Hey, Reader. *yawn* Sorry, I'm just so... tired today. I don't know why. I guess I'm just having one of those days, you know? It's difficult to form coherent sentences. I can't stop yawning, my head feels all fuzzy and all I want to do is take a nap.
Mmmmm..... nap......
Okay, gotta wake up, gotta wake up, gotta wake up - but how? Let's see... utilize the resources around me... Ooh! Peanut butter M&Ms! Maybe those will work. There should be a bag in my drawer... bingo! Mmmmm..... oh, yes, this is definitely helping....
Crap, the phone's ringing! Quick, gotta chew and swallow... "Good morning, Hy-Ko." BLAST! A shard of colorful candy shell is lodged in my esophagus! Need water, need water... eyes welling up with tears... stupid person on phone still talking.... don't cough into phone, don't cough into phone... "Okay, just one second, please, and I'll transfer you." Press the button*COUGH!* Whew!
Okay, off to the drinking fountain. Don't run, you'll look like a loon. A brisk walk, it's just around the corner... I can see it! Almost there, and - what's this? The colorful candy shell has melted in my mouth. True to form, peanut butter M&M. Well, that was a waste. Might as well get a drink, anyway.
BRRR! Cold on my teeth! That smarts.
Back to my desk now. Hey, what's going on with that clock? I'm not so tired that I'm hallucinating, am I? Are the hands really just spinning around and around and around.... it's kind of hypnotic...
...
Whoa, wake up. Crap, how long was I standing there staring at the broken clock? No way to know, the hands just keep spinning... like in a movie... Now don't start that again. Seriously, back to the desk. Back to work. Those statements aren't going to stuff themselves.
Hot cheese, my inbox is a mess. Did it look like that when I left yesterday? I swear I've been more productive than that today. At least as productive as I can be whilst slipping in and out of consciousness...
It's so quiet... where is everybody...? Lunch, I guess... kinda early for lunch, though. 'Maybe they're all out for coffee. At the same time.' Hahaha, I love that movie... Mmmmm....
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AAAH! Holy shunt, what is that?! Some kind of Romanian pop ballad? My goodness, that's loud. Those speakers must go to 11. Thanks, Alina. Woke me right up. Crap, I hope I don't have keyboard face now. I could go to the mirror and check... but it's so far away...
Whatever happened to those M&Ms? Oh, wait, there they are. I don't have many left. Have to make them last another... hour... until lunch... *yawn*
Tuesday, June 3
Tuesday, May 27
... About Being a Real Fake Journalist
I like to plan ahead, Reader. Case in point: Maren and I went on a little roadtrip up to Boise this weekend. We were gone for approximately 28 hours, but we starting making the plans for this trip over a month ago. Another case in point: about two years before I went to London I started perusing "must-see" guides and tube maps. Yet another: I spent the last three years slowly accumulating everything I would need for my new apartment, so that when I moved this weekend I hardly had to go out and buy anything.
I utilized the same kind of forward-thinking with my education. In 8th grade we had an assembly where we talked about our upcoming high school experience. They explained to us about credits and required courses and electives, and I thought to myself, 'Hey, if I take my required classes early and save up my electives, I can goof off my entire senior year!' Genius!
It was that kind of brilliant planning that landed me the sweetest schedule possible for my senior year. I had no math, no science. I pretty much played all day every day - Japanese, Lit Mag, cooking, sewing, seminary, film & literature.... I even took a typing class. I could type 85 wpm, so I finished the entire semester's worth of assignments in the first week and then spent all of 7th period napping for the rest of the year. I'd always liked school, but my senior year was by far the most fun time I'd ever had.
It was also the year I learned I never wanted to be a journalist.
One of the few "real" classes I took was journalism. I love writing, so I thought it would not only be fun but would actually be beneficial, career-wise. That year I was also interning at the WJ Chamber of Commerce, writing business spotlight articles for the local free weekly, the Chronicle. I quickly discovered that I hated journalism. I craved the freedom to write what I wanted, how I wanted, when I wanted. I didn't want to write about the grand re-opening of some factory that nobody had ever heard of. I didn't want to have to fit a specific word-count and use the inverted pyramid method. I didn't want to leave out all expression and style and strip stories down to the Joe-Friday-"just the facts, ma'am"-leave-your-feelings-on-the-subject-at-the-door structure. I wanted to be creative! I wanted to bend the rules of grammar! I wanted to use exclamation points!
Now, I realize that this is not how all journalism works. But that was my experience with it, and it totally turned me off the idea of ever working for a newspaper. Unfortunately, that made it very difficult for me to ever realize my career-dream of being a professional writer. The odds of being a successful novelist or screenwriter are... well, not good. Essentially, the only way to make a life for myself by doing what I love, writing, would be to do it in a way I hate, journalism. It reminds me of that Woody Allen quote:
"To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must not love. But then, one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be happy, one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness."
Sigh. Sophie's choice, right?
Flash forward to seven years later (I hope you wore your seatbelt), when I discovered there was a way to get the best of both worlds. Enter The Regal Seagull. The perfect combination of fiction and journalism (second only to the New York Post!), and the brainchild of an avid 'Onion' enthusiast who realized the need for a weekly publication that lovingly mocks Utah culture. He and I are clearly meant to be friends.
So I took up a post with Utah's #1 News Source and am now proud to call myself a staff writer. I'll post links to all of my Regal Seagull articles on the sidebar, so that when you tire of reading my blogs over and over and over and over and over again (and we both know that you do, Reader) for your primary source of entertainment, you will be only a click away from your new secondary source of entertainment.
You're welcome, Reader.
I've only been writing for the Seagull for a couple of weeks now, and the site itself is only a couple weeks older than that. But we all have high hopes for it in the future. Soon the Regal Seagull will be available in print, and then it's only a matter of time before the Seagull nabs the Democratic nomination and becomes the first-ever independent publication-turned-President of the Known Universe and then...!
Sorry, Reader. I was just planning ahead.
I utilized the same kind of forward-thinking with my education. In 8th grade we had an assembly where we talked about our upcoming high school experience. They explained to us about credits and required courses and electives, and I thought to myself, 'Hey, if I take my required classes early and save up my electives, I can goof off my entire senior year!' Genius!
It was that kind of brilliant planning that landed me the sweetest schedule possible for my senior year. I had no math, no science. I pretty much played all day every day - Japanese, Lit Mag, cooking, sewing, seminary, film & literature.... I even took a typing class. I could type 85 wpm, so I finished the entire semester's worth of assignments in the first week and then spent all of 7th period napping for the rest of the year. I'd always liked school, but my senior year was by far the most fun time I'd ever had.
It was also the year I learned I never wanted to be a journalist.
One of the few "real" classes I took was journalism. I love writing, so I thought it would not only be fun but would actually be beneficial, career-wise. That year I was also interning at the WJ Chamber of Commerce, writing business spotlight articles for the local free weekly, the Chronicle. I quickly discovered that I hated journalism. I craved the freedom to write what I wanted, how I wanted, when I wanted. I didn't want to write about the grand re-opening of some factory that nobody had ever heard of. I didn't want to have to fit a specific word-count and use the inverted pyramid method. I didn't want to leave out all expression and style and strip stories down to the Joe-Friday-"just the facts, ma'am"-leave-your-feelings-on-the-subject-at-the-door structure. I wanted to be creative! I wanted to bend the rules of grammar! I wanted to use exclamation points!
Now, I realize that this is not how all journalism works. But that was my experience with it, and it totally turned me off the idea of ever working for a newspaper. Unfortunately, that made it very difficult for me to ever realize my career-dream of being a professional writer. The odds of being a successful novelist or screenwriter are... well, not good. Essentially, the only way to make a life for myself by doing what I love, writing, would be to do it in a way I hate, journalism. It reminds me of that Woody Allen quote:
"To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must not love. But then, one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be happy, one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness."
Sigh. Sophie's choice, right?
Flash forward to seven years later (I hope you wore your seatbelt), when I discovered there was a way to get the best of both worlds. Enter The Regal Seagull. The perfect combination of fiction and journalism (second only to the New York Post!), and the brainchild of an avid 'Onion' enthusiast who realized the need for a weekly publication that lovingly mocks Utah culture. He and I are clearly meant to be friends.
So I took up a post with Utah's #1 News Source and am now proud to call myself a staff writer. I'll post links to all of my Regal Seagull articles on the sidebar, so that when you tire of reading my blogs over and over and over and over and over again (and we both know that you do, Reader) for your primary source of entertainment, you will be only a click away from your new secondary source of entertainment.
You're welcome, Reader.
I've only been writing for the Seagull for a couple of weeks now, and the site itself is only a couple weeks older than that. But we all have high hopes for it in the future. Soon the Regal Seagull will be available in print, and then it's only a matter of time before the Seagull nabs the Democratic nomination and becomes the first-ever independent publication-turned-President of the Known Universe and then...!
Sorry, Reader. I was just planning ahead.
Wednesday, May 21
... About Haute Couture
My parents are going to Puerto Vallarta next week. My dad bought his first pair of sandals for the trip, and for the life of him could not understand why my mother, my sister and I would not allow him to leave the house wearing them. Not that we had anything against the sandals. Our opposition was to the white ankle-high athletic socks he insisted on wearing under them.
"There's nothing wrong with this!" he exclaimed. "You're SUPPOSED to wear socks with them!"
No. No, you're not.
Try as we might, we could not get my dad to understand that it makes no sense to buy sandals if you're planning on wearing socks. Socks defeat the entire purpose of sandals. Anyone can see that! And what he really had a hard time grasping was that we were not trying to be mean to him. We were trying to help him. We were trying to help him avoid becoming that guy. It's a sad and lonely world, and we were protecting him. But he didn't hear all of the "we love you"s and "this is for your own good"s that were woven subtly through our argument. All he heard was, "Seriously? Seriously. Go upstairs and change your shoes. You look like a moron."
Now, I don't consider myself much of a fashionista, Reader, but at least I am not guilty of such obvious faux pas that other people feel the need to save me from my poorly-dressed self.
Or so I thought.
Twice in two days people have questioned my clothing choices - to my face! At work this morning Senior commented on my flipflops. It's a rainy day, and he wondered why I wanted to get my feet wet. My argument was a very convincing, "Oh, well, you know." But what I was thinking was: of course I'm wearing flipflops. It's May! I avoid wearing shoes that require socks whenever possible (we all know that socks + Buscemi ankles = disaster waiting to happen), and it's pretty much a set-in-stone rule that between the months of March and October I wear flipflops. Every day. Every. Day.
I wouldn't have put much thought into Senior's flipflop comment, except that last night I had a perfect stranger question whether my t-shirt was appropriate.
And she was, like, five.
I was painting my TV cabinet and was one can of spray paint short, so a quick trip to Lowe's was in order. It looked like rain, and I was painting outside, so I had to hurry. I grabbed the paint and was on my way back out to my car when I encountered a mother with two little girls in the parking lot. One of the little girls asked, "Do you work here?" When I told her no, she pointed to my shirt and said, "Then why does it say something on your shirt?" I happened to be wearing my Juno shirt that I got at the sneak peak for the movie. On the chest is a "my name is" sticker with "Juno" scrawled across it. I told the little girl what it said.
Her reply was, "Oh. Why would you wear that?"
Why? Because it just happened to be what I was painting in and I didn't take the time to change before heading to the store. At least, that was my excuse yesterday. But the truth is, I have worn that very shirt on occasion just to wear it. Why? Because it was clean. And/or the first shirt I saw when I opened the drawer.
Reader, you know I'm not a good shopper. Anyone that's ever been shopping with me for more than twenty minutes deserves a Congressional Medal of Honor. But even I go and buy a couple of shirts or jeans or something every couple of months. So I started wondering, when's the last time I went clothes shopping? I'm pretty sure it was before Christmas.
Christmas! I've made at least 3 D.I. drops since then. No wonder I always feel like I have nothing to wear. I'm getting rid of my clothes and not replacing them.
So I'm thinking, now that the weather's turning warm, I really should go out and get some new clothes, so I don't have to resort to wearing t-shirts emblazoned with Juno and Potter Puppet Pals' slogans. A few new tops, maybe a summery skirt or two, some khakis...
Hey, while I'm at it, I'll pick up some new sandals. And socks.
"There's nothing wrong with this!" he exclaimed. "You're SUPPOSED to wear socks with them!"
No. No, you're not.
Try as we might, we could not get my dad to understand that it makes no sense to buy sandals if you're planning on wearing socks. Socks defeat the entire purpose of sandals. Anyone can see that! And what he really had a hard time grasping was that we were not trying to be mean to him. We were trying to help him. We were trying to help him avoid becoming that guy. It's a sad and lonely world, and we were protecting him. But he didn't hear all of the "we love you"s and "this is for your own good"s that were woven subtly through our argument. All he heard was, "Seriously? Seriously. Go upstairs and change your shoes. You look like a moron."
Now, I don't consider myself much of a fashionista, Reader, but at least I am not guilty of such obvious faux pas that other people feel the need to save me from my poorly-dressed self.
Or so I thought.
Twice in two days people have questioned my clothing choices - to my face! At work this morning Senior commented on my flipflops. It's a rainy day, and he wondered why I wanted to get my feet wet. My argument was a very convincing, "Oh, well, you know." But what I was thinking was: of course I'm wearing flipflops. It's May! I avoid wearing shoes that require socks whenever possible (we all know that socks + Buscemi ankles = disaster waiting to happen), and it's pretty much a set-in-stone rule that between the months of March and October I wear flipflops. Every day. Every. Day.
I wouldn't have put much thought into Senior's flipflop comment, except that last night I had a perfect stranger question whether my t-shirt was appropriate.
And she was, like, five.
I was painting my TV cabinet and was one can of spray paint short, so a quick trip to Lowe's was in order. It looked like rain, and I was painting outside, so I had to hurry. I grabbed the paint and was on my way back out to my car when I encountered a mother with two little girls in the parking lot. One of the little girls asked, "Do you work here?" When I told her no, she pointed to my shirt and said, "Then why does it say something on your shirt?" I happened to be wearing my Juno shirt that I got at the sneak peak for the movie. On the chest is a "my name is" sticker with "Juno" scrawled across it. I told the little girl what it said.
Her reply was, "Oh. Why would you wear that?"
Why? Because it just happened to be what I was painting in and I didn't take the time to change before heading to the store. At least, that was my excuse yesterday. But the truth is, I have worn that very shirt on occasion just to wear it. Why? Because it was clean. And/or the first shirt I saw when I opened the drawer.
Reader, you know I'm not a good shopper. Anyone that's ever been shopping with me for more than twenty minutes deserves a Congressional Medal of Honor. But even I go and buy a couple of shirts or jeans or something every couple of months. So I started wondering, when's the last time I went clothes shopping? I'm pretty sure it was before Christmas.
Christmas! I've made at least 3 D.I. drops since then. No wonder I always feel like I have nothing to wear. I'm getting rid of my clothes and not replacing them.
So I'm thinking, now that the weather's turning warm, I really should go out and get some new clothes, so I don't have to resort to wearing t-shirts emblazoned with Juno and Potter Puppet Pals' slogans. A few new tops, maybe a summery skirt or two, some khakis...
Hey, while I'm at it, I'll pick up some new sandals. And socks.
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