the ocean

A Nice Chat

With my new office building has come a new gym. Which is not very crowded right now, since the building hasn't really been open that long. Which is for the most part great, since I really appreciate not having to fight with fifty year olds in compression shorts for an elliptical machine. The only problem, really, is that the manager of the gym is bored and has apparently decided to take that out on me. Every day she comes over and starts a conversation with me while I'm on the treadmill. I have heard all about every aspect of her daily life, from when she gets up in the morning to what she likes to do for a workout to how stressed she is about getting the cable hooked up. The process of hiring a spin teacher alone has served as the basis for four different monologues. And her speeches are not short; I know this because I have a clock on the damn treadmill. Her story about how she accidentally got on the train going the wrong way clocked in at a full twelve minutes.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that she's just trying to be nice, and I appreciate that. But she seems not to understand that I am trying to work out, and it doesn't make me much of a conversationalist. It is very difficult to appropriately respond to her anecdote about choosing soap for the locker rooms when I am on the verge of cardiac arrest. My fake laugh is not nearly as compelling when I am running out of breath. Plus, I kind of want to strangle her, since I'm kind of in pain.

I'm actually at the point where I'm about to recruit all my friends and neighbors to join just so she'll have someone else to talk to. I'm sure I'll miss her when she's gone.

Glitterati

I have to say, I hope there is a special place in hell for whatever genius decided that Christmas cards should have glitter on them. The holiday season has only just begun and I have glitter all over my dining room table, across the front of my pants, up and down the full length of my arms, and, perhaps most memorably, in my eyes. Yes, I just spent ten minutes trying to wash glitter out of my eyes so I could stop crying. No, I don't think that the emotional impact of HBO's replaying of Jurassic Park is partially responsible for the crying. Although it is a powerful piece.

So now I can't get the glitter to wash off of me and I have to go into work tomorrow looking like I spent my evening in a drag show as opposed to sitting on my couch trying desperately to catch up on old New Yorkers. I suppose that's not all bad. It's nice to have an exciting personal life, even if it's only just in someone else's imagination.

Additional Shocking Tiger Woods Revelations

-- Not actually a giant cat.
-- Briefly married to Liza Minnelli in the '70s.
-- Autobiography largely plagiarized from Nancy Grace.
-- No editorial control over Tiger Beat magazine.
-- Has neglected coursework for B.A. from University of Phoenix Online.
-- Generally an excellent driver.
-- Freely admits that golf is "really fucking boring."
-- Has actually never seen David Boreanaz act.
-- Failed to screw at least two skanks with bad highlights.
-- Actually kind of liked Indiana Jones 4.
-- Dirty text messages actually a failed attempt to obtain his bank balance.
-- Terrible with names, but good with faces.

That Holiday Spirit

I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by everything I have to do before Christmas. This is sort of strange because, frankly, I don't even really have to do that much. I only buy presents for roughly three people, and though I generally do have a lot of trouble with things that require me to be thoughtful and/or think about other people, I have a fairly decent start on that project. It helps that I always know I can buy something for my mother that involves dogs and something for my father that involves the Cubs. As much as I find it implausible that these gifts would be enjoyed, I find it still more implausible that my parents would be that good at faking it. So I've got that going for me.

On the home front, I haven't really decorated for the holidays since my ornament-making career petered out in about third grade. I'm not having a party this year since all the December weekends are falling strangely, and I don't like people touching my stuff that much anyway. Plus people look at you so harshly when you cover your couches with blankets before they sit on them. And it should come as no surprise to anyone that I don't exactly bake up a storm for Christmas. I've got an adorable little gal who handles the sweet treats for me and her name is Little Debbie.

So I guess it's mainly just the holiday cards that are stressing me. Mine are of course elaborate and I haven't written a single word. I've managed to winnow my friend list down to about a hundred, mainly by being an asshole, but that's still going to take some serious time. Plus I'm lazy. And I just bought Super Mario Brothers Wii. What's a fella to do?

Overtaken

Let me preface everything I am about to say with a disclaimer that I do not, in fact, watch Tabatha's Salon Takeover. There is no season pass for it on my DVR, nor do collections of the Takeover on DVD adorn my shelves. I have no idea who Tabatha is apart from the obvious facts that she has some sort of involvement in the greater hair industry and that she has what is in my view a dearth of eyebrows. I just happen to have seen the show every now and then when there is nothing else on.

(One might wonder why exactly it is that a man who has in the past freely admitted to a certain level of viewership of the Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency would balk at an association with even the least socially acceptable of Bravo reality shows, but that is a separate question.)

But from even the terribly casual viewing I have given the show I can tell you that it is pretty much always the same. Some tragically overwhelmed salon owner or other entrusts his facilities and stable of wacky hairdressers to a severe and frightening lady and much crying and screaming ensues before an eventual outbreak of hugging and learning. Oh, and they give the salon a makeover, which they commence by dramatically (yet generally ineffectively) swinging a sledgehammer around.

This makes me think very much that I would very much like Tabatha to take over my place of business. No, she's not to my knowledge a licensed attorney, but I still think her talents for identifying bad dye jobs and making acid remarks about people's bad attitudes would come in handy. She could sit my secretary down and explain to her that answering the phone is in fact part of the job description. She could even padlock the break room to make an important point about constant snacking in the workplace, if she wanted.

Why I am not yet a high level network executive I will never know.

Endings

I'm heading back to Chicago today. The long weekend has really flown by. Maybe it's because of all the glitz and glamour, I don't know. I went to both Super Wal Mart and Big K Mart while I was in Quincy; that level of elegance is going to be pretty hard to surpass.

My parents did take me to Hannibal, Missouri to see Fantastic Mr. Fox while I was here. Hannibal is a town about the size of Quincy that seems to not understand that Mark Twain's characters were fictional. You see, Twain lived in Hannibal for a while and now everything is labeled the Becky Thatcher Bookshop or the Huck Finn Family Planning Clinic. But regardless, they have a lovely downtown with a movie theater that has eight screens, as opposed to the six at Quincy's biggest facility. Those two screens can make all the difference in the world. Just ask Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire.

Anyway, Fantastic Mr. Fox was absolutely adorable and I highly recommend it. Stop motion animation as a general rule totally fucking creeps me out, but it really seemed to fit Wes Anderson's filmmaking style, and it sort of just came across like an unreasonably witty child putting on a show with his toys. Plus I have always loved Roald Dahl's children's books because they are completely whacked out and inappropriate for children. And afterwards my parents took me out for pizza. It was like the third grade birthday party I never had. (The third grade birthday party I did have was at Scottie's Skateland and involved a sheet cake and lots of Transformers.)

I wish that I had more time off. Also that I did not have a five hour trip ahead of me. Stop thwarting me, laws of space and time!

Nursing

We've been visiting my grandmother in the nursing home, which is kind of a new experience for me. I was so worried that she would be in really bad shape that it was a big relief to see that it was really still just her, sitting in a big chair with her feet up and complaining about being bored. She actually looks really good for someone who is 98 and has just been through a case of gall stones (stones are quickly becoming my nemesis) and a rather nasty bout with pinkeye. And she's cranky, which is how we know she's getting better. Little Miss Sunshine she has never been.

Getting in and out is still a bit terrifying, what with the disinfecting that is required at the front door and the long gauntlet of wheelchairs one must pass through to get to my grandmother's room. But everyone who works there is exceedingly nice, although my grandmother tells me in a conspiratorial shout whisper that "that's because you're here right now," and they do take good care of her. They have movie nights and activities, and she even has a room to herself right now, if only because her last roommate died. So the comparison to your college dorm room is perhaps not a complete one.

The big issue, I think, is the food. They serve a lot of mashed potatoes, and she's sick of them. They also serve weird foods like braunschwager, although that seems to bother her less. Today we snuck her in some Hardee's, which clearly was her choice and not mine. When you're hankering for a Hot Ham 'N Cheese, you know you're in trouble.

We are all planning on this being a temporary thing for her just until she recovers fully from her gall stone procedure, but it's good at least to know that it's not the very worst place on earth. That's still Glenn Beck's bathroom by a long shot.