Meditations On My Own Anality

In November, I'll be starting a graduate program in creative writing, and the other day, I had to buy a book that has been assigned for reading before the semester begins.

Of course, this book was only available in hardcover. And of course, I was too impatient to shop around, and found out later that I could have gotten it for about half of what I paid. Of course, I bought the book at Cody's in Berkeley, which is not a chain, and therefore I can't return it, unless I feel like driving six hours back to the Bay Area, at which point I'll have paid what I would have saved anyway, in fuel costs.

But all of that is really tangential (surprise) to today's post, in which I want to explore the reasons why I always feel compelled to buy books instead of borrow them. Borrowing would really save me a lot of money, after all... but then I wouldn't be able to write cryptic notes in the margins of the books I read, and I love writing notes!

"Well," I can hear someone pedantically saying, "why not buy the books used, at a discount?" And I say in return: Because I can't stand it when someone else has marked up a book ahead of me with their cryptic notes--and they usually mark passages that are completely unremarkable to me, and then I get all flustered and annoyed trying to figure out why they marked that passage in the first place. Or, they use some ugly highlighter color, and don't even try to keep a straight line--like in a book by Descartes I had to read for a philosophy class, in college. I would frown every time I got to a page with the sickly puke-green highlights that squiggled aimlessly through paragraphs like a drunken snake.

By the way, you know how they say, "Don't judge a book by its cover"? I actually do that all the time. In fact, if a book is published by two different publishers, I will get the copy with the cover (and text font) that I like better, even if it costs more.

I particularly like covers on books published by Vintage Press.

Wow. I never really thought I was so... anal.

Alright, so I'm anal. But in my defense (if it can be called defense), I'm not so anal about things other than books. And that's good, right?

Well, hmm. Actually, I do kind of wish I was more anal about, say, paperwork and filing. Or cleaning. Maybe even learning to cook, or being less single.

But then, if I were anal about all those things, I would probably be pretty good at them, and have nothing left to make fun of myself about! And that would be bad for you, my legions of fans. (See how I am always thinking of you?)

Although I guess I could make fun of myself for being anal.

Which I guess I kind of have, in this post. I think.

Leo is Gone!!

And no, I didn't kill him. But yes, I am rejoicing!

The cowgirl finally came and got that demon-in-cockatiel form, while I was away this past weekend. What delight to come home and NOT hear him screeching! How inexpressibly wonderful to wake up this morning and NOT be greeted by his nonstop, piercing whistles! Ecstasy! Bliss!!

I must say I'm glad that I didn't have to resort to murder in order to rid myself of his growing annoyingness. Because it WAS growing. Every day he got worse. I fully believe that he was trying on purpose to irritate me. He hated me, too, after all. Sometimes, when I came near his cage, he would open his sharp little beak and hiss at me.

Of course, that might be because I once tried to suck him up into the vaccuum cleaner, but I don't care. He deserved it.

But he has gone to a better place now, and without dying, so he must be pretty stoked. I hope he sang about it the whole way home with the cowgirl. I hope he was sitting right next to her in the car, so that she could get the full benefit of all his wondrous musical ability that she has not heard ever since she moved away. I hope she now fully appreciates all that she's been missing.

I, however, will thoroughly revel in the appreciation of not missing it at all. What joy!

The Cowgirl's Really Bad Day

So, after all my lunatic rambling and ranting in the last post, about how I'm driving to the Bay Area tonight, not Saturday, I... changed my mind. I am going on Saturday!

That's right. What are you going to do about it?

While you are thinking of some sort of suitable, no doubt witty, response, I'd like to share my sister the cowgirl's story of her really bad day yesterday, because it's pretty funny and made me laugh. (Probably because I am a mean older sister, otherwise I would have been all sympathetic noises and sweetness.)

The cowgirl is in a horse show this weekend, in Temecula, and yesterday she started the long drive down from her home on the range (i.e., a horse/cattle ranch) in the northernish wilds of California. This is how her day unfolded:

1) As she prepared for the trip, she told herself over and over again not to forget her riding boots before she left. Then she got in the truck and drove away--without the boots.

2) Realizing (thankfully quickly) that she had forgotten the boots, she went back. Got out of the car, and saw her boots on the ground, looking strangely flat. She had rolled over them. Oops.

3) Spent awhile reshaping the boots, then went back to the truck, only to find she had a flat tire.

4) Upon examination of the tire, she realized that the flat tire was a direct result of rolling over her boots--because the boots had her spurs on them.

5) Finally, finally she got on the road, only to sit in stop-and-no-go traffic somewhere in the vicinity of the Grapevine, because of a fire on the side of the freeway. (Of course, she also had to go to the bathroom.)

6) She called the house around 9pm, because after who knows how many hours she was still not at the barn where she had to unload her horse before finding her hotel, and she wanted to hear some sympathetic noises. Unfortunately, she ended up talking to me instead of my mom.

7) This morning, I get a voice mail on my cell phone, from last night. It's the cowgirl again, sounding very depressed and resigned. "As if rolling over my boots and spurs wasn't enough, I get to the hotel and everything that can go wrong here goes wrong, too. Like, I put a dollar in the soda machine, and do I get my water that I pushed the button for? No. It just stays in there. I cried right then." Click.

Wow. You cannot tell me there isn't a country western song in there somewhere.

Ah, the lives of cowgirls are tough--but, rather amusing for their mean older sisters.

So... Sleepy...

Exhausted today. In fact, I am so tired that I didn't even complete a sentence I wrote on one of the projects I corrected at work today (for new "frogg files" readers, my alter-ego is a quiet, unassuming, fulltime proofreader at a direct marketing agency--and at least ONE of those adjectives is true!). The Account Executive had to come over and ask what I meant by scrawling, "What about Af" underneath an image on a page. And in fact, I didn't even finish the "f"; it was just a line with a crook on top, only there is no key on the keyboard that would make that symbol, to show you. The POINT is, I had meant to write "What about Africa?" because... oh forget it. This story is already taking too long.

In other news, I made a bunch of my co-workers watch the David Hasselhoff video at lunch yesterday, on the big screen in our large conference room. Good times.

In still other news, I am going to San Francisco for a friend's wedding on Saturday. I mean, I'm going to San Francisco on Saturday for a friend's wedding. No, wait. I'm going on Friday night to San Francisco, because the wedding is on Saturday! Gah.

I really, really need some sleep.

Especially before the long solo drive to San Francisco. On Friday night, mind. Not Saturday.

*deep breath*

Why am I so tired, you are probably asking. Or rather, you are probably asking, "Why is SHE so tired?" Unless YOU are tired, and you're trying to figure out why. (Are you?)

Well ANYWAY, in answer to the question you may or may not be asking, the answer is simple.

It's becau

David Hasselhoff's "Hooked on a Feeling" is Magically Delicious

I have never done drugs, so I can only imagine what a "trip" is really like. And I imagine it's something very akin to this music video by David Hasselhoff, in which he sings... "Hooked on a Feeling."

The phrase "high on believing" in the song really speaks for itself.

I'm very rarely at a loss for words. (Some of you are thinking, "More's the pity," but I am ignoring you.) In the case of this video, I'm more at a loss for putting all the words I desperately want to say into some sort of cohesive order. Because there really is so much that begs to be said! Watch it and you'll see what I mean. For example:

1) Why the "Ooga Chaka" African base line to introduce the song, and then support it throughout? (Is "Ooga Chaka" part of an African language? There are scenes of David jumping around happily with Africans, but I just don't know.)

2) If you're going to sing to a girl you're supposedly in love with, shouldn't you be singing to her, instead of other images of yourself (which is what David does throughout the video)?

3) What's up with the little dachsunds that meaninglessly appear with David in various scenes?

4) Not to mention the very strange alien that bobs across the bottom of the screen occasionally?

5) Why does he bite into a giant fish at the end?

I could go on, but I don't want to steal all the questions you will doubtless want to ask once you've watched the magic of David Hasselhoff flying through the air in a black trench coat while proclaiming his delighted amazement at being loved.

This video is three and a half minutes of surreality that would have Dali drooling with envy, if he weren't laughing himself to death.

Come to think of it, the clip really should probably come with a Surgeon General's warning of some sort--if anything out there can really make someone die from laughing, this is it.

Taking A Walk Down Yearbook Lane...

So yesterday the uncles, aunts, and cousins (most of them) came over to my parents' house for an evening BBQ. One of my cousins recently graduated from high school and brought his yearbook.

In the words of the The Princess Bride's Man in Black, "I've never seen its equal."

I couldn't get over the volume's sheer, incredible size. To say it was "huge" is an understatement of scientific proportions. It wasn't "huge" so much as "colossal." Or "Brobdingnagian," if you prefer.

In still other words: It was really, really, really big.

I tried to lift the book and felt bicep muscles kicking in that I never even knew I had (being a girl, who doesn't need them nearly as much as guys do). That, of course, was after my cousin used a miniature crane to bring it from his parents' car to my waiting hands.

The massive tome, at $85, was more expensive than the most expensive book I bought when I was in college, which was Janson's History of Art. The yearbook also weighed over 10 pounds and was thicker than the biggest book I ever bought in college, which, coincidentally, was also Janson's History of Art--a fact which prompted my smart-aleck brother to remark, "Well, I guess more happened in one year of K's high school than in the entire history of art."

So it would seem.

At least my cousin's behemoth container of teenage nostalgia won't get buried and subsequently lost in a drawer or desk somewhere, like most people's yearbooks have a tendency to do--probably because it just won't fit.

Back in my day, when we had to walk to school in the frigid winters of California's first and only Ice Age, while wearing animal skins and bones in our noses (hey, it was all the rage), yearbooks were designed to actually be carried around. The reason being, of course, that other people had to sign them. That was the whole entire purpose of a yearbook's existence--all the photos and indexes and other pages were simply backgrounds for notes wishing one "a great summer!" or expressing the observation that it was nice "getting to know each other" and "you're a great friend."

Well, all this talk of yearbooks has now prompted me to dig mine out, the one from my senior year in high school. I flip to the back and find this note:

"G--, I've really had fun in pre-calculus this year. (And if you believe that!) Anyway, I'm glad we got to know each other this year. I hope you have a good time at Occidental. (heart), Mary"

Hmm. Mary sounds nice. I wish I remembered who she was. I have no recollection of her whatsoever. I do, however, have many unfortunate recollections of pre-calculus. They will haunt my dreams forever.

Someone named Casmir (I think, the writing is a little hard to read) enjoyed "having me as a friend" and then thanked me for "being a great friend." He added as a P.S. "I love you!"

I don't know who Casmir is, which strikes me as sad now, considering his love for me (which I'm forced to assume was unrequited).

A girl named Bell wrote in her P.S., "Friend forever, RIGHT?"

Er, well. Oops. At least I remember her, though.

But my favorite yearbook note of all time has to be from a boy who literally took up an entire page, in the smallest handwriting I have ever seen, either before or since that time, and told me, in rather a lot of sentences, that our souls "matched." I recall being flattered, but slightly uncomfortable, mainly because he had a girlfriend at the time, who was one of my good friends, and I thought that might be just a tad awkward to explain to her.

I wonder whatever happened to that boy? Or for that matter, his girlfriend/my "good friend"? I'll probably never know.

Since that is, after all, what avoiding high school reunions is for.

Ah, high school. The drama, the angst, the bubbly writing, the hearts, the K.I.T's, and the "Friends 4 Eva"'s... I can't honestly say I miss any of it. Still, I guess I'm glad, in a sort of nostalgic, thank-goodness-it's-over kind of way, that it happened to me. In the increasingly distant past, where it can gather dust between the pages of my easily forgotten (but somehow never thrown away) yearbooks of normal, non-hernia-inducing size.

Sunday Afternoon Bad Movie Alert!

I'm absolutely delighted that one of my favorite bad movies is on TV this afternoon! Torque is the name, and really impressively bad dialogue is the game, set against a backdrop of street-bike racing that would wow you if you could see it through the tears of laughter streaming down your face while you choked on your disbelief that such an incredibly awful screenplay could actually be used for a movie that ended up in theatres (briefly).

I first saw the movie in New Zealand. Flipping through an old journal I kept at the time, I find the following insightful, if a little short, review of the film:

"Torque is one of the worst movies ever."

A succinct observation which tells me that:

a) I thought Torque was one of the worst movies ever; and,

b) I used to be a lot more economical with my words.

Anyway, here's a sample of the sort of quality verbal repartee that ensures Torque's standing as a completely forgettable cinematic experience, from early on in the film:

Street-bike punk to street-bike punkette: Nice bike.

Punkette: Nice ass. [N.B. It's unclear whether she means her own, or his.]

Punk: You got a name?

Punkette (flipping long black hair and licking her lips in a sultry manner): Yeah.

And that's the end of that scene. We never find out her name (not like it matters to the random string of scenes that loosely defines itself as "plot"), because someone gets thrown through a glass shop window just then, for no apparent reason.

It's awesome.

Another thing that makes me laugh about this movie: I really love that there is an evil villain biker guy with very bad hair (a "skullet," if you will) whose name is (I can't get over it): HENRY JAMES.

The author of the same name must be gagging in his grave.

Not only that, but honestly, couldn't they have thought of a scarier, more chilling name than "Henry" for the evil dude (overplayed to perfection by Matt Shulze, who has a penchant for playing unremarkable bad guys, as his role in Transporter proves--although at least he had better hair in that one).

If they'd asked me, I'd say, "Call him 'The Magic Shadow Killer.' (Come on, that's a great name!)

But they didn't ask me. Of course.

A shame, really.

Anyway, all this to say, try to avoid Torque if you can. It's really, really lame.

But if you need a laugh, go for it. Because it's also pretty hilarious. For example: the scene where two women on bikes are fighting and their bikes actually rear up like wild horses during the conflict. If you don't laugh out loud at that, you must have fallen asleep from all the boredom that came before. But believe me, that scene alone makes the movie priceless (as in, it can't be priced cheap enough.

And now, I leave you with this last bit of dialogue, which truly sums up Torque:

Good guy biker: I live my life one quarter-mile at a time.

Good guy biker's ex-girlfriend: That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

I couldn't agree more.