop now” signals rather than “go very fast.” So if you need to adjust for that, then feel free. I’ll be here, in the right hand lane, signaling carefully and going the speed limit.

Hope this helps, whiny people on the internet!