Tag Archives: writing

Aug 08 2012
44 Comments
Humorous, Job hunting, Three minute read, Writing

“Spit in My Mouth and I’ll Tell You”

Try me. Just try me.

So I’m at a party, in line for the bathroom or staring out the window wondering what it would be like to be free and somehow I get talking to a stranger. We exchange pleasantries, place our palms together and grip firmly, and then as the banter inevitably dies down and we’re breathing out the tail end of our last haha, one of us reaches for the easiest conversation topic possible:

So…what do you do?

The “do” question is innocent, merely an attempt to understand the other person better, or maybe even form a connection, “Oh you do that? I do that too! Do you know her? I know her too! Wasn’t that one thing crazy!?” And so on and so forth.

But the question can be problematic. What if, for example, I currently spend most of my time making money doing something I hate? Should I put this forward as the best summary of my person, that I’m someone willing to subject themselves to mental torture day in and day out for a couple of bucks?

What if I’m unemployed, but doing everything from hiking the Sierra Nevada to creating a large-scale bronze sculpture Gumby, to compulsively poking people on facebook?

Or what if the things I do to make money are unrelated to how I define myself? What if they’re only a way to make money? What if, in theory, I make money by babysitting and working at a restaurant, but what I really want to do is write and be an incredibly successful author read and loved by the masses? What should my response be to the “what do you do?” question? I can’t tell the truth because the other person will have no idea what to do with me and try to leave and I’ll be forced to follow them. But if I say I’m a writer, I open up a whole other can of worms.

The first thing they ask is: what do you write?

I’ve been asked this God knows how many times and I still don’t have a good answer. My shortest response time is slightly over a minute. Somewhere, an Olympian just ran a quarter of a mile and I’m still fumbling around trying to explain what I write. I end up blabbing about the blog and humor writing and exploring different writing styles and it’s very boring for the other person and just plain stressful for me because then I’m like, “Oh my God. Am I even a writer? What are all those words I typed out yesterday? Why didn’t they fit into something I could describe to this guy without sounding like someone who might steal his wallet when he leans over to look at the event brochure on the coffee table?

So the next time someone asks me what I do, I’m going to assume they mean, “What would you do if you could do anything?” and I’m going to tell them I’m a writer, and then when they ask me what kind of writer I am, I’m going to ask them to spit in my mouth.

What, they’ll say.

Yeah, just go ahead and spit in my mouth and I’ll tell you what I write.

They won’t do it, I won’t have to figure out and then tell them what I write, and we’ll both leave the party with interesting stories. Win win.

Tagged , , , , ,
Jul 30 2012
13 Comments
Humorous, Two minute read, Writing

When Idioms Collide You Roll with the Cookie Crumbs

These tasted about as good as they looked, which wasn’t great.

Let me ask you this, if the cookie crumbled in a certain way and I end up having to roll with the punches, could I also roll in the cookie crumbs? Could I perhaps eat some of the larger cookie crumbles providing they didn’t fall on the ground anywhere gross, like in the kitchen sink? What kind of cookie is it, because I was really craving a white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookie earlier and that’d be perfect. Oh it’s just a sugar cookie. I guess that’s okay. So I’ll roll here then? Okay cool, see you later. Sorry the cookie crumbled like this.

Wait!

And if I, by accident, killed two birds with one stone, could I then stitch them up in order to save nine others? I am aware that stitching them up won’t do anything at all, that they’re completely dead because I knocked them out of the sky with a big ‘ol rock, and that they died of massive internal and external injuries, but I thought maybe if I just kind of did the stitch-up thing then I could help out some other critters.  I don’t even know how I hit them—it was really weird. I think that was the literally the first time I’d ever hit anything I aimed at. I only did it in the first place because I was really confident I wouldn’t actually get them.

When they both ended up dying I felt so awful. I had a moment of crisis, like what am I, some kind of tweetie murderer? Is my life so pathetic that I’ve got to take out my angst on a couple of dumb creatures gifted with the beauty of flight? But then I thought maybe there’s a loophole—wait so what did you say, can I stitch them up in order to save nine other bird lives? How were these other birds going to die anyways? Could I save any other kind of animal if I stitch these up? What about cats? I really like cats—no go? Wait, you’re saying that stitching the birds up won’t do anything at all? Not even save the other birds? Well that’s a bummer…

I have one more question–you probably know where I’m going with this, but my dad just got me this pony. Oh you have to go….well will you be here tomorrow?

Tagged , , , , , ,
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.

Tagged , , , , , , ,
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!

Tagged , , , , , ,
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.

Tagged , , , , , , , ,
← Older posts
Newer posts →
Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started