The Scene: A karaoke bar. You know the one.
Enter Douchebag and friends.
Douchebag: Booo! Boooo! Take off your shirt!
(5 minutes later)
Bar Patron #1: (carrying chair past Douchebag) Excuse me, coming through.
Douchebag: (to friends) You know, for a bunch of hippies and losers, these people sure are rude.
CURTAIN
I was considering the fact that I fell behind on the myspace fad. I think it’s definitly a sign that I am getting old. And then it reminded me that I’m 5 years behind in telecommunications as well. I have the cheapest, most basic cell phone that was available. No cameraphones for me. (My digital camera, purchased in 2001, was my last major technology expense.)
I don’t know how to text. Well, that’s not exactly true. I have texted before, but only a handful of times. Probably less than 5 times. It seems too complicated to me. Why not just call the person? Why spend 20 minutes typing in letters with the little keypad? And, you know how sometimes a tv or radio show will ask you to text them, and then they give you a 5 digit number to text to? I have no idea how to text to a 5 digit number. Phone number have 7 digits! or 10!
A third point of telecom-related inadequacy is my land line. Shutting it off altogether makes me nervous, and I just can’t bring myself to switch to VoIP. When my parents got VoIP, I knew the situationw as bad for me. My parents are more technologically advanced than I am! But then I heard my dad’s voice get stuck in a Max Headroom-esque loop, and I imagined my paterfamilia had actually been a robot all these years. I was raised by robots! Fortunately, I came back to my senses, but I think the VoIP is not for me at this time.
I was going to write something about the shitty, lying greedbags I have come into contact with of late. (Is greedbags a word? Bah.) They are weighing heavily on me, and I realize that sounds a little paranoid-schizophrenic, but seriously, they are dragging me down, and is there not one good person left on earth? But then my friend Mr. Cabernet paid me a visit, and now I will instead write about myspace.
I finally got myself a myspace account. I was surprised at how many people are on there, and a little perplexed about how I got so far behind. Usually, I’m an early adopter (5 years of blogging excellence, yo!), but I just never saw the appeal of myspace. The “you have 1 friend” message doesn’t really change my mind at all. How depressing is that?
Mainly, I have just 1 myspace friend because myspace doesn’t play nice with my ancient OS9 ibook (aqua!) and I can’t really go on it at work, so I haven’t had much chance to troll for friends. I know that I have at least 5 out there… Counting your friends seems so 6th grade to me. And even in 6th grade it was depressing, right? Do I really need that anxiety again?
So I never got into myspace, maybe because I already have a space, and that is this here blog. Or maybe because I type in complete sentences with proper punctuation and a minimum of typos. Back in my day, only the truly nerdy people had webpages, and we liked it! Now the popular kids have moved in, like the Kellies in high school taking over my lunch table.
OK, that never happened, but I’m sure you can understand the comparison. Kellies! Invading! The Internet! Shouldn’t these people be at the mall? Why are they turning the Internet into a popularity contest? Not that it wasn’t already a popularity contest (remember when I was a Blog of Note back in May 2001?), but at least back then it was a popularity contest among nerds. Back then, I had a chance! I coulda been a contendah!
Anyway, I have a myspace account now, but I’m not going to post it here, because I’d really like to keep it separate from my actual name, and this blog is, unfortunately, hopelessly tied to my name, thanks to Google and it’s maddeningly over-smart search logarithms. E-mail me if you want the address… And ask me about the greedy liars! I’m dying to talk about them, but this is so not the place.
There’s a reason why pesticides were invented, and it’s not just to poison unsuspecting consumers. And what was that reason again? Oh that’s right:
I found three of these monsters devouring my tomato plant yesterday. Let me repeat that. Three of these crazy huge hornworms were living just inches from my house on my back patio. They engorged themselves on my tomato plant, probably while peering through the patio door at me. I’m sure it was only a matter of time before they managed to get inside.
When I found the first hornworm, after I stopped peeing my pants, I called Jay to have him kill it. Even my manly 6’2″ 230 lbs. husband jumped back when he saw it. He then had the brilliant idea to snip it in half with the pruning shears. It practically exploded. So gross. After finding 2 more, I can’t even look at the tomato plant anymore for fear that I might catch a glimpse of another one. I can barely even think about tomatos anymore. I may never leave the house again.
In case you’re wondering, these things turn into 5-inch moths. FIVE INCH MOTHS. There is a reason I don’t live in Florida, people, and that reason is old people. But another reason is gigantic bugs.
So, I’m searching the internet for ways to get rid of the hornworms so that I can maybe fall asleep again someday without dreaming of fat, slimy caterpillars… And those nutty hippies don’t want me to use pesticides on my tomatos. Do you know what they want me to do to get rid of them? They want me to BUY PARASITIC WASPS. See, the parasitic wasps will devour the caterpillars from the inside out. Of course, then you have the problem of the parasitic wasps, but you know, at least you didn’t ingest trace amounts of chemicals.
Also, I just wanted to add that these three hornworms pooped ALL over my tomatos. Little, pencil-eraser-sized green poops all over my tomatos. But thank god there are no pesticides! I’m sure the caterpillar poop is much less toxic than pesticides. Does anyone want some homegrown, organic tomatos? Barf.
That’s just a picture I found on the internet, by the way. There is no physical way I could bring myself to take a picture of one of these things, much less put my hand near it for scale.
I worked overtime today, and now I can barely see from thinking so hard all day. I don’t want to comment on my work ethic, but I rarely work overtime. Usually my job involves a lot of my sitting in front of a computer for hours at a time without speaking to anyone, but today I had to collaborate which is just way harder for me than sitting silently at a desk.
I think I’m a pretty classic introvert, so these last few days have been draining, to say the least. We’re casting for a big training video project, and I met more than 40 actors yesterday! I had to be friendly and personable, and I had to spend 4 hours standing up, reading lines with them. Normally I can only maintain “friendly and personable” for about an hour at a time before I turn into spaced-out sourpuss, somewhere between Chloe from 24 and Angela from The Office. Playing big time casting agent was fun, but now I just want to sit in front of a computer for a while. Actually, now I want to drink a beer and watch tv.
So, I don’t want to blog about work, but I’ve been working really hard lately, and I haven’t done anything much else. And my brain is kind of off from concentrating all day, so I can’t even make something up. Soooo…. I found that Writer’s Digest has some blogging prompts. Most of them do not inspire me at all, but here’s one:
Your friend asks to borrow a couple of your CDs. While rummaging through your collection, the two of you stumble upon what you consider to be the most embarrassing album that you own. You definitely don’t want your friend to know that you actually like that record, so make up an excuse as to how it got in your collection. The more elaborate the reasoning, the better.
OK, I was going to write a story for that, but I got 2 paragraphs into it and gave up. It’s late, and there’s a Pina Colada calling my name. But I’ll tell you that the story was going to be about my Crash Test Dummies tape. That’s probably not my most embarassing tape (I didn’t get CDs until 1997), but it was the first one I could think of. Anyone else want to weigh in on their most embarassing CD?
Honestly, Jay needs to stop working overtime. I just got done watching High School Musical on the Disney Channel. That is 2 hours of my life that I will never get back. And countless brain cells.
In defense of High School Musical, it was actually much better than From Justin to Kelly. Although that’s not much of a defense, since in order to say that, I have to admit that I’ve seen From Justin to Kelly.
What has become of me?
I’m putting together a little baby shower for my cousin. It’s supposed to be small and informal, because it’s my cousin’s second baby, and I guess you’re not supposed to get all crazy or anything. But how can you not go crazy with all the cute pink stuff and baby clothes? I’m only human, people.
So, we’re having a tea party. I went to the scrapbooking store today to get paper for the invitations. I only have to make 5 invitations, and really I don’t even have to make any invitations, because I could just buy them, or I could, I don’t know, CALL the 2 people that don’t yet know about it. Whatever. I like the scrapbooking store. I want to be cool and trendy, but I can’t help it if I like the scrapbooking store. If I lived a little closer to the city, I could go to a fancy-pants paper store like Paper Source, but out here we fulfill our fancy paper cravings at scrapbooking stores.
So I bought some paper and had some grand plans, but when I actually tried to execute the plan I discovered that I’m not as talented with the paper as I was hoping. No fear! I can fix it! I just need one more trip to the scrapbooking store. Gar! This is how you become one of those people, isn’t it?
I just want to say that I think the World Series of Pop Culture is totally fixed. OK, not totally fixed, but partially fixed. The producers seem to stack the questions for the highest drama. If one team starts to dominate, they throw easy questions at the other team and harder questions at the dominating team. I guess they have an interest in making the show last for 30 minutes, but I feel that a grave injustice is being perpetrated on America. (at least on VH1-watching America)
In other tv news, Jay and I discovered a great new game to play with the tv. Comcast On Demand has a “dating on demand”feature, in which hapless singletons tell a little bit about themselves for the camera. I guess the point is that if you are a single person, you can look at these videos, and if you see someone who captures your fancy, you can contact them. But that is not nearly as fun as playing imaginary matchmaker. I feel a little bad that there was a lot of fun being had at the expense of the hapless singletons, who were split about 50/50 between normal-seeming and total-losery. Obviously, that’s horrible, and Jay and I have clearly damaged our karma, but ohmigod SO FUN.
On Sunday, we went to Fontana Beach on Geneva Lake. It’s a way cool little beach town that isn’t quite as touristy as Lake Geneva.
One of the great things about living in the Midwest is that almost nobody is concerned about having a beach body. In Hawaii, I am a big, pasty cow. Every person in Waikiki has bronze skin and finely toned surfer muscles. In Wisconsin, even the skinny girls have cellulite and sunburns. Under the Wisconsin sun, I don’t look so bad in a bikini.
The one thing I continue to wrestle with is my belly button. I got it pierced when I was 22. Now, almost 8 years later, I admit that a 30 year old with a belly button piercing is… well… maybe trying too hard. My abs are certainly not what they used to be, but I don’t think the piercing necessarily looks bad. I just feel like taking it out would be… I don’t know.. giving up. Admitting that I am old. But am I not old? Shouldn’t I admit it?
Of course, nobody really sees the piercing… It’s only on the rare swimsuit day that I think about it. So I guess I can delay thinking about my mortality for another year. Or at least until crop tops come back in style.
(P.S. I can’t keep up with all the comment spam, so nobody is allowed to put hyperlinks in the comments anymore. Your comment will be automatically deleted if you try to include a hyperlink.)