Tag Archives: Humor

03.06.14
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Facebook: More Like Christmas, Less Like Oxygen

I have a new Power Pose now.  I usually just go for the “Top of the Hill,” which I do…at the top of a hill, after I run up it.  It involves looking out over the horizon, hands on hips, while desperately attempting to control my breathing so I don’t die.  It is full of awesome.  Today I added “Noticing Reality” to my repertoire.  To do this Power Pose, open Facebook on your phone.  Then set the phone on the counter and turn your back on it for two minutes.  You will be filled with either a gripping panic that you might have missed something, or you will realize that the front of the refrigerator is so covered with face-shaped smudges that you’re not sure if it’s white or stainless.  You may even realize that it looks this crappy because you have been looking at funny cat pictures and haven’t cleaned the house in three weeks.

I'm really glad I Liked that comment before anyone else did. Priorities intact.

I’m really glad I Liked that comment before anyone else did. Priorities intact.

I have a Facebook problem.  I actually wear out the protective screen on my iPhone over the Facebook app before anywhere else.  It has become such a reflex that I sometimes open Facebook when I mean to open something else.  I only have 91 Facebook friends, because I sort of insist on only connecting with people I would actually meet for coffee, and how much can they really be up to since three minutes ago?  Often…nothing, despite the fact that I am checking once a day for each of them.  All I’m getting is updates from the Pages I’ve liked.  I am rubbing a hole in my phone to see that some guy I’ve never met just ran 100 miles in a tutu.  Good for him, but that floor isn’t vacuuming itself, even if I told the kids that was what I was going to do upstairs.

Why do I check it so often?  Read: Why am I so pathetic?  Well, I am an introvert and a mom who stays home.  Some days, especially if Mr. YSBH is traveling, Facebook is the bulk of my adult interaction.  There are days when it is ALL of my adult interaction.  I could go join a group of moms to drink coffee and talk about nothing but our kids.  I could get involved in something.  I could do a lot of things.  I don’t, because I don’t have the social energy right now.  An introverted person who stays at home all day with small children is borrowing social energy from the atmosphere already.  Real actual people, I think you’re great, but you exhaust me.  Facebook gives me a way to spy on keep in touch with you, without having to interact with you.

BUT THEN….there is that beautiful thing that happens in the morning.  I wake up, stretch my arms over my head, and reach for my phone to check Facebook.  NOTIFICATION TIME!  How many will I have this morning?  2? 6?  Because my phone gets in my face so much during the day, I rarely have more than a couple of notifications.  But every morning, it’s like Christmas.  Except I guess some days I was bad, because I don’t get anything, but that doesn’t really help my story along here….so….anyway…  Anytime I am able to ignore my Facebook for a few hours, I get an armload of comments to enjoy.  I keep my posts sort of light-hearted and entertaining most of the time, and I like to know that I’ve made someone laugh or think.  Having a pile of notifications to sort through is fun and gives me a chance to think about what I wrote and who was interested or amused.

OMAGHERD! LOOK AT ALL THE PRESENTS!!!

OMAGHERD! LOOK AT ALL THE PRESENTS!!!

What would happen if I started treating Facebook like this all the time?  What if I took it off my phone and checked a few times a day on the computer?  I’d miss some things.  I wouldn’t be in the middle of some conversations that I currently enjoy.  The world might miss out on some of my funny.  Rather than breathing Facebook interaction like oxygen, I would open it up like a special package.  It would take a smaller place in my life.  I might not be in the cool kids of Facebook club anymore, because timing really is everything.  The pace of my life might slow down just a little bit.

This picture, while chock-full of oxygen, does not quite have the same magic.

This picture, while chock-full of oxygen, does not quite have the same magic.

Can I do this, this “slow living” experiment?  Can I post my updates a couple of times a day, read what my friends have written, and let the rest of the world pass me by?  I tried it the other day.  I spent a Sunday doing other things, and left my phone on the charger, partly because a friend and I had agreed to do it together.  I cleaned stuff.  I finished up the macaroni thing and posted it.  I did a lot of stuff.  I didn’t feel like I missed much.  The next day, I was right back to whanging away at the Facebook app like it controls the very beating of my heart.  It’s fun to have Christmas, but not *every day*.  That would get old.

02.22.14
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Distress or Dye

Pants

my legs are corpse blue
NO! don’t sit on the white couch
in your new denim

I looked down in the shower today and noticed, somewhat alarmingly, that my legs were an oxygen-deprived shade of blue.  I immediately started thinking that I had done something terrible to myself on my run a couple of days ago, something that was cutting off the blood supply to my legs, or maybe the virus I caught from my husband was some horrible Ebola-like… oh.  New jeans.  I’m cool.

02.07.14
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A Nice Idea

Romance

the flameless candles

were a nice idea, I guess

until she ate them

Thing Two (who is no more than two) is the one person in our family who will pop something into her mouth and then ask, “What am I eating?”  CANDLES, honey.  You are eating Mommy’s expensive flameless candles.

PS.  I would love to have you participate with your own bad poetry about my inspiring topic.  I mean, such a moving photo that I took in my house with my iPhone, right?  You can’t resist!

09.03.13
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Our Socks Have Had a Rough Summer

I was clearing the lunch dishes the other day (so it was about 4PM), and the sliding glass door off the main floor deck opened. Thing One, a left-handed four-year-old boy with a rather eccentric take on life, poked his pointy head in.

“Mommy. Follow me and I will show you how to wash my socks.”

He was holding in one hand: A filthy, dripping wet sock.

I was instantly intrigued. I have tried many things. His socks are never clean, unless they have not been worn. This is because he likes to take his shoes off, but not his socks. He doesn’t want to get his feet dirty, after all. They would get VERY dirty without socks. This summer, we have decided that socks are just going to be semi-disposable.

This pair is trying to escape

This pair is trying to escape

I followed Thing One and his dripping sock down the stairs to the patio. There he had this:

Nothing works better for scrubbing socks than a bucket full of mud!

Nothing works better for scrubbing socks than a bucket full of mud!

And this:

Daddy's wine decanter brush, because we want to give the filthy sock the best gentle care

Daddy’s wine decanter brush, because we want to give the filthy sock the best gentle care

He then proceeded to dip the filthy sock in the water and scrub at it with the decanter brush. All very reasonable, and completely devoid of soap, but points for trying, right? Next, he handed ME the filthy, muddy sock.

“Use teamwork to wash my socks.”

Despite the fact that this made me want to die laughing, being the Mommy required that I hold the ruined footwear still while he scrubbed at it with the decanter brush, “Like this.” I told him that teamwork is a really good way to get something done, proving that I am taking all of this very seriously. (I want Mommy points for that.)

At this point, the sock looked something like this:

The proof is in the results!

The proof is in the results!

Thing One looked at the sock with no small amount of consternation, handed me the decanter brush, and ran off to do something else. I believe he has a bright future in management consulting.

See you later, sock golems

See you later, sock golems

08.15.13
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I’m Going Out for a Rog

I participated in a 5K race in May that was for women. In fact, it was targeted at women with children, and children of the women with the children, or something like that.  One of the race bulletins had an editorial defense of the racers.  It hinged on whether or not you could call yourself a “runner.”  Apparently, some troll decided that if you don’t run a consistent eight minute mile, you are “just a jogger.”  Troll/Trollina felt so strongly about it that he/she (there are female troglodytes, too) posted it the discussion board for a race for mothers, where it is a given that many (really, most) of the participants will not meet that standard, being of a certain age/weight/time constraint for training.

I brought it up with my brother, who was a college level distance runner in the late eighties.  The eighties were really the high point for the sport, when people like Alberto Salazar were household names and still competing, and book after book was being published on why everyone should be out pounding the pavement.  I said, spreading my hands out as far apart as I could, palms facing outward, “When you were running back in the day, it was running over here (waggle left hand), and jogging over there (waggle right hand).”  My brother started laughing and said, “Yeah, you didn’t even do those on the same day.”

Seems legit, because, SCIENCE.

Seems legit, because, SCIENCE.

The dictionary definitions are pretty clear.  Jogging, you are in contact with the ground with at least one foot at all times.  This came from something HORSES DO.  Running, you have both feet off the ground for an instant during your stride.  (As an aside, why aren’t we calling it galloping, or cantering?  I digress.)  That clears it up!  Just get a slow-motion film of yourself on the run/jog, and see if you are indeed leaving the surface of the earth for an instant.  When the Running Police ask to see your Runner Cred, you can flash a frame that shows you off the ground.  I tested this on my last long run, which I can tell you was nowhere near eight minute miles.  I felt like I left the ground.  According to the dictionary, I was running.  But it is never so simple, is it?

How many sports are there that have a whole different name for people who do it worse than other people?  The only one I could think of was golf, where someone who does it badly is called a “duffer.”  I guess this means that they don’t take it seriously enough.  Even then, it’s not really ok to call someone else a duffer, unless they admit to it first, because they may be taking it very seriously.  A slow swimmer isn’t called a “bobber” or somesuch nonsense.  An amateur hockey player isn’t called an “ice monkey,” though that is kind of funny, and if you start saying that I want royalties.  Why does a large chunk of the running population feel like they are not qualified to call themselves runners?

This is one of the hills I am sure not to take too seriously.

This is one of the hills I am sure not to take too seriously.

People seem to invent thresholds to cross before they call themselves runners.  One way that people say they “knew” is an injury.  The best of these is the Lost Toenail.  If you run around the county playing Hansel and Gretel with shed toenails, then you are qualified as a runner.  I will probably never pass this test.  I ran over six miles on Sunday,  and my toenails are just fine.  Sadly, not one is turning black or falling off.  As an extension of the injury theory, if you have an injury and run anyway, then you are a runner. Most people would say that is courageous, even if it is stupid, but it’s not some sort of game of chicken to see who has the biggest bruises or tornest ACL.  If you want to compete with the other 12-year-old adults with injury stories, you go ahead, but stop using that measuring stick on the rest of us.  If you are in it FOR the pain, they have another name for that too.  It starts with “m” and ends with “asochist.”

Mileage? Do you have to run a certain distance before you are a runner?  Do you have to run it all at once?  How about your shoes?  Maybe if I buy a really expensive pair of shoes, people will recognize that I am a runner.  And a cute little running skirt thingy.  And a Garmin.  Where does the jogging stop, and the running begin—when your credit card is maxed out, or when you are so loaded down with gear that you can’t actually run anymore anyway?

Oh, give me that dirty shoe porn...

Oh, give me that dirty shoe porn…

As a last problematic touch, I usually walk part of my training runs, and my races, since I am telling the truth here.  Jeff Galloway, author of many fine books about running, walks during marathons.  My primary goal, as someone with a couple of weak mechanical points, is to live to run another day.  Some days, this means walking through the potholey patch, or down a steep hill.  Did I go for a run if I walked at all?  It is super fantastic to be proud that you ran a 10K without walking or resting.  That speaks to your conditioning, mental fortitude, biomechanics, etc…  It is just as cool to plan to rest along the way, but does that make you “just a jogger?”

I confess, sometimes I don't sprint all the way up this one.

I confess, sometimes I don’t sprint all the way up this one.

The last thing that I see in this is a question of attitude.  I think the assumption is that if you are not running as hard as you can (defined by Trollina as eight minute miles), then you are not an athlete.  Only athletes are runners.  The simple-minded majority is a pack of joggers, idiotically smiling their way through without a thought to how damned seriously they ought to be taking this.  Check the dictionary again, and it turns out that an athlete is “a person trained or gifted in exercises or contests involving physical agility, stamina, or strength.” [1]   Running a mile qualifies, even if you are wearing a wig and a tutu and singing the national anthem the whole time.  In my opinion, that qualifies even more.  The dictionary does not say, “and you have to be a certain amount of good at it, or buzz off.”

Since this is so confusing, and so poorly defined, I have come up with a couple of solutions.

Solution One:  Let’s just make up a new word for all the people in-between.  Enter: Rogging!  If you are running part of the time, or all of the time, but you just don’t feel like the real runners will let you in their club, you are a rogger!  Go rogging with pride.  Get a shirt that says, “I’m a rogger!”  Start a rogging club.  When people ask you what it means, just tell them that you don’t want to make the more elite amateur runners uncomfortable by including yourself in their club without permission.

Solution Two:  If you are intentionally moving faster than you walk, you are a runner[2].  You are running.  You run—and I am damn proud of you for it.  Keep on running, and running, and running…

Let’s Go Rogging!

[1] Merriam-Webster iPhone App.  How the hell do you reference that?  Ummmm…latest download?  Version number (which I can’t find, anyway).  Let’s just agree that I don’t steal stuff, even from the dictionary.

[2] You can unintentionally move faster than you can walk.  This can be accomplished by falling off a cliff, or being hit by a car, or many other things that should be avoided.

08.01.13
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Twitter Is Just As Bad As I Thought It Was

I just recently started a Twitter account. I avoided Twitter like the plague for a long time, because I thought it was a time-sucking bunch of inane drivel. Then, a few months ago, my friend Tom Racine (@talltaleradio) convinced me to start writing a blog. Then, he said, “You have to get a Twitter account to promote it.” I replied that I didn’t want to and he couldn’t make me, because he is not my Dad. For a few days, however, the thought kept nagging at me. What if he was right? What if the little push my fledgling blog needed was a few simple tweets?

It has worked just as well as my MSPaint skills would indicate.

It has worked just as well as my MSPaint skills would indicate.

I went out to Twitter and looked up a couple of variants of my blog name, You Should Be Happy. Wow…no one had chosen “@YouShouldBHappy” yet! I’m not sure what happened after that. I think it was a bit like an auction, where you end up buying that box of garbage for $500—because if that other guy is bidding, it must be awesome. I thought that I’d better snap that up, because when my blog hits the big time, someone else might take it and try to capitalize on my success. How lucky for me that it wasn’t taken! What an opportunity! Don’t let it pass me by, oh please don’t let someone else be poised with their finger above the enter key before I can make it MINE.

So, I signed up for Twitter. I felt kind of dirty and didn’t really want to tell anyone about it, sort of like that time that Carlos Danger sent me that picture online. I made a tiny mention of it. Two of my friends followed me right away. And then a Complete Stranger followed me. I thought he must have picked it up from one of my other friends, because they are both into comics (the art kind, not the onstage kind). Cool! A Complete Stranger (sort of) is interested in seeing my tweets! Yeah! I followed him back, just to be nice. You see how naïve I am? I didn’t realize about the quid pro quo out there…

Until…another Complete Stranger followed me! A COMEDIAN. For me, well, this was great news. He is a *corporate COMEDIAN, but still. He had a couple of thousand followers. This was going to be fantastic. My Twitter future was looking bright. Two days later… he unfollowed me. I guess I didn’t follow him back fast enough. I thought:

“Maybe I should follow him, and see if he refollows me. At the very least, I can unfollow him a couple of days later, and see how HE likes it.”

So I did, and he didn’t, and I did. I’m not proud of that. I should have just passed a note to my BFF during third period that said, “Kevin is a big jerk! We won’t EVER talk to HIM again!!!!!” (Please note, his real name is Kevin, with a K, just like I’ve spelled it here. Feel free to find him and give him a piece of your mind.)

Miss Craig, would you like to bring that up to the front of class and read it for everyone? - Rhetorical Teacher

Miss Craig, would you like to bring that up to the front of class and read it for everyone? – Rhetorical Question Teacher

I’ve been out there for a couple of months now. I am baffled by the behavior of what I believe to be adults, for the most part. Here are the strangest behaviors that I’ve seen:

  • Celebrity Stalkers: Dear Celebrity Person, please please please follow me, because I want to tell my friends that you are following me! Dude, none of your friends are going to believe that you have ANY RELATIONSHIP WHATSOEVER with that famous person. They are going to think that you begged and whined in a desperate and pathetic fashion to get someone to pretend to be your friend in an imaginary world where their identity often isn’t even certain. Sounds like a grand way to use your time and measure your self-worth.
  • Retweety Birds: They never met a tweet they didn’t want to instantly retweet. They retweet someone else’s thoughts and jokes and writing all day long, never adding an original character. If your job, or avocation, is promoting an art form, a cause, or whatnot…fine. I will know that when I follow @catzpicsallday, I am going to get a bunch of pictures of cats. If I follow @originalthoughts, I would like something besides a bunch of Monty Python quotes.
  • Support Stalkers: I admit, I tweeted a rather cranky comment about how Norton Antivirus keeps interrupting my writing to tell me that it has expired, like some over-friendly ghost that pops in to say, “Yep. Still dead! That’s me, all dead,” every five minutes. While I enjoy being Kittyfriended[1] to a certain extent, I don’t really want to have to get a piece of software out of my face every 15 minutes. Now I have a new friend! Norton Support! I think the Corporate Stated Goal is to ensure that every Norton user has a top-notch experience, or somesuch thing like that. This will be accomplished by publicly announcing that they heard what I said behind their back, and they don’t appreciate me talking sh&t about them, and if I’m going talk sh&t, I’d better tweet it at their faces.
Oh, I see, it's a protection racket. Pay up, or you might have a little "accident," if you know what I mean...

Oh, I see, it’s a protection racket. Pay up, or you might have a little “accident,” if you know what I mean…

  • The Perpetually Pissed Off: Wow. You have ground that axe down to a nubbin and yet you go on and on and on. I followed one person because I thought the name on the account was clever. Turns out, that one small bit of clever was spawned during the tweeter’s brief flirtation with lithium. The rest of the time, he or she is a raging psychotic, and delights in offending and berating Complete Strangers for any wrong, real or imagined. It was terrifying and extremely annoying. UNFOLLOW, dammit, why am I not unfollowing you faster?[2]
  • The Promoters: I have a thing! Look at me! I’m on a book tour! I’m signing things! I wrote a crummy thing about Twitter, which I am now going to promote on Twitter! I obviously don’t have a problem with the occasional tweet about your thing. It’s a good way to tell people about things and stuff. I do get tired of incessant tweets about your thing. I am probably not as obsessed with your thing as you are.
  • The Weirdest Person Contestants: I did not even know that these people existed, or that they knew the alphabet. Actually, some are more adept with the alphabet than others (see @jonnysun for an apparently clever person abusing the alphabet). It seems that they spend a great portion of the day coming up with the oddest things they can. Sometimes, it is really funny. Sometimes, it is just weird, and worse, they tend to build off one another. At some point, the weirdness level is going to be so high, that it will cause a black hole to form within Twitter, and everyone’s tweets will get sucked into another dimension, and we will be able to smell them. See what I did there? That is weird. I probably should put in some typos and tweet it.

    Hey! I'm here for the number pic.... oh. Hi, D. Very clever, yeah, I get it. Ummm... get out of the way.

    Hey! I’m here for the number pic…. oh. Hi, D. Very clever, yeah, I get it. Ummm… get out of the way.

The whole experience is a bit like Student Council Elections in the 8th Grade. Millions of people competing to be Class President, with homemade marker and glitter signs. The cool kids…are already the cool kids. The wanna-be crowd is unlikely to become the cool kids. There are a few stand-outs who have made reputations, and built followings, based on the quality of what they have to say, including how they condense it into as few characters as possible. That’s cool. I’m not going to cancel my Twitter account, even though I don’t much like the overall vibe or the medium. After all, I have to keep telling my six followers about updates to the blog. I’m sure it is the highlight of that Norton Support guy’s day.

Oh…and follow me at @YouShouldBHappy. There’s a little clicky button on the side of the page right there.

Postscript: I now have five followers. The guy who draws the incredibly violent comic book has unfollowed ALL of his Twitterites except the Rajneesh. The actual Rajneesh who took over Antelope, OR, with his fleet of rainbow Cadillacs. Being a Native Oregonian, I remember the news coverage of the Rajneesh and his actions, many of which were not as above-board as you might think a “spiritual leader’ would strive for, including the first act of domestic bioterrorism. The Rajneesh has been dead for 23 years, and is still annoying Oregonians from the grave. Well played, sir.

[1] Kittyfriending is the process of getting all right up into someone’s face and meowing repeatedly until they break down and pet you. Kittyfriend was a neighborhood stray at our first house; he was aggressively friendly to the point of absurdity, which was oddly charming. Long live beautiful, scraggly, big-hearted Kittyfriends.

[2] I finally got this lunatic unfollowed. Two days later, Twitter sent me an e-mail suggesting other accounts that were like “@nutzball.” I guess this was to help me find the right kind of crazy, because I obviously wanted some crazy in my feed.

07.20.13
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Sauron Forged My iPhone In the Fires of Mordor

My husband grabbed my iPhone out of my hand last night without warning. He wanted to make sure that I didn’t manage to get a picture of him in his Tommy Hilfiger blue-checked dress shirt, bicycle shorts, argyle socks, and clippie shoes. Believe me, I tried, but he rode away too quickly for my phone to power back up, the bastard. The grabbing…was NOT COOL WITH ME. A mild wrestling match/fistfight ensued. If it had persisted, I might have bitten off some of his fingers to get it back. Now you know why we call it “The Precious” in our house. As I sit here at my computer, The Precious is right next to me, in case I need to touch it for reassurance.

"A most specially greedy, strong and wicked worm." (Tolkien, The Hobbit)

“A most specially greedy, strong and wicked worm.” (Tolkien, The Hobbit)

It’s sort of unhealthy, I know. I did an experiment this morning, and left it plugged into the charger, Smaug, in the kitchen. ALL MORNING. That does not mean I didn’t look at anything, I just had to be in the kitchen to do it. I found out that I get a lot more done around here when my phone isn’t in my face. I also found out that there is a tiny buzzing anxiety when it’s not in my pocket, or my hand, or otherwise right next to me. It made me think about what other transformations might be happening that I don’t realize are happening. Am I going to be biting the bellies out of live fish next?

Taking inventory, I realized my circle of experience is now limited to things that show up on my phone. Clearly, a dramatic change from when I used to get input from the TV and other valuable sources. If I don’t have an app for it, it effectively does not exist. Since I have very few apps, this means I am current with what’s happening on FaceBook, Twitter, WordPress, Audible and Heiny the Weasel’s Dirty Verse Pile. Otherwise…I find out about major news when it blows up on Twitter, which is pretty surreal and weird. Honestly, I don’t have time to care right now. Maybe in a couple of years. In the meantime, if something really big happens, would you mind posting in on your Facebook timeline for me? That would really help at all the cocktail parties and diplomatic events I go to.

Catching up on my reading. It's so important to stay in touch with the finer works of the English language.

Catching up on my reading. It’s so important to stay in touch with the finer works of the English language.

I am conditioning my children to despise handheld technology. My children are not part of the clamoring horde of toddlers chanting, “iPad! Me want iPad!” They give me dirty looks when the phone comes out. They come up with all kinds of fun things we could do together instead. “Mommy! Can you come and watch me wash the windows?” The baby actually came up with this at about eighteen months: “Mommy, all done phone.” They are small Luddites for the moment. I know that they will eventually have texting calluses of their own, but maybe they will first learn how to interact with the outside world. “Remember, we don’t want to end up like Mom.”

I really love playing with the kids! Little...ummmm...little guy! Hey!

I really love playing with the kids! Little…ummmm…little guy! Hey!

Physically, this obsession with my little friend is not a great thing. My neck hurts. My thumb hurts, and the LOLs are turning into OWs. I am a few apps away from hunching over and galumphing along on all fours like Gollum. This is why I do not have any games on my phone. My repetitive motion mess is bad enough from obsessively checking Facebook, let alone adding a game where the point is to mindlessly touch the screen over and over again.

This is a normal hand-shaped hand, right?

This is a normal hand-shaped hand, right?

I spend so much time doing everything on my phone, that I am forgetting how to use a real computer. I sat for a few minutes the other day wondering how to work on two things at the same time…on the computer. In the wayback (read: five years ago), I used to run two monitors. I finally remembered that you can have more than one thing open on a real, big-boy computer. I have also actually TOUCHED MY LAPTOP SCREEN and expected something to happen besides a dusty fingertip. I could argue that this was because my desktop IS a touchscreen, but I never remember to use that feature on it. Never.

I am creating a hard-wired connection in my brain that says, “Are you close to experiencing one moment of boredom or reflection? QUICK, grab your phone!” This is accompanied by an autonomic reflexive action of my hand, reaching for the phone. If the phone is not in the expected pocket, the hand frisks me until it finds it. The fun of self-frisking aside, this is a little bit too much like a certain amphibious object of pathos. Is my fate to be intertwined with the iPhone? Will I give my life to keep it within my grasp? I don’t know, and I am nearly beyond caring…as long as I have The Preciiiiooouuuusssss…the one Phone to rule them all.

Maybe I should get out and enjoy nature.

Maybe I should get out and enjoy nature.

06.28.13
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Optimism Is the Powdered Sugar On My Bitter, Cynical Doughnut

I  suppose I owe you an explanation of what exactly an “optimistic cynic” is, should one exist beyond hipster irony.  I have branded myself this after a great deal of thought.  The question about the glass–half-full?  half-empty?  It seems a little simplistic to me.  If it does it for you—“I’m an optimist!  Super big YEAH for a half a glass of something!”—then I am a little suspicious of your intelligence.  If you are going to get all weepy about the glass being partly empty, well, go suck that egg somewhere else.  Sure, it’s half-empty, but I’m pretty sure we can DO something about it if you stop whining for a minute.

Sad glass is sad (and pensive). Perhaps it is thinking about when it was a full glass.

Sad glass is sad (and pensive). Perhaps it is thinking about when it was a full glass.

It comes down to this minor point: Optimism and cynicism are in a struggle for my immortal soul.  Optimism is a form of humility.  The optimist believes that others are probably doing the right things, that the world will work out, because they feel somewhere inside that they are not the pinnacle of creation.  Those sunny optimists are always ready to believe that someone outside of themselves could, probably even DOES, have a good answer.  The right answer.  This is very, very silly, but bless their little hearts anyway.

The cynic is inherently arrogant.  She can find a problem with your plan in five seconds flat, has no reluctance to tell you about the problem, and harbors a suspicion that you will pretend to listen, then go off and do your damn fool thing anyway.  I worked for a company at one time that tried to “value” this as a necessary part of progress, despite it being very annoying.  I did well there.  I also worked for a company that nearly fired me for it (that, and my lack of appropriately dangly gender parts).

Here's a close-up of dangly bits! (No, this is not that blog, you can stop looking.)

Here’s a close-up of dangly bits! (No, this is not that blog, you can stop looking.)

That experience led to a year of pretending to be someone I was not, in order to keep my job.  It was transformative and awful.  I had to keep my know-it-all, how-dumb-are-you, that-is-the-worst-idea-ever mouth shut.  FOR A YEAR.  I still knew that the folks in charge of the projects were wrong, and I still knew that my idea was smarter, better, more efficient, etc…  I just didn’t say anything.  I learned to take orders.  I found another job and QUIT.  The partners were sort of shocked, because they hadn’t seen that the cynic was still there, chafing at every stupid command.

Let's pretend! I'll be the Japanese schoolgirl.... (No, this is not THAT blog either! Move on.)

Let’s pretend! I’ll be the Japanese schoolgirl…. (No, this is not THAT blog either! Move on.)

The transformation was this, however:  I listened.  I had to hear out the idea/opinion/thoughts of the people in charge, and sometimes, it was fine.  It was good enough, and it was easier.  I didn’t love it, but I learned to trust a few people, and I learned some things from them.  In this new and humbler incubator, the repressed optimist stirred, stuck her hand up out of the primordial ooze, and claimed a breath of life.  Couldn’t put the silly tart down after that.  She keeps popping up.  “That’s the dumbest thing ever, but it just might work!  Let’s try it!”

Get thee down into my belly, thou evil tart!

Get thee down into my belly, thou evil tart!

Some amount of cynicism is a requirement in the world we live in.  You could believe all the stuff in your e-mail.  You could have lots of friends in Nigeria that you help with a little cash.  If you hadn’t sent that chain letter out to 200 of your Facebook friends, you probably would be bald and impotent!  Great job!  Coconuts are a miracle!  I know, pretty snarky, but in order to avoid the bad actors with bad motives, it’s necessary to evaluate a lot of things with the presumption that the “person” on the other end is all-in for themselves.

That said, it is just as necessary to operate with a degree of optimism.  If you don’t have some hope that things are going to turn out alright, how do you get up in the morning?  How do you touch a doorknob, knowing that half the people who touched it before you probably just pottied and didn’t wash their hands?  You have to grasp that knob like an old friend, and believe that whatever germs and crud are living on there will get along with you just fine.  Having children is the Xtreme version of this.  I can’t think about all of the things that are going to go wrong there long enough to write about it.  I just hope for the best and try not to screw them up too badly.

Yes, I did just compare touching a doorknob to raising a child. Toooooouch meeeee!

Yes, I did just compare touching a doorknob to raising a child. Toooooouch meeeee!

Where does this leave me when I face another day of washing approximately six million Disney-branded plastic dishes?  I am still going to see all the things that are wrong with your thought/idea/project/baby, and if you catch me at the wrong moment, I will tell you all about it.  Most of the time, though, there will be enough sweetness to keep you hopeful that somehow, it will still all be okay.

PS.  If you like the term, by all means use it.  I have a feeling a lot of us GenXers are in the same boat.  The same poorly constructed, taking on water, probably built by one-armed orangutans, just might make it to the other side boat.  We need some sort of secret handshake.

06.16.13
by

How To Talk To Strangers With Disapproval

Sitting in the nail salon, getting a second-tier pedicure, and overheard this exchange at the door:

 Woman Poking Her Nose in the Door (Woman):  Does anyone in here have their dog in the car?  Is anyone’s dog left in the car?

All:  *Silence*

Woman:  There’s a dog in a car out here, is it anyone in here’s (sic)?

Perfect Stranger Minding Her Own Business:  My dog is in the car.  Is there something wrong?

Woman:  Well, I’m not a fan of that. 

Maybe more effective, and reusable.

Maybe more effective, and reusable.

She is  Not.  A.  Fan.  This has stuck with me for weeks, for several reasons.  No obnoxious inflection.  It was not, “I’m not a FAN of that.”  She simply wanted to let us know that she wasn’t going to hit the “Like” button anytime soon.  I don’t think the woman getting her nails painted was campaigning for fans.  I saw no evidence that she had taken a poll.  I’m betting (just a hunch) that she doesn’t have a blog called “Leaving Dogs in Cars” that she updates obsessively and checks the hits on every five minutes. 

 Before you decide I am on the dark side of the force here—I don’t take my dogs in my car.  They are geriatric pups who DO NOT enjoy the car, and if the temperature is one degree above balmy, they start acting like wee dachshund drama queens having their toenails torn out (or clipped).  I am not saying that leaving your dog in the car in warm weather is great.  I am saying:  If you are going to attempt a public shaming of a complete stranger, please have a better punchline. 

 As a public service, here are some suggestions:

 The Soapbox Preacher:  “You, Madame, are in league with Satan himself, and I shall forthwith make a cardboard sign decrying your villainy for the entire world to see.  The people will see it, and the shame reflected on humankind will make them WEEP.”

Here's a template for a cardboard sign. This must be a very sad place to live.
Here’s a template for a cardboard sign. This must be a very sad place to live.

 The Psychotic:  “Really?  That’s your dog?  Because it looks a lot like MY DOG.  The dog that disappeared when I was eight, and my parents said went to a farm.  I know it didn’t go to a farm, though, because I called all the farms in a 500-mile radius.  I think YOU have my dog.  I think insert random dog name is in your car RIGHT NOW.”  (Even better if you are 40ish like me, and the dog couldn’t possibly be insert random dog name.)

 The Barney Fife:  Go ahead and make a citizen’s arrest.  Point at the offender and yell, “I hereby arrest you!”  Dig around in your purse/pocket for something to restrain them with, like a set of headphones.  Look at the item, say, “Well, shoot, guess I need to call Andy, ‘cause this ain’t going to work for handcuffs.”  Walk out whistling the theme to The Andy Griffith Show.

Keep it in your pocket, Barney.

Keep it in your pocket, Barney.

 The Reality TV Moment:  “Great!  I’m a producer for the show, “Animal Neglect: Mobile Edition,” and I’d like to get your signature on a waiver so that we can show your dog on TV.  You’re going to be famous!  Please spell your name for me so that we can get it right in the caption.”

 The Marcel Marceau:  Everyone loves mime.  Once you’ve found the nasty culprit, start into an extravagant set of mimed gestures that make it clear that you are really mad that the dog is trapped in a box.  Extra big bonus points if the wind is blowing or there are unexpected stairs/ropes.

 The Simplicity Itself: “It’s dead.  It was too hot and its head exploded like a can of biscuits.  Sorry to have to tell you the bad news.” 1

 Evil prospers when good people do nothing, I know that.  There are times when you are morally obligated to speak up or out or against some behavior, even in a room full of people you don’t know.  But do it with some flair, people—some blown-up, memorable, she’ll-think-twice-next-time FLAIR.

 

1 I was going to insert a picture of an exploded can of biscuits here, but that’s a mess to clean up and you didn’t really want to see it anyway.  Let’s just pretend.