Tag Archives: humor writing

Jul 27 2012
3 Comments
Anecdotes, Humorous, San Francisco, Two minute read

Concert Review: “The Hair Was Good”

You have to be good to earn hair like the King.

I paid money for and attended a concert last night. This was unusual. Normally I listen to songs on YouTube until I’ve memorized 80% of the words and find someone who has the CD, if that even happens, then I don’t go to the concerts.

I’m a music fan but not a fanatic, which is why I always feel slightly awkward around crazy music people, the ones who are oblivious to other passions and clearly imagine that living in thrall to music is the most noble life. According to them, everyone else either feels the same way or is a dirt bag.

That makes me a dirt bag because I don’t love going to concerts unless I know all of the songs and/or there’s going to be crazy dancing. Last night was a perfect example of what happens at the kind of concert I don’t enjoy.

The local band (hint: unknown songs) started playing and the audience approached the stage from the darkness, drawn towards the musicians but fearing to leave the shadows and step into the stage lights. Most men in the audience were bearded, about 25% were wearing some kind of flannel, and there were too many whimsical patters to count.

The most important thing about this crowd, however, is that its 8:15 dance of choice was to stand and watch with the occasional head bob. In other words, they were a bunch of boring stiffs. Literally, their bodies were stiff like corpses and I wanted to shout at them, “Move! Move your bodies or you shall lose your souls!”

Instead I invented new dance movies, including the slow-mo kiss blow and twiddling my thumbs to the music high in the air. Why the others didn’t join me, I’ll never know. The first band finished their set, and the crowd gave up a “too-cool-to get-excited-about-anything” cheer.

The second band and their hair appeared on stage.

According to our backstage informer, the crew had just gotten hair cuts that allowed them to literally outshine and outpoof everyone else. Their long hairs had been trimmed short on the sides and swept up on top to make a glossy pillow of hair that added a half foot to their total height.  The hair pillows were mesmerizing and by far my favorite part of their performance. As they jerked and jumped to the music, their ridiculous hair-dos also jostled around but somehow always found their way back home.

Their music didn’t have a chance when compared to the hair. In fact, they could have jumped on a trampoline for thirty minutes and I would have enjoyed watching them just as much. The highlight of the night was probably right before the concert started when we found an awesome parking spot that was close by. More on that later.

This concert only whetted my appetite for screaming and thrashing movements (singing and dancing.) I need to go to a cover band show ASAP.

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Jul 26 2012
13 Comments
Humorous, Job hunting, Stories

Ye Olde Craig’s List Scam

Everything’s normal…..

You might know the feeling. You’ve been crashing at your friend’s apartment for a couple of weeks and you’re desperate for work. Your top five visited pages are all Craig’s List, the world is measured out in dollar signs, and you’d rather someone spit in your mouth than overpay for a cup of coffee.

Your mind becomes numb as you troll Craig’s List, and even the dubious sounding Candy Puff girl “marketing” position begins to have some appeal, and this is a position that involves selling single cigarettes and gummy worms to an inebriated and gropey post-techno crowd.

The end result of your enthusiasm/desperation is that you apply to dozens, possibly hundreds of jobs in a couple of days. You wait for anyone to call or email you, just to know that you exist. Anxiety, feelings of worthlessness, and rampant peanut butter eating fill your day.

This was me just one week ago. I had shut myself into my friend’s room and become a Craig’s list zombie. When places called or emailed me back, I invariably had no idea who or what they were because I had applied to so many different positions. Nevertheless, I always pretended I was happy to hear from them specifically and yes I was very interested in learning more about the position.

One day, a place named “PMC” called.  Actually, two different people called within minutes of one another in a very obvious and potentially embarrassing (for them) recruitment error. Despite this initial warning sign, and the fact I had no idea what position I had applied for or what company this was, I went right ahead and responded to their call. They were interested in me.

According to Melissa, her managers had received my resume and wanted to speak with me in person. Great! I said, still clueless about their company and the position. She went on to say that this was an entry level position, and they were looking for people they could train into becoming managers. Perfect! said I. So we set up an interview time and she told me a few things to remember, one of which was to wear business professional attire. See you then! I said.

And then the doubts started. What was this place? What did they do? Why did they have to remind me to wear professional attire to an interview? Why did they want people with no experience? It all seemed a bit….odd. Later that day, I looked up the address they gave me and one of the first items that popped up revealed that this was very likely a scam.

Woah.

It was my very first Craig’s List scam. I was fascinated and thought it could be a great blog fodder opportunity. Maybe I would show up at the interview in my prairie dress with a resume that said I went to clown school and subbed as a P.E. teacher in my home town of Alsida, Louisiana. Would they still “hire” me or send me away after seeing the crazy in my eye?

Alas, we will never know. I cancelled the interview because of laziness and fear of being clubbed with a baseball bat. But the housing search yet lies ahead, and hundreds of emails sent to Craig’s list addresses. Should danger come calling again, I will greet it in modest clothing and with a pen ready.

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Jul 24 2012
51 Comments
Humorous, Modern Life, Two minute read

Why Exercising is the Worst

Yup, that’s about right.

I have about a billion and one problems with exercising, aside from the fact I struggle doing it regularly. First of all, I can never spell the freaking word. I always get the c and the s and the z* mixed up and yes I do have a college degree and even if I went back and got every single degree I would still misspell exercising because it is accursed.

Aside from spelling, one of my personal struggles with exercising stems from the fact I only have one sports bra and hate doing laundry more than three times in three months. This becomes a problem when I try to exercise every day, because as one exercises, one’s body produces sweat, a combination of accumulated self-loathing and lethargy that melts and drips out of the body’s pores and into clothing in a most unattractive way. This sweat often has a scent that reminds me of herds of large animals running in the midsummer sun. What I’m trying to say is my bra gets gross and I hate having to do a special load of laundry just to satisfy my exercising habit.

Probably the biggest issue I have with exercising is that it is never-ending. It’s not possible to work out regularly and extremely for three years and have the effects last longer than a couple months. There’s no internal bank of exercise credit in which one may store up and then slowly distribute all of the hard work that has been put into the body. One can sweat their eyeballs out for six months and then one month later, their bodies never remember leaving the kitchen.

At any time during a phase of regular exercise, the anti-motivation demon comes to call. My alarm goes off in the morning and instantly I start making excuses as to why I’m unable to leave buddy the bed and complete the scheduled routine. My throat’s scratchy, there’s not enough time, I’m too sore from yesterday, the other runners will jeer at me, my clothes are too dark, etc. As my mind grasps at any possible excuse to not leave the house, I know the whole time that I am sabotaging myself and will never be a person that has the healthy-person glow, a glow that can be imitated, but not reproduced exactly, through the use of alcohol.

As I lie in bed convincing myself that my legs will fall off if I start running, another part of me says, “You are pathetic. You know you could go running. You know you’re not sick and that it won’t be that hard. But look at you, all soft and squishy, curled up in bed. You should have known you wouldn’t be able to exercise regularly.” After a while I start agreeing with the voice. “I am sad and flabby. I don’t deserve the healthy glow.”

And then I stay in bed and hate myself for it, even more than I hated myself for rarely exercising. Thus I’ve concluded it’s best not to start the whole ordeal, just as it’s better to never love. When no one loses, everyone wins.

*”But there’s no z in exercising!” You might say. Why, then, do I put it in there every single time I type the word? There must be a z! There must!

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Jul 18 2012
20 Comments
Humorous, Modern Life, Two minute read

Watching Dogs Crap and Other Joys of Living in the City

Just out of sight, a baby is de-feathering a pigeon.

I am but a prairie lass, born and raised in the gated communities of Oklahoman suburbia, where everyone besides me got a car for their 16th birthday and our motto is “Free parking for all!” Now that I’m living in San Francisco, which is a bigger city, if not the biggest, I get to experience those subtle joys of urban life, the things that make living in the semi-tropical concrete jungle worthwhile.

Take yesterday, for example, when I was riding the MUNI (subway) and reading my NOOK (not as good as a kindle) while heading to the outer sunset (a neighborhood.) After a couple of stops, a rather vocal and drunk man across the aisle decided to direct his conversation to four other passengers scattered about in the car that were reading books, including me. “People used to f-ing talk!” he said. “Now look at them, with their f-ing tweetering and facebook…….(mumble)…there used to be CONVERSATIONS.” I smiled inwardly while staring determinedly at my NOOK. “This is great!” I thought. “City life!” Seconds later the man asked me for a cigarette and shortly after that I hopped off the train and skipped home.

In addition to the characters on public transport, part of city life in San Francisco is getting to watch people watch their dogs take a dump. At any given time in a dog park, 20% of the animals are crapping and 100% percent of their owners either staring in order to know the location of the turds, or pretending to ignore it while mentally mapping Fido’s mess. This bizarre kind of human-animal interaction is something only the urban could have come up with, and it’s just another reason I love living here!

Awkward secondary interactions with strangers are also an integral and precious part of city life. While in line at McDonald’s, a popular local joint, the man in front of me started berating the innocent employee because she had “lied” to him about the cost of honey mustard AND not given it to him. “I’m not here to argue with you!” the man yelled. “I’m here to do business!” After one of the more uncomfortable minutes of my and the employee’s day, the man grabbed his sauce, sat down, and proceeded to eat his gigantic meal alone.  This was business.

As if the city couldn’t get any better, yesterday I ran to the ocean (that’s right mom, I was exercising), and stood triumphally on top of a sand dune, having a spiritual moment as the sun sank red into the ocean. After about a minute, a man walked up to the dune on my left and and assumed a characteristic position that indicated he was about to be sick. Ah, nothing like enjoying the sunset with the promise of someone nearby blowing chunks. Unfortunately, I had to leave and could not stay to watch any bile-spewing, but maybe I’ll catch it next time!

Life in the city sure is fun! But seriously, it’s better than the suburbs. I’ll take the vomit and the weird human-animal and human-human interactions any day. The only thing I miss is my parent’s kitchen.

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Jul 17 2012
21 Comments
Job hunting, One minute read

The Career Search, Living in the Moment, and Ramen Noodles

This picture was taken in January, when it was the same temperature but sunny here. WTF.

Right after I pressed publish last Friday on the blog post about my Reba t-shirt, I realized that I was the worst person in the world. I had complained about getting up at 6:30 am and having one appointment. Poor me.

Most people get up at the booty-crack of dawn and have to work the whole day long, with no time for ditzels, knick knacks, or futzing. For brief moment the length of the time it takes to write a blog post, I forgot that I was incredibly lucky to have the luxury of following my dreams, which I’m still defining at this point. I think it’s kind of a long-term smelting thing in order to figure out what I really want and if it’s good and what I should want and all of that.

I’ve spent so much time trying to figure what I want to do that I haven’t been focusing on what I’m doing in the time I currently have. I’ve been scrutinizing the future so hard, trying to make sure I’m heading in the right direction and towards gainful employ/activities that I both enjoy and find meaningful, that I fell into the trap of believing that the only time that’s valuable is the time you’re paid for.

Once I realized this, I paused for a second and thought “Well, do I enjoy what I’m currently doing?” which is making phone calls, setting up connections, exploring the city, interviewing, hanging out with friends, trying to get my feet on the ground, making networks that will take me into the future, etc. and I thought, yeah, I do. I have what feels like freedom and infinite possibilities. San Francisco is my shiny, expensive oyster that I plan on cracking in order to find the best dive bars and cheap eats.

I am not my to-do list. The things I’m doing right now are also important, and these steps will lead me to a future, but in reality it’s all part of the same thing. So I should savor the whole enchilada because the minutes don’t come back to you in the end, or so I hear.

And today I put a squirt of ketchup in my ramen noodles, which tasted just as good as I thought it would and I felt secure about my future as I slurped the broth down—it was thicker than usual. Ramen noodle innovation is just one of the many signs of nascent success.

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