1) I dropped my almost-full bottle of fluoride cavity rinse in the bathroom, and it landed on my little toe and dented a huge chunk out of the flesh on top of it.
2) I forgot that a while ago I was trimming my armpit hairs and was a little absent-minded, and the scissors snipped into my skin right below my right armpit, and that was a big gap out of the top layer of flesh that got infected and took forever to close up, and now there's like a 1/4" scar there.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
Hipster karaoke triumph...
A few Saturdays ago was the 5th anniversary party of hipster karaoke, so I went with some friends.
My one (white) friend from Mississippi sang "Me and My Bobby McGee" before I got there - I was at my one friend with the cat's for Yom Kippur break-fast dinner - and my one friend with the cat sang "Not in These Shoes" (and tore the place up; she did a great job of story-telling, it's a story song).
The place seemed crowded when I went in, and since the host was giving away free t-shirts to great performers, right when I got in I put in Eric Carmen's "All by Myself", since I knew it was a big song, and I've always wanted to sing it.
Only, I was in a very happy mood, so like a few songs before mine came up, I was like, "Oh shit," so I started chugging beers and thinking about things that made me despondent and separate from everyone, like, "Even if I have a good performance, the crowd will like it for the wrong reasons," since to make that song work, you have to do it seriously, no irony or winking at the audience, otherwise it turns retarded.
As it turns out, I did the first verse with authority since I'm 30 -
"when I was young/
I never needed anyone/
and making love was just for fun/
those days are gone?
- and I knew that I knew the second verse but couldn't think of what it was, and then when I got to it, I remembered it verse-by-verse as I sang that it's about calling all your friends and no-one's home, and it had reminded me of the Tues.-Wed.-Thurs.-Fri. of that very past week when I had texted a bunch of people but no plans materialized (for 4 nights in a row!), and how that sucked, and so I nailed it.
People applauded during the instrumental, but I kept myself distant, and I did well through all the repeats, though I should have attempted to soar on the final chorus repeat and sing everything up an octave, though I don't know that anyone noticed, since everyone was applauding and as the music was gradually fading out the host was wrapping a t-shirt around my shoulders like a towel around the shoulders of a boxer after winning a long and brutal match.
Later, a couple people stopped me and said it was the best song of the night, and another said that you could tell I meant business when I strode up to the microphone after the host called my name, but I don't think I took their opinions too seriously because they were (white).
The one (black) girl in the room, though, who *I* think sang the best song of the night - "Mamma Said Knock You Out"; my one (white) friend from Mississippi did too, and we were joking that she was at the wrong karaoke night - did compliment me, which I appreciated, and I filled her in on krunk karaoke and she was stoked and might be going some Monday night now.
My one (white) friend from Mississippi sang "Me and My Bobby McGee" before I got there - I was at my one friend with the cat's for Yom Kippur break-fast dinner - and my one friend with the cat sang "Not in These Shoes" (and tore the place up; she did a great job of story-telling, it's a story song).
The place seemed crowded when I went in, and since the host was giving away free t-shirts to great performers, right when I got in I put in Eric Carmen's "All by Myself", since I knew it was a big song, and I've always wanted to sing it.
Only, I was in a very happy mood, so like a few songs before mine came up, I was like, "Oh shit," so I started chugging beers and thinking about things that made me despondent and separate from everyone, like, "Even if I have a good performance, the crowd will like it for the wrong reasons," since to make that song work, you have to do it seriously, no irony or winking at the audience, otherwise it turns retarded.
As it turns out, I did the first verse with authority since I'm 30 -
"when I was young/
I never needed anyone/
and making love was just for fun/
those days are gone?
- and I knew that I knew the second verse but couldn't think of what it was, and then when I got to it, I remembered it verse-by-verse as I sang that it's about calling all your friends and no-one's home, and it had reminded me of the Tues.-Wed.-Thurs.-Fri. of that very past week when I had texted a bunch of people but no plans materialized (for 4 nights in a row!), and how that sucked, and so I nailed it.
People applauded during the instrumental, but I kept myself distant, and I did well through all the repeats, though I should have attempted to soar on the final chorus repeat and sing everything up an octave, though I don't know that anyone noticed, since everyone was applauding and as the music was gradually fading out the host was wrapping a t-shirt around my shoulders like a towel around the shoulders of a boxer after winning a long and brutal match.
Later, a couple people stopped me and said it was the best song of the night, and another said that you could tell I meant business when I strode up to the microphone after the host called my name, but I don't think I took their opinions too seriously because they were (white).
The one (black) girl in the room, though, who *I* think sang the best song of the night - "Mamma Said Knock You Out"; my one (white) friend from Mississippi did too, and we were joking that she was at the wrong karaoke night - did compliment me, which I appreciated, and I filled her in on krunk karaoke and she was stoked and might be going some Monday night now.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Story (III of III): My One British Friend.
My one British friend was telling me that he knows he's doing something wrong in customer-service type situations in the U.S. since he pisses all the counterpeople off wherever he goes since they glare at him, but he can't figure out what it is...
As it turns out, in Britain, he said, you really don't talk with someone in that type of situation even to do chit-chat, since that would create some sort of friendship with a presumption of deeper meaning, so the expectation is that you just talk about what you want, since that's what you're there for.
So, he said, he went up to a hardware person in the aisle at the store and was like, "Pardon me, no one is at the key-making counter, could you ring someone up there so they could help me?"
"Damn," I was like, "That sounds passive-aggressive like you have some other shit going on and at a moment's notice you'll be taking it out on the poor person."
"No!", he was like, and he was really shocked, and so I told him that he should pretend that they're a friend that he has to ask a favor from, and to ask harmless questions about the weather etc. if he recognizes the face of someone at the pharmacy grocery store etc.
As it turns out, in Britain, he said, you really don't talk with someone in that type of situation even to do chit-chat, since that would create some sort of friendship with a presumption of deeper meaning, so the expectation is that you just talk about what you want, since that's what you're there for.
So, he said, he went up to a hardware person in the aisle at the store and was like, "Pardon me, no one is at the key-making counter, could you ring someone up there so they could help me?"
"Damn," I was like, "That sounds passive-aggressive like you have some other shit going on and at a moment's notice you'll be taking it out on the poor person."
"No!", he was like, and he was really shocked, and so I told him that he should pretend that they're a friend that he has to ask a favor from, and to ask harmless questions about the weather etc. if he recognizes the face of someone at the pharmacy grocery store etc.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Story (II of III): My One Lawyer Friend from Missouri.
When my one lawyer friend from Missouri was in high school, she was really, really obsessed with Henry James and would always be reading his novels.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Story (I of III): Friend with the Cat.
My one friend with the cat once had this boyfriend where they were crazy hot for each other, to the point where they'd pull off to the side of the road to have sex.
Once, she said, she had picked him up from someplace and had to stop by his apartment quickly before going somewhere, but they couldn't find a parking space, so she double-parked her car so they could run upstairs and fuck like mad, which they did till they were absolutely exhausted and fell asleep.
Then, the next morning, when she went outside, the street was pretty much empty of cars because everyone in the neighborhood had left for work, and there was her car parked (without a ticket!) in the middle of the street where she had left it the evening before.
Once, she said, she had picked him up from someplace and had to stop by his apartment quickly before going somewhere, but they couldn't find a parking space, so she double-parked her car so they could run upstairs and fuck like mad, which they did till they were absolutely exhausted and fell asleep.
Then, the next morning, when she went outside, the street was pretty much empty of cars because everyone in the neighborhood had left for work, and there was her car parked (without a ticket!) in the middle of the street where she had left it the evening before.
Monday, September 27, 2010
No more unionizing for me.
At least for now.
I went to the formal communications training, which was great. It made me realize that all the communications stuff I've been thinking about (e.g. fliers) is actually a step 2 or 3 question, and the student union is at step 1 (=gathering lists of students in different depts. to enter into a database so you can keep track of who is how committed, just like for a political campaign since, after all, your ultimate goal is to turn them out for a union election).
But, it also made me realize that we have to depend on active listening, and the core group of 3-4 people can't even state why they make the conversations I'd be having harder by all their angry rhetoric, which is very counter-productive in my dept., and I'm not sure that productive overall.
I also brought that up at length with the real union people, as well as what kind of stuff we need on our agenda, since I felt the student union's decisions were a little whack (e.g. they'd prioritize stuff like write letters to mayoral candidates for support, but never do charting exercises to figure out with which depts. we have links!).
Afterwards, I realized I was doing that because I wanted to the real union people to serve as a referee since the student union people weren't really listening to my complaints... I realized that when the chubby-ass gay dude was listing off the points I had put down as stuff to talk about, and he completely summarized them from some whack perspective, though he's always spouting off rhetoric about active listening and being pro-active and having a place for everyone etc.
So, I decided not to participate for now, since if the main people can't even listen to me, how can they successfully have the conversations that will allow the group to expand?
I feel bad since the real union people seemed to like me, even when I was asking them challenging questions about organizing (they pushed back, and convinced me that a lot of what I thought wasn't right for right now! - how refreshing to have a substantive discussion), and the real union lady said to take it on faith and have these conversations, and that's what'll convince people if you have a real conversation and the rest of the bullshit is secondary and can be done later and you'll never have a perfect flier anyhow ("I can tell that you're a fixer," she was like, "And I am too"), but oh well, I can't sink time into what seems right now like a losing organization.
It's really funny, there's this Egyptian-from-Egypt masters student from my program who wears a veil covering all her hair and a long dress always but is really radical, and comes to meetings to observe since she wants to help unionize in the Middle East. I always thought that was cool, but she seemed to be going with the flow always, and to tell the truth, that struck me as a little naive.
But, after the real union training, me and her had a heart-to-heart, and she had pretty much the same impressions I had.
"Do you think that they are not actually a union, but students that the administration planted in order to create confusion and dissension and prevent true resistance?", she was like. "I know that seems crazy, but I am from the Middle East, that happens all the time there."
I went to the formal communications training, which was great. It made me realize that all the communications stuff I've been thinking about (e.g. fliers) is actually a step 2 or 3 question, and the student union is at step 1 (=gathering lists of students in different depts. to enter into a database so you can keep track of who is how committed, just like for a political campaign since, after all, your ultimate goal is to turn them out for a union election).
But, it also made me realize that we have to depend on active listening, and the core group of 3-4 people can't even state why they make the conversations I'd be having harder by all their angry rhetoric, which is very counter-productive in my dept., and I'm not sure that productive overall.
I also brought that up at length with the real union people, as well as what kind of stuff we need on our agenda, since I felt the student union's decisions were a little whack (e.g. they'd prioritize stuff like write letters to mayoral candidates for support, but never do charting exercises to figure out with which depts. we have links!).
Afterwards, I realized I was doing that because I wanted to the real union people to serve as a referee since the student union people weren't really listening to my complaints... I realized that when the chubby-ass gay dude was listing off the points I had put down as stuff to talk about, and he completely summarized them from some whack perspective, though he's always spouting off rhetoric about active listening and being pro-active and having a place for everyone etc.
So, I decided not to participate for now, since if the main people can't even listen to me, how can they successfully have the conversations that will allow the group to expand?
I feel bad since the real union people seemed to like me, even when I was asking them challenging questions about organizing (they pushed back, and convinced me that a lot of what I thought wasn't right for right now! - how refreshing to have a substantive discussion), and the real union lady said to take it on faith and have these conversations, and that's what'll convince people if you have a real conversation and the rest of the bullshit is secondary and can be done later and you'll never have a perfect flier anyhow ("I can tell that you're a fixer," she was like, "And I am too"), but oh well, I can't sink time into what seems right now like a losing organization.
It's really funny, there's this Egyptian-from-Egypt masters student from my program who wears a veil covering all her hair and a long dress always but is really radical, and comes to meetings to observe since she wants to help unionize in the Middle East. I always thought that was cool, but she seemed to be going with the flow always, and to tell the truth, that struck me as a little naive.
But, after the real union training, me and her had a heart-to-heart, and she had pretty much the same impressions I had.
"Do you think that they are not actually a union, but students that the administration planted in order to create confusion and dissension and prevent true resistance?", she was like. "I know that seems crazy, but I am from the Middle East, that happens all the time there."
Sunday, September 26, 2010
3 blunders.
1) Holding my hand weird on my bike and hitting a small pothole and jamming my thumb.
2) Cutting up tomatoes for rice and beans and slicing a bit into my other thumb.
3) Dropping some hummus on the stove near a lit burner and picking it up with a fork right away and eating it, and not realizing that the times got lit up from being held near the flames for even so short a time, and burning my lips with a hiss when I ate the hummus so you can see four dark burn stripes on the underside of each lip matching the tines on the fork.
2) Cutting up tomatoes for rice and beans and slicing a bit into my other thumb.
3) Dropping some hummus on the stove near a lit burner and picking it up with a fork right away and eating it, and not realizing that the times got lit up from being held near the flames for even so short a time, and burning my lips with a hiss when I ate the hummus so you can see four dark burn stripes on the underside of each lip matching the tines on the fork.
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