Dedicated to the Katherine Sweetman’s of the world, who dare to leap, no matter the consequences
I Quit: Or, like so many, I wish I could
It was during the afternoon of the day I experienced my first-ever anxiety attack—while driving to work—that I sat, parked in front of my friend’s house, and took the About.com Should I Quit My Job quiz.
The chest pains, sweating and shallow breathing I’d experienced earlier that morning excluded, I was a bit of a wreck. I had a canker sore in my mouth and the beginnings of what has been a lingering cold, and I’d thrown my lower back out a few days earlier while sneezing. Not weight lifting. Not screwing. Sneezing.
Fuck 40, is all I can say about that.
I sniffled and winced and then wallowed in self-pity as the first question loaded on my iPhone: “Your job is making you ill, True or False?” Well, duh. I systematically answered all of the questions, about 20 of them give or take, and after hitting submit, the following result appeared:
“You have many problems with your job and you should consider quitting soon.”
It was in red text, as alarming and urgent as a test of the emergency broadcasting system on late-night television. It might as well have said, “Girlfriend, the call is coming from inside the house!” Even though making life decisions based on an Internet quiz is about as reasonable as basing them on the predictions of a Magic 8 Ball or the words of a charming palm reader near the Spanish Steps in Rome, I decided right then that I was going to quit my job, benefits and money be damned. I imagined tossing my beanie high into the air on my last day, strutting out the door to the theme song from The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
I cannot describe the weightlessness I felt at the decision. My husband was unquestionably supportive. “You can create something,” he said. “You’ll have to hustle, but I know you can do it.”
For an entire week, I was floating, soaring, buoyed—except for the searing back pain any time I bent to put on my underwear, a problem easily resolved by not wearing any. I became the Yes Girl at work, committing to anything and everything I was being asked to do in the coming year, since—ha ha!—I knew I wasn’t actually going to be there in the coming year.
I had a definitive date on which I would submit my resignation, and I would finally realize my dream doing something I love. Ours would be a household with two self-employed people, a terrifying leap, but a breathtakingly exciting one, too. And I knew such a decision would result in an improvement of my mental and physical health. I waited for my ailments to resolve.
But then: Blasted reality took hold in the form of an insurance broker. One conversation—complete with a patronizing lecture about the devil otherwise known as universal healthcare, and the assessment that, Oooh, basal cell carcinoma? Yeeeaaah, insurance companies will view you as Lingering Death’s first cousin—and suddenly I was slammed back to earth, my body hitting the pavement with a tremendous splat and bounce, brains and organs and limbs everywhere. It was ugly. Good thing I have health insurance and can see a doctor about fixing the mess.
The broker—who I’m pretty sure was busy stroking his little capitalist-happy wiener as we chatted—made it clear that the open market would not be amenable to me. It appeared that a COBRA plan costing nearly $1,700 a month would likely be my family’s cheapest insurance option. Insert a loud Chris Berman Whuuuuuut?!? right about now. That’s more than my mortgage.
I’m not the first American to go down this treacherous road; I know I was only exploring that which millions of work-hating drones, self-employed, under-employed and unemployed folks have explored before me. But that doesn’t make it any less infuriating. Having no outlet for the outrage really smarts, too.
The problem of obtaining adequate health coverage for my family as I faced the reinvention of myself was startling enough to give me sleepless nights, stomach aches, two more canker sores and an additional upper-back spasm that made right-side lane changes impossible. If you pass me on the road, you’ll notice I’m still going in circles to the left.
The choice can be summed up thusly: Stay in a miserable job that kills me slowly so I have access to affordable medical care to treat said dying. Or! Leave the job that kills me in lieu of doing meaningful work that brings me improved health and fulfillment and hope to hell no one in my family gets so much as a spider bite, because one serious health issue could ruin our credit, decimate our life savings and cause us to lose our home. In short, seeking happiness could cost me everything.
On the recommendation of About.com, and with the support of people who love me, I scootched right up to the edge of that cliff. I let my toes extend out over the edge, raised my arms akimbo and tilted my face to the sun as I leaned forward against a horizon-less abyss. Then I got a bad case of vertigo, chickened out and resigned myself to the only realistic, if depressing, option there is.
I’ve found ways to make my current job tolerable and am staying put for the time being. I’m not giving up on that other possibility, but it will have to come with more preparation and in a less dramatic, Steven Slater-y sort of way. The silver lining is that I can afford to have the deep tissue massages that are—hopefully—going to resolve the seizing of my back. I hope to be wearing underwear again very soon.
(As published today in San Diego CityBeat.)
Not in my house: Don’t plan to come over here and watch commercial-free TV
It’s quite possible that my household is the last one on the planet without a DVR. I keep lobbying for one, but my pleas are met, every time, with counter arguments superior to my much weaker begging points.
I made my most recent pitch the day after fumbling for the remote during a commercial break on Monday Night Football. I had been less than graceful in my attempt to protect the delicate eyes of our 5-year-old from seeing the gun-and-bomb violence advertised during what Palin-fawning Americans insist is a family pastime. Never mind that she’s watching football, the contemporary version of gladiators. As far as I’m concerned, a knee bent in reverse might as well be a pastie-clad nipple compared with those military-recruitment ads or spots for certain video games.
“We’re not getting a DVR,” Sam said to me when I mentioned I was going to call about getting one. “We don’t need it. We don’t even watch any shows besides Mad Men, and there are only two episodes is only one episode left in the season.”
“But—the insufferable Meg Whitman ads! You know you hate her hair!” I countered, mouth agape. He wasn’t moved.
“Election season is almost over. And a DVR just means I’d have another piece of electronic equipment to figure out and manage and program. And I’d have to listen to you bitch about how it’s ‘broken’ when I accidentally erase a show you weren’t ready for me to erase.” I shut my mouth as he continued. “And then I’ll have to call Cox when it goes wonky—because it will go wonky. You know our track record with electronics.”
He had me on this point. And then he added: “It’s not a big deal. I’ll just skip Monday Night Football from now on.”
If you felt a violent jolt last Tuesday evening shortly after dinnertime, that’s because the entire universe came to an abrupt halt as that last sentence was uttered. Apparently, my man is so staunchly in the anti- DVR camp that he’s willing to give up Monday. Night. Football.
I stood before him, arms crossed, one hip thrust forward and one eyebrow raised in my hard-earned Hope Brady impersonation (she’s still on Days of Our Lives).
And then I threw in my best oh-no-you-di’unt neck-wobble when I challenged him: “Even when The Pack are playing?” I had to resist the urge to tap my foot.
He stared at me. I stared at him. There was a little twitch near his left temple. A tumbleweed blew by and it was nothing but crickets up in our house until Ruby broke the tension with the cutest little fart ever. “Excuuuuse meeee,” she said, giggling. With this diversion, I felt the debate shift in my favor. I was getting closer to that DVR by the second.
After a little pre-battle mantra chant on Thursday morning, I dialed Cox Communications—from memory. Like 363-TILT, the phone number of the first boy I ever kissed while sitting on a blue swing at Reservoir Park, 262- 1181 is with me forever. Only, unlike Mike Allen, Cox isn’t cute in that pre-pubescent, disproportionate-facial-features kind of way. And while Mike Allen’s braces didn’t lock with mine as I had worried they might, I am inextricably bound to my cable company.
You see, Sam isn’t the only one who has Cox on speed-dial. I call regularly to find out why our OnDemand isn’t loading or why our modem isn’t working or why our cable bill is escalating. Each time I’m forced to call, I have visions of being on the evening news as the woman who went postal on the cable tech. It’s a good thing they’re usually based out of places like Iowa and Delaware. A flight to their offices would really diffuse the impetus to kill.
The automated lady picked up the phone and chirped directions at me. “I see you’re calling from 619….” Yeah, yeah. I entered all the digits necessary to get to the main menu, and then I pressed zero to speak to a representative. Because that’s what I wanted to do: speak to a human being. But did it get me a human being? No. Communication breakdown: “I’m sorry. I didn’t understand you. Please enter 1 for…” I felt my blood pressure rising.
Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo.
I pressed zero again—and was looped around again. After the third time at this little game, I held the receiver in front of my face and yelled at the automated lady, “What part of ‘press zero to speak to a representative’ do you not understand?!?” In customer-service training manuals, this particular customer reaction is commonly known as the Belfer Method. It is completely ineffective.
I hung up and called back, starting the whole process again, only to have the automated lady say, “Due to the high volume of calls, your wait time is 11 minutes. Would you like to have someone call you back?” Why, yes, automated lady, yes I would. I selected this option by pressing the key I was told to press. I held it down extra long just so they would understand my request, and then I hung up. More than 11 minutes later, my phone rang. And, wouldn’t you know? It was the automated lady: “Please wait for the next available operator.”
Nam-Myoho-fuck-this-shit!
After another few very long minutes, a human lady came to the phone. But by that time, I’d exchanged my silly mantra for vengeance. I was so pissed that I’d have been more likely to vote for Meg What’s-With-Her- Yoda-Hair Whitman than give Cox a penny toward one of their stupid DVRs.
“We don’t even watch television anyway,” I told the human lady. “It’s just another piece of equipment that won’t work properly,” I said. “So, you can just keep your crummy DVR.”
And we’ll see just how many Mondays go by before the discussion begins again.
(As published—mostly—on Oct. 13th in San Diego CityBeat.)
When worlds collide: The incompatibility of stoners and control freaks
Confession: I am not a stoner. I’ve smoked weed in my life, a lot of it by some standards, I suppose. And while I think it should be legalized—along with prostitution, gay marriage and the right to vandalize Glenn Beck’s cars— it is not my drug of choice. Pinballing my way through life is about as comfortable to me as clocking in for a corporate job might be for Tommy Chong.
I like to be on time. I like to know where my keys are. I like to remember my appointments. I don’t like to get to a party only to realize yesterday’s underwear is balled up against my thigh in the right pants’ leg. And I definitely don’t like to meander when I have some place to be.
Last Thursday, I had a concert ticket, and since my husband was out of town, I’d booked a sitter. Ruby and I were eating dinner, and as the clock ticked past the sitter’s arrival time, Ruby said, “Mama, I don’t think Mimi’s coming.” I had the same feeling and sent her a text, to which she didn’t respond. She didn’t answer her phone when I called her a few minutes later. Even though she’d confirmed this gig three hours earlier in a message on my landline, I knew she wasn’t coming: She’s a stoner.
I quickly phoned every sitter on my roster until I found a backup, who arrived exactly when she said she would, 45 minutes later. This girl is not a stoner. Though grateful, I was already stressed when my friend Stacy arrived to pick me up.
“It’s a party: I brought the minivan!” Stacy was slowly scooping school projects and clothes and half-filled water bottles from the front seat and tossing them into the back. We were supposed to be having drinks with some other friends at that very moment, but Stacy was running late. I could feel my stress level building but was trying to hit the reset button. Being a few minutes late wasn’t going to kill me.
“We’ve got to pick up Jenny and make one other stop,” she said. “Tell Gayle we’ll be there in 30 minutes.” I took a deep breath, hit “send” on the message and climbed into the car, trying to be cool, to roll with it, to shrug off the frantic, running-late angst that plagues me.
“So, we’re going to grab Jenny—oh, shit! I need to get gas!” Stacy realized. “But that will only take five min—oh, shit! I left my ticket back at my house.” I began to feel the need to breathe into a brown paper bag. She was driving like a nana in her minivan, and I imagined reaching my left foot across the console and stomping down on the gas pedal, her foot pinned beneath mine.
“And after we get Jenny—who you are going to love, by the way—we need to make a quick stop at the dispensary for a couple joints.”
Oh, Jesus Christ, you’ve got to be kidding me! Really? A dispensary? We’re grown women. Couldn’t you have taken care of this earlier?
I bit my tongue all the way to Jenny’s house, which was lovely. I got a partial tour—met the husband, two kids, two dogs and a cat, wasn’t feeling nervous at all about the time, no siree!—and then we loaded back into the minivan. Jenny, a sexy, free-spirited blonde with her peasant shirt, sand-papery voice and nowhere to be, passed around her to-go mojito while recounting a wild story about being punched in the face at a Brad Paisley concert she was recently bribed into seeing. I checked my time machine to make sure it wasn’t set to 1985, made sure my seatbelt was fastened and pondered whether the fist of a redneck or the headliner was more horrific.
We motored on down the road well under the speed limit—which was probably good considering the open container—got gas and drove aimlessly for a few blocks looking for the dispensary. It was high school all over again, and it was dreadful.
“Oh, shit! I think I passed it,” Stacy said.
The words “oh” and “shit” were beginning to have a Pavlovian effect on me. Two very big and very slow U-turns later, there we were, three utterly conspicuous (and relatively hot, if I do say so) moms in a minivan the color of obligation, sharing a cocktail while parked in front of a marijuana dispensary.
Which was closed.
“It’s supposed to be open ’til 9!” Stacy was genuinely perplexed that stoners didn’t honor their stated business hours.
“Call the number—maybe they’re not really closed and it just looks closed.” Jenny began to recite the phone number. Stacy dialed, then shifted her body toward me and offered what currently occupies the top spot on my Best Quote of the Year list.
“Aaryn, quick: Google ‘marijuana dispensaries, 92115.’” Dear reader: These women? They are stoners! Stone. Ers. They are Spicoli. They are Cheech and Chong. They are Edina and Patsy! Which is cool if you’re them, but unbelievably, infuriatingly un-cool if you’re not. To be honest, I wanted to punch both of them in the face.
Instead, I put the kibosh on a subsequent dispensary hunt, grabbed my phone and fired off a text to Gayle.
“these guys r going back to jennys for weed. we’re going to be thirty minutes.”
At this point, I couldn’t see clearly through the rage in my eyes. There was some discussion about rolling papers. My flaky sitter called, apologizing profusely. And I ended up waiting in a line for will call, brooding and stewing in my own anger, while the girls had a blast working on what surely had to have been one of the best white buffaloes ever created. Bitches.
I like these women, I do. But I’m too square for such antics. Next time, I’m taking my own car.
(As published on September 30 in San Diego CityBeat.)
Bye-bye, little one: An argument in favor of the kindergartener
It’s official. Last Tuesday—after I helped thread her arms through the stiff straps of a backpack covered in more pink and white butterflies than were flitting around in my stomach—I walked my daughter one block down the street for her first day of kindergarten and, in doing so, became a cog in the busted-up, broke-down, rusted-out, caving-in jalopy known as the San Diego Unified School District. But this column isn’t about SDUSD, a bottomless well of editorial fodder; there will be plenty of time for my commentary on that hot mess over the next 13 years.
No, this is about Holy shit! I’m not the parent of a toddler anymore!
You know the first thing I did after leaving La Princesse at class that morning was to b-line for a cocktail. I wanted to bring a flask in my purse and take a nice, big draw from it just as I stepped off school property, but I really have made an effort to leave high school behind me. It would be a bummer to get blacklisted from my kid’s new school for drinking on campus. On Day One. I’d rather earn my banishment with some caustic columns.
Of course, I was a little misty as I watched my child’s giant backpack walk away from me toward her new classroom, the whole of her eclipsed except for two long, skinny legs in laceless, pink-sequined Chuck Taylors and a perfectly round Afro-puff topping it all off. It was downright cartoony, and I hummed “School House Rock” on my way to meet my Maker’s Mark, thinking of how far I’d come.
Oh, the memories: There was the time Ruby smeared poop on my face. And the incessant late-night wailing that forced Sam and me into garage exile for the better part of a year. Or the meltdown at the pumpkin patch— man, that was an illusion killer. In an act of self-preservation, I pretended I didn’t know her and just let her sob and leak snot on herself in the dirt amid hay bales and ponies, while all the other families sipped cider and took photos for their scrapbooks and happily picked out their gourds and corncobs and whatnot.
Those miserable days have receded sufficiently and are now humorous anecdotes I offer in conversations with new parents to explicitly convey that they are not alone, and to subliminally convey the fact that they are completely fucked. To this day, whenever I see disheveled parents maneuvering diaper bags and strollers and Snack Traps while hunched over trying to prevent their new crawler from tumbling head first into a menacing pile of fire ants, my first thought is always: Better them than me.
Babies might smell good, but let’s be honest: They mostly suck.
Having a 5-year-old is much more palatable. For one thing, they don’t pee and poop in their pants anymore. That’s a big bonus. Sure, there’s the occasional oops-I-waited-too-long leak that they neglect to mention and which you only find out about when you pick up their inside-out heap of clothes they left on the bathroom floor. FYI: Unexpectedly wet kiddie undies evoke the same kind of reaction as walking into an unseen spider web.
And as long as I’m talking bodily functions, being summoned to the bathroom to verify that, Yes, honey, you’re right. That is diarrhea, is only better than a diaper trauma by a number of degrees. But it is, unarguably, better.
Another plus is communication. When a baby doesn’t care for her food, she spits it out like an oscillating lawn sprinkler, and suddenly you’re washing walls while contemplating taking lovers, Seasonale and a secret apartment in Crown Point (a small dream, yes, but it makes visitation easier than an apartment in Positano). By contrast, a 5-year-old will keep the grilled onion on her protruding tongue, contort her face like Popeye and flail her hands in the air next to her head until you remove the offending bit with your napkin. After a long sip of water from her glass (no more sippie cups!), she’ll look directly at you and say, “What the hell, Mama? I said ‘No onions!’”
Getting dressed is so much more pleasant with a 5-year-old around: Not only can she dress herself, but she can also create ensembles. She has a will and is going to exert it. Giving in to her proclivity for pairing autumn-hued plaids with pastel stripes and primary polka dots, often layered and topped with a pink gingham belt and/or a tulle skirt, beats the hell out of onesies and baby-jeans with those maddeningly miniscule crotch snaps.
I stay out of the fashion choices in my home now and only venture into jacket-battle on truly cold days. And I do insist on underwear beneath skirts if we’re going to be leaving the house. I’m a stickler on that point. You never know when you might be exiting a limousine to the flashing bulbs of paparazzi. You never know when you might suffer that accidental leak.
The best thing, though, about a kindergartener, is that they can make you proud in deeply meaningful ways that can’t be dismissed as gas (a first smile is still charming) or natural progression (first words, first steps, first haircuts, first skull-shaped self-inking stamp pressed repeatedly along every wall in the house at a 36-inch height). A toddler is the drunken friend whom you must prevent from dying; a 5-year-old is the pragmatic one who hears “No” and offers 17 plausible ways the answer should be “Yes.”
“What do you call the person that’s in charge of the school?” Ruby asked her dad during curriculum night while she and three of her new friends were pretending to play classroom. The role of “teacher” had been delegated and Ruby was unsatisfied as “pupil.”
“You mean the principal?” Sam asked. “Yeah,” Ruby said. She skipped back to where her friends were playing. “OK,” she said to them, “I’m the principal.”
Au revoir to those bruising toddler years. And bottoms up to the brutality ahead.
(As published today in San Diego Citybeat.)
Duped again: Is Steven Slater just another false hero?
I was practically falling over myself with a combination of glee and envy last week when I heard the story about Steven Slater’s epic resignation. As everyone knows by now, he’s the JetBlue flight attendant who supposedly took an inordinate amount of abuse from an irate passenger until he reached what I call his customer-service shelf life. This is the point at which you know you can’t do this job one moment longer. Most service-industry folks have one. Mine came after 10 years of waitressing when a customer berated me for serving him steak-cut fries instead of the curly fries we’d run out of. I fantasized about dumping the fries in his lap and squirting a tub of ketchup in his face before walking out the door for good. Instead, I let him belittle me for an entire evening, cried on the drive home and promptly gave my two-week notice the old-fashioned way.
Unlike me, Slater didn’t just daydream a magnificent exit with an expletive-filled PSA and a slide down the plane’s inflatable emergency chute. He went right ahead and lived it. And I went right ahead and signed on as the 61,403rd supporter of his Facebook page. By last Thursday night, his fan tally hovered at 200,000, but as much as I liked the suggestion by another fan that “White Castle should rename their sliders ‘Slaters,’” that number no longer included me.
After reading a short blurb titled “Is Steven Slater a Hoax, Too?” on Slate (slate.com), I fought back my inner Howard Beale and the companion urge to pour my bourbon directly into my keyboard—I didn’t need another trip to the Genius Bar, so instead of punishing my information source, I begrudgingly clicked “unlike.”
After the initial story spread like Rod Stewart’s seed, The Wall Street Journal and CBS News did this antiquated thing called “vetting,” in which reporters check out the “facts” of a story—usually done before publication—and, wouldn’t you know it, there are witnesses who contradict Slater’s version. How much Slater will be discredited by the time this goes to press, I can only surmise. But even at this juncture, I could hardly be more disappointed if my kid were to become a Christian fundamentalist and take up golf.
For me, it isn’t just the possibility that this particular story has a less vicariously liberating side than initially portrayed, though that is certainly a knife to my left lung. I so love to see the little guy win, and it really sucks when the little guy turns out to be a cheat. But it’s the cumulative effect of these Boy-Who-Cried- Wolf incidents that leaves me hollow.
The revelation that the Slater story might be more than it appeared was immediately preceded by the uncovering of a similar hoax perpetrated by The Chive, in which a young woman named “Jenny” quits her job via dry-erase board, displayed in a series of photos. I didn’t find the Jenny joke compelling because I was too engrossed in the more organic, slapstick victory of Mr. Slater.
But I fell for Balloon Boy in a big way. I watched from my office that day, horrified and near tears. It was just like watching a late-night Sally Struthers commercial for starving children: I knew I should turn it off, but I couldn’t. I just kept imagining it was my child in that silver, Mylar balloon contraption, spinning and hurtling across a blue sky. I very nearly sent those wicked people a donation.
And, of course, we know our government agencies aren’t impervious to such reporting shenanigans. The Department of Agriculture didn’t waste any time validating an out-of-context video clip of employee Shirley Sherrod making what appeared to be racist comments. They just took the carefully edited clip posted to the Interwebs by a right-wing blogger as empirical evidence that Sherrod needed to go. So bumbling was the reaction to the offending snippet that it made me long for the Bush administration. They would never have fired anyone based on a lie, and there’s plenty of proof of that.
I’m beginning to think we’re a society of Patsies, too many gullible Charlie Browns. So much false information is dressed up to look like truth, and when we so richly reward the lowest common denominator (hi, Snookie!), why look any deeper? Why aim any higher? We live in an era of an ever-changing media clamoring to get the story first, instead of clamoring to get a story right. Our worldview is so defined by Photoshop and blogger pundits and the entertainment-izing of news programs that strive to keep our attention and feed our insatiable appetite for drama that it’s tough to decipher the presented reality from truth.
No matter where the fault lies, there’s something especially disappointing in the knowledge that Steven Slater may have acted disingenuously. Because what he did—or rather, the original story of it—was an unleashing of something primal that many of us suppress day after day as we go through the motion of our lives. We are reamed daily at our jobs, and by politicians, and church leaders, and bankers and by the airline industry, too. We are assaulted from every angle, and most of us put our heads down and muscle through because we can’t afford to blow. There’s just too much to lose.
But there is a deep satisfaction in knowing someone is ballsy enough to risk it all, a celebration in seeing a small part of yourself reflected in that defiant stick-it-to-the-man act. With his outburst, Slater offered a sense of vindication to those of us who only dream about doing it. His act offered a sense of attaboy! possibility. That he may have orchestrated the whole thing is deeply disheartening and leads me to think Jersey Shore might be a more accurate depiction of who we really are.
(As published in San Diego CityBeat.)
Proving that one person *can* make a difference
Check out what I found in my inbox last night:
Dear Aaryn-
I read your blog post today. You are absolutely right in pointing out our grammatical mistake with the English language, it was not intentional. That was an error on our part and we have changed the text to read “coach.com anyway.”
We strive to give our base a good experience when exploring our site and discovering new styles.Please feel free to call me at [redacted] or at jennifer@polyvore.com.
Did I actually call Polyvore a bimbo??? I take it back. Polyvore is no bimbo. Polyvore writes in cursive, sends thank you notes, and knows her dessert fork from her salad fork.
See my latest CityBeat column (also below this post) for context. It wasn’t up for 12-hours before the Polyvorites were all over it. And might I just say, kudos to Jennifer and Polyvore for that. Gigantic, enormous, bigger-than-the-Oxford-English-Dictionary kudos to them. Of course, I’d be even happier about the correction had she included a pair of shoes as a gesture of apology. Wouldn’t that really have been the right thing to do? Then I’d be calling her a mensch in addition to sending big wet cyber-kisses.
A Way With Words: Thoughts on the selective butchering of the English language
While browsing the fashion collages posted at Polyvore the other day, I clicked on a link for a brooch that had caught my eye and received the following message: “This item appears to be out of stock. Continue to coach.com anyways?” Something tells me Coach did not approve that message.
That a girl raised on the pristine streets of Salt Lake City should venture to the Coach website is absurd. I hail from the place that patented the claw bang and the annoy-een habit of drop-een the “g” from the end-eens of words. Coach is beneath my station.
But even more disturb-een (OK, I’ll stop now) is the usage of a non-word word on a website that boasts 140 million monthly page views, a guerilla attack on the English language if I’ve ever seen one. Especially—or should I say, expecially?—because fabulously dressed women should know better. Use of “anyways” indicates one’s proclivity for dotting her “i”s with bubbly hearts, a habit that should be illegal for anyone older than 12.In that one message, Polyvore revealed her inner bimbo.
Here’s the thing: There is the purposeful creation of a new word to make a point or an intended misuse on the side of irony, and then there is the insidious, Palin-type jackassian nincompoopery, and never the twain shall meet. What follows are a few examples of the latter, so-called words that cause my spellcheck feature to freeze in exasperation.
Schoobrary: The only way this can be taken seriously is if it’s delivered with a snicker and a set of air quotes. In case you live under a rock—or anywhere in the entire world outside of San Diego—“schoobrary” is a lazy, shortcut term to describe the long anticipated Downtown library, which, if ever built, will house a school. Only, “schoobrary” isn’t really a shortcut because when you use it in a sentence, it still requires an explanation. “Schoobrary” isn’t a word, and I have to question whether Scott Lewis (CEO of Voice of San Diego) wasn’t munching on schooby snacks when he coined a now-broadly used term that sounds more like a cartoon dog’s breakfast cereal than a place of higher learning.
Athletical: Like its bastard cousin “schoobrary,” “athletical” is a regional colloquialism. And by regional, I mean used in Wisconsin. By my father-in-law. “That kid on my soccer team is a natural. He’s really very athletical,” he might say. Or, “Sure, Brett Favre is a fuckwad. But you gotta admit, he’s still got his athletical abilities.” The first time he said it, I squelched my urge to correct him. It’s sort of endearing, after all, and since I respect my elders, I chose to say nothing and make fun of him here instead.
Nucular: Dubya. Need I say more?
Heighth: Usually accompanied by width, “height” is guilty by association. Unless you have a lisp, “heighth” is not a word.
Irregardless: Ah, one of my favs. Like the phrase “for all intensive purposes,” this oldie but goodie is fun to say, flows off the tongue, gives the impression that the speaker has contemplated his situation from every possible angle and is completely, maddeningly wrong. It’s frequently overheard during grocery-store exchanges between long-lost acquaintances catching up while palming the avocados. One or the other person complains about his boss or cloying in-laws or the options for his upcoming colonoscopy. “I could take the pills or gag down the juice, but, irregardless, the emptying is going to suck.” People: It’s “regardless” or “irrespective.” Pick one and go with it. (And, FYI, my in-laws say the pills are the way to go.)
Expresso: Do you think they’ll serve expresso at the schoobrary when it opens? No. They will not. You know why? Because there is no such thing as “expresso.” There is also no such thing as a “venti.” Yes, it takes less time to make an espresso than a pot of coffee, and you can now get it in an extra-large cup from a drive-thru window. Certainly, this is very confusing. But when you order a double shot of expresso in your venti látte, you just sound like a douche bag.
Douche bag: OK, this is a real word that is, admittedly, pretty fun to use out of context, specifically when applied to people who frequent Starbucks, attend tea-party rallies or go by the name Mel Gibson. On the other hand, it’s tired and offensive. It should be scratched. Or not.
Supposebly and ostensively: These substitutions for “supposedly” and “ostensibly” sound so similar to the real thing that it can be tough to catch the imposters, especially if the person speaking has a Hungarian accent. But again, they’re not words. They’re faux words and they’re dangerous because the temptation to use them ironically can be irresistible, and if substituted long enough, they will become part of the user’s vernacular. Say a thing often enough and it becomes the truth. Which brings me to my next word…
Nonplussed: Ah, the pièce de résistance of my pet-peeve world. An actual word, to be nonplussed is to be perplexed, and how awesome is it that the meaning and the sound are in direct contrast to one another? It just blows my hair back. This definition, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, goes back to the early 16th century, and I’m sticking to it. But it’s been used to mean “unfazed” or “nonchalant” for so long, by so many people—et tu, New York Times, et tu?—that the wrong definition has become a commonly accepted definition.
And while such an occurrence doesn’t make me very happy, it should bring great hope to those who support schoobraries, those cultivating their natural athletical abilities and the fashionistas of the world who have to decide if they would like to click through to coach.com anyways.
(As published today in San Diego CityBeat.)
Back to school: The unintended side effect of being a parent
If you were to offer me $10 million to do high school over again, I would turn you down before you could finish your sentence. It wouldn’t matter if I were allowed to take with me all the hindsight I’ve collected since tossing my mortar board out the window of my mother’s white Toyota Corolla with the lapis-blue interior. I suppose you could sweeten the pot with Elin Nordegren’s $100-million divorce settlement from her naughty little Tiger and I might entertain reliving the misery.
Oh, those many brooding days spent slumped against the cold brick of East High School on the corner of 13th East and Ninth South, bangs draped across my dark-lined eyes, chain-smoking clove cigarettes while skipping Mr. Koenig’s typing class. I never could stand his greasy comb-over or his resenting scowl or his plaid, short-sleeve, button-down shirts or, most especially, his shiny, shiny patent-leather shoes. I dreaded, with all the force of my scornful teenage angst, the way he trolled the rows with his hovering red pen, ready to slash it across my page of typos, his enormous belly pushing against my shoulder as he leaned in to make his mark.
Ewww. No. Not even Elin’s hush money is enough to make me endure the pettiness, the hormones, the mean people and—worse—the stupid people. God, those stupid people. And now they friend-request me on Facebook? Ignore. The irony in this scenario is that I am going back, and I’m not getting paid to do it. That’s right: I’m going to do it all again, gratis! And I’m not just doing high school. I’m doing K through 12.
Because I’m a parent, you see. And this educational do-over is the part of being a parent that nobody ever warns you about. It’s the part I certainly didn’t ponder with any amount of critical thought when I decided to be a mother. I sort of figured you just had to make it until the kid’s 5 and then send her off down the road with her princess backpack and her lunch box and she’d pop out of Harvard at the end.
But I cozied up to Harsh Reality last week as I sat down for kindergarten orientation in the library of my daughter’s new school.
By the time Sam and I filed in to the parents-only event, we were relegated to the child-sized seats at the front of the room. My ass didn’t fit on the chair like it used to, but I had no time to harrumph about this because I was suffering a flashback comparable with those once induced by the LSD I took in my teens. Hmmm…maybe it was me, and not Mr. Koenig, who was the jerk, after all.
The days will be long for my girl, jam-packed with math, reading (independent and aloud), writing (modeled, shared, interactive) and social studies. Granted, despite the endless budget cuts, there is one very generous 20-minute block of each day dedicated entirely to PE, music and art, so it’s not like she won’t have an outlet. Important, too, because when she gets home, she’ll need to focus on the homework.
There will be lots of that apparently—a weekly packet full of it—and You Know Who will be sitting at the dining-room table doing the math, the reading, the writing, the social studies. I started to sweat as I read the information packet, remembering too vividly the many nights of crying over Algebra III equations with my tense and utterly helpless mother next to me. Oh my God, people! What did I get myself into?
I was trying to snap out of my PTSD when I became aware of another thing I hadn’t fully internalized but which became shockingly clear to me that night in the library: Those stupid people from high school? They grew up and became stupid parents. And they were sitting behind me, not raising their hands, blurting out questions willy-nilly, talking over the teachers and other patiently waiting parents.
“But, my little Caeidyn has to eat before the 11:15 snack time. Can he just sit quietly at his desk and eat when he gets hungry?” No. He’ll adapt. “You said that there’s no food allowed on birthdays. But, can I bring cupcakes for little Makynzie?” No. You may bring pencils… “How about popsicles?” Nope. No food. “So, what you’re saying is that Jaelyinn can’t bring cookies for the class on her special day?” Collective gasp.
That was it. “Must we really engage in this line of discussion for 10 minutes?!?” I hissed at the clodpates. “They. Said. No. Food. Is it edible? Yes? Then you can’t bring it! And what the hell kind of name is Jaelyinn, anyway?!?”
It’s been proven (by researchers at MIT, among others) that résumés topped with “black-sounding names” generate fewer job interviews than those bearing names more phonetically pleasing to the Aryan ear. But employers would do well to know that people with creatively spelled WASPy names that include lots of consecutive vowels (unlike mine, of course) tend to be coddled, entitled pricks who will call in sick to work on their first day. Or ask for a nap after their lunch break.
OK, so I didn’t really blow that night in the library. I rolled with it. I took my lumps and a lot of deep breaths. I sat quietly taking notes, since that’s what a good student does. I might have even thrown up a little prayer to the friendship gods asking, Please, I’ll do anything without complaint—even division of fractions!—so long as you don’t let my child become besties with Jaelyinn.
Because that fate might just drive me to black eyeliner and a carton of cloves.
GGGOOOAAAALLLLL! Urging American soccer haters to reconsider their position
It’s a slippery slope being a fan of The Beautiful Game. One day, you’re minding your own business, blowing the blood vessels in your eyeballs by blowing your much-maligned vuvuzela. There you are, rooting for France, throwing back mojitos at Vagabond during lunch in South Park on a Thursday, alongside the business set, who’ve sneaked away from their jobs because 90 minutes of footie and a cocktail will bring them a sliver of joy in the drudgery of an otherwise craperrific day in a whole endless string of them. Soon, you find yourself so charmed by the exuberant fans of the other team that you bid adieu to Handball Henri to jump up and down and shout “Viva Mexico!” with everyone else in the place.
You’re caught up in the thrill, and your little world is cracked open wide by the immediate connection between you and human beings of every culture on the planet. You’re excited for Mexico, sure, but now you really can’t wait to root, root, root for the home team the following morning. And the next thing you know, you find out you’re a traitor to America. Huh?
Certain right-wing fundies have been studying their talking points again and collectively smearing the World Cup, the U.S. men’s soccer team and, presumably, the ubiquitous soccer mom. In recent weeks, these vocal, elitist xenophobes have called soccer “a poor man’s or poor woman’s sport,” one that liberals “jam… down our throat” as part of the “browning of America.” Because baseball is stacked with freckle-faced redheads.
“It doesn’t matter how you try to sell it to us,” said Glenn Beck in one of his tirades. “It doesn’t matter how many celebrities you get. It doesn’t matter how many bars open early. It doesn’t matter how many beer commercials they run: We don’t want the World Cup. We don’t like the World Cup. We don’t like soccer. We want nothing to do with it.” Beck the Troglodyte went on to mention the hooliganism perpetrated by hooligans before offering proof of our more civilized society: “I haven’t seen the baseball riots.” Apparently, the ever-present bench brawl doesn’t factor into Beck’s we’re-superior equation of sports-etiquette.
Oh, Glenn, you cotton-headed ninny muggins! You make me want to get all Zizou on your ass.
Have you never heard of the Cleveland Indians’ Ten-Cent Beer Night riot of 1974? What about Disco Demolition Night of 1979? Or does your selective comprehension of history exclude the events of history?
I would think you, of all people, would be incensed that fans rioted against an honest-to-God homegrown genre of music at Comiskey Park. What’s more American than disco? Thanks to disco, “YMCA” is played at stadiums (and weddings and bat-mitzvahs) all across your favorite country. And Gary Glitter may have been disco in costume only (and British, to boot), but he gave the American fans you hold up as examples of refined behavior the never-ending opportunity to drunkenly chant duhn-duhn-duuuunh-duh-HAY!-duhn-duhn-duhn-duhn-duhn-duuuuhn-duhn-HAY!
Frankly, that and the apathetic wave are more annoying than one honking vuvuzela blown into your ear at close range.
Also, news flash: America’s favorite pastime wasn’t even invented by Americans. The English invented it. Football? English blokes. Basketball? Wave to Canada, Glenn. You can probably see the socialists from your porch. OK, how about golf? you might ask. Well, other than not being invented in America, there’s little agreement as to its origins. I’d put my money on China since the Chinese make all our shit.
With a need for stop-start-stop action as desperate as the tea baggers’ need for spell check on protest signs, the Glenn Beckians don’t have the attention span for a sport with no commercial breaks. A Wall Street Journal study of four NFL games from last season found the average amount of play time was 11 minutes. In essence, an American football game is a three-hour block of beer-gulping, ball-scratching, slow-it-down-so-I-can-grasp-it time for Neanderthals who only understand domination and a playbook.
And fútbol? With one 15-minute half separating 90 minutes of non-stop running, this difficult sport has more intensity, agility, athleticism, power, control, finesse, creativity, innovation, nuance, grace and true teamwork than any other sport I can think of. Ours is definitely not the best team on Earth, but the U.S. men’s soccer team is the best of us, and any bloviating ethnocentrist in a Brooks Brothers suit should be able to get behind that team, which last Friday played a match complete with America’s favorite dramatic elements:
After an excruciating first half, the U.S. came back (overcoming hardship) from a debilitating 0-2 deficit to Slovenia, the smallest country competing (David and Goliath). Landon Donovan (the boy next door) patiently crafted the first goal just minutes into the second half, and the way the ball left his toe, soared across the field and into the corner of the net was nearly lyrical (the hero comes through).
Michael Bradley, the coach’s son (hello, Lifetime Television for women) tied things up with a second goal. Our goalkeeper, Tim Howard (one of the best in the world), dove and leapt to stop several dangerous attacks. And what should have been the third and winning goal (defying the odds) was taken away as quickly as it had happened (heartbreak) by a call so egregious (disbelief) that the announcers apologized and the rookie ref may be expelled from all future matches (vindication). Now the question remains: Can the U.S. overcome such a psychological test and advance to the next round? If we didn’t adore this kind of drama, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition wouldn’t exist.
The U.S. finishes the first round the day this issue hits the street. Whatever happens, the tournament continues until July 11. C’mon. Blow that vuvuzela. Even if it’s just to annoy your dogmatic neighbors.
(As published on June 23, 2010 in San Diego CityBeat.)
In a ‘State of Distraction’: Oh, Internet. You’re bad for me but I just can’t quit you
Can you imagine life without the web? If not, pay a visit to Slate and read the last four-months’ worth of articles by writer/illustrator James Sturm, who, like the CEO of BP, wanted his life back, and who, unlike the CEO of BP, had a right to feel so inclined. With the support of his wife and editor and I’m sure many other people, including one friend who changed all the passwords on his computers so he couldn’t give into the temptation to cheat, Sturm systematically, methodically unplugged.
Gadzoinks! He what??? He quit the what?! I was awed and stupefied. But, later, when I came across a story about Internet use and attention span, I heard the familiar if faint “pssst” whispered into my ear by the universe.
I’d been procrastinating several projects by scanning the day’s headlines with one eye and skimming the shortest posts in my Google Reader with the other, saving the longer ones (those that required scrolling and didn’t have pictures) for later when I’d have more time—which, I’ll be honest, is so 2004. And then, there it was, the link to a piece that I both clicked on and read. As in, the whole thing, from beginning to end.
I’d tell you the headline now and the name of the author, but it’s been bumped off the main page of the site on which I’m pretty sure I’d read it, and since I didn’t bookmark the link, it’s little more than a shortcut removed from the dock of my mind, a momentary cartoony dust ball of pouf! Repeated searches with every related keyword imaginable have been fruitless—if by “fruitless” one means “used up 45 minutes of valuable time that could have been better spent doing 17 other things at once,” none of them particularly well.
The fact that the article was there and now it is not, and that it had been buried in the cyber heap of constantly changing, need-to-know headlines, highlights the point of the article itself, which was, if I remember correctly, this: The Internet is dumbing us down. Not only do we opt for the take-away message of a newsy blip versus a whole concept, but we have also nurtured an inability to focus for a period of time long enough to get past a teaser. The upshot is that we know a teensy little smidgen about every single topic. Go on: Ask me what I know about welding.
In his July 2008 Atlantic piece (which he’s since expanded into the aptly named book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains), Nicholas Carr asked, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” To which I say—with nothing more than my verifiable and repeatable inability focus on a single New Yorker article from start to finish without taking headline- and e-mail-checking breaks as evidence—yes, yes it is.
“I’d sit down with a book, or a long article,” Carr said in a recent NPR interview, when asked what prompted him to write the book. “And after a couple of pages, my brain wanted to do what it does when I’m online: check e-mail, click on links, do some Googling, hop from page to page.” And here I thought I was the only one.
It’s very nearly a form of ADHD, something about which the unknown author of the non-existent piece to which I referred earlier, mentioned. Indeed, his list of warning signs included things like failing to pay close attention to details, an inability to sustain and complete tasks, reluctance to engage in tasks that require sustained mental effort, a lack of follow-through, being easily distracted, procrastinating, forgetfulness—. Where was I going with this again? Oh, yeah! The petrifaction of our brains.
Carr shoves the knife in even further by pointing out how the human brain is adaptable and that our “chronic state of distraction” leads to a decrease in creativity, an inability to engage in complex thinking and a lack of introspective, contemplative thought. In other words, too much Internet is turning us all into Sarah Palin. It’s a horrific thought, but I take solace that at least I don’t look like a tranny.
Sure, I can multi-task with the best of them. But I’m eerily cognizant, as I meander the web for information, that there is no positive benefit to my existence in knowing that Belinda Carlisle had a 30-year coke habit, that Tipper and Al didn’t have affairs, that World Cup refs can outrun the players (yeah, right) and that a baseball coach lost his World Series ring while drunk.
I experience no spiritual growth by knowing that housewives upgrading their wedding rings for bigger, shinier models and that models of the super kind committing suicide are the latest trends. And I can’t tell you how much I’d like to un-see the photos of the matador impaled through his throat and mouth last month by an 1,100-pound bull. I tried not to look, but in my support for the bull, I couldn’t resist. I’m pretty sure lack of self-control should have ranked high on that symptoms list.
The jobs report for May was dismal; oil may gush ’til Christmas and—wait! Rue McLanahan died? And Dennis Hopper, too? I gotta share / mourn / celebrate that on Facebook! I mean, besides trying to be the first person to let everyone know that Michael Jackson died, what, exactly is the currency in knowing that Kate Hudson got a new rack or that six New Jersey women recently got butt implants made of caulking and cement (oops)? Answer: There isn’t any.
It’s all about self-monitoring, and I need to do more of it, starting last Friday. A part of me is really impressed with Sturm’s ability to go cold turkey and I’m tempted to try it. But I’m not that strong. I’m just going to dip my toe in, sign off for the weekend and see how goes the cold sweats. Guaranteed, I’m not changing any of my passwords.
(As published on 6/08/10 in San Diego CityBeat.)