my long lasting flavor really lasts long
EIGHT SEVEN CENTRAL
I am surely not the first person to notice this, but there are way too many TV shows named The Something. Where the Something is a person. I don't watch any of these, but I have seen ads for The Closer, The Listener, The Locator, The Cleaner. Here is my new prime-time lineup, with possible taglines:
The Wanker (A gritty urban drama taking place on public transportation.)
The Deboner (“This fish…my god! Someone could choke! Get me the tweezers!”)
The Heaver (He doesn't feel well…at all!)
The Laminator (Your cards are protected.)
The Blogger (No topic is too boring for…The Blogger!)
The Pauser (You'll keep wondering…should I say something now? How about now?)
SCHOOL DAZED
Recently I volunteered as a “lunch supervisor” for Nora's kindergarten class. I spent my time opening stubborn yogurt tubes and drink boxes, telling a certain kid to SIT DOWN about ten thousand times, and avoiding a certain other kid's repeated robot monotone of “Can I tell you something?” I listened to the first few somethings, which were uninteresting and barely comprehensible, but I quickly got sick of it and just started telling him no. Can I tell you something? No thanks. Tell somebody else. He persisted in wanting to tell me things even during recess, to the point where I was pretty much constantly pivoting my body away from him and keeping up my own robot monotone about how he should GO PLAY, for crying out loud. I felt sort of bad about it but good lord.
Something that amazes me about kindergarteners is how physical they are. Boy or girl, “best” friends or not, they all want to hold hands. They get SO CLOSE to each other when talking. If you want to show something to your friend, by all means just shove it right in her face! Yeah, right up to the eyeball, she'll be sure to see it then! Just watching them gave me the shivers. I had to keep reminding myself that the personal-space heebie-jeebies was my problem and not theirs (since no kid seemed to mind) and resist the urge to wade in there and pull kids apart.
I CANNOT STAND THAT WOMAN
Funny article on Oprah and her lifestyle “advice.” This is my favorite part:
On one of the Secret shows, Oprah gave an example of the scientific power of the concept. She said that once, while she was hosting an episode about a man who could blow really big soap bubbles, she was thinking to herself, “Gee, that looks fun. I would like to blow some bubbles.” When she returned to her office after the show, there, on her desk, was a silver Tiffany bubble blower. “So I call my assistant,” Oprah told the audience. “I say, 'Did you just run out and get me some bubbles? 'Cause I got bubbles by my desk.' And she says, 'No, the bubbles were always there. I bought you bubbles for your birthday and you didn't notice them until today'.”
There are many lessons that might be drawn from this anecdote. One is that if you give Oprah a thoughtful gift, she may not bother to notice it or thank you for it. This is not the lesson Oprah took away from her story. Because the way she sees it, her assistant hadn't really given her the gift at all. She gave it to herself. Using the power of The Secret, she said, “I had called in some bubbles.”
NOT MY THING
Fashion phenomena for which I am too old/not fashionable enough, or maybe I am just unable to wrap my feeble mind around them:
1. Belts over shirts. Women who do this seem to wear a tight-ish shirt and then they put the belt way up high around the ribcage. It looks strange. I remember belts over shirts in the 1980s, when we wore giant knee-length shirts with a similarly giant belt (preferably all in neon colors). That looked strange too.
2. Wearing a bunch of shirts at once. I saw a teenager on the train with three tank tops on and still somehow her bra straps were showing. Or those Gap ads with a whole bunch of “tissue”-weight t-shirts. I can deal with tank top under a V-neck sweater, but that is about my maximum number of shirts, thanks.
3. Skirts over pants. If I'm honest with myself, I have seen this look kind of cool on other people. But I won't be doing it anytime soon.
CLUMSY OAF
A guy came to wash our office windows from the inside and knocked over my water bottle. All over my desk calendar, all over my reference books, all over some piles of papers. Nothing that got ruined was life or death, but I was still pretty pissed off and I could not bring myself to respond with a bright girly OH THAT’S OKAY! to his apologies, nor even a muttered “Shit happens.” Dude should count himself lucky to have gotten my mirthless tight-lipped “smile.”
—mimi smartypants, damp and disgruntled.