My friend just got a new job and will be relocating. Because I am a big fan of themed movie nights, I immediately thought about what movie we could watch that would be set in her new town. I could only come up with one -- Benny and Joon. (She almost got a job in Baltimore, which would have opened things up considerably, encompassing all of the John Waters canon, plus any movie based on an Anne Tyler book, plus Sleepless in Seattle, plus about a million hours of The Wire.)
In order to have theme snacks in stock, I had to make a pit stop at the grocery store on the way home from work, and here was my shopping list in its entirety: Cap’n Crunch, milk, Diet Coke, and ice cream.
This shopping list, in turn, reminded me of the time a couple of weeks ago when I had to pick up a cake at Costco for a work function, and took the opportunity to buy the one item on my personal grocery list that I had forgotten the week before. So there I was in the checkout line with an enormous frosted cake and a nine-pound bag of sugar.
Which brings me to this: What mechanism is it that causes a person, once they are autonomous enough to buy their own groceries, to buy things like wheat germ and broccoli? Is it fear of judgment by other shoppers that causes a person to buy fruit instead of Froot Loops? Is it just fear of early death?
Other immature behavior I will be indulging in soon: I am going to see the 12:30 a.m. show of Batman: The Dark Knight. The movie theatre is half an hour away from my house, and the running time (without previews) is something like two and a half hours. Do the math: I won’t be home until probably 4 a.m. And I have to be at work four hours later.
The only way I will be able to sustain the energy to meet the competing demands of the Immature and Mature worlds will be to eat almost all of a bag of Special Edition Reese’s Dark Chocolate and Peanut Butter Bats (“Find the Bat-Signal and Win Instantly!”).
Next time: Did I Win Instantly?
--saifun
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
In Which We Consider Whether My Mother Could Still Be Described As "Post Partum"
Remember how in Peanuts, Charlie Brown (or maybe it was Linus) would get "Post-Christmas Letdown?" I have Post-Vacation Letdown. PVL is exacerbated by factors related to the ongoing plight of the only child.
Now that I am out of the Asian Death Glare years, time with my mother tends to be taken up in large part by her stroking my arm, squeezing my wrist, or offering to pay for things that, in normal life, I pay for myself, like gas and coffee and really anything else she sees me looking at when she's with me.
I totally get that she misses me, and try to keep the eye-rolling to a minimum, and have my wrist available to her at regular intervals for squeezing. It's important to know that, before last week, her last squeezing opportunity was a mere three weeks previous.
But. Since the January I left the 'rents to return to graduate school after winter break, my mom has cried every time she says goodbye to me before I leave for the airport (she used to cry in the airport, but now that everyone is a terrorist suspect and can't come to the departure gate without a boarding pass, she has to cry before I get in the car to leave for the airport). It's not sobbing crying. It's stoic Asian crying - where she's unable to speak clearly and her eyes are all wet.
I was watching the second dvd of “John Adams” last night and let me just say that Abigail Adams, sending her little boy off on a dangerous sea voyage across the North Atlantic during the Revolutionary War, to live in a foreign country for an unspecified number of years, during which time he might variously be: hit by a cannonball in a sea attack and/or contract and die of yellow fever and also during which time span she would be functionally out of all communication with him, was only marginally more upset than my mother as I was getting in the car at the Hilton to drive 15 minutes to the airport, after which time she could call me on the cellphone.
My friend says that she totally understands this because, having recently given birth to a daughter, she understands that the emotions are all wackadoo post partum.
My mom is 66 years old. I don't know if this reasonably still counts as post partum behavior changes.
And while I was gone? The Trouble House neighbor put her construction garbage in my collection bin. I am not having that.
--saifun
Now that I am out of the Asian Death Glare years, time with my mother tends to be taken up in large part by her stroking my arm, squeezing my wrist, or offering to pay for things that, in normal life, I pay for myself, like gas and coffee and really anything else she sees me looking at when she's with me.
I totally get that she misses me, and try to keep the eye-rolling to a minimum, and have my wrist available to her at regular intervals for squeezing. It's important to know that, before last week, her last squeezing opportunity was a mere three weeks previous.
But. Since the January I left the 'rents to return to graduate school after winter break, my mom has cried every time she says goodbye to me before I leave for the airport (she used to cry in the airport, but now that everyone is a terrorist suspect and can't come to the departure gate without a boarding pass, she has to cry before I get in the car to leave for the airport). It's not sobbing crying. It's stoic Asian crying - where she's unable to speak clearly and her eyes are all wet.
I was watching the second dvd of “John Adams” last night and let me just say that Abigail Adams, sending her little boy off on a dangerous sea voyage across the North Atlantic during the Revolutionary War, to live in a foreign country for an unspecified number of years, during which time he might variously be: hit by a cannonball in a sea attack and/or contract and die of yellow fever and also during which time span she would be functionally out of all communication with him, was only marginally more upset than my mother as I was getting in the car at the Hilton to drive 15 minutes to the airport, after which time she could call me on the cellphone.
My friend says that she totally understands this because, having recently given birth to a daughter, she understands that the emotions are all wackadoo post partum.
My mom is 66 years old. I don't know if this reasonably still counts as post partum behavior changes.
And while I was gone? The Trouble House neighbor put her construction garbage in my collection bin. I am not having that.
--saifun
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
To: Highschool classmate I haven't spoken to in 15 years
To: Highschool classmate I haven’t spoken to in 15 years
Re: Remember me?
I have always been fairly easy to find on the internet. I maintain two websites for work and have ready access to putting my smiling mug online. The web is the new your parent’s phone number. My father has worked in the same office, at the same job, for 29 years. More so than that, he had the same phone number, 684-4186. I memorized it as a child by the position of the buttons, not the actual numbers. I lost contact with a friend on the east coast after one of my many moves in college, so he called my dad at work. Problem solved. My dad’s number was this best way to find me.
Now if you can spell my name and can turn on a computer you can find my picture, my dog, my email, my office address in a blink.
This was proven a couple of days ago when a man I went to highschool with emailed me through a contact form on my work website. I spent the better half of an evening trying to remember who he was. When an email starts “hi, fellow grad, how are you?” I wasn’t certain the next line wasn’t going to contain something about freeing a cousin in Nigeria or enhancing sexual performance. I went to my senior yearbook and identified the guy, but seriously – the last words I spoke to him were during our commencement ceremony. So what prompts someone to look you up after 15 years of silence? I’ve yet to email him back. A co-worker warned me that he was looking to relive the best days of his life, which I’m still not sure what that has to do with me. Or it could be like the time a classmate contacted me and proceeding to give me too many details about her polyamorous relationship with a married man.
Sorry fellow grad, chalk me up as too chicken to call.
Re: Remember me?
I have always been fairly easy to find on the internet. I maintain two websites for work and have ready access to putting my smiling mug online. The web is the new your parent’s phone number. My father has worked in the same office, at the same job, for 29 years. More so than that, he had the same phone number, 684-4186. I memorized it as a child by the position of the buttons, not the actual numbers. I lost contact with a friend on the east coast after one of my many moves in college, so he called my dad at work. Problem solved. My dad’s number was this best way to find me.
Now if you can spell my name and can turn on a computer you can find my picture, my dog, my email, my office address in a blink.
This was proven a couple of days ago when a man I went to highschool with emailed me through a contact form on my work website. I spent the better half of an evening trying to remember who he was. When an email starts “hi, fellow grad, how are you?” I wasn’t certain the next line wasn’t going to contain something about freeing a cousin in Nigeria or enhancing sexual performance. I went to my senior yearbook and identified the guy, but seriously – the last words I spoke to him were during our commencement ceremony. So what prompts someone to look you up after 15 years of silence? I’ve yet to email him back. A co-worker warned me that he was looking to relive the best days of his life, which I’m still not sure what that has to do with me. Or it could be like the time a classmate contacted me and proceeding to give me too many details about her polyamorous relationship with a married man.
Sorry fellow grad, chalk me up as too chicken to call.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)