Quinnterruption

Retirement

2011-10-26T15:46:00.000-05:00

The time has come.

I'm retiring this blog. It's served me well in the past few years, but I think it's time for a change.

If you'd like to still be Internet pals, you can check me out here.

Or here.

Lots of options.

Don't be overwhelmed.

Love, hugs and unicorn farts,

Quinn

This Thing I Did

2011-06-17T15:54:00.000-05:00

I did this thing. It was for Art+Copy Club of Kansas City (AAFKC).

I can't watch it. Because watching yourself in a video is like being able to hear yourself when you're talking to someone on the phone and the reception is bad, only worse. ("Is that what I sound like?!" PLUS "Is that what I look like?!")

Anyway, I thought I'd share because I have this weird competitive issue where I think it will matter how many views it gets (it won't). And for those of you who read this blog despite having never met me (what's wrong with you?), now you have a better idea of what I'm like in-person...awkward.

Art+Copy Presents BULLETPROOF 2011 // Quinn Katherman from AAF - Kansas City on Vimeo.

Neighborly-Schmeighborly

2011-04-05T18:56:00.005-05:00

Here we are. A seemingly nice, young couple with a hyper dog that recently moved into the neighborhood. We are polite, cordial, we keep our yard tidy and we don’t leave our trashcans out for weeks at a time. To me, that’s being a good neighbor.

I met our neighbors the day we moved in. For the purposes of being discrete, we will call them Schmave and Schmancy. I had just convinced Steve that we didn’t need to keep a decade-old recliner our dog tore the seat out of or the beer pong table from college, so he left to take the chair, table, and some other crap I had to beg him to part with, to the dump. I was elbow-deep in bubble wrap, unpacking broken plates and cursing like a sailor when I heard a knock on the door.

Before I could even make it around the corner to see who it was, I heard the door open and someone shout, “Hello!” Um, hello, strange old man who is now standing in my house because apparently waiting for me to let you in wasn’t necessary…

“Hi there, neighbor! I’m Schmave. My wife Schmancy and I live next door,” he said.

“Well, it’s, uh, nice to meet you. My name is Quinn, my boyfriend Steve and I just moved in,” I said.

“Yep, this is a good house," he said as he walked through the living room I didn’t invite him into. He seemed to be inspecting the molding and the walls as if he would find a fault to make him retract that statement.

“Yes, we are pretty excited,” I said, unsure if I was about to get raped or killed or both because that’s what would happen next if this was a horror movie.

“Your boyfriend, you said? That fellow’s not your husband?”

“That’s right,” I said. This is the kind of question that usually prompts me to make a joke about living in sin but I wanted to reframe from anything that could potentially be interpreted as camaraderie or taking pleasure in this experience.

“Well, that’s all right…” Thanks for your approval, dude. “Okay, well, I brought these beers over because I saw some sweaty men moving big boxes in.” I hadn’t even noticed the beer. Sweaty men? That’s a weird thing to say, I thought.

“Oh, that’s so nice of you! Here, let me put these plates down and I’ll take them from you,” I said. I suddenly hated him less for letting himself into my home unannounced and uninvited. Beer is a peace offering. I like peace offerings.

“No, it’s okay. I’ll just go put them in the fridge.” He walked past me and around the corner. I heard bubble wrap popping between his steps and heavy breathing. I decided to stay at the door, seeing as how I didn’t invite him in, I would at least see him out.

“Okay, uh, thanks,” I said, flipping my hate switch back on—fuck the peace offering.

“All right. Well you let me know how those guys like the beer,” he said as he walked out of my kitchen. Does he think women don’t like beer?

“Well we’ve never met a beer we didn’t like!” I said, gesturing him towards the door.

“Good. Hey, if you guys need anything, just knock on our door. We’re always around!”

“Yes, I will be sure to knock.”

“Nice to meet you!” he said and showed himself out.

“You too, Schmave! Thanks for the beer!” I closed the door behind him and locked it.

I stood there, wondering what had just happened. Strange old man walks into my house through the guise of a half-knock and proceeds to walk around inside without even the slightest inclination from me that such a thing was welcome…weird. When Steve returned I relayed the story.

“Great. Well I guess we’re going to have to keep the door locked,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s like that. I think it’s more like…we need to be mean to them so they’ll leave us alone,” I said.

“But they’re old!”

“Wait a minute…You’ve already met them, haven’t you? You’ve already talked to them and made friends with them and oh god—”

“Relax. I didn’t make friends with anyone. I just talked to them a little about the fence we want to put in and other stuff—you know, neighbor-talk,” he said.

“DAMNIT, STEVE! That’s why Schmave just walked into our house—because he probably thought you were his new bestie after whatever conversation you had!”

The problem is, Steve and I have a very different philosophy about neighbor relationships. I believe that living within a few feet of each other does not mean we need to be best friends or even talk to each other, ever. Steve, however, is Mister freaking Rogers and always happy to strike up a conversation about the weather or how good so and so’s hostas look. It’s not that I’m unfriendly or mean, I just believe that befriending your neighbor is a way of condoning their nosiness, and keeping them at arms-length is best, at least at first.

“No way! I mean, he seemed a little weird, but he’s, like, 60-something. And his wife is really nice,” Steve said.

“His wife? So you met both of them?”

“Yeah, Schmave and Schmancy. They’ve lived here for 25 years and they have two cats and they just bought a new car and they like to vacation in Santa Fe and—”

“Wow, what’s left to know about them? Their bowel movements?” I opened a beer and threw it back in a single gulp.

“Hey! Did you buy beer?”

“No, Schmave brought it over for ‘all the sweaty men moving big boxes.’ And he put it in the fridge while I stood at the front door wondering why the hell he was in my house,” I said.

“Wait, he actually said ‘sweaty men’? That’s weird.”

“I KNOW! You can’t be so nice,” I said.

“But you’re so mean. We balance each other out! Besides, we have to be nice to them, at least for now…after all, we are putting that fence in,” he said.

A few weeks after Schmave’s home intrusion, we got a survey done – a necessary step any good homeowner takes prior to putting in something that defines property lines, such as a fence. Turns out, Schmave and Schmancy had stolen about eight feet of our property.

“They didn’t steal it, Quinn. They were just…taking care of it,” Steve said.

“Sure, that’s why they put down that row of bricks, as if that would be the new property line, and then invested in a bunch of expensive landscaping.”

“I can see you’re angry about this, so why don’t you let me handle it.”

“Well, it all makes sense now. Schmave’s intrusion, the forced friendliness, Schmancy’s constant questions about when a fence would be going in and what kind of fence it would be…”

“I know. We will work it out. I’ll talk to them.”

“No. I’m going to talk to them.”

I calmly explained to Schmancy that property lines were property lines and that I was very sorry about her garden, which was about to have a four-foot fence running through it, but we have a dog, and even though she’s losing some of the property she stole, at least our dog wouldn’t dig up her plants and shit on her patio. Things seemed to go okay. Then she attacked Steve.

“So Schmancy just said she was going to call a lawyer about the survey we had done,” Steve said.

“That’s adorable. Let her do it.”

“Stop. We don’t need enemies.”

“Seriously? It’s not our problem. The fencers are coming tomorrow.”

“Yeah, about that...I called them and rescheduled for next weekend.”

“WHAT?”

“Well, we had to compromise. I told Schmancy we’d give her another week to move her plants…”

“She’s already had a week!”

“…and I told her we would help her.”

“!@#$%^&**&^%$#@!”

So we helped Schmancy move her stupid plants. We put the fence in. And we haven’t heard much from either of them save for the occasional Saturday when we’re doing yardwork and Schmave will stumble over with gin and tonics in hand to tell us the latest horribly offensive joke he’s heard. Everything is good. And even though Steve’s neighborliness is annoying, it makes me less…what’s that word…bitchy? We do balance each other out. I run into the house with my head down as fast as I possibly can to avoid interaction, and he saunters over to say hello, strike up conversation about road conditions and tell them that we’re getting married.

Yeah.

Like how I saved that for the very end?

MARRIED!

I’m so lucky.

Emotional Response

2010-11-04T21:51:00.006-05:00

So I bought some new deodorant. It wasn’t until I got home that I noticed the little sticker on the cap that read, “Extra Responsive in Emotional Moments.” After several days of wear I was about to throw it out because the constant smell of Powder Fresh armpits was making me nauseous. I realized that even the slightest emotional reaction caused it to activate and flood my nostrils with a scent strong enough to taste. It felt like my deodorant was antagonizing me—with every whiff I heard it say, “Stop being such an emotional woman!” I’m not a sweaty person; however, I am a passionate (“emotional,” whatever…) person, which apparently means I need a deodorant that will turn on whenever I have a feeling that’s slightly complicated.

Why do I need a deodorant that responds to my emotions in the first place? Emotions don’t make me sweat, sitting in a 100-degree conference room to watch a PowerPoint about consumer behavior makes me sweat, attempting to run a mile with my spastic dog makes me sweat, trying on clothes at Forever 21 makes me sweat. I’m sure there’s some kind of scientific validity behind creating emotionally responsive deodorant, but when it’s positioned next to the men’s deodorant, which all have stickers on the cap that say, “Protects Men Who Take Risks,” I have to stop, throw my breasts over my shoulder and put up my feminist fighting fists. Being a woman doesn’t make me emotional. Being a person who comes from a long line of emotional people and lives a busy, sort of stressful life makes me an emotional person. But men don’t need deodorant that responds to their emotions because the only thing that makes them sweat is heavy-lifting and all the manly activities they engage in, apparently. To suggest that women are the only ones who need protection from the physical reaction her body has to emotions is to suggest that we are the only ones who feel, and if we are the only ones who feel then why in the hell haven’t we conquered the world and made men obsolete?

Fine, I'll admit that sometimes I overreact in situations and that makes me seem “emotional,” I guess. But it’s usually after someone says one of my three crazy triggers:

“Stop overreacting!”
“Calm down!”
“Relax!”

Now my deodorant has become my fourth crazy trigger because every time I get another heavy whiff of Powder Fresh armpits, I get defensive and emotional over the fact that it thinks I’m being emotional. I feel like screaming, “You don’t know me! You don’t know how I feel! You’re just another thing I do to disguise my real smell that maybe also gives me cancer later in life! So stop pretending to be smart because you’re NOT!”

And after typing that, all I can smell is Powder Fresh armpits...again.

Big News

2010-08-31T17:30:00.007-05:00

I got a new job. Please, please—hold your applause until the end.

It all happened so fast. One minute I’m sitting alone in a tiny office, writing fart jokes for greeting cards and—BOOM!—the next thing I know I’m in a fancy downtown agency that has a ping pong table, beer on tap and awards lining the walls, trying to write copy for a major fast-food joint. I wasn’t looking for a new job but this just kind of fell into my lap—I know, I hate people who have that kind of luck too. But remember, it was only a mere 18 months ago when I was drowning in the despair of unemployment, thinking I would never find a writing job and then, just when I was about to give up and start cleaning rich people’s toilets, I found a great job which has since led me to another great job. I’m not going to say anything about the power of a positive attitude or about how the economy is getting better because optimism makes me feel dirty, but I will say that perseverance in the face of total shit does pay off. If it weren’t for this blog and my Twitter addiction, I wouldn’t have gotten this new job. That being said, I still can’t believe there are people out there who are willing to pay me to put words on paper.

I started my new job about six weeks ago and so far I love it. Although I wouldn’t have admitted this a few months ago, I missed the hustle and bustle of the ad world. I missed stressing out about other people’s problems. I missed having to work late because I was needed. I missed powering through a ten-hour workday on three hours of sleep. I missed being challenged and pushed to my limit. I know, I’m a total masochist.

Although I worked in advertising before my stint as a greeting card writer, I never worked in the creative department. Creative departments at advertising agencies are like beehives, we’re all responsible for our own pollinating; yet we’re all dependent on a queen. The queen bee is mostly the client, but can also be a creative director, an account manager, the economy, anything—the point is, even though we have the freedom to fly wherever we want, buzzing and stinging shit, our survival is contingent on a much larger entity, which provides us with the work to do. And if the queen bee dies, the beehive has only a short window of time to replace her before the entire hive is compromised and all of the worker bees die. So, uh...long live the queen! I guess?

Despite my uncanny ability to put people off by acting like a total ass, everyone I’ve met has been extremely nice and welcoming. I get the feeling that my coworkers are trying really hard to not seem too stressed out or pissed off around me, which is adorable and flattering. Apparently I started at a really busy time because at least once a day someone tells me, “I promise, it’s not usually like this.” I haven’t told anyone how much I enjoy being a busy bee. I just smile and nod a lot because 90 percent of the time I have no idea what the hell I’m doing, which makes everyday an exercise in not looking like a total idiot. For instance, it was my second or third day when an email came through regarding a project for a client.

“Can you do a download at 10:30 this morning?” it said.

I sat at my desk, reading and rereading the email. What download? Am I supposed to download something? Am I supposed to download myself? Can you do that now? There was no attachment to the email, no instructions, so I just replied, “Sure,” hoping more information would come to me as a result. I waited 30 minutes and there was no response. It was 10:15. I was running out of time to figure out this whole download thing, so I decided to consult a nearby coworker.

“Hey, uh, Sarah? Can you tell me what this means?” I gestured towards my computer screen as if it was full of hieroglyphics I needed to interpret.

“Sure. What’s up?” she said, rolling her chair over to my desk.

“So, I got this email and it says I need to do a download but it doesn’t say anything about what the download is, where I get it, how I get it, and I’m apparently supposed to do this by 10:30,” I said, trying to disguise the panic in my voice.

“What?” Sarah leaned in to read the email. “Oh! No, no, not like a computer download. It means they’re going to download you on a project, like, they’re going to tell you about it. It’s like a verbal creative brief." My insides turned to stone and I cringed.

“Oh, I see. Well, I feel stupid now.”

“Don’t. It’s industry lingo. You’ll get a hang of it,” she said and rolled back to her desk like it was no big deal I had just spent the last 45 minutes trying to figure out how download some mysterious file for a meeting.

“Cool. I get it, yeah…well, I’m going to go get downloaded now…I’m going to get the down-low, the DL, the—”

“It’s just download, nothing else,” she said.

“Right, I was just—yeah, cool, never mind…okay, I’m going to do that.”

Since then I’ve said and done countless other dumb things. I don’t know enough yet to know how dumb I seem, but that’s what learning is, right? You throw yourself into the unknown, try to fake your way through it until you get a hang of things and then you look back and squirm with embarrassment every time you think of what you were before you became what you are now. It’s hard. It’s tough. It’s stressful. It’s everything I ever wanted, for now.

Home Sweet Home

2010-07-11T18:16:00.004-05:00

All right, I’m just going to skip all the usual, “Sorry I’ve been away, blah, blah, blah” bullshit and get straight to it…I BOUGHT A HOUSE! Well, we, my boyfriend Steve and I, bought a house. Together. To live in for, like, longer than a year. I KNOW! I crapped my big girl pants, too!

It all happened really fast in the slowest way possible. One day we were carefree renters and the next we were homeowners, give or take a few months. The process of searching for a house was not what I expected. It was a lot like shopping for jeans, you think it’s going to be fun because it’s shopping, but somewhere around the tenth pair of muffin top-inducing denim and the salesperson’s rude “Can I get you another size, ma’am?” questions that sound like, “Can I get you another doughnut, fatty?” you decide to boycott jeans and invest in more pants with elastic waistbands. Every house we looked at I found a problem with, whether it was location, size or the way the air inside made my skin feel weird and jumpy. People kept telling us, “Don’t worry, you’ll know it when you find it.” Know what? I wondered. “You’ll just walk in, and you’ll know that it’s the one,” they said. Once this was in my head it made things even harder. I walked into every house we looked at expecting to have an epiphany, but I never did. In the end, the house we bought was the one with the least problems, the best neighborhood, the greatest value, and the fewest weird smells.

Once we put an offer down and signed the contract, we spent two months wondering if we had made the right decision; I still didn’t have that feeling, I didn’t know if it was “the one.” We moved in on the hottest weekend in June. After a day of hauling boxes and sweating on everything we owned, Steve and I took a break and stood in the front yard, looking our new home in the face. It had been sunny all day but suddenly the sky was tornado green and the temperature felt different at my knees than it did at my shoulders. Steve grabbed my hand.

“This is our house,” he said.
“I know. It’s so…adulty,” I said.
“Yeah, but, adulty in a good way, right?”
“Sure,” I said.
“I hate it when you say “sure.” “Sure” never means sure when you say it.”
“Sure?”
“Look, we can put a beer pong table in the front yard…and Bob Marley posters on the walls…and never do the dishes…will that make it less adulty for you?”
“I don't know. I feel like the owners of this house should wear snazzy pantsuits and carry briefcases and play in the stock market and have well-trained dogs,” I said, glancing at the front window where I could see our dog Bear chewing on the curtains.
“That’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said,” he said.
“Well, don’t you kind of feel like we don’t go with this house?”
“I think it’s our job to make this house go with us,” he said. In that moment I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to smack him or kiss him, but that’s usually how I feel when I know he’s right.
“Good. I hate snazzy pantsuits,” I said.
“Me too. Let’s go inside before it rains on us.”

What followed was a week of torrential downpours. Streets were running rivers, yards were flooded pools and everyone with a basement had water or sewage coming in, everyone except us. Since the house we rented last had a lot of basement issues, we were keeping a close eye on ours, going down there every day to check for leaks, but despite the record amount of rainfall it remained dry. That’s when we heard it…drip…drop…drip, drip, drip…drop.

“I think it’s coming from the attic,” Steve said. We grabbed a flashlight and opened the secret passageway-like door that’s in the back of a closet and climbed into the attic. The dripping noises got louder, I held my breath and Steve held the flashlight.

“What. The. Hell. Is. THAT!” I said, pointing to a dark, spreading puddle where the roof meets the ground.
“Shit! Okay, no big deal, no big deal. We can handle this,” Steve said.
“By handle, you mean call someone to fix it, right?”
“Well, yeah. But for now we are going to have to fix it ourselves. Go get me some pots and pans. And some towels. And a hammer—no, a screwdriver, Phillips!”
“I hate everything about what you just said.”
“I’m not going to do anything major—I’m just going to try to keep it from leaking through ceiling,” he said.
“IT CAN LEAK THROUGH THE CEILING?!”

We’ve called roofers and contractors and they all say the same thing: we need a new ruff. I don’t know what the hell a “ruff” is, but apparently it’s going to cost us our savings. We’ve had other disasters pop up along the way, but that's all part of what makes being a homeowner "fun," according to the sarcastic assholes we call friends and family. Sometimes I think of it as getting to know a new person who has a lot of weird quirks, but sometimes I’m sober and I think of it as a monster trying to eat us. One of my friends said, “buying a house is like marrying a pickpocket,” which seems pretty accurate. Although, in our case, I think it’s more like Steve and I married a golddigger that just happens to be a 1,400-square foot Cape Cod.

It's no secret that becoming homeowners has been most gratifying for our parents, who, after years of not knowing or understanding anything, suddenly have all the answers. When something goes wrong, they are the first people we call.

Voicemail 1:
Hey, Dad! It's me...listen, when you get a chance, give me a call. We have these holes all over our yard...like, crittery rodent holes. Anyway, yeah, I don't know what they're from, but when you get a chance just call me. Okay, bye!

Voicemail 2:
Hi, Dad, it's me again. Just wondering if you got my last message. Oh, also, our kitchen sink is leaking. Should we just get down there and tighten some pipes, I mean, can you even tighten pipes? I don't get it. Okay, call me!

Voicemail 3:
Dad, it's me, where are you? I've found, like, ten spiders INSIDE today! What do I do? Exterminators are too expensive and all those sprays are toxic. So, yeah, I don't know where you are, but call your daughter back!

Voicemail 4:
DAD! We bought a desk and it won't fit through the door! Should we try to put it through the window? It looks bigger than the doorway but it's really heavy—oh, CRAP! Got to go! Call me!

Voicemail 5:
ARGHHHHHHH!

"Hello?"
"FINALLY! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? DID YOU GET MY MESSAGES? WHY HAVEN'T YOU RETURNED MY CALLS?!"
"Quinn, I was in a meeting. My phone was off for an hour, you left five messages. What's wrong?"
"Oh, an hour? Huh, well it felt like a lot longer than that. Anyway, I need your help..."

I wasn't prepared for this sudden role reversal. Now they are the ones avoiding our calls and coming up with excuses as to why they didn't call us back. Sometimes my dad even does the whole hanging up while saying goodbye thing because he can’t get me off the phone: “Yeah, okay, yep, right…okay, got to go, yeah, love you too, okay, really have to go now, uh-huh, all right…bye!” But that’s usually only after the tenth or eleventh time I've called him that day, or hour, whatever.

We’ve been living in our house for a little over a month now, and sure, sometimes it’s a monster, but everyday it becomes a little bit more our monster than it was the day before and there’s something endlessly satisfying about that. I spent eight hours working in the yard yesterday; by the end of it I was covered in scratches and bite marks, so I guess it’s debatable who worked whom, but the important point is: progress was made. At first I was trying to figure out what every plant was before I did anything but then I just decided that if I didn’t like it, I was going to pull it out, because it's my house and I can do whatever I want! Six huge bags of yard debris later, our front yard looks…clean—okay, maybe I got a little carried away and now there are some bald spots, but no big deal, I’m totally going to plant some new stuff that will look WAY better than that stupid, fancy, sharp, spiky grass that was popping out everywhere. Besides, this homeowner thing is a learning process, and sometimes I just have to figure it out as I go along. Of course, “reorganizing” $3,000 worth of landscaping the previous owner did was an expensive lesson but at least I learned something...like, that I'm still definitely allergic to poison ivy.

She take our money, well we’re in need
Yeah she's a triflin' house indeed
Oh she's a gold digger way over time
That digs on me…

Emergency

2010-05-17T20:23:00.006-05:00

"Yes, hello, I'm calling because I'd like to exchange this life for a cooler one. I have my birth certificate, will that suffice as a receipt? I know it's been used but it's just not what the description said it would be. What's that? You want to know if this is an emergency? Uh, yeah, I'm pretty sure it is...I mean, it's my life and all. Excuse me? I am not out of line! I got this life and it did not turn out the way I expected, I believe that means I either get to return it or exchange it for one that doesn't suck...Alright...You know what? I've had about enough of your rude, condescending attitude! I want to speak to your manager!"

Worst. Customer. Service. Ever.

Really.

The people at 9-1-1 are total assholes.

It's Been Too Long...

2010-05-07T18:45:00.000-05:00

I know. I'm sorry.

What?

OHMYGODISAIDIWASSORRY!

Gah, stop yelling at me...

I've been really busy lately. I know in the past I may have used the word "busy" when I actually meant "lazy," but this time when I say "busy" I mean, I've had so little down time that my couch had to schedule an appointment with my ass in order for me to write this. If you don't believe me you can talk to my couch.

Or don't.
Whatever.
I don't care.

But I wanted to let you know that I've been busy because a lot of exciting changes (I've been abducted) and new developments (by alien zombies) have been happening in my life, which I plan to share with you (if they don't eat my brains first) as soon as I have a chance (send help).

So stay tuned for a juicy post coming to your computer soon.

In the meantime, because I know you miss me almost as much as my couch misses me, feel free to check out my Twitter feed and follow me; it's an uncensored version of Quinnterruption and a designated dumping zone for my brain. I post whatever pops into head throughout the day in 140 characters or less, but if you're easily offended by fart jokes, odd topical references and general nonsense you might not be into it, in fact, you might want to stop reading this blog altogether.

Battling The Panty Giant

2010-03-23T19:28:00.002-05:00

I recently opened my mailbox to find something so horrific and disturbing that I dropped to my knees and screamed, “Nooooooooooooooooooooooo! Why? Why god, why?” My anguished cries alerted several nosey neighbors, who rushed over to ask if I was okay.

“Yeah, it’s just...Victoria’s Secret put me back on their mailing list. That’s all,” I said and the neighbors dispersed, whispering things about drama and queens.

I stood in front of my mailbox, staring into the vacant eyes of the swollen-mouthed “angel” who was posed on the cover wearing a nude bra and underwear set that blended with her flawlessly airbrushed skin making the absence of areolas the only real indication that she wasn’t totally naked, and I whispered, “How did you find me?” She didn’t respond, which didn’t surprise me because I’m sure it’s hard to talk with all that collagen and Botox, so I retreated inside to pour a glass of wine and revise my interrogation tactic. I reviewed the contents of my underwear drawer—nothing new. Noting this as evidence, I realized I haven't purchased anything from Victoria’s Secret since the last time I tried to go bra shopping and was bombarded by an all-too-eager saleswoman and her measuring tape, which she used to tell me I was wearing the wrong bra size without even considering for a moment that maybe it was a deliberate decision, like the size six pants I’m still stuffing myself into. After changing my address and keeping a restraining order’s distance between myself and every Victoria’s Secret store, I managed to enjoy one catalog-free year until those padded bra peddlers found me. I might still shop at Victoria’s Secret, despite the catalogs and harassment endured during my bra fitting, if they weren’t so intent on catering to the barely legal demographic while simultaneously encouraging adult women to dress like Tara Reid. Also—holy high prices! Who decided it was okay to pay $30 for a piece of floss made of lace spun by child laborers? I now make a point to shop at places that offer more sensible and affordable products, like Wal-Mart. I guess I’m just past the point of wanting to wear a bedazzled piece of string as underwear and I’m slowly coming to terms with my body’s natural attraction to granny panties.

In the last month I received four Victoria’s Secret catalogs: one for their winter sale, one for their spring clothing line, one for their bathing suit line and one for their “we’ll give you $10 off your purchase if you pretend it’s 1997 and order something from our catalog” sale. I’m not a huge environmentalist—I use disposable razors, I don’t always turn off the water as I’m brushing my teeth and I drive a gas-guzzling SUV—but I do occasionally buy green cleaning products so I feel entitled to say that based on their output of one million catalogs per day, Victoria’s Secret might as well burn Styrofoam and feed it to polar bears.

Obviously we cannot stand by and watch Victoria’s Secret destroy our world and kill our children (okay, that part might be a little dramatic) with their catalogs. We must take a stand against this lingerie overlord by going commando! Just kidding, I like not being blind.

You may recall an environmental campaign against Victoria’s Secret catalog production in 2004; since then, Victoria’s Secret claims to have cleaned up their act, leading the campaigners to find new causes to fight for and bigger trees to chain themselves to. But I, for one, am not ready to surrender to the panty giant, which is why I devised several plans of attack.

Plan A: If I receive one more Victoria’s Secret catalog this month, I am going to collect sap from every tree I can find and take it to the nearest Victoria’s Secret store where I will wipe it in the crotch of every pair of underwear I can get my hands on. Then all of the disgruntled customers with sticky vaginas will join my crusade (or beat me up, whatever) and I will have an army of haters on my side.

Plan B: Take all of the sap collected for Plan A and mail it to Victoria’s Secret headquarters with a note that says, “These are the tears of the trees you’re killing in order to send me 90 pages of half-naked women wearing heinously impractical and uncomfortable lingerie every month.”

If both Plan A and Plan B fail, Plan C is to put my name on the Do Not Mail List and resign myself to a boring, unimaginative one-woman protest.

I’m on to your secret, Victoria. I know you have zombie underwear models searching top-secret databases for the people who had to move in order to escape your catalog’s mailing list. I know you want to kill polar bears. I know you want to sell an already over-sexed generation of young women under garments with “SEXY” or “PINK” scrawled across the crotch because, how else will they gain self-esteem? I know you think you’re helping out millions of teenage boys and their fathers by sending countless catalogs to their mothers and wives every month under the guise of an obnoxious tagline like, “I Love My Body.” I know you know that real women don’t look through your catalog and think, “Wow, I really do love my body!” I know you know that real women think they might love their body if they buy a leopard print babydoll nightie and matching thong to wrap around their cellulite for $60 (plus shipping). And I know you killed Inigo Montoya’s father (okay, fine, maybe you didn’t kill Inigo Montoya’s father yourself, but I bet your people’s people had a hand in it, or something).

So prepare yourself, Vickie. You and your army of emaciated supermodels are about to get sapped by me and my granny-panty-clad posse of yet to be determined millions.

NOTE: This post is meant to be humorous.* Please do not embarrass me and yourself by taking it too seriously or I will be forced to file a fun-killer lawsuit, which will included harsh language regarding “your panties” being “in a wad.”

*Unless you are part of Victoria’s Secret corporate stratosphere, in which case, I totally mean it and you should probably give me a gift certificate for eleventy billion dollars in order to make it up to me or else…(you know, the whole sap thing).

I'm a Big Damn Deal (in my own mind)

2010-03-19T16:48:00.010-05:00

Guess what? I was interviewed by Sue London for her blog's Fresh Voices series. I know, I can't believe someone besides an employer or my dad or the police wanted to interview me either (to be fair, I don't think Sue knew what she was getting into when she asked me). Anyway, I would really like it if you would visit her blog, read my interview and leave compliments—I mean—comments, because I will be quizzing you later (not really...well, maybe).

Here's a little teaser:

5. What most attracts you to the life of a writer?

Absolutely nothing. Do you think I’m a sadist? There’s nothing attractive about the life of a writer, unless you excel at self-loathing, lying and already hate almost everything, which I do...(To continue reading the rest of this amazing answer, just click here.)

Who Wears the Pants?

2010-02-24T20:22:00.009-06:00

For those of you who don't know, I have a Soft-Coated Wheaten Terror, I mean, Terrier named Bear. In the eighteen months that we've lived together, Bear and I have developed an interesting relationship. Below is just a taste of our daily interactions.

(Cesar Millan, if you're reading this, we need your help - please come whisper to my dog! Also, we really want to be on TV, so...call me!)

[Scene: An angry human and incorrigible dog stand in a cramped kitchen. There is a garbage bag in the corner oozing its contents from a hole that has been gnawed into the side making the floor a sea of shredded trash.]

Me: DAMNIT BEAR!

Bear: You know, if I wasn’t so smart I would think my name was “Damnit Bear” by now.

Me: Seriously? You have to be kidding me!

Bear: What? It’s just a couple paper towels torn into a million little shreds…

Me: Look at this mess!

Bear: I was trying to teach you a lesson. You use way too many paper towels. It’s bad for the environment.

Me: You are a BAD BOY!

Bear: Relax—look, I’ll help you pick it up.

Me: NO! DROP IT! BAD!

Bear: Fine…I didn’t want to help anyway.

[A few minutes later…]

Me: We need to talk…

Bear: I know, except I can’t talk, remember?

Me: Just because you never see me wear pants, doesn't mean I don’t wear the pants in this house...do you understand?

Bear: Sure, yeah, whatever.

[Pause]

Me: Did you fart?

Bear: Uh…?

Me: No, you didn’t. Want to know why? Because I did…I’m the farter AND the pantsless pants wearer!

Bear: Well at least your title sounds convincing.

Me: Yeah…Who’s a good boy?

Bear: I am.

Me: Who’s a good boy?

Bear: Me.

Me: Yeah? Is Bear a good boy?

Bear: Do we have to do this every time? I said, me—I’m a good boy.

Me: Yes you are! Now come lay down…

Bear: But I’m not tired.

Me: Lay down, Bear.

Bear: No.

Me: LAY. DOWN.

Bear: No treat, no lay.

Me: Fine.

Bear: Hey, where are you going?

Me: No, no...stay! Apparently I need to put on some pants.

The Gift of Exercise

2010-02-10T22:31:00.008-06:00

For Christmas I was given two yoga mats. Yes, TWO yoga mats, and both are the exact same shade of “I hate exercise” purple. I can take a hint, so I spent January going to yoga class…twice. What? It was a REALLY intense two classes and it seemed fitting, given the two yoga mats.

Since February I’ve been to yoga a few more times, but only because I now have a plethora of yoga mats and I need to determine which one is the best so that I can do something totally ridiculous with the others. After testing it out, I’ve realized that one of the new purple yoga mats is skinnier than I am and the last thing I need is my yoga mat making me feel like a doublewide on a narrow country road. The other new purple mat is quite nice, although it lacks the necessary squishiness to make me feel buoyant and light while downward dogging. And my other yoga mat is my old yoga mat, and it’s, well…it’s old. So I guess each mat has its own flaws but it doesn’t matter which one I keep, what does matter is what I decide to do with the extra two. Here are my ideas:

1. Send one to my sister, who will hate it and yell at me: “Whoa, bitch! Are you calling me fat?”
2. Use them as napping mats. Remember napping mats from kindergarten? I had one that was blue on one side and red on the other side and it folded up into a little rectangle. I miss nap time so hard. If yoga was more like nap time I would go everyday.
3. Watch Aladdin and sing “A Whole New World” while pretending the yoga mat is a magic carpet.
4. Use it as padding in the dog’s crate…for five minutes or until he chews it to shreds.
5. Pad the coffee table edges because it keeps attacking my shins in the dark.
6. Fashion them into a pair of riding chaps. Then find a horse to ride.
7. Make placemats. Then figure out why people use placemats.
8. Cut out hearts and cover them in glitter to make Valentine’s Day cards.
9. Freeze them. Whenever I don’t know what to do with something, freezing it always seems like a good way to not make a decision.
10. Donate the two extra mats to Haiti because that’s apparently what earthquake victims need. Forget about silly things like food, water, shelter and money - the people of Haiti need yoga mats!

Whatever I decide to do with the extra yoga mats I’m going to keep going to yoga, at least until my new student special runs out next week and they're all, “hey you can’t come to class unless you pay!” and I’m all, “watch me steal your yoga!” and they’re all, “we’re calling the cops!” and I’m all, “namaste, bitches!” and then I run away and find a new studio who accepts me and my napping mat.

Living With Forgotten Ideas

2010-02-03T20:00:00.000-06:00

Like diarrhea, you never know when a good idea is going to hit you. I've found that I often get ideas as I'm drifting off to sleep because this is when my brain decides to work after a long day of faking it. For this reason I started leaving a pen and a notebook on the nightstand (I learned my lesson about not writing anything on my hand or arm after the day I walked around with "sunflower seeds forget elephants" imprinted on my cheek).

An idea that comes to me in the middle of the night or as I'm falling asleep always seems like the BEST IDEA I'VE EVER HAD. Of course, this is almost never true. Sometimes I wake up excited the next day because I remember the feeling of a brilliant idea, but that excitement generally fades when I try to make sense of what I wrote down.

For example, I have no idea what "Twins—ugly and pretty—blame each other for face parts" means but I'm sure in my half-awake state it made sense. Here are a few more things I've jotted down in the wee hours and never made sense of:

"Jealousy has big teeth."
"Like salty popsicles - life and freezer burn."
"Big crosses and fancy purses."
“Falling from Tyra’s forehead.”
"Carry-on body."
"You are everyone here – a hate pit."
"Looney Tunes t-shirts."
"Coupon cutting condescension."
"Are you smarter than a Brit?"
“Life-ing my live.”
"Hammered and nails - not drunk."
"Ovaries song - hip thrusts to techno Babies beat."
“A sandwich shop for feelings.”
"Shitting crumbs."
"Unbroken is bad, break the window."
"New area codes—I don't get one."

There’s something about getting paid to be creative that messes with your ability to judge your own ideas. So instead of playing gatekeeper, you just start writing down every half-formed idea you have and thinking, “maybe this will make sense another day,” even though you’re almost sure it never will. But there’s always the chance, the hope for inspiration and that’s why I can’t throw away anything I write, whether scribbled or typed, because maybe one day all of my orphaned ideas will come together and make babies and live happily ever after…or maybe you’ll just see me on "Hoarders."

"Booty Pop"

2010-01-27T21:07:00.004-06:00

New inventions are happening everyday. This is something I benefited from until I woke up old one day. Now, every new invention feels like another thing to learn, another thing to spend money on and another thing that’s just a few years too late. Once you graduate from the limelight of the 18- to 24-year-old demographic and you’re no longer the apple of every retailer’s eye, you fall into the grey, ambivalent area of 25- to 34-year-olds and new products don’t really appeal to anything other than your bitterness. So when I came across Booty Pop, I assumed my reaction was like many other 25- to 34-year-olds: Seriously? WTF!

According to the commercial, Booty Pop will give you a “sexier, more desirable booty instantly,” and it’s just like a “padded bra for your butt!” Every claim made my heart sink deeper into my protruding gut. As a curvy female who is proud to have something to shake, even if it is her upper arm, I feel conflicted. Is this a sign that society has finally become accepting of women with curves, with imitation (or simulation) being the most sincere form of flattery? Or is this just another way for skinny girls to get ahead, by perpetuating an unrealistic body type? I settled on the latter because in a society where Kim Kardashian can be famous for more than 15 minutes because she has an ass big enough to have its own zip code, Booty Pop is anything butt a step in the right direction for women and body image.

As the commercial says, “Booty Pop turns a droopy derriere into a youthful looking, head turning, bootylicious booty,” it cuts to scenes of men checking out women’s asses in inappropriate settings because, how else would you know you look hot? No one seems to care about how all these newly bootyfied women are going to be wearing dirty underwear all the time, because, you know, cleanliness is a virtue second only to hotness.

At this point in my life, I see a commercial for something like Booty Pop and the 18- to 24-year-old inside of me giggles while the 25- to 34-year-old inside of me rolls her eyes, swallows a regurgitation of feminist theory, and bitterly reflects on the past. I have spent the last decade overeating in hopes of one day having an ass like JLo, so you can imagine my disappointment when – after nine years of hard work, dedication and a strict diet of doughnuts, McDonald’s, beer and cheese cubes – someone decides to go and invent padded underwear.

So, you know what Booty Pop? You owe me 20 pounds of cellulite.

(And I don't think it's a coincidence that "Booty Pop" is one dangerous typo away from being "Booty Poop.")

Without Resolution

2010-01-12T21:00:00.000-06:00

New Year’s resolutions remind me of tired Clinton/Lewinsky jokes that aren’t good enough to leave a stain (see what I did there?).

I used to make resolutions every year until I realized it’s all a part of society’s maniacal plan to turn us into productive, focused and disciplined individuals. By maintaining a steady routine, I’m able to break and reinstate every New Year’s resolution multiple times throughout the year, which means my resolutions are green because I recycle them year after year (Al Gore says it’s good for the environment). These recycled resolutions are:

1. Quit smoking (Or only smoke when I drink. Cocktail anyone?)
2. Lose ____ pounds (This year we are in the double double digits.)
3. Stop complaining so much (But it’s so hard!)
4. Eat healthier (These cookies are organic.)
5. Write more (Why not? No one reads this crap anyway.)

Usually I start the New Year off by attacking these resolutions with gusto for at least two days before I get bored and forget about them until March, but something about 2009 left a bad taste in my mouth and I’m not ready to face another year of the same resolutions. When I thought about changing my resolutions I was put off by the thought of anything coming before these five main goals, which I’ve become attached to over the years. Still, it’s like I keep hitting the snooze button on 2010. At this point, February is looking like a much better time to start working towards having Jenny McCarthy’s body by bathing suit season. But then I thought, “I can’t start on my New Year’s resolutions while people still have their Christmas lights up!” and because I live in Kansas City, this means I won’t get started on my resolutions until mid-March, maybe April (people really like their Christmas decorations here). But if I manage to accomplish one of those five goals this year, does it really matter when I start trying? Besides, January is the coldest, most depressing, uneventful month of the year and it’s hilarious to think I’m going to accomplish anything while I wait out this misery from the comfort of my couch.

For me, resolutions are like empty boxes wrapped in beautiful paper artfully adorned with ribbons and bows—meaningless, but nice as decoration. I won't be fooled into self-improvement this year just to set unreasonable expectations for myself and wallow in the disappointment of inevitable failure. So, to media targeting my guilt and feelings of inadequacy at the start of the New Year: Stop bombarding me with your resolution suggestions, top tens, anecdotes, advice and try reporting on something relevant, like how to shovel a driveway with a fork when everyone is sold out of snow shovels.

Maybe I’ll jump on the resolution bandwagon in June when everyone has given up hope and canceled their gym memberships, but for now I plan to focus on not bettering myself until I’m ready. So goodbye to 2009, I’m off like an intern’s blue dress and onto 2010.

Notice of Eviction

2010-01-03T16:37:00.004-06:00

Dear Mice Living in My House,

I wanted to write you this letter to see if we might be able to reach an agreement regarding your stay in my house.

We have never met, but I’m almost certain I do not like you. Based on the few occasions in which you’ve been spotted, it has come to my attention that you exhibit none of the qualities I require for mouse tenants. For example, none of you are anything like the mice in Cinderella—you don’t sing, dance, make dresses, act as my confidant or turn into ponies to pull my pumpkin carriage. Additionally, you are not cute, cuddly or brave, and, again, you cannot sing, which tells me you’re nothing like Fievel, my second favorite mouse character (the mice in Cinderella being number one). You also do not have big round ears that I want to wear as a hat or cute, high-pitched voices, and you don’t have awesome friends like Donald Duck and Goofy, which means you’ve completely failed to be anything like Mickey and Mini Mouse.

Based on the top tier of my requirements, you are all complete disappointments; however, this is not to say you wouldn’t be welcomed in my home because few people, I mean, few mice meet all of the top requirements. Let us move on to the second, far more attainable, tier and see how you measure up. We will begin by acknowledging the fact that you’re not rats. This is a positive, but your lack of secrets and someone named Mrs. Frisby is not, meaning you’re nothing like your brethren in The Secret Rats of NIMH. To further support that point, you’re all cowards, constantly scattering from sight so that I’m left tormented by your sounds and questioning my sanity. Since I’m fairly certain most of you have set up shop under the refrigerator where you are living fat, happy lives, I assume none of you are anything like the brave mice in “The Rescuers,” my next favorite group of mice characters. Lastly, I do not have a cat, I have a slow-brained dog with A.D.D., which means you can’t be like Jerry, who is cute, adorable, funny and smart.

Now that we’ve established your failure to meet the criteria in the second tier as set forth in my requirements for mouse tenants, we can move on to evaluating your performance in the third tier. Your performance in the third tier matters very little as I’ve pretty much already decided I want to kill you, so this part is really just a formality. I've already noted that you're not rats and since I'm very aware of your presence, you obviously don’t have any ninja skills, meaning you have nothing in common with Master Splinter, which tells me you would be terrible at protecting me from danger. Next, I don’t see capes, or any other superhero gear hiding in the closet and none of you can fly, so you’re clearly nothing like Mighty Mouse. And finally, judging from your blatant, taunting strolls from behind the television and into the vents, I do not believe that any of you have the "shy, pleasant manner of a mouse" such as one Stuart Little.

Since you have failed to meet all of the requirements in my three tiers of acceptable qualities found in mice tenants, it is only natural for me to assume that you also have nothing in common with the Dormouse from Alice in Wonderland, Despereaux from The Tale of Despereaux, or Chuck E. Cheese.

Based on this thorough evaluation, it is my unfortunate duty to inform you that you are no longer welcome in my home, yes, that’s right, not even in the basement. Your eviction will take place immediately and you will be given one week from today, that is seven days, to evacuate. Failure to evict within the allotted time will result in your forceful removal from the premises, which may or may not be fatal. It is not the wishes of the establishment to inflict harm on you or your belongings; however, we did go to Home Depot, and, well, we’re just saying, you’re totally screwed if you don’t leave on your own because some of us didn’t see the point in providing you with a proper eviction notice before, you know, “taking care of you” (you’re lucky I believe in fair housing and equal opportunity, even for disgusting rodents).

I urge you to comply with this invitation to leave peacefully. I would also encourage you to appeal this eviction notice, but lacking all of the important anthropomorphic features noted above, I doubt it is even option. Should you have any questions, I suggest you learn to talk.

Best wishes for a bright future!

Sincerely,
The Human You’re Really Pissing Off

The Ugliest Christmas Sweater Party

2009-12-11T16:45:00.004-06:00

A Shorter Short Story

"An ugly Christmas sweater party is as original as depression in dentists," I said.

"My dad's a dentist," he said.

"Well, I'd rather go to the dentist than go to that stupid ugly Christmas sweater party," I said.

"My dad's not depressed," he said.

"Whatever," I said. "So can I borrow a sweater from your mom?"

"My mom's dead," he said.

"Well, shit. This is awkward,” I said, because I had real problems. “How am I going to find a Christmas sweater that's ugly enough?"

He pulled out his phone and started kneading out a text message.

"Are you looking up where to find ugly Christmas sweaters?" I asked.

"No," he said without looking up.

"I bet your dad is depressed. I mean, if your mom is dead and everything...and he's a dentist," I said.

He still didn't look up from his phone. It must be important, I thought, even though I couldn't imagine something more important.

"I can't go with you," he said.

"What?”

“Yeah, to the ugly Christmas sweater party. I can’t go anymore,” he said. His voice was calm, nonchalant.

“But…why not? You promised!"

"Sorry, something came up," he said, tapping away again.

"All of a sudden? Like what?"

Before he could answer me his phone started vibrating with an incoming call and a familiar jingle played. Did he really have “Little Drummer Boy” as his ring tone? Registering my disapproval, he looked at me with hard yellow eyes shaped like splinters felt. When he answered his phone he held a stubby index finger up to my face. As I was trying to decipher whether that finger meant shut up or hold on, he walked away from me.

I went to the ugly Christmas sweater party alone. I wore all black, because that's what you do when things die.

Number 69

2009-12-01T20:29:00.009-06:00

A Shorter Short Story

“Mark, can you be a dear and tell me what cartridges you’re using?” Eleanor asked, shifting around the perimeter of Mark’s cubical. Eleanor was old, too old to be working, according to Mark.

“What cartridges? You mean printer cartridges?” Mark asked. Eleanor rolled her eyes and jutted out one hip in a way that would have been considered sassy in her time, half a century before Mark’s time.

“Well of course, silly. What else would I be talking about?” she said. Mark wondered if she was flirting with him.

Mark knew what cartridges he was using but he didn’t want to tell Eleanor. It was his second day on the job and he could sense his coworkers listening, their ears straining against the silence and stretching over the tops of their cubicles.

“Uh, well, I—um—I-I’m not sure I need more—I just—” Mark was uncomfortable with his immaturity, that was the problem, he thought—to most people it was just a number.

Eleanor was standing behind him attempting to open his printer. “Here—let me take a look. I’m pretty sure you have 69," she said. "Oh dear, I don’t have my glasses, can you see that? Does it say 69? Without my glasses 9's and 6's always look the same to me!” Eleanor grabbed a pen and a notepad, ready to jot down his answer.

“Yes, 69.” Mark said, his voice squeaking on the nine. He looked away hoping to hide his flushed face.

“Pardon?” Eleanor looked at him, her face was like a map with deep lines leading to a treasure chest of more eager and antagonizing expressions. Mark wondered if this was a joke, a ritualistic hazing all his coworkers had undergone and now it was his turn to endure the awkward moment. Or, maybe, Eleanor really was flirting with him—he thought she had been overly friendly since he started, two days ago.

“I said 69! I’m using 69 printer cartridges!” Mark said in one shrill, anxious breath.

“Okay, good. Thank you. See that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Eleanor patted Mark on the shoulder. “So, you’re doing 69,” she said, writing it on her notepad. “Okay, I’ll let you have 69 for now but you might have to switch to another printer if 69 is on back order. I don’t know why—it’s just the darndest thing—but 69 is popular so it’s hardly ever in stock,” she paused for a moment, staring at her notepad while Mark sank deeper into his chair, willing the image a naked Eleanor out of his head. “Well, I suppose I need to find out if anyone else is doing 69 with you...” Eleanor looked around for a moment as if considering her next victim before walking back to the reception desk.

How To NOT Do Laundry

2009-11-22T22:35:00.002-06:00

Assess your laundry basket: Is it overflowing onto the floor? Is it almost too heavy to carry (i.e., does it weigh eleventybillion pounds)? No – it’s not laundry time yet. Yes – it’s laundry time.
Carry laundry basket to the washer and dryer. Set it down on top of one of these machines (unless you’re fancy and have special cool machines, in which case, go to hell, I mean, set it on the ground) and walk away for several hours and/or days.
Are you on your second or more day of wearing dirty underwear? No – meh, another day won’t kill you. Yes – proceed to step #4.
Return to abandoned basket in laundry area. Open the lid of the washer and find clothes already in there from a load you started a couple weeks ago. Decide you’ll just go commando.
After a day of realizing how uncomfortable it is to go commando – open washer lid and remove the old, formerly wet but now hard, moldy clothes.
Discover that the dryer is also still full from another previous load. At this point you should let out a scream of anguish and frustration about how unfair life is. Then pile the wet laundry from the washer on top of closest open area (e.g., top of the dryer).
Start grabbing items out of the dirty laundry basket and put them in the washer. Put as much as you possibly can in the washer – you should need to sit on the lid in order to make it close. (Do not bother separating items by color as this will take more time away from your precious non-laundry time.)
Wash on whatever setting matches your mood. (I like the notch somewhere between Regular and Permanent Press, but I fluctuate between Warm/Cold and Cold/Cold.)
Move on to something else and immediately forget that you started about laundry.
Wake up the next morning to find that you still don’t have underwear. Retrieve a wet pair from the washer and throw them in the dryer. Wait 10 to 20 minutes.
Realize that said underwear is now lost in an overstuffed dryer. Pull everything out of the dryer and onto the floor, preferably next to the pile of dried dog barf and mud. Find underwear stuck inside a pair of pants. Leave other dry clothes on the floor because you do not have time to deal with laundry right now.
Return after a stressful workday and decide tonight will be the night you finish your laundry. For real.
Gather dry laundry from floor. Spend several seconds analyzing proximity of dog barf and mud; smell the clothes. Do they smell clean? Yes – they are clean. No – dude, they are clean enough.
Toss dry clothes into laundry basket. Take basket full of dry, clean-ish clothes and put it on top of your bed, which will surely force you to fold them before going to sleep.
Remove newly washed clothes and throw them in the dryer. Again, pick a setting that corresponds with you present mood. (I tend to prefer Mostly Dry/Medium Heat/Fluff.)
Decide the old, wet clothes piled on top of the dryer now need to be rewashed because Febreeze won’t cover up that mold smell (trust me). See step #7.
Now you’re tired, and despite the buzzer alerting you every 15 minutes that a load of laundry has completed its cycle, you’ve already decided that tomorrow will be the day you finish your laundry. For real. (This also means you can skip folding the basket of clean-ish clothes on the bed and just put it on the ground next to your closet.)
Wake up the following morning and retrieve clothing as necessary from the dryer. Repeat for 3 to 4 days.
When roommate/spouse tells you they need to do their laundry and they start asking you annoying, inconsiderate questions like, “Do you know when you’ll be done with the washer and dryer?” tell them you’re “Right on top of that, Rose!” even if you’re not really on top of it.
At some point during the next couple of days, acknowledge your laundry situation. Set the dryer to 30 minutes/Tumble Press. Walk away. This will give you enough time to completely forget about doing laundry for another week.
Do not return to laundry area again until you have acquired another loads-worth of dirty laundry. Realize that you’ve been putting your dirty clothes in the basket of unfolded clean-ish clothes, which you never folded after removing from dryer two-plus weeks ago.
Start over at #1 and repeat steps as necessary. (Alternative: wait for your roommate/spouse to remove your clothes, fold them for you and place them in your room.)

Words of Wisdom, or Lies Our Parents Told Us

2009-11-17T20:40:00.012-06:00

1. “Your face will stick that way.”
Uh, no it won’t. I’ve made plenty of awesome faces before and I have not found a way to make my face stick in any of those positions. This was one of those parentisms that I heard at least once a day as a child. I was the kid who spent hours contorting her face and crossing her eyes in various unnatural ways to impress my friends and serve as entertainment during my parents’ dinner parties. Although it took me many years, I have finally perfected the one eye crossed look, so maybe “your face will stick that way” isn’t entirely untrue.

2. “The Boogieman isn’t real.”
Yes, he is. He lives in the dark corners of all my fears and anxieties, and one of these days he is going to pop out of the slightly ajar closet in my room and eat my toes.

3. “Only boring people are bored.”
I’m bored right now. Am I boring? Don’t answer that. When we were growing up, my sister and I had a babysitter named Faye who used to say this to us. Whenever I approached her with those fateful three words, “I am bored,” her answer was always the same, “Well get un-bored! Only boring people are bored!” Boring people might be bored a lot, but you know what? Super interesting and awesome people are bored a lot too because super interesting and awesome shit just doesn’t happen regularly enough to keep their attention. Ha, so there! Your move, babysitter, your move.

4. “Someday, you could be President!”
It’s 1992, an election year, and I am eight years old. One day, instead of going outside for recess, I stayed inside to make friendship bracelets (for my friends who were outside playing during recess, I guess?) and I started asking my 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Englebright, about the presidents. I wanted to know specifics—what kind of toys do presidents like, do they watch TV, what are their favorite colors, do they carry guns or ninja swords? As my teacher patiently answered all of my questions, she proceeded to tell me that just about anyone could be President, “You could even be the first female President,” she said. I remember thinking I must be infinitely special for her to tell me this until the next day when she decided to incorporate a lesson plan about Presidents (undoubtedly spurred by my questioning) and told the entire class, “Someday, one of you, any of you, could be President!” Seriously? Anyone? I was dejected. As I grew older I realized that my teacher was partially right, just about any asshat could end up as the President.

4a. “You can be anything you want to be.”
I made it pretty far believing that this was true, and I’m sure this belief is directly related to why I still believe I'll one day be a ("real") writer, but that’s not the point here. Before I wanted to be a writer I wanted to be a veterinarian, before that I wanted to be a singer, before that I wanted to an actress, before that it was a Ninja Turtle, and before that it was a pony. I truly believed I could be all or any of those things. I wonder what my parents would have said if I came home and told them I wanted to be a pterodactyl, or a bulldozer, or…a “shovel”?

5. “Don’t go outside with wet hair.”
This is an old wives’ tale that I will forever blame for my perpetually dry hair. But guess what? Scientists discovered that, like most wives’ tales, this one was totally made up. These days, if I leave the house with dry hair, it’s abnormal. I see wet hair almost as a courtesy, like, “Hey, just wanted to share with you the evidence of my shower this morning. I realize my cleanliness, or lack there of, might be an issue some days, but not today!”

6. “_____ are just jealous of you!”
That group of 7th grade girls who spent a week putting fake love notes from the cutest, most popular boy in school in my locker did not do it because they were jealous of me. And I didn’t fail to get invited to the party of the year because the hosts were jealous of me. And I didn’t get laid off and spend six months searching for a job because someone was jealous of me. Seriously, thank god I was born with low self-esteem because otherwise I might be walking around acting like another Kardashian.

7. “Money can’t buy you happiness.”
I don’t know about you, but a mansion on the beach with a live-in gourmet cook and masseuse, a collector’s library of first edition books, and a little person with an Italian accent who brings me a frozen cocktail with one of those tiny umbrellas whenever I blow into a conch shell would make me pretty damn happy. Don’t get deep with me about this; complicating happiness with silly things like morals is so unnecessary. So, let’s be real: Mansion + beach + cook + masseuse + books + little person + tiny umbrellas = Happiness. You might call that shallow and materialistic, but I call it blissfully content — toe-may-toe, to-my-toe.

8. Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny and The Tooth Fairy
A part of my childhood ended when I suddenly I realized that all of these gift-bearing creatures looked a lot like my dad. Nevertheless, I can’t wait to have kids so that I can endlessly threaten them with, “If you don’t go to bed, Santa Claus won’t bring you any presents,” even if it’s May. The Easter Bunny was always confusing to me because, why would a human-sized rabbit come to your house and hide eggs? As long as candy was involved, I didn’t question anything – but for the record, I always knew the Easter Bunny was a sham. (And, okay, so what if I still sort of believe in the Tooth Fairy?)

9. “Boys only want one thing.”
My dad used to say this to me during my teen years. “Now, remember, boys only want one thing, and I know this because I was once a boy too, even though that’s hard to believe now, I was, so I know. [Awkward pause.] Just don’t be stupid, okay?” While it didn’t take me long to figure out what that one thing was for sure, I think this statement is only half true. Now that I live with a boy, I mean, man, I’m pretty sure that there could be more than one thing that they want…I’ll let you know when I figure it out.

10. “Going to college will make you a better decision maker.”
Bullshit. Going to college did not make me a better decision maker. The only thing I learned in college was how to make really bad decisions, barely avoid the repercussions and then do exactly the same thing again the next weekend. Of course, in a really roundabout way, perhaps by learning to make bad decisions well, I did become a better overall decision maker. However, I doubt this is what my high school counselor meant while he was convincing us all to spend four years drunk, I mean, go to college.

12. “I promise, it won’t hurt.”
Whenever someone says, “I promise it won’t hurt,” just know that whatever it is will hurt like shit.

13. “You’ll grow out of this phase.”
Oh really? Well I am about to enter my 13th year of what a school nurse once referred to as my “awkward phase,” so this is obviously a lie. I’m guessing there are some things we may never grow out of, or, in my case, awkwardness is more of an unfortunate characteristic as opposed to a phase.

14. Almost anything said, seen or practiced in Sex Education classes.
No, a bird doesn’t bring me my period, and yes, I am pissed about it. Also, forcing us to practice putting condoms on bananas did nothing but provide us with unrealistic expectations, which would be met with massive disappointment later in life. Am I right? Of course I am.

15. “These are the best years of your life.”
This phrase was uttered by almost every adult I knew at one point during the course of my high school experience. I know they were telling me to cherish my youth, but the only thing I ever thought was, “Really? These are the best years of my life? Really? Great, I guess I’ll just quit now, while I’m apparently ahead, because if life doesn’t get any better than field parties and 6 a.m. detention for chewing gum in the halls, then I don’t care to go on.” I can safely say that my high school years were not the best years of my life and I doubt I will ever look back and feel differently.

What lies did you hear growing up? Tell me about them in the comments. Please. I'm not ashamed to admit that I live for comments - so don't hold back.

Afterlife Insurance (Short Story/Fiction)

2009-11-11T20:14:00.001-06:00

Woman Causes Fatal Accident – Sweaty Feet To Blame

That was the headline of the article that ran in the newspaper the day after my death.

Yes, I’m dead.

How, then, am I talking to you? I’m not sure. I guess you’ll have to die to find out, but I wouldn’t recommend it because so far, death is boring and unfair.

Now you ask, what happened? I’ll tell you.

It was a normal day and I was walking home from work in the most uncomfortable shoes. Actually, the shoes that caused my death weren’t uncomfortable so much as constricting, and after a full day of sitting in these shoes I realized that my feet were suffocating.

It’s true that Plantar Hyperhidrosis, or sweaty feet disorder, runs in my family; however, I had not been diagnosed mainly because I have dainty, adorable feet which make it impossible to believe that I could ever suffer from such a thing. Besides, my foot sweat always smelled good, kind of like a strange, but delicious combination of nutmeg and dill.

I briefly remember thinking I should remove my shoes and walk barefoot because my feet were slipping and sliding like clumsy fat ladies on ice. What happened is somewhat unclear, because death will do that to you, but the next thing I remember is meeting with a surly insurance representative. Apparently this is the first thing that happens to you when you die—you meet with an insurance rep who tells you the details of your death and confirms your pre-existing conditions before allowing you into the afterlife.

“What-what happened? Where am I?” I asked.

A middle-aged woman in a beige, polyester suit, sitting behind a desk looked up from the newspaper she was reading.

“You’re in the pre-afterlife phase, you won’t even remember this, so that’s all you need to know for now. Let’s see…hold on while I get your file,” the insurance rep said. She was surrounded by overstuffed filing cabinets and stacks of paper covered the surface of her entire desk. “Aha! Here it is…Okay, apparently you were walking on the sidewalk when you bent down to remove your shoes and wipe your feet off in the grass and—Ewww!”

“Ew? Oh! No, no, it sounds grosser than it is. You see, Plantar Hyperhidrosis runs in my family and—”

“Oh really? I see...Please hold while I update your pre-existing conditions chart.”

“My what?” I asked.

The insurance rep pulled some papers out of a manila envelope and held it over the paper so that I couldn’t see whatever she was scribbling down.

“Don’t worry about it. Look, I literally have a busload of people coming in for their appointment in about ten minutes. Do you want to know how you died or not?”

“Yes, of course, tell me everything,” I said.

She turned back to my file and rifled through the contents before pulling a newspaper out.

“All right, where was I…okay, it says here you put your sweaty—ugh, god, I’m sorry but that’s just really gross,” she said with an exaggerated gag. “Anyway, you put your sweaty shoes back on and continued walking but you slipped, because of your sweaty feet, and fell into a lane of oncoming traffic.”

“So a car hit me?”

“Um, no, actually, a bus hit you.”

“Oh my god.”

“Yep, pronounced dead at the scene.”

“Was anyone else hurt?”

“Look honey, I’m really not supposed to get too far into the details, but you seem sweet, despite your sweaty feet—”

“Excuse me! But you’re being extremely unprofessional here. Please stop talking about my sweaty feet.” I was about to put my feet on her desk so she could smell them and realize they weren’t that gross.

“Right, of course—ha! Where are my manners? Yes, of course, other people were hurt. After the bus driver hit you, he swerved into another lane and a trailer hit him head-on. Everyone on the bus died—not that many, only about six people—but, like I said, they are going to be here any minute now, so…”

“So my sweaty feet killed not only me, but other people too?”

“Yes. Look, sweetie, don’t beat yourself up over it. After you fill out this paperwork you won’t remember any of this and you can go on to whatever your destiny is or wherever your path leads you, your fate, your—ahem, your ‘God’—whatever you believe.”

The insurance rep handed me a stack of paperwork as thick as the Bible.

“So, then, does this mean you’re dead too?” I asked.

“Yep.”

“How did—”

“Cancer.”

“Why are you—”

“Why am I here talking to you about afterlife insurance instead of enjoying some kind of paradise or heaven like they show in the movies? Ha! God lord, you’re all the same…listen, sugar, it doesn’t work like that.”

“Well, what am I supposed to—”

“Ah, stop! How could you possibly have more questions? Go fill out your paperwork. That’s all you’re supposed to do. That takes you to your next step. Usually, if you don’t have too many pre-existing conditions, you move on to your afterlife right away.”

“Well, I don’t think I have any—”

“Let’s see. Whoopsies! Looks like you do have quit a few, actually. Well, you might have a bit of a wait period, but nothing too extreme—not like eternity! Hahaha!” She had a wild laugh, and I imagined that’s what a hyena might sound like, but I can’t be certain because I didn’t live long enough to ever hear a hyena laugh.

“What does it say? I didn’t think I had any pre-existing conditions!”

“The good news is that you had insurance—crappy insurance—but you had insurance, which means your afterlife won’t be spent paying off the debt you acquired like a certain "Man in the Mirror." Yeah, I hope you didn't like his music because I'll tell you right now that you won't be hearing much of it in the afterlife, sham on! Ha-ha!"

"Uh, okay...and the bad news?" I asked.

"What was I saying...oh, right, the bad news, all right. So the bad news is that your pre-existing conditions, like your sweaty foot disease and the fact that you’re a woman, will make it harder for you to start your afterlife right away, and you probably won’t be able to get new insurance…”

“What? New insurance? I’m dead! Why would I need insurance now?”

She looked at me and sighed, as if to say, I’m sorry you’re too stupid to get this but that’s not my problem.

“Oh honey, the private insurance companies have been collecting from the dead since the early nineties when they realized they’d have to deal with health care reform eventually. And now that reform is actually, well, almost happening, they’ve become even more strict about enforcing afterlife insurance.”

“But-but…I don’t have any money, I-I don’t have anything,” I said.

“Hahaha! Oh, you are silly! Of course you don’t have anything, you don’t need anything here—you’re dead, honey! Money doesn’t have meaning in the afterlife, so the insurance companies use time as currency—they take a small fraction of your afterlife, which you haven’t been to yet, as payment for the afterlife insurance. Ugh, you know what? I’ve said too much. Look, sweetheart, it’s complicated, and I don’t have time to explain it all to you now, but basically the dead have to have insurance in order to get to their afterlife, which will happen as soon as you fill out your paperwork and your application is processed. But, this is all explained, in detail, in your paperwork,” she said, slamming my file closed. “I’m sorry, but I really must go because my next appointment is here.”

Suddenly everything was dark, but it didn’t feel dark—it just felt like nothing. There was the sound of a slamming door and when I opened my eyes, which I didn’t know were closed, I was in an all white room with the same florescent lighting as the insurance rep’s office. For a moment I thought it was some kind of heaven, but there was a long table with one chair and in the center of the table was my bible of paperwork and two pens.

I don’t know how long I’ve been here but I know it’s been at least several days in the living world. At one point a loud, booming voice from above told me nothing would happen until the paperwork was finished—I thought it was God until I realized there was an intercom system. I’ve been testing things out here. Sometimes I run full speed into a wall, or I pinch myself until I think I can almost feel something but I never really do. I used the pens to draw a picture of mountains on the wall, it reminded me of pictures I've seen of Switzerland. As I was putting the finishing touches on my mural, I turned away for just a second and when I looked back the mural was gone; it just disappeared.

Eventually a newspaper appeared on the table. It was dated November 10, 2009—the day after I died. The front page was splattered with headlines about health care reform, and just when I was feeling grateful for something to read I noticed a tiny Post-It sticking out from the center section of the paper. The Post-It read: This is real. You are dead. Finish your paperwork. Afterlife is waiting. It was stuck on top of my obituary.

They (whoever they are) thought I was in denial but I know I have to be dead because my feet aren’t sweating, and they don’t smell like nutmeg and dill anymore—they smell like nothing like everything else.

I can’t explain why I can’t do the paperwork because I don’t really know. But I do know someone is watching me, waiting for me to hurry up and be done, I feel nothing but the presence of something or someone—I can sense frustration. I suppose I like to think of it as my own personal form of protest, like Kafka’s “A Hunger Artist” only different. By refusing to complete the paperwork I’m denying the process completion, I’m debasing the system. I could be a hero, I think. But then I remember, dead people don’t become heroes.

Window Watching

2009-11-01T21:49:00.003-06:00

Two years ago I lived in a tiny one-bedroom apartment on the Plaza. It was my first brush with "city living." My desk was set up in what the leasing office referred to as a "sun room" and it faced out towards Brush Creek. Many days were spent sitting at my desk, watching people and the traffic on Ward Parkway. Below is a brief (revised) excerpt from something I wrote during this time. I’m not sure how to classify it, so let’s just call it true-ish fiction.

Looking out this window is like looking into a glass display case at a department store. You see things you might want, consider needing, but can’t bring yourself to investigate further. Cars race side by side, honking out their frustration. I know they just need to be heard by someone. I hear you, I say. But no one listens. I see possibilities, things I want to know about, but my interest is lost in the effort it takes to get outside.

It is a big bay window, though there isn't a bay to speak of, this being a landlocked state. I do have a river in view but it’s more of a polluted creek. Sometimes I imagine myself gazing out of this window onto a different scene, but I never go to the trouble of envisioning a view. No, I prefer to imagine myself imagining. There's less disappointment that way.

I hear other city noises from this window. Sirens from ambulances, fire trucks and police cars whip through the air and the brief moments of silence are interrupted with blaring car alarms. I don’t mind the noises. I’m curious about the carnage. Once, there was a police car in the middle of the street, blocking traffic both ways. The officer was bent over examining the pavement. I watched the scene unfold as if it was a movie and my window was the screen. The officer picked up a white trash bag that had been abandoned, haphazardly left to rest on the streaming yellow lines. From where I sat, a dark, weighty object appeared to be inside the plastic bag. A lost appendage, suicidal squirrel, contaminated clothing—what was inside? The officer wore gloves that made him look guilty even though I knew it was for a purpose: fingerprints or DNA, or maybe the bag held a toxic material that would burn the skin of anyone who touched it. Holding the plastic bag away from his body, the officer dropped it into his trunk. When he drove away traffic flooded as if nothing ever happened.

There was another time, late at night, when I saw a couple arguing from my window. I turned off all the lights so I wouldn’t be seen, grabbed a bag of chips and pulled up the blinds. It was cold outside and I watched their words freeze in the air until the space between them seemed dense and impenetrable. Even I could see from my window five stories above that she was taller than him by a head. I recognized the man as the guy from the sixth floor who was always sweaty and carrying a gym bag (I called him cranky workout guy), but the woman was unfamiliar to me. I wondered if they were arguing because she was so tall, or maybe it was because he was so short, or maybe it was because they loved each other, once. The man sat on the building's designated bench holding his head in his hands as the woman climbed into a car that seemed too small to carry all of her rage. I kept watching, waiting for the man to move. When I woke up it was morning. They were both gone.

I also like watching bathrobe lady. I don’t know bathrobe lady’s name, but I imagine it to be something like Ethel or Marge. When the weather isn’t bad, she wears a housedress and carries her cats outside like two footballs, one under each arm. She sits on the bench, smoking skinny cigarettes and petting her cats. When she walks through the halls inside, she hums a tune without a melody like she wants to announce her presence to those trying to ignore her. The only interaction I've ever had with bathrobe lady happened as I was standing outside, trying to light a cigarette and she was walking inside. When she saw me struggling she put one cat down, holding it still between her feet and said, "This will kill you when you get old," while cupping her hand around my lighter to help block the wind.

And then there was Gene. I called him Walker Texas Drunkard, which turned out to be a pretty accurate nickname, and I watched from my window as people pitied him and held doors. Gene was the middle-aged drunk with a walker who fumbled his way in and out of the building while yelling obscenities at the cab drivers that took him everywhere he went, which appeared to be mostly bars and liquor stores. We met in the elevator once, he was carrying a heavy white plastic bag; we were both going down. He talked about loneliness nonchalantly and smelled like cauliflower and malt liquor. I was never curious enough to ask why a man his age was using a walker, but as I held his arm and guided him down the stairs he told me a botched surgical procedure, lots of pain pills and too many bottles of Scotch were to blame. He slurred, spit, stumbled and swayed as I tried to steady him in a way his walker couldn’t. We talked briefly about his broadcast career and his glory days. I asked questions to avoid the awkward acknowledgment of his blatant instability and he gave me sad answers with a smile. As I sat Gene down on the bench I asked if he was going to be okay and he looked at me and laughed. I asked again, this time with more purpose, if he was sure he was going to be okay—all I needed was the peace of mind so I could leave him and not feel bad. But he saw right through me; I was just like everyone else. Then he heaved his plastic bag onto his lap and said, “Thank you, Kim. I’ll be just fine right here.”

I know all of the people who live in the building from my window. I know when they go grocery shopping, I know their visitors, I know their parking spots and how often they leave and come back. I developed a story for each of them and I don’t want to spoil it by learning the truth. For the most part I keep my communications to quick head nods and forced smiles to discourage any worthwhile interaction. I go around knowing as much as I want to know. I tell myself it’s better this way as I sit at my window and wait, I'm always waiting now, for something interesting to watch.

I'm Super Busy and Important...

2009-10-26T23:43:00.000-05:00

This title is true if it is opposite day, which it is not.

I know that the 25 people following this blog, and the three people who actually read it, have been tossing and turning because I have been seemingly absent from my blog for quite awhile now.

It's been 20 days. That's almost three weeks.

Given these numbers, I understand why you might be mad at me, why you might decide to give up on this blog, and why you might want to send me hate mail (I've never received hate mail before, but it seems like something important people tend to get - so, naturally, I'm expecting some very soon.). But before you start fashioning grammatically incorrect protest signs about Quinnterruption, please know that I have every intention to turn this blog around. No, it will not be a 'glob', but it will be more regular, kind of like a bowel movement, only prettier, and less...er, um...smelly.

This new promise of regularity should be taken as seriously as all of my other promises, which I have upheld completely to not at all. So, if you gave up on me, please, come back. If you feel as though I no longer deserve your loyalty as a reader, then I urge you to reconsider your obviously stupid feeling. You can't quit me. You can try, but you won't be able to because that will just make you a quitter at quitting and nobody likes a quitting quitter.

In an effort to suck empathy from you via distraction, I'm sharing a few of the things that have been occupying my productive time over the last 20 days:

1. By browsing this site, I've become an expert in the field of child psychological by identifying why some people (read: serial killers) grow up to hate their parents:

2. I've been attempting to contact my long-lost group of BFFs after finding this picture of our last reunion:
Needless to say, we had a falling out over what constituted as "liquor." Of course, it might have also had something to do with the fact that I was always drunk - but, hey, hindsight is 20/20, am I right?

3. As usual, I'm always busy learning about how to call on magical unicorn powers:

4. This sentence: "My passion for you grows like mold: unavoidable due to exposure and neglect."

5. I've been rejoicing over the fact that someone has finally sought revenge on Subway's "Five. Five Dollar. Five Dollar Foot Long." campaign from hell. (Whether it was intentional or not hardly matters.)

6. I'm also very busy increasing my hair-esteem on daily basis:

7. I can't stop listening to people sing the dirty words I type. So neato! (Beware: You may lose hours of your life to this website.)

8. Also cutting into my productive time: Regularly giving into my very large Etsy obsession.

9. Okay, I'll admit it - my latest career kick has also contributed to my lack of posts. Here's the deal: I think I should get a second job as an official wedding guest. Oh come on, not an escort - get your mind out of the gutter! - I'm talking about something I could actually make money doing, like, entertainment in the form of unintentional comedic relief. I've attended nearly a dozen weddings this year and managed to embarrass myself in one way or another at all of them. This usually works in the favor of the bride and groom (I'm like the free side-show circus that came with the band). But last weekend a wedding in Santa Fe proved once again that yes, I can injure myself by tripping on flat surfaces and red wine does in fact stain white wedding dresses. But seriously, most of the time, I'm a big hit at weddings - invite me to yours and I promise I won't bring a gift, but I will embarrass myself for the sake of your entertainment.

10. My camera broke and it wasn't my fault. WIN!

11. I had to stop everything I was doing and read this beautiful insomniac rant.

12. If you want to know the real reason why I haven't blogged, see #13.

13. Made you look. See #14.

14. Ugh. I guess you really want to know. Fine. Let's just say someone built a damn in my writing brain and broke my funny bone. I'm still in the ICU, but the doctors have high hopes and expect me to fully recover in no time, which is really good news considering how I've had my head up my ass for three weeks.

There you have it. All 14 excuses, I mean, valid reasons, for my blogony. I should be a politician; or maybe I should just be David Letterman. Anyway, I hope you'll understand, and stay tuned for more Quinnterruptions.

Creative Advice

2009-10-06T22:00:00.001-05:00

If you live and work as a "creative" then you've likely been the recipient of often well-intended but mostly empty and unhelpful advice. This advice usually comes at the expense of yet another creative meltdown where you look at your work and wonder why the hell you keep trying. Well, we all know why we keep trying—because a.) we can't help it, and b.) it feels unnatural to do anything else. It's not because someone once told you to "never give up" or to “try harder.” It's because every time you think about giving up and resigning yourself to a future of desk jobs where you crunch numbers and prepare TPS Reports, you manage to feign a streak of creative inspiration that propels you out of the meltdown and into temporary awesomeness (at least until your next meltdown).

Successful people love to give advice. Hell, I love to give advice and I’m not even successful (but oh boy, I’ve got a few pointers that will really make a difference when you make your next set of macramé pot holders!). We all go through phases in our own lives where “GIVE ME ADVICE” seems to be tattooed on our foreheads. During the time that I was unemployed this year (ahem, most of this year), I heard a lot of advice. Some of the advice I got was helpful like, “if duct tape won’t fix it, it is definitely broken,” and, “don’t bite the hand that feeds you, even if they insist on feeding you shit.” It was the vague, general and ultimately shallow advice that seemed to eat away at my soul everyday—things like, "be yourself - that's enough," or, "you have to believe in yourself, and then your career will take off."

You know what?

Shut the hell up.

I’m not giving up because I’ve already made it this far, I can’t avoid being myself (although sometimes I wish I could), and I believe in myself enough to know that you are full of shit.

So how about that?

What you got now?

Yeah…that’s what I thought—don’t you bring that weak Chicken Soup for the Soul shit ‘round here no more!

(Sorry, my outbursts are unpredictable lately.)

Anyway, being the obviously harsh judge of friendly advice that I am, I came across this golden nugget of Ira Glass advice that made me heave a sigh of relief, and for a moment, allowed me to forgive myself for all of the mediocre work I seem to be vomiting out on an uncomfortably regular basis. I’m sure some of you have seen this before, or heard it, but the message is one we all need to be reminded of while calm and sane (i.e., before the regularly scheduled meltdowns occur).

“It takes a while; it’s going to take you awhile; it’s normal to take awhile. You just have to fight your way through that, okay? You will be fierce. You will be a warrior. And you will make things that aren’t as good as you know in your heart that you want them to be, but you just [have to keep] making one after another…”

Alright, now I'm going to go write a whole bunch of crap that—if I'm lucky—will make me cringe when I look back at it years from now.

Thanks, Ira.

Bathroom Politics

2009-09-28T22:01:00.004-05:00

There is a certain amount of decorum expected when you walk into a ladies’ room, perhaps only because it says “Ladies Room” on the door, which seems to establish an atmosphere where ladylike behavior is expected. Based on my experience, I can only assume that the men’s room is an entirely different situation. Generally, I imagine groups of men peeing their names on the wall while others stand around the urinal as if it’s a magical fountain, talking about sports, plucking nose hairs, adjusting themselves, high-fiving each other, exchanging germs and doing other male-tastic things. I don’t get the feeling that there’s any unspoken sense of etiquette in a men’s room, other than to avoid looking left or right while “painting” your name on the wall. But in the ladies’ room, things are very different. For instance, we have stalls with locks—that’s our one option and there isn’t an alternative, such as an open trough, in which to relieve ourselves—and depending on the ladies’ room, sometimes there are little indulgences to be enjoyed, such as candles, Glade Plug-Ins, extra toilet paper, scented lotion and the seats are always down.

Of course, one of the drawbacks to this effort to maintain decorum in the ladies’ room is the propensity of passive aggressive behavior, which actualizes itself in the form of notes. There are notes on stall doors to tell you what to do with your feminine waste, notes above the toilet to remind you to ensure that all of your waste does in fact flush from sight, notes on the mirror to remind you to wash your hands, notes near the wash area to remind you to dispose of your paper towel in the appropriate receptacle, and notes on the door as you exit to remind you of your personal belongings in the event that you should be stupid enough to leave them in the bathroom. Despite always paying attention to the notes in every bathroom I’ve ever been in, I have never seen one as featured in Figure A below.

Figure A:

What kind of crazy pee-bandit instigated this type of note? When I read this, which is at least once every single day, I always think about the vague wording and how it’s strange that other women automatically know what this means while a man might look at it and think we were smearing poop on the walls. Basically, there’s a squatting sprinkle queen in my office building that is assaulting this one particular bathroom “DAILY! (sad face)” and what better way to encourage them to cease their pee-bandit ways than to post this handwritten note?

How many notes are in the men’s room? Probably none. Want to know why? Because they can pee standing up (incidentally, I’m amazed by how many things in life seem to come back to this one glaring disadvantage) and their tolerance for filth is exponentially higher in most cases. I know how women behave in a public restroom, and while I’ve experienced moments that left me genuinely disgusted and horrified, it’s a generally pleasant and polite atmosphere. However, I never really thought about what the men’s room must be like until I started sharing a bathroom with a man.

My boyfriend used to be responsible for cleaning the bathroom, I do my fair share of cleaning, but he was responsible for this one tiny room in our house because of his atrocious lack of ladylike behavior concerning the bathroom. I’ve come to realize that appropriate bathroom etiquette is an issue for most men, not just Steve, which only reconfirms my childhood belief that all boys are dirty, smelly dumbheads.

There is nothing worse than waking up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and dunking your ass in cold, dirty toilet water because the lid is up, and I think most women would agree with me on this specific type of unpleasantness. Steve and I have had many disagreements on this topic.

“If I have to lift the seat up, then why can’t you put it down?” Steve says.
“Because the seat and the lid should both always be down unless you are using the toilet!”
“But if men and women are equal, like you always say, then you should do your part in terms of lifting and lowering the lid of the toilet, right?”
“No! That’s not—no! This is a totally different issue. I’m not arguing about this anymore. Put the damn toilet seat down or I’m never making fried chicken for you ever again!”

When you share a bathroom with a man there is also the constant dusting of facial hair debris covering every surface, the dirty, discarded boxers and undershirts piled in the corner, once white bathmats are now beige because of carelessly muddy feet tracking dirt in, and don’t even get me started on replacing the empty roll of toilet paper with a full roll (not just setting it on top of the empty roll – this does not count). While my complaints are many, I never really considered the torture I was inflicting on the bathroom until the day the drain clogged.

“Um, so, I think there’s something wrong with the shower…” I said, drying my hair with a towel.
“What do you mean?” Steve said.
“Well, it just filled up with water while I was in there,” I said.
“The tub?”
“No, I was showering,” I said.
“Yeah, I get that, but the tub was filling up with water?” Steve said.
“Oh, yeah, the tub, like, it wasn’t draining,” I said, scrunching up my nose in a way that means I’m not dealing with it.
“Alright, I’ll fix it,” Steve said.

Steve grabbed some tools, went into the bathroom and closed the door. He had to close the door in order to keep the dog out—Bear likes to jump in the tub and lick the shampoo bottles (yes, we are really proud of how our dog is progressing)—but watching as he entered the bathroom with such conviction, tools in hand, ready to face the challenge, made it seem like he was embarking on a serious mission and the only thing missing was a plunger resting on his shoulder like a rifle. A few minutes later I could hear him.

“Oh my god—ugh! Sick! Ewww!” Then I heard the sound of draining water.
“Did you fix it?” I yelled from the couch. Steve walked out of the bathroom with his tools and into the kitchen.
“Uh, yeah.” He was washing his hands.
“What was the problem?”
“Well, I used an old pair of tweezers to reach down and clean out the drain and, yeah…I pulled out a bunch of hair and other shit I don’t know about.”
“Oh,” I said.
“So, it was really gross—it’s still in the trash if you want to see what I pulled out.”
“Ew, no way! Unless it was a beautiful baby unicorn or dinosaur artifacts, I’m not really interested,” I said.
“What do you mean ‘ew’? It’s your hair, your…stuff!”

After this event I began to realize that perhaps I contribute to dirtying the bathroom in a more subtle (er...ladylike?) way that I wasn’t aware of. I mean, it’s not like the glob of long, mangled blond hair that came out of our drain could have belonged to Steve. And I guess, maybe sometimes, I leave the counter (which isn’t really a counter, but rather a sink with a ledge) full of hair products and “other shit [he] doesn’t know about.” Okay, I will also admit to occasionally creating hair art on the shower walls, but only out of necessity and never out for fun. And sometimes I get a little sloppy with toothpaste, especially when I’m in a hurry (in my defense, the toothpaste usually ends up on me rather than caked on the sink).

Shortly after this drain discovery, in a moment of weakness, Steve caught me breaking my own rule of not immediately replacing the empty toilet paper roll. Yes, he caught me setting the new roll on top of the empty one, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen his eyes light up in the same way since. Now we share the duty of cleaning the bathroom, and I feel even more strongly that boys are, in fact, dirty, smelly dumbheads. As a result, I will sometimes leave a passive aggressive Post-It note on the mirror that is expertly disguised with loving wit and charm (and therefore harmless, and also surprisingly effective):

Hi honey!
The toilet is too gross to shit in.
Just FYI. K?
I love you SO much! :)
xoxoxxxxxxx
<3,
Me

WWYCD?

2009-09-14T21:52:00.005-05:00

My dad, never a man of few words, has several phrases that he keeps in his back pocket and likes to use at the most infuriating moments. One of these phrases is, “be the bigger person,” which I know I heard at least a million times growing up because he found a way to work it into almost every tear-filled, dramatic moment I presented him with.

At age five:
Me: Daaaa-aaaad! Tori pushed me down and now I’m bleeding!
Dad: Why is your sister crying if she’s the one that pushed you down?
Me: Because I pushed her back.
Dad: That’s not what big sisters do, Quinn. You have to learn to be the bigger person.

For the longest time I’m pretty sure I believed that being physically larger than the other person in question counted as “being the bigger person.”

At age 13:
Dad: How was school today?
Me: Terrible. I hate it. I’m never going back.
Dad: Oh really, why is that?
Me: Because—because there’s this really popular girl and she’s mean to me.
Dad: She’s probably just jealous of you.
Me: Ugh! Dad! Not-uh! No one is jealous of me, stop saying that!
Dad: Well what did this popular girl do?
Me: She wrote mean things about me in like this like notebook thingy she shares with other popular girls.
Dad: Well, all you have to do is ignore it and just be the bigger person, Quinn.
Me: No! I don’t want to be the bigger person!

My dad began substituting “be the bigger person” with “take the high road” sometime after my agonizing adolescence when it had lost some, if not all, of its influence. But I hated “take the high road” even more. Where the hell is the high road? Did I miss the exit for this elusive high road? And, damnit, why is my road automatically the ‘low road’?

At age 19:
Me: I don’t know, dad. The T.A. is just a big jerkface.
Dad: What the hell is a T.A.?
Me: Teacher’s Assistant, duh.
Dad: Okay. So, basically you’re not getting a good grade because you never go to class?
Me: No! I go to class! But he’s trying to say I didn’t turn in this assignment but I totally did! I showed him the paper, it was dated and everything and he refused to believe me. I think he’s out to get me...
Dad: Well, obviously, you need to talk to your professor about this and not this P.A. or T.E. or A.T.—whatever the hell their name is—and get this cleared up. But, just remember, take the high road—no need to make any enemies.
Me: Oh my god, dad. It’s not like I’m going to go all "Jerry Springer" on him, but this is really, really, super unfair. He should be the one to take the high road, not me!
Dad: Whatever the case—you take the high road, Quinn…

At age 24:
Me: We keep getting in petty arguments.
Dad: Right, well that sometimes happens when you’ve been together for a long time.
Me: It’s so stupid, dad! We fight about doing the dishes, how to pay the bills, letting the dog out, buying groceries—crap like that.
Dad: I know it’s frustrating, but you know what…?
Me: Yes, I know, I know—be the bigger person, take the high road—I KNOW!
Dad: Exactly.
Me: Right...

I think these phrases were so ubiquitous throughout my childhood that I failed to ever think about the meaning and find a way to apply it to my own life. You can only hear “be the bigger person” and “take the high road” so many times before you start tuning it out as one of those antagonizing things your parents will inevitably say whenever you have a crisis. But the good news is that I get it now, and it’s only taken 24 years! (Ah, youth, there was so much I didn’t understand then. Luckily, I’m brilliant and know everything now…)

I’ve never been one of those overly optimistic people; I prefer to see my glasses as half empty because that leads to a quicker refill. This being said, the last six months were particularly rough. I lost my job, and then some sanity, respect and dignity. Of course, I was never that attached to the last three, but when it all hits at once and you find yourself wearing the same pajamas you spent the last three days and nights in because you haven’t left the house in a week, you start searching for a new outlook on life before your friends start planning an intervention.

After searching for inspiration in all of the places one might normally find it—nature, books, love, friendship, art—I gave up and threw myself on the couch for what I planned on being a day of utter nothingness and self loathing. With a coffee table full of candy, chips, soda and gossip magazines, I started surfing the channels for some cheesy movies I could let my brain zone out on, and that’s when it hit me as if I was the target in a particularly cruel game of dodge ball: If I was watching the movie of my life, is this really how I would want my character to act? No! The main character in the movie of my life is a badass—she’d never let herself wallow like a sloth until reaching new levels of low self-esteem, or if she did, she would have an epiphany like this and put a stop to her pathetic parade immediately so that she could get on with being as awesome as possible.

Of course, in real life, I proceeded with my day as planned because it was too inconvenient to try to change things up when I had nestled nicely into a little couch fort, but it wasn’t a day of utter nothingness as I continued to ponder this thought. Later, Tori called and was talking to me about the drama in her life—a particularly enjoyable form of entertainment to me which always wins out over anything else—and as she got to the part in the story where our dad would typically regurgitate one of his favorite phrases, I had something incredible to say.

“Well, think about it like this: what would you want your character to do if you were watching this scene in the movie of your life?” I said.

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone and for a brief second I began to doubt my wonderful epiphany.

“Wow. That’s a really good way to think of it—yeah! I like that!” she said.

From there we devised a solution based on her character in the movie of her life, which is far more fun than listing, and then stressing out about, the negative ways you’re afraid you might react while handling the various hypothetical situations you’ve created in your head.

Now I know what my dad really meant when he said “be the bigger person” and “take the high road.” When I talked to him the other day and I told him about my new phrase, WWYCD (What Would Your Character Do?), he was flushed with pride (or maybe it was disappointment, I’m not quite sure)—this was evidence that something he tried my whole life to teach me had finally stuck. Of course, I would have internalized the meaning much sooner had he explained it to me using a movie analogy…(I’m just saying, dad).

Haven’t you ever watched a movie or read a book and wished you could change the character’s path or their reaction? Haven’t you ever looked back at a situation and wished you behaved differently or that you could take back the bad things you said? I hate that feeling; it’s a dangerous combination of regret and dissolution that often leads to miserable passivity. But I have more faith in my opinions and decisions as a subjective audience member watching the movie of my life play out than I do as the main character—from my view as an audience member, I can see how to be the bigger person and I know how to get to the high road.

Now when I am faced with a situation I don’t know how to handle, or when I’m nervous, or worried, or anxious about whatever issue I’ve built up to be a monster taking over my mind, I think about watching my movie and what I would want my character to do (WWYCD?), and then I do it. Of course, real life presents limits that don’t exist in movies, so when I want my character to roundhouse ninja kick someone in the face, I have to think twice before acting it out...or so I’ve learned.

Important Re-Memories

2009-09-04T17:45:00.026-05:00

As I approach my 25th anniversary of being alive, I find myself nostalgic. I now start sentences with phrases such as, "Back when I was a kid..." and, "Kids today..." There's something about 25 that just feels old. I feel like there should be some sort of milestone, acknowledgment, right of passage or something to signify the fact that you're exiting the early twenties where immaturity and lack of responsibility are expected, and entering the late-twenties where there's no excuse for your failure to be an adult. (On a side note, I think I need to find more friends that are older than me as a favor to my self-esteem.)

What’s cool about turning 25? I can legally rent a car in most states now…my driver’s license expired…I’m half way to 50...? Neat. Throughout high school and the beginning of college, I used to think of 25 as that time when everything would make sense, or even if nothing made sense, at least I would feel like an established person. Now that I have reached this age, it’s hard to determine whether my thoughts about being 25 were wrong or if I’m failing at being 25.

Maybe part of the reason I feel old is because the past decade has really kind of sucked compared to the other decades I’ve lived through. Or maybe I just think this decade sucks because I’m an adult now and the 1980s and 1990s were awesome because I was a carefree kid. Either way, I think it's safe to say that we are digressing in terms of cool and it will have a negative impact on the children of this nation. So, forget about the recession, forget about the rapidly rising unemployment rate, and forget about the health care debate because all of your energy should be put towards making sure the children in your life become familiar with more important things, like Fruit Stripe Gum, lasers and the original versions of timeless classics.

So, below you'll find hearty helping of nostalgia, as well as a few things that make me yearn for a time that wasn’t so…dumb. I suppose these are also things that make me feel really old, which is how I felt when I tried to explain who Jem was to my 12-year old sister. Anyway, let’s hold hands as we Skip-It down memory lane…

Note: There is a good chance that this list might make you feel extra old if you are older than 25...just a warning.

Polly Pocket
My sister and I went through phase where we were obsessed with Polly Pocket. I think it was the challenge of actually playing with the ridiculously miniature Polly and all her accessories that made it fun…for a minute. Either way, I’ll take Polly Pocket over Da Bratz any day.

Polly Pocket = Awesome; Da Bratz = Scary

Pog
Whether you were six or 16 years old, if you didn’t have a sweet slammer and a solid collection of pogs during their brief reign in the 90s then you were probably also best friends with the lunch lady. Unless you went to one of those really lame schools that considered Pog a form of gambling, in which case you should have started an underground pogger operation during recess like the rest of us.

Fruit Stripe Gum
The most delicious gum ever created. The taste reminds me of summer and the linoleum kitchen floor Tori and I would spread our candy collections out on before making trades. It was like the NBA draft for candy, and it all started with the red and pink Fruit Stripe Gum flavors.

Land Before Time
Prepare yourself. This movie came out 21 years ago. I KNOW! This is one of my favorite movies of all-time because it was the first movie that ever made me cry; I was four years old. Oh, Littlefoot…

Skip-Its
Yes, I have a scar from falling while Skip-It-running up our asphalt driveway, but I was about to break my record number!

TMNT
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Heroes in a half shell, Turtle power!” Oh man, if you grew up in the late 1980s to early 1990s and you didn’t love TMNT then I don’t want to know you. I remember playing Ninja Turtles on the playground when I was seven years old and the best part was arguing about which Ninja Turtle character you were most like—I always wanted to be Donatello or Michelangelo because they had the coolest weapons. But my love for TMNT was continuous—in college I spent an entire summer reaching the highest level of the TMNT Nintendo game. My character of choice? Donatello, duh, the bō is unbeatable!

“Macarena”
The international dance sensation that was so popular 13 years ago it can still be experienced in the third hour of wedding receptions across the world. Relive it:

Child Stars Make Sad Grown Ups

We watched them go from this:

To this:

Same goes for Lindsay Lohan…Remember this double adorableness from her role in "The Parent Trap":

And flash forward to the present day disaster:

On a more positive child star note...Remember Jonathan Lipnicki? (“Do you know that the human head weighs eight pounds?”) He used to be my favorite little nugget ever 13 years ago when he looked like this:

But now even he is old:

(Okay, so he's not old, but he's older, or rather, old enough—and he's wearing a speedo. I'm just saying...)

Jurassic Park
Another dinosaur movie, but without the warm-fuzzy feeling of "Land Before Time." SIXTEEN years ago I remember going to see Jurassic Park in the theaters with my dad and sister. I was nine years old and Tori was probably seven. I think my dad thought it was just some kid movie about dinosaurs but about 45 minutes into the movie when people start dying, Tori got scared and starts crying so my dad had to take her outside and I was left to watch the rest of the scary movie by myself.

Jem and The Holograms
She was “truly outrageous.” When I was three years old I broke my arm because I thought that if I jumped off a building or a structure I would be able to dangle off the edge and hide from enemies, like Jem did. This is when I learned that I did not live in cartoon world.

Scrunchies
The coolest accessory to own circa 1994. You were even cooler if it matched your outfit in a nonchalant, but totally planned kind of way.

Care Bears
Originally created in 1981 for greeting cards, I was obsessed with Care Bears as a child. I loved that they had special powers that came out of their tummies (I always thought that if I ever had super powers they would come from my belly in the same manner). My sister and I used to run around the house screaming “Care Bear Stare!” while my dad chased us, pretending to be Professor Cold Heart. (And then they tried to remake it 2002 and ruin my memories.)

Umbros
All the cool kids had them, and if you didn’t have them you borrowed a pair from one of your friends who managed to have a rainbow collection of Umbros. These were seriously unflattering shorts though—they didn’t look good on anyone but soccer players. I never played soccer, but I had many pairs of Umbros.

Laser Portraits
We Have Lasers!!!!!!!!!! is a website that collects and posts various school photos from when a laser backdrop was the hottest way to capture your awkward youth. I remember that the photographer had several different laser backgrounds for you to choose from and I always wanted to do the crazy space lasers, but it never matched my outfit so I ended up with pink explosions or pastel wave lasers—lame.

Awesome. Awesomer. Awesomest.

Saved By the Bell
Only the best TV show ever created, Zack and the gang taught me important life lessons and that you can pause time by throwing up a quick “Time Out” (which I was very disappointed to learn was not actually true). If you ever to go to a trivia night at a bar somewhere and “Saved By the Bell” is one of the categories, call me on your giant cell phone and I’ll be there in 30 seconds flat to answer every question. And now, without further adieu, one of my favorite SBTB scenes:

And that concludes our trip down memory lane—pretty sure I got a higher Skip-It number than you, but whatever. I hope you enjoyed reliving some of the past and are ready to go out in public and have a conversation with a complete stranger about how "kids these days just don't understand..."

(If I left out anything totally rad, please use the comment feature below to express your anguish.)

Luck Is Such An Asshole

2009-08-25T17:50:00.005-05:00

Luck is like a bad boyfriend.

It comes and goes as it pleases with little concern for your feelings or needs. When luck is around, everything seems wonderful, which causes your mind plays tricks on you and you think that “perfect” really must exist because you are living it (only you’re not because your idea of perfect has morphed into luck’s idea of perfect, which is really more like perfect shit). But then, without warning, it just picks up and leaves. It doesn’t return your phone calls, it doesn’t listen, it cheats on you with your friends, and it makes you think you must be crazy for expecting more. So, WTF luck? Why you got to play me like that?

Much like men, I think luck comes in floods and droughts. Sometimes you’re rolling in it and you have several prospects to entertain, all of which vie for you attention in equally satisfying ways. For instance, I can recall a time four years ago when I was flooded with luck—so much luck, it practically created a mold problem (I’m taking this analogy too far, aren’t I? That’s too bad because I can’t stop now). I turned 21 years old and could finally do what I had been doing for the previous four years legally, I landed an amazing internship I never thought I would get, I started dating a cute guy and had just declared him my official “boyfriend” (after four years of not having a boyfriend at all) and, yes—and, I got a brand new car which happened to be the car of my dreams—this all happened in one week, like a severe luck storm warning that might flash across the television and drown out a crucial part in your favorite show. Or maybe it was more like the pipes had been frozen for years, but then, all of a sudden, they burst and lucky sprayed everywhere, causing irreparable damage in the form of uncontrollable awesomeness. This luck lingered for several months following my one-week of intense flooding; it didn’t die away immediately or get up in the middle of the night to leave while I was sleeping. Instead it was a gradual decline, but I wouldn’t say it led to “bad” luck right away—I was just forced to lower my expectations, much like you do with bad boyfriends. Eventually, you’re expectations are so low you find yourself flushed with joy when you win a dollar playing Powerball—or, rather, you’re flushed with joy because he remembered to call you and tell you he wouldn't be able to hang out tonight because he had to study with that cheerleader from his Stats class.

The drought strikes as soon as you realize you’re too good to be tied down to such a lose-lose (loser) situation. At first you think you’re prepared for the drought, you know you’re going to be in it for the long haul and you brush off the concern of others because you’re completely capable of handling this all on your own, or so you think. But then something bad happens: You find out that your parents had to put your childhood dog down. And then another bad thing happens: You get two speeding tickets in two weeks. And then another bad thing: Your landlord refuses to return your deposit. And then an even worse thing happens: You lose your job. More bad stuff: Your friends move to different, cooler cities. But we aren’t done with the bad yet: You have a constant case of hives that have spread to your face making it so that you can’t leave the house without feeling like people are staring at you and your incessant itching. This is like when you find out that all your used-to-be prospects from the previous flood now have girlfriends and consider you their “pal,” and the only men you seem to attract are the ones with glaring abnormalities—they have horns instead of ears or they have an unusual obsession with madras print shorts.

Once you’ve been living in the drought period for an extended period of time, your thirst is so extreme that you’re willing to drink anything. You look back at that one week of uncontrollably awesome luck with bitterness, nostalgia and chest-searing pain, and wonder if you can create your own luck given that you’ve sort of created your own boyfriend (so what if he lives in a drawer next to your bed, at least he’s there for you when you need him, right?). But luck doesn’t work that way. Like a bad boyfriend, luck makes you ache for something you thought you had but never really did—you think you had something great because now that things are so bad, you can’t help but build up that sort of good, but mostly delusional, part in your own mind. Now you consider yourself “lucky” if you break a mirror and manage to avoid cutting yourself and a trip to the hospital.

Just when you’ve resigned yourself to being the poster child for Murphy’s law, something lucky—not fabricated lucky, but truly lucky—happens to you. So, after months of not calling, your bad boyfriend decides he wants to patch things up with you. He’s sorry about all those times he cheated on you with that whorish cheerleader from Stats class. He can’t stand the thought of not being with you, he needs you, he wants you. He promises to be the boyfriend you always deserved—the kind that buys flowers for no reason, leaves notes on the mirror, showers you with compliments and cooks you dinner because he knows you’re hungry. And luck does the same thing—after months of mourning the loss of luck, wishing for it to come back and then finally accepting the fact that it hasn’t, and may never, come back—you find yourself bombarded with it.

Currently, I think I’m riding out a lucky streak. It took a lot of luck to get the job I now have—so much luck that I can’t help but feel like I stole it from someone. But I’m older and wiser now. I know that luck is a one trick pony, no-talent asshat with nothing to offer but maybe a venereal disease from that whorish cheerleader. So I refuse to get attached. The longest drought in the History of Quinn just ended, and I survived, so I don’t know if I believe in luck anymore. Of course, these summer luck storms might produce flash floods, but I won’t lose my head this time. I know luck is a bad boyfriend that I’m better off without.

(Note: I am not personally familiar with most of the bad boyfriend traits discussed above because I have been fortunate enough to have an extremely awesome boyfriend for the past four years who tolerates my nonsense and understands more about me than I ever intended for one person to understand. Sorry, I don’t mean to brag, but he is really awesome. This doesn’t mean I’m not familiar with the bad boyfriend traits that make this analogy work—I have many girlfriends who have been the unlikely victims of such a bad boyfriend. Oh yeah, and I watch lots of romantic comedies because I just can’t seem to help myself from falling into that all too enticing female-centric demographic. And yes, these things totally make me credible.)

A Note Of Admiration

2009-08-11T11:02:00.008-05:00

Dear Exclamation Point Inventor,

First, I would like to congratulate you because, based on my knowledge and familiarity with the exclamation point, I can only assume that you must be the most annoying person alive—and that is quite an accomplishment given your competition.

Do you realize that by inventing this punctuation mark you have given obnoxiously overzealous people a way to express themselves with even more unnecessary enthusiasm? Do you know that your exclamation point is now being used in tandem with winking-smiley-face emoticons (!!!!☺!!!!☺!!!)?

You have also enabled otherwise mundane and boring people the opportunity to be “exciting,” with just the click of Shift + 1. You have tricked us into believing that the mayoral candidate isn’t as awful as they appear because they have "Family Values!!!" You’ve led me to many mediocre stores with windows screaming "Sale!" You’ve dressed up commands sent via email by closing it with a happy, and apparently very excited, "Thanks!’" as if that makes the unreasonable request more bearable. You've caused fights and ruined relationships with the expectations you create. Your upside down ‘i’ establishes a presence, forcing a response with equal, if not more (though never less), enthusiasm. Your existence makes me feel bad for being appropriately apathetic and indifferent, and I am compelled to respond with false enthusiasm that chips away at my soul.

Your punctuation mark is a lie—it’s like Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' marriage, the Jonas Brothers’ purity rings and Sarah Palin’s credentials—it’s a method of disguise.

Perhaps back in the day of the 15th century you were not aware of how your exclamation point would be abused by future generations of screamers and asshats. Remember when this all started and you called it the “note of admiration?” That was such a pleasant way to think of this punctuation mark, and one can’t help but wonder if the exclamation point would be as overused and widely hated as it is today if it was still referred to as the “note of admiration.”

Of course I am not the only one who feels this way, F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own jokes.” I wonder what Fitzgerald would say about Oklahoma! or Oliver! or Airplane! or Moulin Rouge! or Jeopardy! or Yahoo!

The point of this letter is to request that you invent a punctuation mark to counter the exclamation point. Our society needs a way to mute the screaming of “Thanks!” and the forced injection of dramatic emotion in day-to-day communication.

I appreciate your immediate consideration in this important matter.

Sincerely,
The Anti Exclamation Point Authority

Hate: A Strong Word I Don't Understand

2009-08-10T15:27:00.005-05:00

Sometimes I have to roll around in an idea before it seems like something I should talk about. I need to let the juices marinate and wait until the idea is properly saturated with uncertainty, indecision and anxiety before I make anything happen with it. Of course, this should not lead you to believe that I think before I speak, because if I did then I wouldn’t feel constantly embarrassed about my recurrent verbal diarrhea. But despite this rolling around, marinating and saturating process that I’m accustomed to, I’m going to jump into this thought, perhaps prematurely.

This past weekend was a big weekend. It was my last weekend of being unemployed and it was the debut of BareTV, an improvised talk show that I helped write sketches for. This weekend I also relearned that there are some people out there that don’t like me and probably will never like me.

I know, what the hell, right? How can you not find me a.) hilarious, b.) endearing, and 3.) awesome? I realize that my inability to comprehend why someone may not like me makes me sound like I am the most egotistic person alive, but I just have an insatiable urge to please people, and thus have them like me. Needless to say, when I find out that someone does not like me, after extraordinary efforts on my part to appear worthy of their friendship, I am obviously stunned. It’s as if there must be something wrong with the world if someone doesn’t like me, so I go out on a search for the cause of this imbalance that has resulted in someone turning down membership to the Quinn Fan Club. Why do I think like this? Because I’m an insecure narcissist? Absolutely.

During this extremely long, unpaid sabbatical of mine, I have lived in what I like to refer to as a bubble of isolation—others might call it depression. I’m not ashamed to admit that there have been entire days in recent months where I did not leave the house, change out of my pajamas, let alone shower, or have face-to-face communication with a single person. However, now that I have found a job, and most importantly, someone to pay me for this thing I do with words, I have found myself standing outside of my cozy bubble of isolation and feeling somewhat exposed. Ultimately, I think unemployment caused me to digress socially, making me painfully awkward in social situations and oblivious to social cues, especially those that mean shut up. So when I found out this weekend that someone I had tried very hard to…impress (is that the right word?) didn’t like me—in fact, she hates me, and perhaps the only thing that would make her happier is if more people hated me too—I was irrationally devastated because if I had picked up on the cues, which I now realize were plentiful, perhaps I wouldn’t have been as shocked and upset. This person isn’t cruel about it, she’s older than I am so her hatred for me is on a much more mature level, which makes it less obvious to me and makes my reaction to her dislike even more pathetic and childish: “But why? I don’t get it. It’s not fair!”

I wish was brave enough to not care about what people thought of me and whether or not they liked me, but that’s not the case (although I am extremely good at pretending otherwise). I’m sure this all comes down to some inherent need for validation that stems from my childhood and the many times I was the last person picked for kickball, but whatever.

In a general sense, I am willing to accept and understand the fact that not everyone is going to like me. In fact, I’ll even go so far as to say that in order to be successful, especially as a writer, pissing people off until they hate you seems to be a popular road to take. But writing words for people to read is different from being in a social situation with someone, bringing you’re A-game and finding out that someone still doesn’t like you.

The most disappointing part was that my reaction to finding out this person truly didn’t like me was to take one too many shots of Rumple Minze and proceed to make a fool out of myself for the rest of the night. Again, I blame unemployment for turning me into a lovable, pitied pariah for whom this type of reaction is expected and forgiven. But the next day, as I nursed the ‘I swear I’ll never drink again’ type of hangover, it made sense why this person might not like me, and also why I shouldn’t care (I know, a moment of unexpected clarity during what was otherwise a day full of agonizing brain fuzziness).

The important part is why I shouldn’t care, since the other part is obvious by now. I shouldn’t care whether or not this person likes me because lots of other people like me, I think. I shouldn’t care if this person dislikes me because their reasons for disliking me are not legitimate. I shouldn’t care because having them like me won’t make a difference at the end of any day ever. But still, I care—with every irrational, self-absorbed bone in my body, I care. And maybe I care because I’m starting a new job on Wednesday and I really want everyone to like me. Maybe I care because life would be easier if they liked me. Maybe I care because maybe I care about a lot of things that don’t matter.

There’s no resolution here, just the fact that there is someone new who openly dislikes me and I care enough to write about hating that I care about it.

On the upside, my self-esteem isn’t as bad as you, or I, thought it was because, as this experience has made clear, I apparently think I’m too awesome to hate.

Chin Tactics

2009-08-05T13:01:00.024-05:00

I know, it’s been a couple days, okay, a week, since you’ve heard from me. I don’t know how to tell you this, so I’ve decided to just come out and say it: I got a job.

Cue the hallelujah chorus.

That’s all I’m going to say about that, for now. On to more pressing matters…

I’ve been thinking about chins recently and I’ve decided that you can tell a lot about someone based on their chin(s). There are many officially unofficial chin categories, which are defined below just because I want to do my part in making sure we all continue to judge each other based on appearances.

From the Official Organization of Chin Categorizations (OOCC):

Weak Chins
A Weak Chin is defined as a nonexistent chin, in which the nose and/or mouth sticks out significantly farther than the chin. People with Weak Chins can generally be seen walking around with toothpaste stains on their shirts, a common problem among those lacking sufficient chin-catching abilities. Despite assumptions that a Weak Chin would denote a weak personality, Weak Chin people have been known to have surprisingly sparkling personalities. Weak Chins are occasionally mistaken as massive overbites and often disguised with facial hair or plastic surgery. An example would be “South Park’s” Mr. Mackey or a Japanese Chin, a dog bred specifically for its weak chin which ultimately provides a better range for self-licking.

Pointy Chins
Pointy Chins are typically the result of a prominent jaw line that fails to round itself out causing the two lines to come together at a severe point. Unlike Weak Chin people, Pointy Chin people are usually the first to complain, and they look down their chin at most things, which is why evil fairytale characters are often drawn with Pointy Chins. Pointy Chins often give the face a heart-shaped appearance, or in rare cases, there are certain haircuts that give the chin a pointier appearance.

Pointy Chin Examples: Reese Witherspoon: Heart-Shape Pointy; Kate Gosselin: Bad Haircut Pointy; John Kerry: Politically Pointy.

Multiple Chins
The most commonly misunderstood fact about Multiple Chins is that only overweight people have them. This is a lie. A Multiple Chin is characterized by several overlapping rolls under the chin, which are large enough to be chins alone. Most people are capable of having Multiple Chins when they make a disgusted face; therefore it is difficult to attribute any assumed and completely false personality traits to this category.

However, it is important to clarify that while most babies have Multiple Chins, this is very different from, say, Mark Mangino’s Multiple Chins, which seem to be slowly eating his face and what remains of his former Bubble Butt Chin.

(Note: Multiple Chins can also be referred to as “Chin Cleavage” in the correct circumstances. See Hogan Knows Best and/or Brook Knows Best for examples of appropriate use of the term.)

Crinkly Chins
Although it is not very common to have a constant, naturally Crinkly Chin, I suppose it is possible in the same way it is possible for your “face to get stuck that way,” like your parents always warned. A Crinkly Chin is characterized by what would perhaps, in the kindest of interpretations, be referred to as a chin with multiple dimples. As he gets older, John Travolta is the closest human to having a naturally Crinkly Chin, which has caused some chin scientists to conclude that dimple chins can evolve into Crinkly Chins.

Based on the example pictured below, it’s safe to assume that Crinkly Chin people are extremely dynamic and creative individuals with a lot to offer the world.

Bubble Butt Chins
In order to define this category, we must dissect the terminology. First, the term “bubble butt” refers to “a large, rounded, but not fat, buttocks,” while the chin is defined as “the central forward portion of the lower jaw." When we combine the two definitions we get the definition for Bubble Butt Chin: a large, rounded, butt-like portion of the lower jaw. Bubble Butt Chin people tend to be humorous and concerned with what other people think. Jay Leno, who, according to totally legitimate anonymous sources, purchased a home on Martha’s Vineyard specifically for his chin, is a shinning example of a Bubble Butt Chin. Another example of a Bubble Butt Chin is Simon Cowell, who is constantly asking Paula Abdul if his v-neck makes his chin look fat.

Mole Chins
Made popular by fairytale witches, Mole Chins describe a chin that is dominated by a mole, or a growth resembling a mole. Now that we no longer burn witches at the stake, the chin mole has become increasingly popular in recent decades. Take Sarah Jessica Parker for example, who sported a big chin mole throughout the height of her career, playing Carrie on the popular HBO series Sex in the City. But just because it worked on Sex in the City doesn’t mean it will work in real life. This is a hard lesson we must all learn. SJP had her chin mole removed last summer, and now the world must find something else to stare at.

Hair Art Chins
This category is mostly specific to the male gender due to their ability to grow facial hair; however, there are many remarkable women out there with the same ability and to discount them would be unfair. Hair Art Chin people are typically, as the name would suggest, artistic, or they just have horribly unfortunate features and facial hair is their security blanket. Howie Mandel is the poster boy for Hair Art Chin people. Mandel has notoriously decorated his chin with a “flavor savor,” “chin curtains,” “circle beard,” “chin whiskers,” and “meticulous goatee.”

Those like Mandel are clearly committed to making their chins a form of expression, which has given chin theorists a new concept to study: overcompensating chin tactics.

While there are many other types of chins out there, the OOCC maintains that these are the seven main categories. It is the goal of the OOCC to awaken new insecurities about your chin and to generate chin awareness on a global scale through an arbitrary category identification system.

If you have questions or comments for the OOCC, the preferred method of communication is a message in a bottle by sea (too bad if you live in a land-locked state).

References:

Tollee, Fake. Let’s Talk About Chins, Dog. OOCC Publishing, 2009.
Chin, Sharpe. “Not By the Hair of My Chinny Chin Chin,” lecture. OOCC Conference, May, 2009.
Andrews, Erin. Exposed Chins of the Big 12. OOCC Publishing, 2007.
Dad, My. Lecture Series: "My Daughter Won’t Stop Making Ugly Faces." Privately Published, 1984 – 2009.
Travolta, John. Chins: The New Scientology. Tom Cruise Publishing Centre, 2009.
Anonymous Source to All Stars. Quoted, August, 2009.
Witch, Glenda The Good. A Witchy Chin. Oz: Ruby Slipper Books, 2008.
Daughtry, Chris. Bald On Top: The Art of Chin Hair. American Idol with OOCC Publishing, 2008.

Disclaimer: All information, “facts” and cited sources are completely fabricated. Duh.

Humanizing Trends

2009-07-29T18:39:00.000-05:00

The trend of humanizing our pets is getting out of control.

The worst thing I ever did was buy a pair of light-up, doggie reindeer antlers for Bear to wear during Christmas. He ended up eating them, but only after I was able to snap some adorable pictures of him looking totally miserable.

But my own humanizing practices cannot compare to that of other idiot pet owners.

After an afternoon of dog people watching at the park, I started to wonder: why do some people talk to their pets in overly polite tones, as if they are trying to teach a child how to have better manners? Let’s be serious, your dog is never going to say, “excuse me” after barfing on the living room rug, and they’ll never open a door for you and say, “after you” in a sweeping gesture before running after that squirrel. But go ahead, keep speaking to them in an antagonizing, slow voice and hopefully someday they will bite your face off.

But I think the humanizing trend really begins and ends with cats. They are much easier to humanize than dogs. Take Kitty Wigs for example, a website that makes wigs for your cat to wear. My first reaction is to ask why the hell you feel a need to make your cat wear a blue wig—but then I remember the pair of doggie reindeer antlers and I think maybe I understand. Nevertheless, the Kitty Wigs website offers wigs in “Pink Passion,” “Bashful Blond,” “Electric Blue,” and “Silver Fox.” Each wig is about $50—$50?! Do you realize all the awesome stuff you could buy with $50? Of course you do, you’re not crazy.

The description for the Pink Passion wig says, “Pink makes your kitty feel elegant, modern and quintessentially feline.” Let’s get something straight, does a pink wig really make your cat feel “elegant, modern and quintessentially feline,” or does putting the pink kitty wig on your poor, defenseless cat make you feel “elegant, modern and quintessentially feline?” Or how about the description for Silver Fox wig: “Silver makes your kitty feel sexy and smart, like a cougar on the prowl.” So, with the Silver Fox wig, you and your cat can “prowl” the town looking for younger men with weird fetishes involving cats in wigs.

Thank god for the FAQ section of the Kitty Wigs website because I was beginning to think that this was all just a joke.

FAQ #1: Is this for real?
Answer: Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! Kitty Wigs are a fun prop to be used to enhance playtime with your feline friends. They're especially fun for photo sessions.

Now that we’ve established Kitty Wigs are, in fact, real—phew!—I am wondering how this wig for your cat can really “enhance” playtime. Are we really so selfish that we will torture our animals by taking away all their animalness for the sake of our own enjoyment? Okay, so it’s not really torture, it’s not really inhumane (does PETA know about this shit?), I guess it’s just another way for pet owners to express their loneliness—I mean, love.

Cat: Why do I have to wear a wig? I already have hair—an entire fur coat, actually—and you’re always complaining about the shedding…
Owner: Look at you, you look so pretty—totally like a human, only cat-like!
Cat: I am going to eat it.
Owner: No, no, no, don’t eat it—just sit there and look pretty. Good, kitty. See how this has enhanced our playtime? Oh, this is the best $50 I ever spent!
Cat: $50?! Are you f*%@ing kidding me?! Please tell me the proceeds go to a kitty cancer foundation…
Owner: Don’t you love your new pink wig? Don’t you feel elegant and modern? Yes you do! Yes you do!
Cat: Alright, I'm going to go play in traffic now.

So next time you see that “cute” pumpkin outfit for your dog, or you find yourself talking to them like a disobedient child, or you feel yourself rationalizing certain things by saying your cat or dog is just like you, think of Kitty Wigs and just say “NO!” to yourself.

Incomplete Thoughts

2009-07-24T11:23:00.004-05:00

Words That Make My Mouth Feel Weird When I Say Them:

Schtick
Niche (Is it ‘neesh’ or ‘nitch’? Either way, people will judge you based on how you pronounce this stupid word.)
Touche (It’s just “touch” with an ‘e’ but I always say it like “Olé!” and that usually makes me feel like a tool.)
Jalapeno
Hue
Sauvignon
Philanthropic (Reading it, I’m okay, but saying it in conversation makes my tongue feel like it’s doing somersaults.)
Parfait
Ampersand
Ellipses (I get a lisp just looking at this word.)
Cutlery
Acquiesce
Tyrotoxism (means to be poisoned by cheese, I swear I didn’t make it up.)
Supercilious

Are you there Dove? It’s me, Smelly…
Dove has a new line of products that focus on scent, and their new campaign makes me feel like I must naturally smell bad. But, really, why would I want every part of my body to smell the same? Not that I have anything against the smell of grapefruit and lemongrass, which is apparently an energizing scent when combined, but who wants their hair to smell the same as their armpits?

Clumsy Strikes Again
I wasn’t in any kind of rush, nor was I distracted in any sense, just trying to open the car door and get in—something I do every day. Unfortunately, it’s the “open the door” part that tricked me this time. As I grabbed the handle, my overwhelming strength (let’s just call it that) surprised me, causing the door to fling towards me and into my forehead. It was like I forgot how to get into a car, or as if I was in a fight scene from a movie only instead of someone else beating me up by opening a car door in my face, I was beating myself up (flashback: “Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself! Why are you hitting yourself, stupid? Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself!”). As soon as my forehead made contact with the door, I felt my head fall back and my eyes swell with tears. Sniffling, I jumped in the car and drove away without looking to see if anyone had witnessed my door-to-head bunt. Now I have a raised bump and a slightly discolored (bruised) forehead for which my only explanation is: I opened a door on my face. Awesome.
(p.s. – This happened directly after my trip to the eye doctor. Even awesomer.)

The Eye Doctor Game Show

2009-07-23T21:03:00.008-05:00

I’ve decided that I will never be able to be an ophthalmologist (one more profession I can now cross off the list). I came to this conclusion when I went to the eye doctor for my annual exam the other day, during regular business hours. Being unemployed, you find yourself in public places with people you never interacted with before when you had a job—old people, tons of them, I mean, entire buses full of old people, crazy stay-at-home moms with screaming children, adolescents with bad attitudes and other lowly, unemployed people like me—and this is especially true of any doctor’s office between the hours of 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. I have nothing against old people, seriously, I love the elderly—and I happen to know quite a bit about them as consumers, thanks to my previous job. But sitting in a waiting room full of old people at the eye doctor at 1:30 p.m. on a Tuesday is like riding home in a car full of tired, cranky children after they’ve spent the whole day at Worlds of Fun. Everyone has questions, which they ask the person they are with, then the people around them, and then, for good measure, they ask the receptionist. Everyone stares at you in a way that lets you know they are thinking about you. Everyone is complaining (“damn cataracts!”), and balling up tissues in their tight hands. A name was called and no one moved, it was called again, only louder.

“Eh? Did you say Harold?” said an extremely tiny old woman with hair so gray it looked purple.
“No, Howard—Howard?” said the clipboard-holding-name-calling-nurse lady.
“Oh, well when will you be calling Harold?”
“As soon as it is your turn. Howard?”

Then my name was called—“Carolyn…Carolyn?”—and of course I didn’t respond, partly because I was looking at frames and not paying attention, but mostly because Carolyn is my first name, which I’ve never gone by, and this always happens to me at the doctor’s office. Before giving up, the clipboard-holding-name-calling-nurse lady said, “Ms. Katherman?” “Oh! Here, here!” I yelled, and scrambled over to her, getting death stares from the impatient elderly folks still forced to wait their turn. After the nurse comes in and performs the routine eye exam, confirming my blindness and likely stigmatism, I am left to wait for the doctor. I waited about 15 minutes, and during this time, I overheard my doctor’s interaction with another patient, a man of about 80 with a Walter Matthau-like voice.

“Alright, read the smallest line you can,” said the doctor.
“Well, what line’s that? I mean, I’ll tell you right now I can only see one line and it’s the top line,” said the patient.
“Okay, how about now, does that help? Read the smallest line you can.”
“Er, uh…Z, B, well, I guess that could be a D, or maybe an O, um, let’s see, uhhh—”
“That’s okay. Here—let’s try this, is this one any better?” I can hear the doctor clicking through the vision slides.
“Yes, that’s a little better, but still awful blurry.”
“Okay, tell me which is better, one…or two…? Two…or one…one……or, two……?” The doctor makes exaggerated pauses between each slide.
“Um, well, it’s hard to say, they’re both bad.”
“How about…five…or six…? Five...? Or, six...?”
“Oh, hell, I can’t tell the difference between any of them.”
“Not to worry, we’ll get it right. How about four…or three…three……or, four……?”
“Uh, I guess three, but I still can’t see the small lines.”
“Alright, well—” The patient cuts the doctor off.
“Go back to one and two.” The doctor switches the slides.
“One…or two…two…or three…? Read the smallest line you can for me,” the doctor said.
“Y—or is it a V…? Um, V, O, L—no, that might be an I—V, O, I…that next one is an M, or N…ummm…I’ll go with M...” It was starting to sound like a game show—I’ll take ‘M’ for $400, please!
“Well, that’s almost right, we’re getting close,” says the doctor, recharging his patience.
“You see, I thought that L was an I, but then I was wondering—do you use lowercase letters? Probably not, so that’s why I guessed an I, but turns out it’s an L, huh? And M and N, that’s tough, but I was sure that was a M…”

This went on for quite some time. The doctor patiently listened to this man’s explanation for seeing the letters he saw every time he read a line. Meanwhile, I’m in the room next door pulling my hair out because I can’t stand listening to this man talk about why he can’t tell the difference between ‘Y’ and ‘V.’ Eventually, the doctor comes into my room and introduces himself. He is an older man, with kind, tired eyes and fashionable glasses that seem out of place given his calm, reserved exterior. He told me about my options concerning contacts and glasses, made me tell him about the time I scratched my cornea and had to wear an eye patch, and then he put those drops of fire in my eye—the ones that are sticky on your face and make you feel like your eyeballs are bleeding. He flicked on the machine and the lines with letters popped up.

“Okay, Carolyn, what’s the smallest line you can read here?” he said.
“Um, well, these eye drops are making it so that I can’t see anything,” I said.
“It’s not the eye drops—just tell me what line you can read,” he said, sounding punchier than he did with Walter Matthau next door.
“E,” I said. The big ‘E’ at the top was all I could make out.
“That’s it?” He is sitting right in front of me and I’m awkwardly trying to figure out what to do with my legs so that I don’t accidentally knee him in an inappropriate area.
“Yeah, but I mean, I can tell you what the smallest line is because I remember it from a few minutes ago when the nurse did this with me and I had my glasses on,” I said.
“Oh, well, I can fix that!”

He switched the screens entirely, and I suddenly had a flashback to when I was really young and memorized all the words to Goodnight, Moon. My parents thought I was some sort of prodigy child—while other kids my age were smearing poop on the walls, their child was reading! Then they gave me a different book, one I’d never seen before, and asked me to read it. Needless to say, they were pretty disappointed when they found out I couldn’t actually read—I’m sure I started smearing poop on the walls shortly thereafter.

“Alright, you shouldn’t feel those drops anymore now,” he said, and he was right, I couldn’t. “Go ahead and read the smallest line you can.”
“Uh, okay, well, uh, let’s see…T, S—no, wait, there’s numbers right? T, S, 8, W, Z, no…2?”
“How about now? Is this any better?”
“Yes.”
“Which one is better…one….or two? Two…or three…? Three…or one…?”
“Ah! I don’t know!” I felt like I was taking a test I didn’t study for.
“Okay, one more time, ready? One…or two…two…or one…?”
“Two?”
“Good! Okay, how about two…or three…?” At this point I’m dying inside because I’m sure the patient next door is pulling their hair out listening to me.
“Three? I guess, maybe?”
“About the same?” he asked.
“Yeah, well, no, not the same, but neither one of them are good,” I said, realizing who I sounded like.
“Okay, what do you see now?”
“Well, M, although I guess it could be N…V, but maybe it’s a Y…3, but it could be a B…uh…ummm….”
“Let’s try that again…” he said, which meant I didn’t get any right.
“Er, okay, well, P, N, H, 5…uh…F? This is a hard one. I want to say P because there hasn’t been a P yet, but now it looks like a R—R, N, oh, wait, is that a T? That H looks like a T to me…”

When the doctor was finished, many hours later, or so it seemed, I went out to the waiting room, hoping to put a face to my Walter Matthau so that I could stare at him apologetically, or open a door, or comment on the weather—something to make up for cursing him for being so annoying when I did the same exact thing (because karma’s a bitch and I’m just getting out of the doghouse as it is). But by now there were even more old people in the waiting room and it seemed unlikely that I would find my Walter. After I checked out, I went over to try on more frames—this being the main purpose of my trip to the eye doctor, because my glasses, according to the doctor, look like they’ve “been through a lot.” Next to the frames on display sat an old couple. The woman wore large, round glasses with a gold design lining the sides, her lips were pushed together and sticking out as if she was about to kiss a frog and she was holding tissues in each of her hands with her wrists crossed over her quilted pocketbook. The man was leaning over with his forearms resting on his thighs and he had a pair of glasses hanging from a chain around his neck, which swung like a pendulum within his hunched frame; I thought about how much smarter he would look if he perched the glasses on top of his bald head instead of wearing them like a necklace.

“Ugh, it’s always something with you, isn’t it?” said the woman.
“I suppose,” he said. I turned around and looked at the man—Walter Matthau?
“Well I’ll tell you what, this is the last time I’m going out of my way like this for you,” she said. I smiled at the man and he smiled back.
“That’s just fine by me.” Still, I wasn’t sure if it was him or someone who sounded like him.
“What did they even say while you were in there?” the woman asked.
“I don’t know, Norma. It was like last time, he showed me all them letters again, and I can’t ever tell the difference between one, and two and, whatever the hell else they ask, it all looks the same to me.”

Indeed, it was my Walter Matthau, and his wife was not happy about having to sit around and wait for him to get fitted for another pair of glasses. I turned again to look at the old man I had previously considered an annoyance as I was trying on a pair of purple Prada glasses, which I didn’t intend to buy, but they were purple, and Prada, so why not? The old man and I made eye contact, I smiled and he shook his head disapprovingly.

“Those don’t suit you, honey.” I starred at him, thinking about how ‘back in his day,’ people probably threw stones at girls who wore glasses while calling them four-eyes.
“Huh? Oh! Right, no, yeah, I know, but, thanks!” I said, laughing at how stupid I sounded, and probably looked. I put the glasses back on the shelf and walked out.

Driving home I thought about the eye doctor and the waiting room and my Walter Matthau and his wife, and then I started feeling weird about how oldness happens—how it just rolls in like a summer storm, hangs around long enough to fuck shit up, and then it moves on, leaving you blind, cranky, wrinkled and smelling like moth balls. Then I almost hit a mailbox because my pupils were still dilated from those damn eye drops and I was seeing threes of things.

I hate the eye doctor.

Posting Status: Mostly Deleted

2009-07-20T19:36:00.005-05:00

Maybe you've noticed that I haven't posted in the past seven days. Perhaps you've missed me. Or maybe you stopped reading this blog a long time ago and so it makes no difference to you if the posts are regular or not. Either way, I haven't been posting. It's not because I haven't been writing, or because I've been occupied with more important endeavors. It's because I've been really busy making sure that my 'Delete' button gets a good workout (at least one of us is getting exercise). So, yes, basically, I've been writing a lot of crap.

Here are 20 things I either wrote about or thought about writing about in the past week:

1. Deleted.
2. Sleep talking and walking.
3. Deleted.
4. Rules of Leaving: Part Deux.
5. Deleted.
6. Deleted.
7. Deleted.
8. This quote: “When aspiring writers ask for advice I tell them: ‘Exhaust all other possibilities.’ Then if all you can do is write, never give up.” (-Louise Erdrich)
9. Deleted.
10. Deleted.
11. Oma’s Dampferstamm.
12. The Kathy Griffin Ratio: Women & The Funny.
13. Deleted.
14. How to dissect the world one Golden Girls reference at a time.
15. Bathroom Politics.
16. Deleted.
17. Deleted.
18. Skin tags—can’t you just cut them off?
19. Goldfish and tang.
20. Deleted.

Okay, last week sucked. But I have unreasonably high hopes for the next seven days, so try to stay tuned for some worthwhile interruptions.

Dead Ducklings and Memory Reconciliation

2009-07-13T14:46:00.010-05:00

When I see Candy Buttons (the multi-colored dots on a strip of paper) I think of the Philadelphia Zoo and riding a train for the first time. When I taste blood I think of the time my dad pulled out my first loose tooth. Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Condensed Soup reminds me of the pork chops my dad used to make that were essentially drowning in an indescribable, chunky, gray sludge, which we subsequently ate every night for what felt like a year. The deafening sound of cicadas makes me think of the summer we visited our second cousins in Sioux City, Iowa. The sweet rubbery smell of a My Little Pony reminds me of birthdays and Christmases. Green ribbons remind me of summer camp. Oatmeal makes me think of chicken pox. Big Red gum reminds me of long car rides. And dry ice makes me think of all the times my sister and I pretended to be witches or mad scientists.

These are just brief instances, little snapshots of the past that pop into my head without warning. But none of the aforementioned memory triggers compare to the one I think of and recount most often.

(Note: The way I remember this happening might be different from what actually happened, so I guess you could say this is strictly from my seven-year-old point of view.)

It was newly summer, the end of the school year, and we were hosting a pool party for my second grade class. We lived in Powhatan, Virginia, a mostly rural (at the time) area, where it was headline news when the first stoplight was installed, and close encounters with wild animals and nature were pretty common. We also had a lot of animals of our own—or, as my dad would say, “it was a fucking zoo”—cats (which were endlessly fertile, thus a constant litter of kittens), pigeons, dogs, horses, rabbits, a couple goldfish, hamsters, guinea pigs, and ducklings were all part of our ever-growing brood. At the time of this pool party, the ducklings were the most new and exciting addition to our “zoo.” There were two ducklings, and during a forced break from swimming, I led a group of my classmates down to the ducklings’ cage, which was just beyond the pool, to show them these adorable, fuzzy, chirping creatures; however, when we reached our destination, there was nothing but an empty cage. I remember feeling panicked, thinking that it was my fault—had I irresponsibly left the door open? But, alas, this was not the case, for one of the ducklings lay dead on the ground—and it wasn’t in an ‘oops, it fell’ sort of way, it was in a ‘who done it’ sort of way.

I took off, searching for my dad, because surely he would know how to save the duckies. I ran up the side of our house screaming, “Daddy! Daaaad! DAAA-AAAD! HELP! SOMETHING’S HAPPENED TO THE DUCKS!” My dad, used to dramatic outbursts whether it was a dead baby duck or a dismembered Barbie, told me he would take care of it and to go back to the party. While he was problem-solving the duckling situation, I ran off to tell everyone about the tragedy unfolding, but I didn’t get far before I heard a few screams and my dad yelling. I ran around the pool and up to the side of the house where my dad had been, thinking someone must have found the missing duckling. But this was not the case, for there it was, the culprit of all evil, the monster, the murderer of my ducklings: a seven-foot long black snake with a large, duck-like lump just past its head (I’d say neck, but that doesn’t seem accurate). My dad was holding the monster by the tail as if it was a giant fish; he even had that proud predator smile, the one you see on fisherman in those 8” x 10” pictures encased in frames that have “Catch of the Day” engraved across the top. I was instantly horrified. I had seen, and likely tortured, many small garden snakes before, but I had never seen a snake as immense as the beast that ate my duckies. At this point my dad was too sick of the “zoo” to even entertain the idea of getting more ducks, and I don’t doubt that he experienced some sense of relief in their passing, but he still tried to make me feel better, telling me it was okay because the big, bad snake was dead now so I didn’t have to worry. He had to chop the snake into pieces with a shovel in order to fit it into the garbage. Then I ate a popsicle and went swimming.

Now my dead ducklings haunt me every time I go to a park with a pond, or when I walk my dog along the path in our neighborhood where ducks occasionally flutter in the puddles, or when duck is on the menu at a restaurant, or when someone mentions snakes. But sometimes it’s not even duck or snake-related, sometimes I’m folding laundry, or brushing my teeth, or writing a blog post. Perhaps it was the lack of resolution, the eagerness to move past the devastating murder of my ducklings, which has resulted in automatic playback of this memory. It was this weekend that I found out my dad’s version of this story is much different than my own, but that only seems to add to the trauma (I suppose it also confirms my ability to dramatize any event, as if I needed further proof).

Maybe resolution lies in the fact that my dad’s story is different than mine, even though in his version the ducklings are still murdered by a giant black snake, which he then killed (he confirms the whole chopping it up with a shovel part too), but he claims I wasn’t the one to discover the duckling homicide. Maybe the spirits of my duckies can’t rest until I do something to resolve their untimely deaths. Maybe I can’t rest until I do something to make myself feel better about their murders. I’ve considered a few options like, getting new ducklings and caring for them to adulthood (but that won’t work because my dog will surely eat them), or donating to a duck preservation society (but I’m practically a charity case myself so that seems unreasonable), or maybe I could buy a snake and turn it into a vegetarian before releasing it back into the wild so that it can teach other murderous snakes a lesson (but that seems to require a specific skill set, which I’m not really interested in acquiring).

I suppose a certain amount of unrest concerning this memory is inevitable. I guess I’ll just eat a popsicle and go swimming. Again.

Character Monologue: The First Female Santa

2009-07-07T15:19:00.006-05:00

In my Second City Comedy Writing class, one of the things I found so interesting was how we did a lot of exercises that were similar to the way improvisation is done. If you've ever been to an improv show, you know that it generally starts by asking the audience for an object, place or activity which the improvisers will then use as a prompt for creating characters and scenes. The exercise we did in class on the second day was similar to this: Create a character and monologue based on the action verb you were given. I was given the verb “carry.” Below is the first draft of what I came up with.*

Carrie – late thirties meeting with a doctor

Hi, I’m Carrie. Thanks for seeing me on such short notice, doc. I’m just going to start at the beginning because I think you’ll get a better understanding of my reasonings that way.

I work at the mall during Christmas as Santa’s Little Helper, technically I’m an Elf, but my name tag says, “Carrie: Santa’s Little Helper” so that’s what I have to say I am. This isn't just a gig, it's an important step towards reaching my overall career goal. You see, I’m trying to start at the bottom and work my way up, but eventually, I want to be the first female Santa Claus. I mean, sure, okay, maybe there’s been some other female Santas out there that I haven’t heard about, but I know for a fact that if I were to play Santa, I’d be the first female to do it in the state of Tennessee…well, at least the first in Crockett County. And besides, I want to do this for the sake of feminism, which I'm a big believer in, especially during the holidays. I mean, I’ve got a lot of obstacles trying to keep me from achieving my goal and being a woman is just one of them—for instance, I’m Jewish, but has that stopped me from celebrating Christmas every year and working as Santa’s Little Helper? No, sir-ee! Lots of people think I just want to be a man and that’s why I’m all hung up on this female Santa thing, but it’s not true. I like being a woman just fine, which is why I’m here to see you, doc.

I know I’m paying you for your services, and I know you probably don’t understand why I want to get pregnant right now. But I’m running out of time, and you’re my last hope. You see, if I get pregnant now, I figure I’ll be about eight months along by December—pregnant ladies are generally pretty fat by then, right doc? So, if I have a nice big, round belly by December, it’s really going to improve my chances of getting to play Santa this year. I’ve tried gaining weight, but I just so happen to be naturally thin, and there’s a history of diabetes in my family, so it’s probably not a good idea anyway. And that brings me to why I'm here - I’ve decided to take an alternative route in order to fulfill my dream of becoming Crockett County’s first female Santa. Of course, yes, there are other reasons for me to do IVF. I mean, I’m nearly 40, unmarried, no prospects in sight, and menopause is practically around the corner. But with all those reasons aside—reasons you get other women pregnant for all of the time, mind you—I have even more reasons, dream-fulfilling reasons!

You see, I’ve been to other doctors and they’ve all turned me down, but my friend told me about you and so I thought I’d try to make it happen one more time. I know about what they did for that Suleman woman and she has EIGHT babies now! If I had eight babies, it would be perfect, just think—eight reindeer or elves! Come on, doc. I know it’s March and all, but in the spirit of Christmas, do you think you could shoot me up with some of that baby-making juice and help my dreams come true? I’ll even sweeten the deal by offering you a free permanent spot on the “Nice” List...

So, what do you say, doc—we got a deal?

*I promise I'll eventually stop geeking-out about my Second City experience, but for now you're just going to have to deal with it. Oh, and when I preface something by saying it's a "first draft" feel free to comment, make suggestions, critique, or whatever.

1st Draft: "Rules of Leaving"

2009-07-06T17:19:00.005-05:00

So I feel like I've been neglecting this blog since I've been in Chicago. Don't think that this means I haven't been writing, because I have, practically non-stop. But in an effort to feel less guilty, I've decided to share some of my "works in-progress" with you. Below is a snippet of a story that just sort of jumped onto the page when I sat down to write today. I have no idea where it's going, what it's doing, or why these characters won't get out of my head...but here it is. Again, try to keep in mind that this is a first draft, and therefore completely rough and in obvious need of work--uh, so, in other words, don't judge me too harshly.

Rules of Leaving

Betsy was always just visiting. Anyone who saw her knew she wasn’t there to stay. She seemed like a perched bird, temporary, on display, and just hanging out until a loud noise made her fly away. She had a heavy bag that draped over her shoulder, carrying most of what must be her life, and her shoes looked like they had been slept in, spit on and dragged through puddles of city slop, but the laces were new and neon green. Betsy spoke with whatever accent was in her ear, this made it so that no one knew her after meeting her, except for maybe Chuck.

They had been living in the same place for nearly three months. For Betsy it was too long. She was ready to pick up and go at any moment, at the first mention of opportunity, but this hadn’t happened since they left the place they were for the place they are now. Chuck thought she was staying for him, trying to give him a break, but he also thought that maybe she was staying until she knew he wouldn’t leave with her.

“I feel like we just got here,” Chuck said, packing up an olive green suitcase that lay open on his cot.
“And so it be the time to depart, dearest Charles!” Betsy said. She was sitting on the balcony, which wasn’t a real balcony, according to Betsy, it was an “exaggerated windowsill,” smoking a hand-rolled cigarette.
“There’s just no sense in it. Why, in the middle of February, would we leave this beach, where it’s warm and sunny, for a place where it’s so cold your snot freezes?” Chuck asked.
“Who told you your snot would freeze? That’s sheer rubbish,” Betsy said. She was taking swigs out of the bottle of Jameson they had found in the nightstand where a Bible should’ve been and slurring between a Scottish and British accent.
“I don’t know, but I get runny noses, like, real easily, and I know it’s cold there—it’s all anyone talks about when you tell them you’re moving to Chicago,” Chuck said.
“Who did you tell?” Betsy suddenly changed her position, throwing her legs over the edge and inside as if she was going to run at Chuck.
“No, no one. I mean, I told Pete, but I had to because he’d get in trouble if the dishes weren’t done and I was gone,” Chuck said. He turned back to his packing, avoiding Betsy’s eyes which were searching him like two florescent lights, lifeless yet blindingly bright.
“You know the deal, Chuckster—don’t tell anyone where we are going or where we plan to go. I mean, what if I’d told that tattoo artist I was seeing in Atlanta that we were headed to Miami…? I’ll tell you what, he’d be beating us for the money we owe him by now,” she said.

They were staying in a hostel after Chuck made an arrangement with the management. The room wasn’t a room they gave to paying customers; it was a room off the kitchen, reserved for workers who couldn’t pay to stay.

“Shitfuck! What are we going to do about Pete? Maybe we shouldn’t go to Chicago now...maybe Nashville instead,” Betsy said, flicking her cigarette into the night.
“What’s Pete going to do? We don’t owe anyone here nothing, do we? Bets…do we?”
“You’re right. We owe nothing. Off we are as planned then!” Betsy was suddenly standing next to Chuck and staring into the tidy suitcase, which was mostly full of underwear tied-up with neon green shoelaces and hotel toiletries.
“Still haven’t learned to travel light, have you? You don’t need half of this crap,” she said.
“You’re the one that stole this shit, and almost had us put in jail for it, now you’re telling me to just leave it?” Chuck asked.

Chuck knew Betsy better than anyone. He knew how she liked her coffee, and that she really liked tea more; he knew the scar lining the crease of her nose was from a wire hanger and not a nose job; he knew her eyes were really grey and not blue; he knew her birthday was October 1st, not January 1st; he knew her hair always smelled like green apples before it always smelled like smoke; he knew that her real name was Dikranouhi before she had it legally changed to Betsy.

Chuck knew Betsy would leave without him next time. They'd been all over the East coast together, but Chuck felt like they spent most of their time leaving, and his baggage was getting heavier, harder to carry.

They sat on the floor of the studio apartment they were renting on a monthly basis in south Chicago, Chuck was leaning against the bed while Betsy sat on the floor with a map spread out between her legs. The place smelled like an ashtray and Mexican food; when the train passed the walls shook and the floor vibrated. That was Betsy’s favorite part, the shaking and vibrating.

“I love that this place never stops moving. It’s metaphorical, right Chuckster?” Betsy asked.
“Yeah, sure, I guess,” Chuck said.
“So. Where’d you get all them books from?” Betsy asked, pointing to a stack of books sitting next to Chuck’s bed. She was speaking with a hint of a New York accent this time and chewing on strands of red licorice.
“Library,” Chuck said.
“You have a library card?”
“Well, yeah, I had to get one to get the books,” Chuck said, trying to keep the defensive tone out of his voice.
“Damnit, Charles! Why not just go buy a condo on the lake while you’re at it,” Betsy said. Her hair was down, engulfing her face in black chaotic curls. Chuck always thought she looked prettiest with her hair down, but it only lasted a few seconds before she was sweeping it back again.
“It’s a library card. Pretty temporary,” Chuck said.
“We’ve been here for a month and you’re acting like we’re settled. It’s a library card now, but you know how it is...one attachment leads to another,” Betsy said, twisting her hair into a braid.

Chuck was never comfortable anywhere they went. Not because it wasn’t home, home wasn’t anywhere, but because he was always trying to keep to Betsy’s plans and rules. Buying a library card was against the rules; anything permanent, anything traceable, anything lasting was against the rules. When they first met, Chuck understood Betsy’s rules to be anything that went against other real rules—rules for living abnormally, he thought. He liked how Betsy, a woman no one would expect to have rules, actually had a list she kept and followed.

1. Don’t stand still
2. Borrowing is not stealing
3. Don’t tell anyone where you're going when you go
4. Don’t buy things that are permanent, traceable or lasting
5. Use what’s wasted
6. Move with other things that move
7. Any open place is a place to rest
8. No phone numbers
9. No extras (people, baggage, obligations, etc.)
10. No missing (people or places)

It was number six that worried Chuck. Since they’d come to Chicago, one or both of them had broken a rule on this list. Chuck was the greatest offender, everyday left him more still. Betsy recognized this in him, but she feared rule number ten more than any other which is why she hadn't really left, yet. But there were times when Chuck would wait all night for Betsy to come back to their shaking, vibrating studio just so that he could see her close her eyes and feel safe again. After the first month in Chicago, she started coming back to him less; several days would pass and Chuck would think she was gone for good, but then she would appear in her neon green shoelaces with a bag of someone's forgotten (stolen) leftovers. She never explained her absences, but she would talk about things Chuck didn't know about in a new accent, like a dog that developed a new bark after coming home from running away.

Once, Chuck asked Betsy if they could make amendments to the rules. It seemed like a reasonable request, all rules should be amendable so that they are continually applicable to the present, he thought. But Betsy told him he could make his own rules if he wanted to change hers. This is when Chuck knew that Betsy's rules were nothing more than rules for leaving, and this is when Betsy left Chuck and didn't come back, for good.

Second City: The First Day

2009-06-30T13:29:00.008-05:00

This week I am in the land of Midwest opportunity—Chicago—taking two classes at Second City. A few weeks ago, somewhat on an impulse, I decided to sign up for an Improv and Comedy Writing class, because this is what I should be doing during my required, unpaid sabbatical, right? So I found myself suddenly stunned and propelled to take action upon realizing that this might be the only time in my life when I can reasonably justify such an experience. Whether it was the minimal commitment of one week (as opposed to, oh say, a three-year graduate program), or finally listening to my gut instead of letting my brain get in the way (stupid brain), or maybe it took people telling me that I’m funny to realize that I want to make people laugh (at me or with me, whatever)—either way it felt, with invigorating certainty, like the right thing to do right now.

Yesterday was my first day of classes—three hours of improvisation in the morning and three hours of comedy writing in the afternoon. They call the course an “Immersion,” which sounds like they are going to hold our heads under water until we emerged as amazing talents. Nevertheless, I had a great first day. It was the kind of day I think you spend your naïve professional years dreaming of, where you feel like you are powered by a constant, flowing stream of inspiration, excitement, passion and hope. I know it sounds trite, but I had goose bumps all day, and not just because of the artic temperatures in the building (I learned that the air conditioning is kept at just above frostbite in order to maintain “electronic equipment,” which is, of course, more important than human comfort). Maybe it’s the buzz of the city in the summer, the way you can feel the energy of life and activity pulsating through your body as you walk down the street, but I wasn’t even deterred by the homeless man’s piss I accidentally walked through.

Even though I was terrified of the improv class, having always felt most comfortable scribbling on paper or hiding behind a computer screen, I must say, I enjoyed it more than the writing class. But the writing class did give me a chance to reflect as our teacher walked us through the first exercise, a favorite of mine that I am all too familiar with: “Write for 15 minutes and don’t stop. You won’t have to read what you write out loud, and I don’t care if you write the same sentence over and over again, just write for 15 minutes without stopping,” said Joe, our writing instructor. I love this exercise because it forces you to fight your way out of a block, which can happen every third word. It also helps me be less critical—when you only have 15 minutes and you can’t stop, you have to let go of the word you just wrote, the sentence you put it in, you have to reserve your criticism, avoid the urge to edit as you go and just let the words flow organically. Anyway, I’ll stop geeking-out now, below is what I wrote during this 15-minute free write.

The room we are in is divided, not in terms of people, but by paint. The lower half of the room is a sort of putrid brown, the kind of shit color you’d find in a baby’s diaper, or maybe in your grandparents’ outdated bathroom. There’s a poster on the wall that has the word CHOKING written in big red letters and even though my vision is too poor to know for sure, I assume that there are instructions on what to do when someone is choking and how to perform the hymlic maneuver. The poster is laminated and shiny, which gives it an official presence. The weird part is, I don’t see a candy machine anywhere, small objects, or even food, so it’s not like there’s anything you could even legitimately choke on. It’s as if someone decided to snag it from a doctor’s office to make up for the lack of decoration and poop-colored walls. I mean, I guess if someone chokes on a pen top, or their own saliva—both of which I’ve nearly done myself—then maybe the poster would come in handy, assuming you had time to read the fine print instructions and then apply them before the choker croaked. “Oh, what’s that you say?” [Making the universal choking gesture] “Oh, you’re choking? Okay, well can you hold on just minute while I read up on and practice the hymlic maneuver?” Unless, of course, I’m even blinder than I think and it’s not a choking poster at all…maybe “choking” is an improv thing that I don’t get yet…

The carpet is a drab navy with a weaving of gray thread throughout. The sporadic stains seem to tell stories of past clumsy students, wannabe comedians who spilt their sodas on the famed floors of Second City, not knowing at the time that this would be the only impression they would manage to leave.

The air is blowing directly on me, set to an unreasonably chilly temperature; I can feel myself shivering as I write this. I’m the only one wearing a skirt, which I now realize was a terrible choice because these people are really fond of sitting on the floor in circles. It’s odd how difficult it is to get a group of about 20 adults to stand, or sit, in a shape that even sort of resembles a circle.

The people in these classes are from everywhere. But I find it strangely comforting that at least two of the students aren’t American—one is from England and the other Australia, which must mean that these classes are a big damn deal because their investment in terms of travel is double, even quadruple, compared to everyone else. The instructors keep asking us why we are here, what made us take this class and what we hope to get out of it, but no one actually says the truth: “I’m here to be discovered.” But you hear it every time someone says, “I’m here because I want to broaden my skills” and “I’m here to see what it’s all about.” Lies, ALL LIES! If I think I am here for any other reason than the dimming hope of one day becoming famous for a talent I’m not entirely certain I possess (even as I write that I know it’s not true—I believe I do possess the talent—but perhaps it is the strength, endurance and luck that I lack…?) then I’d be kidding myself. It’s not that my goal is to be famous (that would be a shitty goal) it’s that fame just seems to be the only way success is ever measured in this field. It is validating though, surrounding yourself with people who are just as hungry as you are (seriously, I had no idea that there were people out there more desperate for attention than me).

The cold is getting me again, creeping in from all sides and wrapping around my toes like barbed wire. I wish I had a Snuggie.

That’s all I got to in 15 minutes, nothing more than a descriptive rant, which, I’ve learned, tends to be my consistent fallback in the write moment (something I plan to work on while I’m here). I'm off to my next class now and tonight I think I’m going to try to catch a few improv and comedy shows, assuming the public transit system doesn't "trick" me again. As of now, I’m feeling quite confident that what I’ll walk away with after this week will be better than any fame or discovery, instead, I think I’m going to walk away knowing what to do next, which is more than I could have ever hoped for.

I guess it's only been a day, so I should try to keep my expectations reasonable, in the event that it all of a sudden sucks.

Stay tuned...

This Heat Is Hot

2009-06-26T15:19:00.004-05:00

For those of you who don’t live nearby, and don’t watch The Weather Channel 24/7, it’s been impossibly hot in Kansas City. With 47 counties under excessive heat warnings, not even the notoriously hottest places in the world have come close to matching Kansas City’s paralyzing heat index of 110 degrees this week. I love hot weather, but most Kansas Citians do not; in fact, they are big babies about hot weather. I hail from the Southeast, which means I’m used to excessive heat and humidity so thick you feel like mold could grow on your forehead if you’re outside for too long. But people here go indoors and refuse to venture out when the heat gets too hot. I’m not saying it’s not hot, because it is, painfully hot, but it’s not like you’re going to evaporate if you go outside. Of course, I’m a huge baby when it comes to Kansas City winters, and everyone makes fun of me for not being able to handle myself in ice and snow, so it’s only fair for the tables to turn as the seasons change.

I can think of lots of things to do outside when it's hot, even when Gary Lezak and Brian Busby (our proud local weathermen) scare everybody by going into dramatic meteorologist mode with their you-might-die extreme weather reports (it’s tornado season, can you blame them for being a little eager?). To prove my point, I’ve created a list of activities for you and the family to enjoy, which wouldn’t be possible without this heat.

1. Make sweat angels. Lie on a concrete sidewalk or driveway and raise your arms up and down while pushing your feet in and out. Stand up and see whose angel last the longest before drying up.

2. Lemonade stands are so out. Make popsicles out of random stuff and sell them on the street (people will buy anything cold when it’s hot). Some ideas: toothpaste popsicles, ketchup popsicles, toilet water popsicles, and, my personal favorite, spit popsicles.

3. Buy a really crappy above ground pool. My neighbors did this and it has been a pleasure to look at that plastic blue siding all year-round.

4. If the “buying” or “above ground” part of #3 turns you off, grab a shovel and dig a hole in your back yard. It might take awhile for it to fill up with water, but when it does—oh boy, everyone’s going to want to play in your mud pool!

5. Decorate the sidewalk. Who needs chalk when you have sweat and food coloring?

6. Stand on top of an office building in the middle of the day and throw water balloons at people walking by who look really hot. They won’t say ‘thank you,’ but just know that’s what they really mean.

7. Fry an egg on the sidewalk. I don’t know, they do it in the movies and it always looks kind of cool. Once it’s fried, put it in an envelope and send it to KMBC or KSHB—Lezak and Busby will go crazy and it will totally make the evening news.

8. Buy a boat, park it in your driveway and sit in it. The rest is up to your imagination.

9. Go to a local “Cooling Center” and rub elbows with a sweaty homeless man.

10. Kansas City is the self-proclaimed “City of Fountains.” So, go swimming with some stone statues that spit water.

Disclaimer: Quinnterruption is not responsible for any of the repercussions of the activities listed above. No, seriously. Don’t even try to blame me if you get arrested, suffer heat stroke, or severe disappointment. The heat makes people crazy, and I have heat on my side—so, yeah, tell that to your lawyer.

Sisterly Love

2009-06-24T11:14:00.007-05:00

Some of you might remember my sister, Tori (Torruption), from one of my earlier posts. Tori has a lot of opinions, and occasionally, when I have that unsure, yet still mostly excited, feeling about something I’ve written, I will ask her to read it before I post it. Of course, the fact that I continually do this in hopes of getting a positive response, despite how it usually makes me feel, might indicate an unhealthy obsession with harsh criticism and, maybe, insanity. Nevertheless, today I decided to share a post with her in which I wrote about the concept of saving. Below is the conversation that ensued on g-chat after she read it.

Tori: Do me a favor, write about something you absolutely love that doesn't have anything to do with you specifically.
Sent at 9:46 AM on Wednesday

Me: Do me a favor, and don't shoot it down when I do.
Tori: You know it’s naive so leave it alone.
Sent at 9:47 AM on Wednesday

Me: Yes, naive, but not everyone reading it has tunnel vision.
Tori: Of all the things that you would be ok with your writing being described as would you ever let it be naive?
Sent at 9:52 AM on Wednesday

Me: Yeah. I'm not so naive as to think my writing would be anything else at this point.
Sent at 9:53 AM on Wednesday

Tori: Please. Stop. Why does everything have to suck?
Me: Um. Did I say it sucked? I don't think being naive is entirely sucky. I think it's truthful, endearing, and will likely be comical at some point in the future.
Sent at 9:55 AM on Wednesday

Tori: No dude, that's just how you are these days. Stop doing that- it's like you’re on auto-suck where your automatic reaction and reasoning to everything is that you and everything you do just sucks. STOP! IT’S SO OBNOXIOUS! Don't willingly post something that you know makes you seem amateur and ignorant- it's really just that simple. Naive is only endearing when you're 12, not when your 25 talking about finances. Please, please, please for the love of god just write about something you like for once, no more self deprecation for a week alright, Sylvia Plath? Give it a rest. I want to read something that will make me laugh, and not at your expense for once.
Sent at 9:58 AM on Wednesday

Me: Ah, there it is. That wonderfully encouraging and always constructive feedback I've come to know and love.
I hope you never have children because they will die trying to live up to your impossible standards.
Tori: Well I'm glad that you aren't blowing this out of proportion and making it out to be something that it's not.
Me: Right, because that would be unreasonable.
Tori: Bringing up the ruined lives of my hypothetical children is not only relevant but totally constructive- bravo.
I'm trying to be honest with you - open your eyes.
Me: I’m just trying to spread the love.
Tori: Your blog is sinking because of this. Remember the dandelion post? Remember the Bear post? Bring me something original and light hearted- I have at least three more melancholic female literary references I can throw at you if not...
Just kidding- I can't read.

Me: Alright, Tori - back to you being the only audience that matters.
Tori: That was the most hurtful thing you've said to me on g-chat.
Me: Tell me you're kidding.
Tori: The serious joking is what makes it funny, dumbass - try to keep up!
Sent at 10:07 AM on Wednesday

Me: Right, lessons on how to be funny from the biggest bitch I know...where can I sign up?
Tori: You already have – ZING!
Okay, but really, making this about me isn't going to make that post any better so come off it…
Sent at 10:08 AM on Wednesday

Me: I just so happen to disagree with you.
Sent at 10:10 AM on Wednesday

Tori: I think you like fighting with me when you know something you write isn't very good because you know that whatever criticism you have to say about me is true and you just like being right about something.
Sent at 10:12 AM on Wednesday

Me: No, I thought that piece was good. I still think it's good. It might need a different context, and maybe a freshening of the jokes, but it's still good writing and concepting…that is, in my ever-humble opinion. But I appreciate your opinion, and I do plan to write more posts that have less to do with me…just to make you laugh.
Sent at 10:15 AM on Wednesday

Tori: Alright, let me read it again in a little bit.
Me: Yeah, I mean, I think you missed the point of the piece. It wasn't about finances.
Tori: So don’t talk about them.
Me: Um. You're not as smart as you say you are.
Tori: Neither are you- clearly
Me: Yes, clearly.
Sent at 10:21 AM on Wednesday

Tori: I gotta go run an errand. Sometimes I pretend like I'm a really cool investigative news reporter when I throw the bag you gave me over my shoulder.
Me: Okay. Have fun, News Reporter Barbie.

So now that my blog is apparently sinking under the weight of my self-deprecating words, I am going to try some new stuff over the next few weeks. Don’t worry, I’m not going go all perky-positive style on you and talk about smiles, sunshine and sparkles, but maybe I’ll try something like magic tricks—everyone loves a rabbit when it’s pulled out of a hat, right? In any case, I’ve started a list to help guide me.

Thing That Don’t Have To Do With Me [Sucking]:
1. Scrabble
2. Coasters
3. The Today Show
4. Throw Pillows
5. Pleather

And that’s as far as I’ve gotten with the list, but I’m confident (dare I say positive) that there is more to add.

On Being Gracefully Challenged

2009-06-22T15:26:00.011-05:00

I’ve never been anything but clumsy. My childhood was spent with skinned knees, broken limbs and an occasionally obscure wound—like the time I scratched my cornea and had to wear an eye patch for the whole summer. I can recount 25 years of clumsiness by mapping out my scars: the one that looks like the state of Florida is from falling on a gravel playground when I was eight, the one next to it is from college when I tripped down the stairs at the The Wheel, the line across my index finger is from the time I sliced it while chopping vegetables, and the one on my hip that looks like a thumb is from an unfortunate incident involving a Slip ‘n Slide.

It’s been awhile since I’ve had to deal with any injuries as a result of my clumsiness. This might be because my level of activity has significantly decreased in recent months, so there are fewer opportunities for me to inadvertently hurt myself. But last Friday, in a rare moment of motivation, I decided to go for a long bike ride—the first of a new daily biking routine I planned to implement. Feeling confident despite looking like a complete dork in my helmet, bike shorts and fanny pack, I headed out, determined to get worthwhile exercise.

I followed the bike path near my house for a couple miles but I wanted to challenge myself with some hills, so I veered off the path when I spotted a narrow sidewalk that would lead me up a big hill. Huffing and puffing by the time I reached the top, I paused to make sure I didn't pop a lung, and to gaze at the down hill coast that would be my reward after climbing what felt like Mount Kilimanjaro. As I tried to catch my breath, I thought of the time my dad taught me to ride a bike without training wheels.

I was about six years old and as I watched my dad take the training wheels off of my purple polka-dot banana seat bike, I wondered if there was a way to take one off at a time because going from four wheels to two wheels seemed unreasonable in my opinion. Shaking and unbalanced, dad pushed me up our long, winding driveway. When we reached the top, I remember looking down the hill and thinking it would be easy—all I had to do was coast. “Ready?” dad asked me. He gave me a push and ran next to me, occasionally reaching out to grab the back of my bike and steady me. I heard him yelling, “Go, Quinnie, go! You got it—!” When I realized he was no longer behind me and I was riding my bike, with no training wheels, like a big girl, I got excited and lost control, which caused me to leap from my bike like it was on fire. It took awhile, several skinned knees and a few tears, but I eventually learned how to ride my bike without training wheels.

Once I was done reminiscing, I took a swig of water and started downhill, relishing the wind against my face. I spotted a large puddle ahead—a mix of water, grass, moss and algae—and I figured I could just coast right through it, as long as I didn’t hit my breaks it would be okay, I thought. But I was wrong. As soon as I hit the puddle my bike slipped out from under me and, lacking any real balance to begin with, I ended up skidding down the remainder of the hill on my knees. The moment between acknowledging the danger of falling and then actually falling always seems to happen in slow motion for me and I usually surrender to the fall instead of fighting it, resigning myself to injury. I stood up, covered in mossy, grassy, puddle poison and looked around to see if anyone saw me wipe out—there were a few people, but it didn't appear as though they saw me fall (or they did and were just pretending not to). So I brushed myself off and acted like nothing happened as I got back on my bike and rode the ten blocks home covered in puddle poison and blood.

When I got home I called Steve, my boyfriend, looking for sympathy.

“I fell off my bike and hurt myself!”
“What? Are you okay? Where are you?” Steve seemed flushed with concern, at first.
“I’m at home now but I am not okay. I think I’m going to have to amputate my knees…”
“Baby, it can’t be that bad.”
“It is! I can hardly move! And I fell in a puddle of crap that’s probably infecting my cuts now!”
“Hahahaha…I’m sorry, I don’t mean to laugh, it’s just that…well, the thought of you falling off your bike is funny.”
“I know. Shut up.”

I probably would have laughed at him if he fell off of his bike—falling is funny, I don’t care who you are, how you do it, or how hurt you get. And since I’m known for my clumsiness, I am used to being laughed at. You can always count on me to be the one to run into the sliding glass door because I didn’t realize it was closed, fall down the stairs while wearing a dress, or drop a tray full of drinks because my feet got in the way of my walking, again. On any given day, I have a fresh bump, bruise or cut to serve as evidence of my clumsiness and remind me of my painful lack of grace.

After the fall, I sent my sister this picture of myself to which her response was: “AHAHAHAHAHA! YOU ARE SO CLUMSY! YOU FELL OFF YOUR BIKE?! THAT’S HILARIOUS! HAHAHAHA!”

It’s been three days since my biking accident and I’m still hobbling around. I really can’t remember the last time I was in so much uncomfortable pain. Every time I bend my knees it feels like I’m falling all over again and I’m beginning to see the bruises under the cuts, which makes me look like the pariah of the produce aisle—the bad apple no one will buy because it’s bruised, discolored and covered in flesh wounds. As I said, I used to skin my knees all the time as a kid—sure, it hurt, but I would be picking at the scabs a few days later. Clearly my bounce-back ability is not what it used to be, which makes me feel old.

Perhaps there's a class, a pill or some sort of remedy for my inherent clumsiness that I just don't know about...? In any case, I need to look into it because I think I'm getting too old to be this damn clumsy. And at the rate I'm going, the inscription on my gravestone will read: "She could trip over flat surfaces."

Facebook Quizzes & Daily Horoscopes: A New Path to Self Awareness

2009-06-16T15:50:00.009-05:00

I’ve stayed away from Facebook quizzes for many reasons, but to name a few:

1.) I’m too cool.
2.) The people who take Facebook quizzes are either 12 or 35.
3.) I don’t give a sh*t what animal you were in your past life, what color your aura is, or what dog breed you are—sorry.

But yesterday I surrendered to a quiz titled “Which celebrity would play you in a movie of your life?” I’m not sure what hooked me, but I think it was the possibility of being told that someone extremely likable, like Jennifer Aniston, or someone really hardcore, like Angelina Jolie, would play me in a movie. So I proceeded to take the quiz, which asked discerning personal questions like, “Would you go after another woman’s man?” and “Do you believe in true love?” and “How high maintenance are you on a scale of 1 to 10?”

My result was Debra Messing and this was the rationalization:

You are the class clown. Always trying to make others laugh. You have a genuiness about you that is obvious to all. You are the girl men leave their "arm trophies" for and are glad of it.

First of all, I don’t like Debra Messing. I put her in the same category as Hillary Swank: she is annoying, attractive only if you squint your eyes, and avoiding her only makes her appear more often. If you do see one of her movies it’s probably on accident because of a non-stop run on TBS, and even then you don’t really admit to actually watching the entire movie, only "parts of it." I mean, did anyone else see The Wedding Date? Enough said. But I am glad to know that I have a “genuiness” about me, that’s good, especially since I didn’t know “genuiness” was a word.

After “Which celebrity would play you in a movie of your life?” another quiz popped up called “What are you born to do?” and, given my current situation, it seemed wrong to not take this quiz. I was given seven questions—yes, just seven questions—to answer, which I assumed would then result in a solution to my ongoing question: what will I be now that I am a grown up? Here was the result:
I won’t even go into the countless spelling and punctuation errors in this quiz result—clearly the people creating these quizzes never passed an English class—but what the hell does this mean? This isn’t an answer to “what are you born to do?” I’m more lost after reading this than I was before I took the damn quiz! But at least it validates my ability to “make just about anyone like [me].” Obviously I don’t choose to utilize this skill on a regular basis, but it’s good to know that I have the ability.

I could see myself becoming addicted to Facebook quizzes the same way I used to be addicted to reading my daily horoscope. If you turn off the half of your brain that is meant for logical reasoning, then things like Facebook quizzes and horoscopes can be seen as ways to gather information about yourself; they are like insights into the future, ways to ease the pain of the unknown.

I used to read my horoscope everyday and it always ended up being true, except for when it wasn't. For instance, here is my horoscope for today, courtesy of yahoo.com:

Daily Extended Horoscope for June 16, 2009 (Today)
Libra: 9/23 – 10/22
Weigh your words carefully, as if they were diamonds. While it might be tempting to blurt out any ol' opinion that crosses your mind, erring on the side of caution is definitely the best measure at this time. That goes double for emails and any other written communications -- right now, it's all too easy for someone to misconstrue even the simplest statement and get hot under the collar about it.

Right, so I guess this means I shouldn't post today...?

I think I’m just going to go buy a t-shirt that says, “Everything I learned about myself I got from a Facebook quiz and my daily horoscope.” At least then people will know that I am a self-aware individual.

Networking: Just Be Yourself...Well, Not Really

2009-06-12T13:51:00.023-05:00

Networking? Bring the cheese.

I feel about networking the same way I feel about bowel movements: everyone does it, but that doesn’t mean we need to embarrass ourselves by talking about it.

I get it. A gazillion people have already told me. Networking is important. No, seriously. I get it. If we could all just admit that networking makes us act like complete asshats, then I wouldn’t have such an issue with it. But instead, it’s like a marathon to see who can shake the most hands and collect the most business cards so they can send out a series of emails in the next 24 hours that look like this:

Hi, Important Person at a Company I Want to Work For!

I hope you had a swell time at that mixer last night. The appetizers were really delicious. Anyway, I enjoyed talking your ear off about myself. I recall you saying that you liked my scarf, and I wanted to let you know that it is available at any Target in the metro area (in case you wanted to get one and then we could be scarf buddies!!!). Also, I wanted to make sure you had all of my contact information in the event that a job opens up at your company or somewhere else that’s cooler because my interest in you is really limited to what you can do for me. So with this in mind, I’ve attached my resume which will only solidify your opinion of me as a completely mediocre candidate, and here is my website in case you’d like to see some samples of all the entirely irrelevant work I’ve done.

Thanks again, I hope you have a great day, and if there’s anything you need, please don’t hesitate to contact me to kiss your ass until it falls off.

Sincerely,
Jobless Networking Asshat

Every article I’ve read and every speaker I’ve heard talks about networking being the most vital part of the job search in a down economy. But no one ever tells you that networking involves schmoozing like a used-car salesman. No one ever tells you that you’ll have to feign a knowledge of sailing and pretend to be fascinated by a boat named “Hoosier Daddy” because it belongs to the VP of the company you’ve sent your resume to 85 times. No, the only thing people ever tell you about networking is “be yourself,” but this is not what they really mean because networking is not something you would do if you were to “be yourself.” Am I right?

In the course of my job search, I’ve realized that any time recruiters or job search gurus say, “just be yourself” what they really mean is “just act like you’re being yourself.” How could they really mean “be yourself” when they just gave you a list of acceptable phrases to use in an interview, a list of acceptable 140-character Tweets, and an example of an acceptable Facebook page for you to use as a guideline? And then they tell you something like, “ always appear positive,” to which I always want to say, “appearing positive would really mess with my personal branding message,” because personal branding is a $100 word in the job search world.

The worst part about losing my job wasn’t the loss of financial security, health insurance or daily purpose, it was knowing that I would have to listen to endless amounts of hypocritical job search babble like, “be yourself” and “networking is the key to getting your dream job.” It’s kind of like when your parents talk about things like sex or drugs or the Internet and you suddenly feel like your ears are going to start bleeding.

I’m still in my first trimester of unemployment, but if things keep going the way they are now, and I’m forced to listen to more people talk about the job search, the importance of networking and tell me how to be myself, I am afraid that I might become a robot—kind of like a Stepford Wife only I’d be called Prospective Employee #13,976,345.

My Reflection is Stalking Me

2009-06-09T17:05:00.007-05:00

I’ve been really busy avoiding mirrors after realizing that my reflection doesn’t do anything to inspire me, in fact, it has the opposite effect because what I see is everything I don’t want to be (unemployed, unhappy, malnourished, out of shape, and desperate – the last one is what did me in). But apparently avoiding mirrors only causes your reflection to appear more often. From the sliding glass doors at the grocery store to the tinted car windows in the parking lot to the ceiling-to-floor windows of an office building to extra shiny silverware to the rain puddles on a sidewalk—everywhere I go my reflection follows.

I used to be one of those people who couldn’t help but gaze at their reflection as they walked past a storefront window. Call it vain, but it was more about catching a glimpse of how other people saw me, how I looked to the rest of the world. When I get dressed and stand in front of a mirror at home, I know what I see is different from what other people see because I have a mirror pose: I purse my lips, bite the insides of my cheeks, suck in my gut, jut out my right hip and put my hands on my waist. This pose is something I only do when I am alone and standing in front of a mirror, I never look like this in real life. As a result, catching a reflection of myself doing something other than my mirror pose used to be interesting (back when the reality of my appearance wasn’t so…so…sad?) because it gave me a more realistic vision of myself.

But given the current devastating nature of this realistic vision, I find accidental reflections torturous. The worst is when the dark outside turns the windows into mirrors inside—I can’t see beyond my reflection, but in the darkness outside I imagine someone starring in at me and wondering if I am aware of just how unattractive I look when I make that scowling face. Now I scurry around the house right after the sun sets to make sure all of the blinds are closed so that my house isn’t full of mirrors that people can look in through. It’s become clear that I could throw away every mirror in my house and still never go a day without seeing myself. Whether I am walking the dog, running errands or eating dinner, I end up face to face with my reflection, which always reminds me of some weird combination of Eeyore and Britney Spears during her (on-going) “rough phase.”

I suppose I could attempt to drag this post out into some snarky, pseudo-philosophical observation on how my path to self discovery led me to run away from myself, but I made a promise having to do with brevity, so...I won't. Instead, I'm just going to say that when you feel like shit, you’re going to look like shit. I am working on feeling less like shit so that I can stop running from my reflection (because continuing to run from my reflection might make me more vain than if I were to linger in front of it lovingly...plus, I hate running). That being said, don’t be surprised if the next time you see me I am wearing a blindfold and being led by a seeing-eye dog.

From the Other Side of Brevity

2009-06-05T17:15:00.004-05:00

I’ve never been good at being brief. I talk too much, interrupting perhaps for the sake of hearing myself talk; I write too much, smashing words into a sentence the same way I smash potato chips into my mouth, stopping only when I feel full, which is almost never. My writing has a style, a tone, a voice, and an attempted depth, none of which would have developed if it weren’t for a blatant disregard for brevity. I don’t have beef with brevity; in fact, many of the writers I admire are those who are famously skilled in the art of brevity. For instance, when Hemingway was challenged to write a story in under ten words, this is what he came up with: “For sale: baby shoes, never used.” It’s only six words, but it’s a story with a beginning, middle and end. The same professor who told me this Hemingway tale also told me that I would be a much better writer if I cut every other word I wrote. But this professor didn’t understand that my lack of brevity was something I was born with, much like his lisp, which would require many years of therapy for me to correct.

You see, my gene pool is populated with verbose people; I come from a long line of talkers, the kind that start and don’t stop. Take my grandfather, Pop, for instance, who my dad and grandmother lovingly refer to as “ol’ windbags.” Sure, he’s talkative, but it’s more than that because he likes to hear himself talk, but it’s still more than that because he likes to tell animated stories which he draws out with dramatic pauses, characters and voices all because he just likes to entertain. One could age a decade while listening to him tell a story. Although, this is not to say that Pop’s stories aren’t great, sometimes the first few minutes, or hours, seem to drag on, but no one can deny that the man knows how to close—whether it’s a perfectly timed punch-line or a musical number with jazz hands, Pop knows how to end a story with a bang, so much so that you walk away hardly aware of the two hours it took him to tell the story.

While he isn’t quite ready to admit it, my dad has the same windbag gene as Pop. It’s something he’s been growing into for at least the last 25 years. Usually, it comes out when we get into a philosophical, “this is what life is all about” type of conversation, but other windbag triggers I’ve discovered over recent years include, but are not limited to: golf, Jayhawk basketball, his political beliefs, why he disagrees with my political beliefs, the corrupt government, business practices, the corrupt government affecting his business practices, pool maintenance, vacations he took as a child, a few instances in which I performed well at a sporting event, things Tori and I did or said when we were little, and wine* (*easily substituted with anything that he can feign a truly believable expertise in, such as boating or irrigation). Although he is sensitive about his windbagness, he is willing to admit to being a “talker.” But just like Pop, dad knows how to end a story, or an impossibly long joke, in a way that almost makes you want to hear another.

People who know me know that if you don’t keep me on track during a conversation I digress into a story about a story that leads to another story. I learned early on that I have the windbag gene, which is one of my many genetic gifts among bad knees and high blood pressure. While there are many forms of the windbag gene that do not harm one’s ability to be brief, I believe the windbag gene I have has actually mutated with other genetic “issues” (A.D.H.D.), thus making it the strongest brevity-preventing strand yet.

Nevertheless, I have decided to use this blog as my windbag therapy. Here I will practice, and eventually learn, the art of brevity. I will rise above the windbag gene that has been passed down through so many generations in order to perfect a briefer writing style. So, in true Hemingway fashion, here is my six-word story:

Wanted: Brevity, long posts unread.

(Okay, that’s five words…not that I’m trying to one-up Hemingway, I’m just saying…)

The Unnecessary Information Form

2009-06-03T14:38:00.000-05:00

Please answer the questions below to the best of your knowledge, filling out each line using legible print and not that bulls%#t chicken-scratch you picked up sometime in college.

The Preliminary Questions:

I. What is your age in years, months and days? ___________

II. What is the number listed on the barcode under your refrigerator?__________

III. What is your full name as written on your Library Card? _____________________________________________________

The Questions That Come After The Preliminary Questions:

1. Please calculate your BMI (Booty Mass Indicator) using this formula: Weight / (Number of Twinkies You Can Eat) x (Number of Seconds Your Thighs and/or Arms Shake After You Stop Moving) =__________

2. Do you have a steady and reliable job? _________

2a. If you answered ‘No’ to the above question: Are you as worthless as that might imply?______

2b. If you answered ‘Yes’ to the above question, please tear up this form and throw it away, then go look in the mirror and repeat the following mantra to yourself no less than 25 times: “I am special. I am capable. I am [insert your name].” Once complete, please initial here: _______

3. Please select the description that best illustrates your outlook on life:

a. The glass is half full most of the time.
b. The glass is half full all of the time.
c. The glass is half empty.
d. The glass is bone dry and I am f$%&ing thirsty!
e. Other (please write): ____________________________________________

5. Please complete the following sentence: “My opinion of miniature elephant figurines changed forever the day I... ___________________________________________.”

6. If you had one wish, what would it be? Please select from the below acceptable answers:

a. The ability to fly
b. The ability to be invisible
c. The ability to read minds
d. To be rich and famous
e. Other (please write): ____________(note: the line is short because no one actually cares)

7. Please circle any of the awful things listed below that you or a close relative have experience with:

Wearing “Muscle Shirts”
Seasonal Body Odor
Ass-Kissing/Kiss-Assing
Nepotism in Bowling
Stealing Bottles of Tabasco Sauce from Chipotle

8. How many consecutive cartwheels can you do without falling or injuring yourself? (Be honest, physical tests will be administered at a later date.) ______________

9. Your weekday lunch typically consists of: (please select from the options below)

a. Peanut Butter & Jelly
b. Canned Soup and Toast
c. Raw Pasta & Styrofoam
d. Fast-Food Value Meal
e. Other (please write): ____________________

10. Please rate the following items as SA (Strongly Agree), A (Agree), DA (Disagree) and OHN (Oh Hell No):

a. People should be judged based on their Scrabble skills. ______
b. Little People are funny. What? They are! _________
c. Living on Unemployment is acceptable as long as you appear productive. ______
d. Christian Bale’s next role should be to play Rosie O’Donnell in a Lifetime biopic._______
e. 20 percent of your life is spent filling out forms and that sucks. _______

Thank you for completing this Unnecessary Information Form. We trust that you answered all of the above questions honestly and to the best of your ability. Now you can hurry up and wait for a response, or try to busy yourself with something else in an attempt to forget that you just wasted valuable minutes of your life filling out a completely pointless form that will be used for nothing worthwhile. Please note that any of the information you provided will not be kept confidential, and will likely be mocked by anyone who has the ability to read. If this bothers you, or if you have any other questions, please direct them to the next person that hands you a form to fill out.

I'm Always Missing Out

2009-06-02T11:51:00.002-05:00

When I was little, I never wanted to go to bed because I was afraid that I would miss out on something really exciting or important. This was especially the case when my parents would have parties or entertain guests. Knowing that other people were awake in my house while I was supposed to be asleep made me certain that something awesome was going to happen because I knew the most awesome stuff happened after the kids went to bed (R rated movies, card games, dancing, singing). Most of the time I would lie awake, imagining conversations and all the fun things that must be going on as I obeyed a bedtime, and it usually went something like this:

Adult 1: Which kid do you like the most?
Adult 2: Well, which one would you sell to the gypsies if you had to?
Adult 3: We should go hang out at the secret princess castle.
Adult 4: I heard the princess castle has a water slide.
Adult 1: I heard it has a giant bowl of candy that you can swim in!
Adult 2: Well, what are we waiting for? The kids are in bed!
Adult 3: Yeah! Let’s sell all of the kids to the gypsies go to the secret princess castle!

As a teenager, my curfew was a constant topic of debate. Eventually, I started to hear the phrase, “nothing good happens at that hour,” which infuriated me, because of course good things happened at that hour! My parents just didn't understand that my popularity was totally contingent on the things happening at that hour which I was missing out on because of a ridiculously early curfew, ugh!

In college, I watched the roles switch a little when my friend’s parents would come visit for a weekend. On more than one occasion, I helped a friend coax their drunk parent out of a bar and back to their hotel room, where the parent would then say something along the lines of “I don’t wanna go to bed—let’s go to the next party!” My friend and I would have to pretend that we were calling it a night so that the parent wouldn’t feel like they were missing out.

Now that I don’t have a bedtime, a curfew, or a parent reliving the glory days to babysit, I lie awake thinking about all the things I need to do in order to not miss out on anything, which usually goes like this:

Me: Maybe I should just get up and make a list or something.
Voices In My Head: No, you’ll be worthless tomorrow if you don’t get any sleep.
Me: It’s not like I have a lot going on tomorrow anyway.
Voices: Just try to close your eyes and see if you fall asleep.
Me: But my eyes won’t close.
Voices: Try harder.
Me: I think I am going to get up and write.
Voices: Nothing you write at this hour will be any good.
Me: Fine, then I am going to read.
Voices: But then you’ll just be reading about all of the stuff you’re missing out on because you're sleeping.
Me: Well, what am I supposed to do?
Voices: Keep searching for the cool side of your pillow...

I've come to terms with the fact that I'll never stop feeling like I’m missing out on something, which might mean that I’m never content with the immediate, and also that I don't get enough sleep. But really, what's so great about contentment and good sleeping habits anyway? I’d rather be plagued with exhaustion and the notion that I’m missing out, because maybe one day it will lead me to that secret princess castle with the water slide and bowl of candy you can swim in.

List-Making Therapy

2009-05-29T15:45:00.007-05:00

I make to-do lists when I get overwhelmed or stressed out. But sometimes instead of a to-do list, I end up making a different kind of list; for instance, the Unemployment Pros and Cons list I referred to in yesterday’s post. Occasionally, the lists I make are humorous and just a way for me to articulate whatever frustration is plaguing me at the moment, such as: Things That Asshats Do to Become Asshats, Reasons My Sister and I Should Never Live Together Again, Why the Olson Twins Suck at Life, and 20 Endearing Ways to Embarrass Yourself (the last one could actually be 50 ways as I’m quite experienced in this realm). Anyway, below is one I wrote today and decided to share.

Things That Will Always Make Me Feel Stupid No Matter How Much Learnin’ I Do:

1. The Stock Market. Numbers, math, numbers, abbreviated words, tiny print, percentages, points, numbers, math, down, up…I’m already tired.

2. Insurance. This is what I know: I have a plastic card that has my name and a code on it and this is what lets me play $30 at the doctor’s instead of $3,000.

3. How to change my oil, or a tire—actually, I’m not even certain that I know how to replenish my washer fluid.

4. How to drive in the snow without causing an accident. Yeah, I have an SUV, but I’m from Virginia, so I don’t get it.

5. Mortgages. When I was little I thought a mortgage was something that had to do with funeral homes and cemeteries – oh, the irony! While I still don’t understand mortgages, I might one day, thanks to HGTV.

6. Taxes. Given one through five, I don’t think I need to elaborate on this one.

7. Plumbing. No, seriously, from the disposal to the washer to the toilet—where is it all going, and why the hell does it make the basement flood?

8. Directions. I am directionally-challenged, so giving me compass instructions is pointless. If people don’t say things like, “hang a Louie and then turn at the sub shop with the space ship sign,” then I’m lost. I never know what direction North, South, East or West is in relation to where I am because I’m too busy concentrating so that my directional dyslexia doesn’t cause me to turn right when you just told me to turn left.

9. How to make a good pot of coffee. I blame a lack of patience for measuring portions.

10. This blog. I don’t really understand it. But if you do, please fill me in.

Unemployment: It Does a Body Bad

2009-05-28T17:37:00.004-05:00

Horrific Unemployment Realization #1,525: My professional, interview-worthy clothes do not fit because unemployment has made me fat.

So I've gained some weight since I lost my job, but what is most disturbing about it is that since I’ve been unemployed (going on 90 days now), I’ve been expecting to lose weight. Right after I was laid-off, I made a list of all the pros and cons of losing my job. One of the items on the pro list was that being jobless might inadvertently make me skinny (less money = less to spend on food, drinking, etc.), sort of the same way getting mono can make you skinny (although I gained weight when I had mono, so I should have known better). Needless to say, the pro side of the list was depressingly short so I had to reach a little. But now I have to remove “unintentional weight loss” from the pro side and add “unemployed weight gain” to the con side.

Since unemployment hit (sometimes I find it comforting to refer to it as a natural disaster akin to a tornado or hurricane), my wardrobe has been reduced to three or four things: pajamas, skirts with elastic waistbands, dresses without waists and pajamas with tennis shoes (i.e., workout clothes). Pro: there is no dress code for unemployment. Con: elastic waistbands nurture denial when your middle starts to get thicker.

I don’t know how much weight I’ve gained since I’ve been unemployed. I don’t own a scale because I don’t care about a number I care about feeling good. And right now I feel like a McDonald’s Big Mac—heavy, off-balance, sloppy, over-indulgent and oozing cholesterol. But when I consider the way I’ve been living the past 90 days, this makes sense—actually, it makes me feel lucky I haven’t been hospitalized.

There are things I wouldn’t do while I was employed that being unemployed has granted me the freedom to not only do, but also not care about later. For instance, I ate ten tacos in 30 minutes on Cinco de Mayo because they were .75 cents and someone bet me that I couldn’t do it. I also find myself wandering through Quick Trip, picking up a Snickers or maybe a Krispy Kreme on my way out, because apparently I think a glazed donut will fill the void of not having a job.

I have also determined that this weight gain, which I will continue to think of as a gift I don’t yet understand, is directly related to my lack of daily exercise. When I had a job, there was structure and far less time to waste, so exercise was part of a daily routine. Now I sit at my computer for ten hours everyday dressed in workout clothes (the real kind, not just pajamas plus sneakers) and when Steve gets home he says, “looks like you worked out today” and I have to say, “I didn't, but I thought about it,” which I kind of think almost counts.

While this extra weight has been a comfort to me over the past 90 days, I am physically ready to say goodbye to the Unemployed Quinn and become Employable Quinn—job or no job. I’m ready to embrace exercise and a healthier lifestyle so that I feel less like a Big Mac and more like a celery stick - yeah physical fitness! So I'll get started just as soon as I finish eating this giant chocolate chip cookie...

“Youth is wasted on the young.”

2009-05-22T18:26:00.005-05:00

Little Big Girls: Tori (left) and Quinn

My sister, Tori (aka Torruption), has repeated this George Bernard Shaw quote to me multiple times in the past few months. She mostly uses it to put me in my place when I am complaining and using the term “quarter life crisis” a lot. The first time she whipped out this nugget of wisdom, I made fun of her for being preachy and pretentious, to which she said: “Your middle-aged self is going to hate you for being so stupid and not enjoying your youth and she is going to laugh her ass off at what your current understanding of a crisis is.” The fact that she spoke of my “middle-aged self” as a person entirely separate from who I am now made me feel weird, like maybe I should write this person a letter and introduce myself. And then I made my brain hurt by thinking about how my current notion of crisis would strike me as funny 25 years from now—I hope it’s not funny by crisis-comparison.

Tori used to fit the little sister stereotype perfectly, but then she turned fifteen and decided to revolt against me and all my big sisterness by becoming smarter, bossier, prettier and taller. She is only 20 months younger than me, but it always felt like so much more when we were kids. When I say that Tori used to fit the little sister stereotype, I mean that she wanted to do whatever I wanted to do and she would let me boss her around, too. I think I really took those years for granted because now she is the one bossing me around, telling me what to do with my life and usually trying to help me avoid a generally pathetic existence.

Between the ages of four and nine years old, Tori and I were really into two things: Barbies and playing “Big Girls.” While Barbies was more of a collector’s game, Big Girls was like reality TV before there was reality TV.

I took Big Girls seriously. It was a detail-oriented game that required a powerful imagination to create a realistic world. First, we would dig through our trunk full of dress up clothes, which included old Christmas dresses, Princess costumes from past Halloweens, and no longer stylish pieces from our mother and grandmother’s closets. Dressing up was usually the longest and most intense part of Big Girls, and it was occasionally drawn out by the opportunity to do our hair and makeup as well.

Once the preparation for Big Girls was complete, and we looked scarily like adults, we would then devise our stories.

“Well, my name is Sandra and I am a waitress and a singer,” I would say. Dressed in pink leggings, a blouse dominated by giant shoulder pads and a be-dazzled headband, I was in character—this was an adult version of myself that was entirely invented but also somewhat realistic.

“Okay, well my name is going to be Theresa and I am going to be waitress, too,” our friend Sarah would say. Sarah was our shared best friend and Big Girls was never complete without her (mainly because she had a much older sister that left a lot of really cool “Big Girl Stuff” behind when she went to college).

“I want to be a waitress, too!” Tori would chime in.

“Well what’s your name going to be?”

“Um, Star?”

“That’s stupid, Tori. Your name can be Stephanie.”

I directed the details of Big Girls like it was a Broadway production. This was professional make believe and I was the self-proclaimed expert.

The next step of Big Girls was to stage an everyday, work-related scene. So we would round up all of our kid-size tables and chairs and set them up like a restaurant. We would then go around to tables and have conversations with our “customers.” It didn’t take long before I would be bored with the monotony of the actual waitress duties. So we would start fighting with our fake customers and then we would act out the scene of quitting our waitress jobs, which was always dramatic and usually ended with someone crying and vowing to never return (ever again!).

You see, playing Big Girls wasn’t so much about pretending to be something you actually wanted to be; it was about pretending to be something in order to feel older. Now I am officially older, legally an adult and legitimately stressed out, and I wonder why I ever pretended to feel this way when the reality of it was so near. While I am pretty sure Big Girls appealed to me because of the theatrical aspect (because I am a ham), I know that there was always a part of me that couldn’t wait to grow up, and there still is.

In a way I feel like I never really stopped playing Big Girls because everyday is an intense game of make believe where I pretend to be a writer, a professional, a capable adult—I set up the scenes, get bored, add some drama to spice it up and then sometimes I end up running away crying and vowing never to return. Because of this, I decided to write my “middle-aged self” that letter:

Dear Middle-Aged Quinn,

Remember when you were little and spent the days playing Big Girls? Maybe not, that was a REALLY long time ago for you, and your memory might suck now. Well, anyway, back then I thought that the goal was to feel older, now I know it’s inevitable. So if you feel old now, which you probably do because apparently you’ve had 25 years of crisis-worthy experience to wear you out, try to find solace in the fact that even though you’re not as cute as you used to be, at least you’re not as dumb. I hope you don’t have to pretend anymore, but if you do, I understand—I mean, we are really good at it.

Also, you didn’t waste your youth like Tori (or George Bernard Shaw) said—you just pretended your way through a different, slightly more dramatic, version of it.

Peace out!

Love,
Quarter Life Quinn

p.s. – if you’re really gross and wrinkly now, I’m sorry about all those times I never used sunscreen and all those years I smoked and pretended like it wasn’t bad for me. Don’t be mad at me, I am young and stupid now so that you can be wise and smart later…when it really matters, remember?

p.p.s. – if you got plastic surgery, I am going to pretend to be really pissed at you.

If Bear Could Talk...

2009-05-20T16:35:00.014-05:00

Morning

Bear: So, I've pretty much had to pee for ten hours now.

Me: ‘Ello, puppy! How’s my good little boy?

Bear: Fine. Let me outside before I piss on you.

Me: Want to go outside?

Bear: Yes, I’ve been trying to tell you this by whining incessantly and making as much noise as possible.

Me: Okay, come on, let’s go…

Bear: Finally.

Day

Me: Hi little guy! What are you doing?

Bear: I’m pretending not to hear you.

Me: Come here, Bear…

Bear: No.

Me: Bear. Come.

Bear: Still. No.

Me: Want a treat?

Bear: No! Wait...yes? Depends on the treat...get the treat and then we'll see.

Me: Come here, come get a treat!

Bear: Fine. But I’m getting up because I smell chicken, and not because you wanted me to...just so we are clear.

Evening

Bear: Are we going to go on a walk or what?

Me: Want to go on a walk?

Bear: Yes, but you’re taking forever to get ready.

Me: Okay, hold on while I put on my shoes.

Bear: So…now? How about now? Now can we go? Can we go now?

Me: Just a minute…

Bear: Okay, well I’m going to run around the dining room table over and over again as fast as I can until you’re ready…

Me: No, Bear! Stop!

Bear: Fine. I'm dizzy anyway. But now I’m going to tear apart this paper towel I pulled out of the trash when you weren't looking and leave the shreds all over the kitchen.

Me: What did you do? Bad boy!

Bear: You know, all you had to do was hurry up and take me on the damn walk and this wouldn’t have happened…this is really your fault.

Me: Ugh! Come on, we are going for a walk now before you can make another mess.

Bear: I win!

The Walk

Me: Bear, wait, stop, no, Bear—wait, slow down.

Bear: Wow, look at all these sticks! I need to find the biggest one I can and then try to carry it and refuse to let go of it.

Me: Bear! Sit! Stop! Drop it…drop—give me that!

Bear: Oh well, there will be more sticks…

Me: Good boy, good drop it. Okay, slow down, buddy…hey, Bear!

Bear: You know, a sit up or two might make walking me easier. To prove it, I’m just going to run around you until you’re all twisted up and look like an idiot.

Me: Damnit, Bear!

Bear: Ha!—Hey, what’s that?

Me: Leave it alone, Bear…

Bear: But what is this smell…I’ve never smelled anything like it, I need to know…

Me: Come on, Bear…

Bear: Another dog – hey! Hi! I’m Bear, what’s your name? Can I smell you? You smell weird…what’s that, an ear? Tastes like jerky, mind if I chew it?

Other Dog: I will cut you.

Bear: Whoa, man. Let’s be friends. I’m just curious, that’s all…

Me (to other dog owner): Sorry, he’s just a puppy, so he’s really curious…

Bear: Yeah, see? Curious. Now lift up your leg so I can smell under there…

Me: Come along, Bear. No...come on…BEAR! NO!

Bear: You're a real fun-killer, you know that?

Bedtime

Bear: I’m not tired; I’ve been sleeping for the last four hours.

Me: Time for bed!

Bear: But, but, but…I think I have to go outside…yes, I need to go outside now.

Me: Come on, let’s go potty once more.

Bear: Tricked you! Now I’m just going to run around out here while you stand by the door calling for me and waking up all the neighbors.

Me: Beeeeeaaaaaarrrrr! Come on, come inside…want a treat? Beeeeaaaaarrrrrrr!

Bear: Hahahaha! What a dumbass…

Me: (squeaky toy, squeaky toy)

Bear: Hey! That’s my toy! I want to squeak that toy! Give it to me!

Me: Ha—Gotcha! Time for bed now…

Bear: Fine, lady. You might have won this one, but tomorrow is another day!

Me: That’s my good boy…are you good boy?

Bear: Yeah, I’m a good boy. See my tail wagging? Now scratch behind my ears until I fall asleep.

No, it’s MY pleasure!

2009-05-19T17:05:00.005-05:00

The other day I went to Chick-fil-A. Even though the line for the drive-thru was as long as the Nile, I decided to join the group and wait because actually going inside to order my food would destroy my rationalization for eating Chick-fil-A in the first place. You see, going inside to order would suggest that I had the time, patience and will-power to go against convenience and therefore should be opting for a healthier meal. Also, I don’t want to be seen inside a fast-food restaurant that tries to pretend it’s not really fast food. I mean, if you have “value meals” you’re a fast-food restaurant—let’s not dance around this fact by serving only chicken with “gourmet” sauce (which they forget to give you half of the time anyway) in order to justify ridiculously high prices. It’s as if they are saying, “this ain’t no McDonalds, but, um, it kind of is because if it wasn’t, you wouldn’t eat here - now, let us bring in cows holding grammatically incorrect signs to distract you.”

I digress. Basically, I just wanted some nuggets. Chick-fil-A was sort of on my way home (I rationalized this too, by taking the long way), and thus the most convenient solution to my stomach eating itself. So, when I finally got to the speaker box with the menu to order my food I was ready, I knew what I wanted, I didn't have any questions, and so I was expecting a quick and easy transaction.

“Good evening! Welcome to Chick-fil-A! Would you like to try something from our healthy, low-fat menu today?” said an unnaturally chipper female voice from the speaker box.

Really? My rationalization got me this far, and now you’re going to use the ‘h’ word?

“No thank you,” I said.

“We have delicious fruit parfaits and fresh fruit smoothies now—”

“No, no, thanks. Can I just get…ummm…” I said, letting the ‘um’ drag on just a little too long as a punishment. “Yeah, uhhhh….I’d like some chicken nuggets, please.”

“Great! Would you like to make that a meal?”

“Ummmmmmm, yes, thanks,” I said.

“My pleasure! Would you like fries, salad, soup, coleslaw or a fruit cup with that?”

Her pleasure. Wow. Seriously? I wanted to reach through the speaker and grab this woman by the neck and tell her that this life is full of pleasures that don’t involve chicken and a drive-thru so stop acting so excited!

“Fries, well uhhhhhhhh…yeah, no, fries are good,” I said, wondering which of us was being more irritating at this point.

“And for your drink?”

“Diet Coke, please,” I said, because a fat-filled meal is not complete without a diet soda to wash it down.

“My pleasure! Okay, I have a chicken nugget meal with fries and a Diet Coke, will that be all for you today?”

I rolled my eyes at the second “my pleasure” and then recoiled, nervous that she was watching me on camera and plotting to poison my food.

“Yes, thank you—oh, wait, no, can I get some of that orange-ish, pink sauce…what’s it called? It’s like sweet and sour or something…” I said, now fully trying to antagonize her and break that annoyingly chipper disposition.

“Absolutely! A chicken nugget meal with fries and a Diet Coke and Polynesian Sauce!” she said.

“Yes, that’s it—Polynesian sauce. Thanks,” I said.

“My pleasure! That will be a billion dollars, please pull around to first window!” She didn’t really say it was a billion dollars, although that’s what I hear when the bill for one meal amounts to anything over five dollars at a fast-food restaurant.

When I get to the window a young, puberty-stricken boy handed me my order. As he ran my card, I looked for the cheerful woman taking drive-thru orders. I was hoping to find out that she was really a robot, or one of those automated voices that you get when you call your bank or try to pay your cable bill on the phone and they keep telling you to say things like ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or ‘pay bill’ but they can’t understand you because they are machines. It turned out she was a real, live person and exactly as I expected her to be: young, pink cheeks, braces and curly blonde hair that revolved around her headpiece microphone like a halo.

“Miss? Miss, your card,” Petey Puberty was holding out my card and trying to get my attention.

“Oh, right sorry, thanks,” I said.

“My pleasure!” he said.

What a ridiculous thing to force your employees to say, I thought—“my pleasure.” Maybe I was just feeling grumpy, as I tend to get when I’m hungry, and so hearing this phrase four times in a row was too much for my bad attitude to handle.

As I drove away I thought about all the reasons it was not their pleasure. It was not your pleasure because it’s my food, which I am ordering for my pleasure. It was not your pleasure because you have to wear a stupid-ass visor and a nametag that you craftily decorate with stickers (which still doesn’t make it your pleasure). It was not your pleasure because I am the one who gets to enjoy the food and you’re the one who has to prepare it. It was not your pleasure because there’s not enough pleasure to go around, so stop trying to steal my pleasure and make it your pleasure, damnit!

In an effort to reclaim ‘my pleasure’ as my own, I opened my bag of food and reached for a golden, delicious waffle fry, but then I realized that something was terribly wrong—there was something missing…

Of course. They forgot the Polynesian Sauce.

Quinnterruption's Next Top Ninja Unicorn

2009-05-18T15:19:00.009-05:00

In an effort to incorporate more visuals in this blog (apparently, like books without pictures, blogs without pictures aren't very fun either), I've asked some of my creatively inclined friends to think of, work on, draw up a ninja unicorn mascot and/or logo for me. The first to respond to this request was a dear friend, who will be known as Jobelle Holcombe. Her devotion to daily interruptions resulted in this gem:

Pretty spectacular, wouldn't you say?

I told Jobelle that my favorite part was a.) the fact that this Ninja Unicorn is drawn on a meeting agenda, and b.) the way this specific Ninja Unicorn seems to be saying, "What? You want some of this? You want a piece of me?!"

"I like how his hair is flowing in the pre-judgment day wind," Jobelle said of her design.
"His horn kind of looks like a carrot/penis," I said.

"Yeah, the horn started out a little shorter, but then I thought an uncomfortably long horn would make more of a statement. I was going to incorporate balls somewhere but the meeting ended," Jobelle said.

"No, the unicorn's anatomy gets confusing past the waist," I said.

"Yeah, kind of like a mermaids," Jobelle said.

So congratulations, Jobelle! Your design is now in the running towards becoming Quinnterruption's Next Top Ninja Unicorn.

If you or someone you know is interested in becoming Quinnterruption's Next Top Ninja Unicorn, please send your design, along with an explanation to quinnkatherman@gmail.com.

I'll Never Leave Your Pizzas Burning

2009-05-15T17:15:00.003-05:00

I love music, but I am not a lyrics person. This might seem unusual given that my life revolves around words, but I could care less about what the song is actually saying because I’m more concerned with whether or not it’s fun to sing. However, I am pathetically ignorant when it comes to tone, rhythm and pitch. Growing up, I always ignored my sister who would tell me to be quiet because my singing was ruining the song for her. After years of her telling me this I eventually began to wonder if she was right, so I decided to record myself singing. I set up my tape recorder, locked my door, grabbed a microphone, I mean a hairbrush, and then belted out my best version of “Can’t Hurry Love.” I remember thinking that I sounded pretty damn good, but then I played the recording and I was devastated; what I heard sounded more like a cat in heat than an actual person singing. Since this realization, I turn down every invitation to play Rock Band because I’m afraid that my lack of musical ability will result in a loss of friendships.

Back to not being a lyrics person…I am known for misinterpreting song lyrics and I often sing along to my own version until someone kindly corrects me. For instance, I recently realized that I have been singing the wrong lyrics to the well-known song “Beast of Burden.” It didn’t occur to me until I was with a friend and the song came on the radio. After the first verse, my friend suddenly turned the volume down, “hold on, what do you think the words are?” she asked. I thought for a moment and then told her: “I’ll never leave your pizzas burning?” The song is called “Beast of Burden,” she said, as if this should have been enough for me to realize my mistake. When I failed to make the connection she said, “it’s I’ll never be your beast of burden, not—I’ll never leave your pizzas burning!”

Then there’s Widespread Panic’s song “Climb To Safety;” but what I always heard was “come and save me”—another instance in which I butcher the lyric that has the song’s title in it.

Manfred Mann’s “Blinded by the Light” is one that I will always mess up. I don’t know how anyone can listen to this song and not think it’s “wrapped up like a douche, another rumor in the night.” (The real, less cool, lyrics are: “revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night.”)

Less offensive is my interpretation of Alanis Morrissette’s “You Oughta Know,” the chorus of which I always heard as: “It’s not fair to deny me of the cross-eyed bear that you gave to me.” And Toto’s “Africa” I heard as “I left the grains down in Africa…I left the grains!” Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” has a tricky first verse, which I now mumble after learning that it is not “as I, turned up the column door, my faded winter coat, the springs blow in my mind” (the real lyrics are “as I, turn up the collar on my favorite winter coat, this wind is blowin' my mind”).

It never occurs to me that what I am singing doesn’t make sense because there’s no room for reason when you’re busy screaming out the wrong lyrics at the top of your lungs while driving down the highway. I’ve learned that I offend people with my singing, and now I am learning that I also offend people with my lack of concern for correct lyrics. It’s happened several times where someone corrects me, I acknowledge that I am wrong, but then I continue to sing my version. The people who care about lyrics really find this annoying. But whatever, I think my lyrics—“I’ll never leave your pizzas burning”—sound better, even if I sound like a cat in heat as I sing along.

The Creative Jealousy That Drives Us

2009-05-13T12:13:00.004-05:00

My Green Monster of Jealousy

It’s not that I don’t want other people to do well. It’s not that I am a naturally jealous person (wait, is it?). It’s not that I don’t have my own “thang” going for me. But when you are a Creative, and trying to make a living as one, jealousy seems to rear its ugly-ass head in the dumbest, most debilitating ways.

Just the other day I received an incredibly nice, and somewhat undeserved, message from a fellow writer who said she was jealous of my blog. I had to re-read the message five times before my brain was willing to comprehend what she was saying. This writer, a woman I have always admired and felt jealous of since the day I met her, actually said: “I was depressed all weekend because your blog is so much better than mine.” What?! Come again?

I will hold her message to heart for as long as my insecurities plague me (so pretty much forever), not because it validates my mad skillz, but because it validates the green monster of jealousy that I always thought of as my own private weakness. To realize that the people I envy for their talents and creations are also capable of being jealous of me is like finding out that Starburst sells packages full of only the Pink and Red flavors (oh yeah, I’m totally serious, hit up a QuickTrip near you).

Now I realize that jealousy is not just a disease of the unemployed. Although, since I’ve been unemployed, I have had ample time to peruse the online portfolios of the unemployed ad talent out there right now, and it’s enough to make anyone want to throw their portfolio in the trash and cry in a corner. It makes me wish that we could send all of this unemployed talent to an abandoned island and call it “The Lost Land of Advertising Fame;” there they could probably start a war, or at least convince people to join a war, and maybe win a shiny award for a really great Super Bowl ad. But since this is unrealistic, I am forced to compete with these people who ooze creativity from every pore while I sit around, oozing nothing but sweat, fear and envy. Given these circumstances, putting my rinky-dink portfolio out there feels like wearing a bathing suit made of bacon and then going for a swim in shark-infested waters. At this point, I’d have better luck trying to tap-dance my way into a job.

On a positive note, I have found that this type of jealousy and creative combat can be an excellent source of motivation, and thus I have started another blog, which will serve as my resume/portfolio/bio/pseudo-professional site. You’ll find the link in the side bar, and also right here. It’s not much because I haven’t done much (I mean, geeze people, I’m only 24 years old, which is practically 12…if you divide it by two), but if you have feedback, advice, suggestions, or other projects that will help me beef it up, and create seething jealousy among other ad talent, feel free to drop me a line.

In the meantime, I’m going to put on my big girl pants, which means a slightly nicer pair of sweatpants than those I slept in, and keep on truckin’, because I’m a ninja unicorn, damnit!

My Fridge Needs a Power Suit

2009-05-11T14:53:00.003-05:00

The other day I had unexpected company. Usually, I at least attempt to make the house appear what I call “surface clean,” which means the house is really dirty, but to an untrained eye it appears relatively neat. Obviously, there was no time to prepare the house before the company arrived. I tried to usher everyone outside to a sitting area so that no one would focus too long on the dust-laden shelves, completely unrecognizable dining room table (this is where I have created an office) and the sink full of dirty dishes. Of course, the problem with taking the party outside is that people have to come in to go to the bathroom, get a drink, get a band-aid, whatever—and when they make these trips inside they are often alone and then free to examine the house and all its gross imperfections inflicted by the inhabitants.

“So, the contents of your fridge consist of milk, vodka and leftover pudding pie,” said one of my guests.

“Well, I wasn’t exactly expecting company. I’m pretty sure there’s yogurt in there, too,” I said, as if this was an adequate defense.

This led me to think about what a person’s refrigerator contents say about them. Milk, vodka and leftover chocolate pudding pie might suggest that I like to entertain but rarely do, that I am slightly sloppy by nature, unemployed and probably eat out a lot. I wondered about my guests and what they must have in their refrigerators based on their personalities.

Suz, the gourmet cook with the fabulous everything, probably has cilantro in a cup of water, fresh tomatoes, a raw meat marinating in some sauce-filled tupperware, eggs, milk and all the necessary staples for whipping-up a delicious meal on a whim.

Ed, funny guy with a job at a good restaurant, probably has a styrofoam container of leftovers from said restaurant, a box of baking soda in the back and maybe a half-empty pitcher of instant Gatorade.

Tim, funny guy who I just met and know little about other than that he judged the contents of my refrigerator, probably has things in his refrigerator that don’t really belong there, like a box of cereal, peanut butter and maybe a bag of flour.

Can’t we just go back to judging people on their looks, the car they drive, the brands they buy and the job they have (or don’t have)? Life was so much easier when judgment was entirely superficial and limited to one’s appearance. I can put on a pin-striped power suit and appear incredibly capable to anyone looking to pass judgment. But now I apparently have to worry about the contents of my refrigerator, too? So, I guess my question is: can I buy power suit for my refrigerator?

Exert from "Safe Travels"

2009-05-07T11:05:00.004-05:00

Below is an exert from "Safe Travels," a collection of non-fiction essays I started awhile ago and have just recently started working on again (needless to say it's all I can think about at the moment). So, I hope you'll enjoy...

I hate flying.

The smell of people trying to cover up their smells melding with the stale air we are all fighting to breathe, the sound of children crying and the useless cooing of apologetic mothers; the crumbs of other people, the trash left behind. The flight attendants and their types: Boob Job Betty with the too small uniform, just bursting for attention; Lisping Larry with his “theatbelt thafety” instructions and constant gesticulating hands; Pissed off Patty with the “fuck you” smile who hates Boob Job Betty and probably spits in your drink when no one’s looking. And then there is that monotone voice that chirps in at all the expected elevations, the voice behind the controls, the voice you’re trusting your life with, the voice you’re glad you didn’t have to see the face of until after you got off the plane.

I wore a pair of trendy over-sized sunglasses that covered most of my face, even though it was dark outside, and a scarf draping my shoulders in artistic sweeps, even though it was unreasonably warm inside the cabin. Maybe someone would think I was famous if I looked exhausted and unimpressed, I thought. I didn’t bother to look when someone sat down in seat next to me; I was busy trying to appear unapproachable.

I wanted to sleep but an unnatural lunging motion had startled me and the jerking caused my sunglasses to dislodge and reveal my less than famous face. I grasped the silver armrest separating me from the stranger directly to my right. I watched as the cylindrical inside walls tilted from side to side and I thought of a funhouse—the type that isn’t really fun at all.

“Don’t like to fly?” The body next to me could speak. The flight was half over and we had expertly avoided engaging in any forced conversation so far. Why did he have to ruin it? I responded with an acceptable nod, rejecting his attempt at banter.

“You get used to it. After a while, you stop worrying about the plane crashing and more about just getting to wherever you're going,” the man said. He had black, spiral ringlets that sang past his shoulders. He was petit. I thought that if I stood up it would be embarrassing. That hair made me sick. It reminded me of the wads of fake hair that came in tight plastic packages at the craft store.

“So, have you ever been to San Juan?” he asked.

“Yes. Once. But I’m just making a connecting flight—” I stopped. There was something about him. I looked around, an entourage of bald spots with long black hair and black leather occupied the seats next to us and behind us. They drank champagne. The man next to me was drinking Tropicana Orange Juice from the can.

I could tell. He was famous.

It didn’t matter who he was; right now, he was just another body taking up space, breathing my air. But he started it, obligating me to inquire.

“Do—um, I mean, you look really familiar, are you, uh—” I had no idea who he was. Probably a has-been that I was too young to know but old enough to recognize from the way the present decade seemed to hang from his bones like the loose skin around his neck.

“Yeah. I was in a band,” he looked me up and down, “you’re probably too young to remember, though.” The defeat in his voice made me self-conscious. “Ever hear of Black Sabbath?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah, of course!” I said, thinking: I watched The Osbournes, I know about Black Sabbath. That’s the band Ozzy was in before he got the shakes and stutters; back when he bit the heads off animals to make a crowd go wild; the career he had before reality TV and loose skin, right?

“Well, I’m not in Black Sabbath now. I was, back in the 80s. This band is called Dio.” He pointed his index finger up in the air and twirled his arm like a cowboy without a lasso. “We’re doing a concert in San Juan. It’s part of our tour,” he said. I nodded and smiled, trying to figure out if reading the safety manual would be considered rude at this point.

“Do you want to go?” he asked.

“Go where?” Doesn’t he know we are trapped like sardines in this bucket of aluminum? There’s nowhere to go, no way out.

“To the show. Do you want a ticket?” Neat! Does that include a backstage pass to meet your hot sons and drink from an open bar? If so, I’ll let you sign my cleavage with a Sharpie!

“I wish I could go. But I sort of have plans. I’m on my way to Anguilla—my dad is getting remarried,” I said, trying to make it sound as uninteresting as it really was.

“Ah, wouldn’t want to miss that. You like her?”

“Who?”

I was distracted. The talk was antagonizing. I was trying to mentally prepare for a crash and he was causing static in my brain waves. I was holding my breath when I wasn’t talking, and the lack of oxygen was making me stupid. Or maybe it was the third Bloody Mary I was about to finish. As I drained the last drops from the plastic cup and rattled the ice to indicate the need for a refill, one of the flight attendants, Boob Job Betty, shook her head and pointed to the “Fasten Seat Belt” sign above. “No Drink Service Due To Turbulence” would make a better sign, I thought.

I looked out the window: a mess of clouds. But I knew there was a shark-filled ocean below that I couldn’t see. Panic trickled down my spine and I suddenly realized that I had no idea how to use my seat cushion as a floatation device.

“The lady your pops is marrying – you like her?”

“Oh, right, sure, she’s nice. This is lucky number three for him, though, so we’re all keeping our fingers crossed,” I said. I hoped my sarcasm would satisfy him to silence for the rest of the flight as I laughed in the way that makes people uncomfortable, finally reaching for the safety manual to cap it off.

“Marriage is tough. But Anguilla – whoowee, that’s a nice place,” he said.

I stared out the window again and watched the wings shake as we plunged from the clouded darkness into a parade of lights. We were about to land when my stranger and I finally exchanged names.

“Ronnie—Ronnie James Dio,” he said, shaking my hand before we parted ways.

He seemed disappointed that I didn’t write it down or ask for an autograph.

He said to look for them when they came to a nearby city.

I said I would and knew I wouldn’t.

Positive Thinking: "I'm in the midst of a career change." (Translation: I got laid-off.)

2009-05-05T13:23:00.010-05:00

It's been 60 days since I last had a job.

Typically, I like to acknowledge these unemployment milestones with a big bottle of wine and a self-loathing séance. But today I’m dedicating a blog post to it instead since a passive aggressive rant doesn’t lead to hangover hell (well, it doesn’t have to).

As part of my severance package, I was given the option to attend what was defined as "employment consultation." Once I reached the 30 days unemployed mark and had no leads to a job or any clue what I wanted to do with my future, I decided to take advantage of my former employer’s generous offer and seek help.

Upon arrival, I was directed to a room with about 15 people sitting around a conference table. We all had binders and nametags. Not only was I was the only person under the age of 40, but I was also the only one who did not have a career history with Sprint. (Although, I do have a phone history with Sprint. It was a torrid six years, full of dropped calls and roaming charges, which ended the day I called and said: your service sucks, I'm switching providers. So, I pretty much fired Sprint. For a brief moment I thought about sharing this with the group of former Sprint employees as a “funny how the world works” kind of story, but I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be received well so I kept it to myself.)

The consultant let us know that “let go” and “laid-off” were not positive terms, instead we were to say things like, “during my career change” or “I’m in a transition period.” Apparently using these positive terms would enable positive thinking, which would then, eventually, lead to a job. I wanted to raise my hand and ask if “terminated” was also considered a negative term but I was pretty sure I already knew the answer.

After two hours I was still attempting to keep an open mind but I was losing patience with the approach the career services group was promoting. Then the consultant put a slide up on the screen that was a line graph titled: "Coping with a Change in Employment: The Range of Emotions" and I knew it was over for me. Keep in mind that 30 days prior to this I had been handed a small Xerox box to pack up my personal items and vacate the premises, so having someone show me my range of negative emotions as compared to my levels of productivity in the format of a line graph in a PowerPoint slide was not my idea of helpful at this point. As I contemplated this, I was sure that my emotion line was plummeting further into the Anger, Worry and Depression danger zone where productivity does not exist.

Looking at myself now, I think I’m somewhere between Resistance and Ambivalence on the Range of Emotions line graph. I think the positive side is that I’m getting really good at handling rejection, which is keeping me from getting to the ‘I’m Going to Punch You in Your Asshat Face’* point on the line graph. So, yeah, needless to say I’m still working on the power of positive thinking...

*Note: ‘I’m Going to Punch You in Your Asshat Face’ is not a real point on the Coping with a Change in Employment: The Range of Emotions line graph, although it should be.

Dandelion Wishes

2009-05-02T12:23:00.004-05:00

Dandelions are attacking my yard; the yellow ones and the fuzzy ones. The latter is most concerning since these are the seed-bearing parachutes that enable Dandelion Domination. As I turned to Google for appropriate dandelion killing methods and contemplated the most lethal approach, I felt a little evil, as if I was killing part of my remaining childlike wonder. When an ad, escaping the death grips of my Popup Blocker (much like a dandelion), appeared on my screen that said "Kill Weeds Dead" I decided I needed to go outside and assess the situation with childlike wonder rather than adult annoyance.

I remember dandelions as a staple in every bouquet I assembled as a kid. Growing up, our house was surrounded by open land and during the summertime it looked like a sea of green interrupted by bursts of yellow. In my mind, the dandelions gave the grass character and dimension.

When I was very young, someone taught me how to pick a fuzzy dandelion and make a wish as you blew the cottony parachutes into the wind. This fascinated me. Every time I came across one of these feathery lollipops I couldn’t resist the chance to make a wish and watch as the seeds gently left the stem. I started coming up with elaborate, multilayered wishes, thinking each snowflake-like seed deserved its own wish to float away on. But the older I got the more this favorite childhood pastime became a nuisance to garden-weary adults: "Don't do that! Now we are going to have dandelion weeds everywhere!" So I became more cautious, still making dandelion wishes when no one was looking.

I walked out into the backyard, surveying the awkwardly long stems with their parachutes of seeds and the yellow clusters, wanting to feel something other than annoyance. I reached for a snowcapped dandelion and studied the pattern, gathered my breath and made a wish, watching the seeds scatter throughout the yard and into the neighbor’s yard. I picked a few yellow blossoms, tied them together in a ring and admired the arrangement.

At the risk of sounding trite, I think there’s something we can learn from dandelions. In a way, they are nature’s interpretation of that laid-back, go-with-the-flow person we all claim to be—they aspire to float through air, letting the wind blow them to a new place where they will happily make a home; meanwhile, I get annoyed when the wind blows my hair out of place. There’s something admirable about the resilience of dandelions and their determination to prosper in the face of chemical death traps like “Kill Weeds Dead.”

Dandelions are brave interruptions that no one under the age of ten remembers how to appreciate. But today my childlike wonder was restored, rescued from the heartless dungeon of adult annoyances, and all it took was a dandelion wish.

The Torruption

2009-04-30T13:08:00.000-05:00

Here is a g-chat transcript from a conversation I had with my sister, Tori, this morning about this blog:

Me: So, from whose perspective should I write from today and about what?
Sent at 11:01 AM on Thursday

Tori: Keep it from your own perspective - it's a baby blog.

Me: But I don't want to. I want to write characters!
Sent at 11:05 AM on Thursday

Tori: But no one will want to read about your characters if they don't first understand you.
I think you should work on building a strong identity for Quinn as the blog is called Quinnterruption.
Sent at 11:07 AM on Thursday

Me: But I want to write characters - which are all part of me.

Tori: Wtf? Who are you? Bob Dylan? Get over it - tell one of your favorite stories about yourself.

Me: Stupid! Overdone!
Sent at 11:09 AM on Thursday

Tori: Well don't make it stupid obviously - you call yourself a writer so tell it like one - Sedaris style.

Me: "you call yourself a writer" - bitchy? Yes, I think so.
You think coming up with characters and then creating a viewpoint on a subject is easy?
Sent at 11:11 AM on Thursday

Tori: No and I don't think writing a blog worth reading is easy either so start by creating a firm Quinn main character - it's most challenging, but the whole thing falls apart without it. You could do "Thoughts on Red Rockets:" and launch into story about your new dog and hilarious puppy school fiasco and then post photo of Bear.
Sent at 11:13 AM on Thursday

Tori: I know it feels generic and overdone to tell stories about yourself/ dog/ life but it's not like you are on a safari through Africa or have anything particularly crazy to post about - this is your life: you're unemployed, you live in KC and you have a dog. What is interesting about you is how you think about these things and what is entertaining is the way you write about it. The characters will develop as you work on this but forcing them will ultimately make them suck.
Sent at 11:17 AM on Thursday

So despite all plans to avoid myself, I am now trying to conjure up ways to develop this Quinn character more. Since this blog currently has one reader (Tori) I should probably follow her advice and reevaluate my delusions of grandeur and originality, which undoubtedly stem from the sadly unoriginal realities of my life—or as Torruption so aptly put: "this is your life: you're unemployed, you live in KC and you have a dog."

Blogony - From The Real Quinn

2009-04-29T14:27:00.000-05:00

For months I've been agonizing over this blog: What will it be? What should I call it? What is the theme? Purpose? Direction?

I still can't really answer these questions. But I am okay with that. 'Quinnterruption' doesn't need to have an end goal, all it needs in order to exist are interruptions.

There will be a series of characters who will post on this blog. Of course, these characters are essentially me. These are the people who roam around in my head and interrupt my thoughts and scream at me to put them down on paper. (I realize this makes me sound schizophrenic, but I'm not. I'm just a writer. I think the two are commonly confused.)

Here are my momentary goals for Quinnterruption:

1.) Expect nothing (don't conform).
2.) Learn to see it for what it is (i.e., a place to write, freely).
3.) Write everyday (no excuses).
4.) Don't be serious (because, seriously, everyone else is).
5.) Enjoy it, you interrupting cow--Mooooooo!

Okay so there are five, well really four since number five was just filler, noncommittal, uncompromising goals that I can live with, at least until tomorrow.