Category: “Other people”

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"Other people" Awesome Love

Love comes in all forms, I guess

In 2009, shortly after Drew and I got engaged and set a date, we Googled that date to see what other historic events would be happening that day. We found the wedding myspace page of another couple, who would be getting married on the same day.

Let’s break it down. Let’s start with “wedding myspace page.”

The crazy-in-love kids appeared to be in their early 20s, living somewhere in the middle of the country. They have a pet sugar glider, and (I think I remember) some Confederate flags. They were planning on the theme of their wedding being “roses,” and planned that “Olive Garden will cater,” and they were going to charge people $400 to attend to help pay for it.

We laughed about it for an afternoon and then mostly forgot about it, until a couple weeks ago when we decided to try to find them and see if they were still together. It was ridiculously easy (as in, a single Google search) to find their myspace page – which is a special page made for both of them and their wedding. From there, it was also easy to find their personal pages.

We found more pictures of them and “blog posts,” which were mostly just boring internet memes asking the same questions over and over again. Many, many references to “going out and getting more cigs.” And then jackpot! Wedding pictures.

We spent much more time looking at all three pages – the wedding page and the personal pages – and then we tried to find them on Facebook. (No luck.) And we are just lame, bored 20-somethings! Can you imagine what we could accomplish with some actual stalker skills and possibly a dash of hacker skills?

I don’t really want to admit how much time we spent reading and laughing, but it was a great little bonding experience. And I guess the lesson learned here is: love comes in all forms. Here is a couple who probably doesn’t have the idea of the “sanctity of marriage” that we have, or that I think more people should have. But they’re still together! And they seem super happy! (Even if neither of them have jobs, or possibly have graduated from high school.)

So congratulations, P and M! Married over 2 years (their wedding date apparently changed from ours) and still going strong! Here’s to 50 more years!

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"Other people" My name Not awesome Technology

Day 8: Wrong number

Another phone call from a 916- number.

“Hello?”

“Hi, is Joe there?”

“Nope, you’ve got the wrong number. Again.” (This is the third day in a row.)

“Oh, sorry, I’ll, uh, I’ll call another number.” Click.

…That is a great idea!

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"Other people" Exercise Self improvement

Day 3: My Dirty Little Secret

Okay, so it’s not really dirty and it’s hardly a secret.

I don’t really like going to the gym.

I like saying I go to the gym, I like the way I feel afterwards, and I like the idea of being someone who works out. But I don’t love doing it. I don’t spring out of bed to go for a run, and you will certainly never find me at a 5:30 am spin class. I think that I would prefer going in the afternoon, when I’m not dragging myself from bed…but then the weekend rolls around and manage to find other ways to fill my time. Since I joined this gym a year ago, I haven’t been transformed into a hard-bodied supermodel. (Not saying I’m not healthier but that’s a different story.)

This morning, since I had the chance to come into work a little later than usual, I dragged myself to the gym. Haven’t been there in almost a week. I couldn’t face getting on the treadmill so I focused on strength exercises, which are still good but don’t require quite as much psyching-up.

These people did get on the treadmill this morning – and I admire them. (In the foreground is one of my favorite strength machines – I think the exercise is a chest press? I do like that.)

Good for you, runners (and walkers). Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be up there with you.

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"Other people" Being a girl

The perfect visual, one week too late

I guess the title says it all.

This is the neighbor‘s door.

She’s been gone for like 4 days and she put up a little note on her door saying, “Please leave packages at the office!”

This afternoon UPS brought something by and…apparently just didn’t feel like complying.

The package is marked with “WEN Chaz Dean.” I ran inside to Google it because I thought it might be something exotic, or embarrassing, or illegal.

Turns out it’s hair products.

Oh well.

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"Other people" Awesome

Thanks, LJ

I am going through my old LiveJournal and saving the good pieces, since it’s really my only reliable journal from the New York Years. I’ve done 2009 and 2008, so tonight I’m working on 2007.

This little gem is from May 21st, 2007…hard to believe it’s already been four years. And so much has happened.

There’s a guy outside, right on the end of the block, warming up on bagpipes…or something.  He’s just standing outside of this hair salon, wearing jeans and a fleece, playing little pieces like he’s getting ready to go onstage somewhere.  At first I thought it was on TV.  It’s sort of beautiful.  I opened the window.

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"Other people" Fiction

Maybe she thinks I’m stealing her Fung Wong menus

When our neighbor moved in, I admit that I entertained a little thought that we might become friendly. Not besties – I know I don’t need a bestie living next door – but I thought maybe we would be friendly enough to chat outside, or she might even ask us to water her plants. I don’t know.

She wasn’t very friendly though, and still isn’t. She’s been kind of forced to talk to us because we’ve run into her while she’s walking her corgi a couple times, and the dog has been very curious about us. But instead of taking that opportunity to have a conversation, she’s just acted all uninterested and pulled the dog away.

She recently has lost a lot of weight, and started dressing much nicer. Before it was a lot of long flowy skirts with long flowy tops. Now it’s all fitted vests, although I still don’t think I’ve seen her wear pants. I guess she could just be exercising and dieting, but I’m pretty sure this is the result of gastric bypass surgery.

She has a very specific car, and naturally I notice when it’s not in her spot, or in the prime spots right in front of our building. She’s frequently gone for long weekends. I once wrote a 6-page story about her loading her dog and her JC Penney luggage into her Sebring and driving down to Santa Barbara to visit her mom. In my story, she and the dog stopped for sandwiches, and they got one roast beef and one egg salad, and shared. I think Drew was a little weirded out by the detail in my story, and how I started referring to her sick mom in Southern California in everyday conversation, like it was truth.

Other good hints that she’s gone for a long weekend:

  • the conspicuous absence of the furiously barking dog behind her door, whenever I walk up to my door
  • the take out menus multiplying on the door knob
  • sometimes packages pile up on her door mat as well

Sometimes I think that all these Chinese food menus are just a big neon sign telling strangers, “I haven’t been home for days. Feel free to come in and take anything you want.” Sometimes I take the menus off her door (they’re all repeats anyway) because I think that might discourage prowlers who are scoping out the neighborhood. Then she walks right past me in the parking lot and doesn’t meet my eyes. Oh well.

At least when she’s gone I don’t have to worry about that annoying dog barking at me going into MY OWN APARTMENT. Which I have lived in longer than you have lived in yours, RILEY.

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"Other people" Awesome Dreams Friends Memoir

Dinusoars

One amazing thing about the internet is that you can put yourself out there for all to see. Then they all can look at you and pass you on to their friends. Their friends can also like you and pass you on. This is all free. The internet provides great opportunities for marketing and promoting yourself. However, when it comes time to get paid for things…not so easy.

For instance, I have started submitting these “guest commentary” pieces to the Lake County Record-Bee. Fun for me, fun for my family to see those words in print, and convenient to submit online. Hopefully some people – even strangers maybe! – will read that, enjoy it, and smile. Then maybe they’ll stop by here to see what else is up. But I’m not making any money off of this, and I’m also not really concerned about tracking where this stuff ends up.

The people who post the giant, bolded “copyright” text at the bottom of all of their blog columns…it just makes me roll my eyes. If someone wants to steal something from here and post it elsewhere, well, then I’ll deal with that when it happens. Until then, I can only dream of my biggest problem being that too many people are interested in what I’m saying.

The now-infamous Jonathan Amores is, in fact, dealing with too many people liking his work. When Jonathan took his hipstamatic photo at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, he never dreamed that one day, hipsters and yuppies all over the internet would be enjoying it…teal wash and all.

Jonathan’s photo somehow made it onto Reddit, Sad and Useless, and also The Daily What. All without his knowledge or effort. Also, unfortunately, without his name attached to any of it. The glories and the pitfalls of the internet.

But I’m here to set the record straight.

PS. This is a really great photo, I totally see how it spread all over the internet. Props, jamores!

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"Other people" Celebrities

SPAM = Some “Person” Adores Me?

I found something even better than search terms: spam comments!

WordPress is awesome in that it filters out spam comments. And lucky it does, or I might be tempted to think some of these are real. They’re just so flattering! How can I resist? What if this comment really is from a person, they just have a weird email? And they really do like me?

Well, I think I have to get over that.

I guess you know it’s spam when it’s a generic, complimentary statement, attached to a random person’s name, and then an overly complicated web address. For example, Thalia:

Thanks Thalia. But your URL and email suggest you don’t exist. Also, I think calling my blog “exiguous” (“excessively scanty”) is not a compliment.

Or take Michael, Pamelia, and Janessa’s comments:

A better product than what exactly, Michael? And Pamelia, I’m glad you are beginning to much like my post. Janessa, I appreciate you checking with me here. But I’m sorry to say, I think all three of you might be bots.

That one might have fooled me, if it wasn’t from someone named “Subscriptions.”

This one is suspiciously like what Michael had to say:

There’s P90X Home Fitness:

And then there’s…Christian Louboutin.

Jeez, relax, Christian.

So I accept that these are not real comments, and are tools (but to do what, exactly? I’m not sure I understand the point of any of this. Am I supposed to click on the addresses, and then they can advertise to me or something?) – but I might just save this one, because it’s nice and not too generic, and there aren’t any egregious misspellings so I can pretend it’s from a human being:

Thanks, Forex Investment!

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"Other people" Endings

How I learned to stop worrying and love jury duty

A couple weeks ago I came home to that great trifecta of mail: a credit card bill, a car insurance statement, and a jury duty summons.  Now Drew has had 2 jury duty summonses since we moved back in 2009, and both times he’s been dismissed the day before over the phone.  So I figured, this is no big deal.

Last Friday I called in after 6 pm, and instead of the message I was expecting (something like “Yay you! You’re dismissed already!”) I was told that I was on phone standby, and instructed to call in Monday morning at 11:15.  So I figured, oh well, I’ll get dismissed then.

Last night right before I went to bed, I realized that work totally thought I was going to be in jury duty all day, so I actually could have just stayed home from work. I thought very seriously about it. I had a busy weekend and it would be nice to get a little morning off, go to the gym, do some laundry, call in at 11:15 and be dismissed, and then just hang the rest of the day.

But I am a responsible adult so I got up this morning at my usual weekday time, dragged myself to the gym (so not feeling it today), came home, showered, packed a lunch, and went to work.

Then, of course, I was totally called in to the courthouse to sit in the jury assembly room and wait.

Here are some things about the Redwood City courthouse:

-They have computers and internet for everyone to use (although they ask that you limit your time to 15 minutes)
-They have wifi and power strips everywhere so if you have your own laptop you’re totally good to go
-They have  cafeteria with relatively cheap stuff (a sandwich for $4.00? a soda for $.85?)
-They do NOT have cell reception in the basement, and you can’t really leave the basement because then you can’t hear them page you
-When you are on stand-by, you’re NOT in the courtroom. You’re most likely sitting in the jury assembly room killing time.

How on earth did I get out of the house today without a book??

I sat and worked on my Script Frenzy script for most of the time. I also stared off into space. I also ignored the people around me who wanted to start conversations by saying things like, “You were called in too?” (“….Yup”) and “Were you here this morning?” (“No, or I would be in the courtroom already.”)  I wasn’t overtly rude to anyone but I really wasn’t there to make friends.  Sorry, fellow potential jurors.

They showed us a video on being a juror, and it was amazing. But when I looked around everyone else was either not paying attention, or they were just staring at it with glazed over eyes. So they were missing such gems as the “confessional” set up shots where “Former Jurors” said things like “My favorite part was the deliberation, because you get to speak your piece and you’re making a decision that affects another person’s life.”  One “Former Juror” said, “When I got called for jury duty, yes, I was scared, because I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. But I brought a book and it was all okay.”  I mean, they’re so serious about it.

I started to get nervous that we would actually get called, but then the final courtroom called into the assembly room and said they had filled their juror box and we could be dismissed. Oh happy day! I hurried out of there, partly because I really had to go to the bathroom.  But I preferred to go home and use the bathroom there.

So overall, not the best jury story…that would have been getting onto one of them month-long juries…oh wait, then I wouldn’t be allowed to talk about it.  But I’m just so grateful that’s over, and I’m free to go back to work tomorrow (seriously), and get back to regular type life. At least until this weekend.

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"Other people" Awesome Books Memoir Sentiment Theatre Work

“I always wanted to be an expert at something.”

This morning I was thwarted – again – from getting my iced latte.  As I pulled up and parked in front of Starbucks (you park perpendicular), I watched this guy track in front of my car and then wait there for me.  I’ve seen him outside of Starbucks before* and he’s asked for money, and I’ve given it to him, but I wasn’t feeling it today.  I killed some time sitting in the car, avoiding making eye contact (easy because the visor was flipped down), putting on mascara and whatever.  Someone parked next to me, and he tracked in front of their car and asked for a dollar.  After a minute or so of debate I decided I didn’t really want to deal with this – I had $4 in cash, enough for a drink, not enough for a handout; I didn’t want to have to use a credit card so I could save him a dollar; etc. – and I just started the car back up and pulled out and went to work.  I drank my VitaminWater Zero and was sort of satisfied.

But tomorrow?  No one is standing between me and that iced latte.

(*One big difference between Mill Valley and Menlo Park/East Palo Alto…I liked the bourgeois atmosphere in MV.  I miss that.  Also it was so much easier to just “run out and grab some dinner” – at TW that involves getting in a car, and sometimes on the freeway, if you don’t have a hankering for Togo’s, Jack in the Box, or something from the Extra Mile, also known as Chevron.)

Tonight I worked front of house at Snow Falling on Cedars.  I was there partly for Patron Services, and indeed there were a few people who had tickets for the wrong night, or the wrong show (the curse of overlapping shows in different theatres).  I was there also to sell subscriptions and subscription renewals, which mostly entailed me sitting behind a counter smiling at people and telepathically instructing them to come renew their subscriptions.  I had two bites early on, and then another two bites, and I was like, “Yeah, four sub renewals!  That’s awesome!  Last night the person working got ONE.”  (No judgment, I know it’s all about the patrons there that night.)

Then the first act started and I got a sandwich, and I was going to read but instead I listened to Sarah and Vinnie because I’m still a week behind.  Then intermission happened and I majorly lucked out – a group was there and SIX of them wanted to renew their individual subs.  So there I was, filling out forms right and left and collecting credit card numbers.  Ten renewal forms altogether!  I’m pretty stoked.

So, the second act started and I’m half-planning on going down the street to the Starbucks, which I’m pretty sure is closed by now (when I get hooked on something it’s hard to let up).

Then this usher, Judie, starts talking to me.

[I just realized I totally slip into present-tense whenever I’m telling stories.  I’m constantly going back in my writing and just changing the beginning to present tense to keep it all consistent.  But whatever, it’s almost midnight and I don’t care right now.]

So Judie the usher starts talking to me, and then the second act of the show just slips away.  Because she is just talking and telling stories about growing up, and how she moved all the time because her father was a furrier and kept opening up new stores and getting them on their feet.

You know when you’re talking to someone and you’re just wishing you had a tape recorder?  I would have settled for a nice subtle way to take notes.  But there was no way.  For the next hour she and I just talked – I don’t want to imply that she talked the whole time, but she definitely held up the conversation.  But it was all stuff about how she worked as a shill at a carnival when she was a teenager…how she married her husband after 12 days…her college roommate asking her in a letter before they even met, “Who did your nose?”  She’s Jewish but she doesn’t “look Jewish.”

One day her mom met the rabbi in the street and the rabbi said, “Goldie, I didn’t see you in service this week,” and her mother replied, “That’s right Rabbi, you didn’t see me because I wasn’t there.”  …I mean, is she stealing that line from somewhere?

I just kept thinking, Judie, you should write a book.  She just had all these stories, but more than that, she told them really well.  Like, insanely well.  (One might say, as well as a certain famous Jewish writer?  She did remind me of him.)

OMG, Judie, I hope you come across this blog in the universe, and I hope you read it.  If you do, do you want to dictate all your stories to me and I’ll write them down?  I mean, you probably don’t even need me, your delivery is amazing and you clearly know how to tell a story, but I’d still love to be involved.  Thanks for saving me from spending yet another $4 on coffee I don’t need, as well as keeping me entertained for an hour.

I’m sure I’ll see her again – it sounds like she ushers all the time for TW.  So our paths will cross.  And I’m actually kind of excited for that.  (This is the first time, in all my theatre experience, that I’ve said that about an usher.)

Here’s to Judie!

(And also: more info about Snow Falling on Cedars here)