Technology? Fabulous!

Scene: I'm sitting at work, not doing actual work because well, no one else is here why should I?

Phone rings.

Chili: I'm lost. I'm at a stop light in...um...where is the University of Maryland?

Me: Er..(Google) College Park.

Chili: I'm in College Park Maryland on, uh...Melbourne Street, no, Place, Melbourne Place and I need to get to Benson Street in Columbia, Maryland. I'm going to the Olive Garden.

Me: OK. Hold on. (Furious mapquesting) Got it, go toward I95 North.

We confer, I read, she follows, she makes noises as though she's actually going to remember this. I am looking at the mile markers on mapquest and know there's no way.

Chili: I left the directions on the pad in the lobby of the hotel.

Me: Happens to everyone.

Chili: I'll call you if I get lost again.

Me: I'm leaving this screen up until I hear from you.

Chili: Really? Oh good! I'll call you when I get there.

Extra bonus: This is the billboard she saw on the way - "Since when did Bridesmaid Dress become the new uniform of summer?"

Lording the Ring

I'm in a couple of weddings this year. And I'm trying to be helpful and upbeat. For the most part I get into the planning of it all. It's like a REALLY important one night theatrical performance where if anything goes wrong people's entire lives will be ruined. Seriously, though, I am truly honored to be asked to be in them.

But.

Oh come on, like I'd be writing about it if there weren't a but.

The other day one of the brides explained to me how wedding bands work on your finger with your engagement ring.

"You wear your engagement ring on top of your wedding band and they nestle together. It's really important to find the right fit."

Really?

Are you sure you should be telling me this? I mean, I don't know the secret Bride handshake yet, it might be against the rules giving me inside information like this.

It is at this point in the Briding process (and I've been through it before, enough that I at least knew this moment was coming) that you realize that the Bridal Hormone has been released and that any thought outside of the wedding and wedding related information and how other people fit into the wedding is a thought that isn't going to get oxygen. No matter how nice the bride, how evenly keeled and pleasantly personalitied this moment comes. It's OK, you get to be crazy when you're working on being Princess cum Queen for a Day, I appreciate it, even though I don't get it. How could I get it, I'm not a Bride! :)

I had heard once or twice before about how wedding and engagement rings are supposed to be worn.

I mean, I've never shot up heroin either but I have an idea what the procedure entails.

I love weddings. I do. I wasn't lying when I said that I'm very honored, either. I just hope I live through it.

Quotes of the week

These 2 are for Papermoon.

"Then I woke up and...NIPS OF FIRE!!!!"

"They warn you that too many beets make your pee red but they don't warn you about this. You could have tie dyed tee shirts with my ASS! Purple. No lie."

"I don't want to be FOUR!!!!!!"

Dear Lady Mistress Executio....

No, that's not right.

Dear Mistress Vomitia of Pukonia....

Um, not quite what we're looking for.

To Her Royal Highness the Principessa of....

Good lord, I don't have time for full titles.

Dear Alita on the occasion of your much contested fourth birthday,

Tough morning, huh? Wait until the day you turn 31. It's a much bigger letdown and no one is going to throw you a Princess Party either.

I feel your pain about leaving your teacher behind. I can tell you right now that she will always remember you and that, as much as she didn't like to see you cry, you probably totally made her day by being so attached to her that you were willing to be three years old forever.

Me, personally? I'd be fine if you stayed three forever. Also, I'd be terribly disappointed.

Last month we were walking along 5th Avenue and we started playing this game, just having a conversation but with only 2 words, every variation of Yes or No we wanted to use. I knew what I was thinking while we did it. I mean, how could I not? I've spent around $150,000 for acting training so that I can easily sustain a scene like that and still convey my location, emotion, past circumstances and intention to the audience. You're FOUR, how did you do it? Oh, right, I spent all that money to teach myself how to be four again and I'm just a tiny bit envious of you. It was fun and, for my part, I could have played all day.

I have to say it's a far cry from 4 years ago. We spent a hot summer hanging out on SE Street and getting to know each other. One night you just would not stop crying. Wailing and agonizing and freaking out. You were like a month old, who knew you had accumulated so much anger? I walked up and down the street with you until it got late enough that I wondered if the people on the block (the ones not hanging out on the stoop with your mom) were wishing that I would stop perambulating the siren under their windows so I took you inside. Good god, it was like there were 8 of you. The gnashing of teeth echoed, bouncing off each wall and being delivered back to us tweaked just enough to induce hysteria. I took you back outside. Screw the neighbors. A nice young man stopped me near Hanson street and clued me in on what stopped his son's crying. Apparently one is supposed to take a vibrator (he may have said personal electronic massager but I knew what he meant) and turn it on under the banshee's mattress and the motion soothes the horror child to sleep. As odd as I still think that conversation was I wasn't the least afraid of him and thought his idea was perfectly sane at the time. I didn't do it, though. I didn't feel your mom and I had the sort of relationship where we could exchange that sort of information yet.

And you know what? Eventually I left. You were still crying. And I left your mom to deal with it. I should have apologized for that. (Sorry mom!) You should apologize too when you get a chance, OK?

These days I'm a little luckier, usually I can coax you out of a bad mood or out from in front of a mountain of dolls and toys to come play with me. Even if it's raining. Not snow, though, no one gets you out in the snow.

Thanks for the laugh with the tattoo raspberry, I needed that. Thanks for holding my hand really tight when we walk down the street. Thanks for saying, "Tomorrow? At Brunch? I'm going to sit on Kizzy's lap!"

I know you don't want to hear it right now but congratulations on turning four. I'm pretty sure you're going to learn to like it.

I love you, no matter whose class you're in.

xoxoxoxoxox
Kizzy

Ripped From the Headlines

"City orders crackdown on pimps that use teens"

Um, pardon?

So, up until now the city has been letting them slide by? I mean, they're fine upstanding citizens and yet they have just this one slightly annoying habit of selling the bodies of desperate teenagers so we've been letting it go, figured they'd grow out of it. Sadly no and now we must crackdown.

What?!?!

On the flip side, it's time to crackdown on the pimps that use teens because that's evil, bad and nasty but the pimps that use people over 18, that's OK? They're adults and no one in the history of ever has coerced or pressured or forced an adult, particularly a damaged or desperate adult, into doing something that they didn't want to do or that wasn't in their best interests.

Oy, and this is what the tax dollars are paying the city's press department to tell me.

Closure

Professor Doctor is handing the text of a 1991 Nike Ad to her students at the end of the term as part of her "Closure Packet". I like it so I thought I'd post it here, too.

You were born a daughter.
You looked up to your mother.
You looked up to your father.
You looked up at everyone.
You wanted to be a princess.
You thought you were a princess.
You wanted to own a horse.
You wanted to be a horse.
You wanted your brother to be a horse.
You wanted to be a veterinarian.
You wanted to be president.
You wanted to be the president’s veterinarian.
You were picked last for the team.
You were the best one on the team.
You refused to be on the team.
You wanted to be good in Algebra.
You hid during Algebra.
You wanted the boys to notice you.
You were afraid the boys would notice you.
You started to get acne.
You started to get breasts.
You started to get acne that was bigger than your breasts.
You wouldn’t wear a bra.
You couldn’t wait to wear a bra.
You couldn’t fit into a bra.
You didn’t like the way you looked.
You didn’t like the way your parents looked.
You didn’t want to grow up.
You had your first best friend.
You had your first date.
You had your second best friend.
You had your second first date.
You spent hours on the telephone.
You got kissed.
You got to kiss back.
You went to the prom.
You went to the prom with the wrong person.
You spent hours on the telephone.
You fell in love.
You fell in love.
You fell in love.
You lost your best friend.
You lost your other best friend.
You really fell in love.
You became a steady girlfriend.
You became a significant other.
You became significant to yourself.
Sooner or later you start taking yourself seriously.
You know when you need a break.
You know when you need a rest.
You know what to get worked up about and what to get rid of.
And you know when it’s time to take care of yourself, for yourself.
To do something that makes you stronger, faster, more complete.
Because you know it’s never too late to have a life.
And it’s never too late to change one.
Just do it.

-- Nike advertisement from 1991
(when Professor Doctor was in 10th grade)

For the record, I graduated from college that year.

Literary profiling

If you're reading a biography of an osbcure liberal senator you should have manners enough to move all the way into the car so others can get on.

If you're reading One Hundred Years of Solitude you really ought to be wearing those spangly Baby Phat eyeglasses ironically.

If you're reading Us Weekly, tilt that towards me so I can see.

1,000 miles

Since we last spoked I have driven more than 1,000 miles.

I have seen a big truck being removed from its crash site...badly.

I have seen a VERY large man sitting on a guard rail alone with his diet caffeine free coke and his shirt off.

I have seen every single solitary mile of the Maine Turnpike.

I have seen friends.

I have seen family.

Just now I got home and saw my bed.

Can't wait to sleeeeeeeeeeeeep.

Going to return the car and I'll be back. My bed will be waiting for me. Have to find some special solid gold cat food for Pony Express' cats before that, though.

So much to do and all I want to do is sleep.

But you know that already.

An open letter to the Attached/Affianced/Avowed guys that for some inexplicable reason continue to pursue me.

Dear Guys,

Thank you for continually reminding me that I am attractive and intelligent and funny. Thank you also for keeping my flirting skills oiled and ready for action.

Here's the thing, though, I put in my time as The Other Woman and while it was a good job - educational, fun, exciting - I'd have to liken it to an internship in a dream company with a pretty small stipend. It's a good way to start out and learn the ropes but you can't do it forever and the majority of companies don't promote from that position.

As attractive as a lot of internships look to me I'm too old for them and I have too many bills to pay.

I do honestly appreciate the offer, however painful the interview process has become.

Please say hello to your girlfriend/fiancee/wife for me, it was great to see her.

Now why don't you go out and buy her some flowers or a nice scarf.

Love,
Kizz

P.S. If you know any SINGLE guys who, like you, are well-read, well-spoken, talented, funny and just naughty enough could you perhaps give them my number?

And yet...

"For quality assurance purposes some calls may be monitored or recorded."

OK, great, whatever you need to do.

My question, however, is how come when I'm being treated like crap by a Customer "Care" Representative (Yes, Apple, I'm looking at you) that call is being neither monitored or recorded. No one cuts in and says, "Excuse me ma'am, as we informed you at the start of the call some of our calls are monitored or recorded for quality assurance purposes. I've been monitoring your call for the last hour and am appalled by the lack of service you're getting. With your permission I'd like to use this call, which has also been recorded, as a training device. A bit of a what not to do sort of thing. If you'll hold for a minute while I fire the incompetant ass that has been raising your blood pressure I will be back so that in gratitude we here at (I won't say it but, Apple, I hope you're listening) will correct your problem, gratis of course, and in record time and we'll throw in a free 40 gig MP3 Player."

"Yes, I agree."

Never. Happens.

Thank you Anne

This summer a few people I know are getting married. My UnBrother is marrying an Iranian Princess, TA is marrying the president of the AV Club and Professor Doctor is marrying that guy she lives with. Not surprisingly this is a major topic of conversation wherever I go. A couple of my favorite exchanges:

"They've invited 20 more people but they swear most of them won't come."
"Oh. Kay. Well how many can the place fit?"
"Um, 75 for sure but probab..."
"?!"

"But they won't be able to see our feet! We could be naked from the waist down!"
"Will you be?"
"No! Of course not, but...well..it just doesn't seem right for a wedding."

And, of course, the inevitable I-Me-Me-I dance, performed by and large by the parents.

In light of all this I find I yearn for happy wedding and marriage stories.

Yesterday a fine actress and absolute rock of a woman, Anne Bancroft, died of uterine cancer.

In the course of the tributes to her the news shows are also memorializing her 41 year marriage to notorious genius/wacko, Mel Brooks. These two stories made me happy:

"From across the room he yelled to me, 'I'm Mel Brooks!' He looked like my father, acted JUST like my mother, I knew this was the one for me."

"I get excited every time I hear his key in the door because I know the party is about to start."

Thanks Anne, we needed that.

"Self" tanning

Um, no.

It's not like I never used self tanner before. I bought spray on stuff and I mushed it around and carefully washed my hands afterwards and my skin never really changed at all. It was like placebo tanner. Something to make you feel like you'd at least tried to look halfway healthy. So I didn't expect much from the new stuff.

I spent the extra $4 for the continuous mist stuff. The stuff that's currently being hawked by Julie Bowen (formerly of Ed and occasionally popping up in a flashback on Lost).

I have a couple of bones to pick.

First, "self" tanning. Not so much. No one can reach every part of him or herself with a spray nozzle. I'm sure many have tried and that practice yields more complete results but really it's just not possible. Yet another way that those of us who live in homes where we are the sole possessors of opposable thumbs are being discriminated against.

Second, and more important really, there's the claim that you don't have to rub the stuff in. Somewhere in the fine print it must explain that it's a free country (hah!) so you don't HAVE to rub it in. However, if you want the tanning goup to actually be evenly spread around your body and evenly tan it then of course you'll need to rub it in.

Ask me how I know.

No, don't. I'm too embarrassed.

I'm not sure what makes this more embarrassing than the days you fall asleep in the sun with your sunglasses on or some yabo has his hand on your chest but it is somehow acutely more embarrassing.

At the urging of my personal tanning reconstructionist, PonyPonyPony, I have soaked in a tub, showered extensively and given myself daily low level Silkwood scrubbings. I no longer have crisp clean lines between the tanned and untanned portions of me. The worst part is the front vs. the back of my right arm but I can keep that covered.

So embarrassing.