I learned a very special lesson tonight. There has been talk, you may have noticed, about a lunar eclipse this evening. This talk had indicated that the event would probably reach its climactic state of "no moon" around 8:30. The windows in my living room afforded a good view of the rapidly waning Moon when I checked on it at around 8:00. I don't know; for something that was supposed to be all red-tinted and disappearing before my eyes, it just looked like a bunch of white Moon in the sky.
So I watched some American Idol. And okay, I'll admit it: I totally agree with Simon most of the time. I mean, the contestants this year have been very cruise-shippy, and--wait, wasn't I doing something else? What was it? Anyway, this competition is about star quality, and when you're talking about--wait. Star quality. Stars...stars...moon....Moon! Holy crap! I forgot to check on the Moon.
It was 8:45, and as I shuffled quickly to the front of my apartment, I had the odd experience of hoping the Moon, that old dependable rock in the sky, wouldn't be there when I got to the living room window. I looked up, and...nothing, just black sky.
"Hey," I said to myself, "lunar eclipse."
But then I realized that I just had a bad angle. I had to take one more step forward to make my eye line clear the building next door.
I took my step, and... "Nope, there it is." Stupid Moon.
Sure, it was a little smokier than it usually appears, but, well, I could see it, and that's sort of the way it usually is with me and the Moon; nothing particularly special about this Wednesday night.
I think Simon would say the Moon's performance tonight was forgettable. It was pretty much what you'd expect of the Moon, and American audiences are looking for something with more of a modern edge, something exciting and new. And maybe he'd be right. But you know what? I learned something from my experience. There's probably an element of the downfall of modern society, you know, where reality TV and over-orchestrated multimedia platforms for quasi-stardom trump the act of gazing at real stars. Whatever. Here's the more specific lesson and what I'll really take away from my Wednesday night: if you approach a living room window expecting to see a lunar eclipse, you might just mistake an empty part of the sky for a celestial event.
Showing posts with label sloth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sloth. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
This Just In: Writer's Strike Ends!
Well, it's been rough, gentle reader, but I was finally able to reach an agreement with myself that will allow me to go back to work writing for Blog of Woe, Wonder. This writer's strike has ended!
Believe me, all these weeks I've spent not writing or thinking about writing have been very difficult. You probably thought that I was just sitting at home, drinking cosmos in the middle of the day and giving myself pedicures, but I assure you, it has not been a vacation. I had a creative vision for this year of entries on Blog of Woe, Wonder. There was an intricate story arc in place; it was all mapped out, and it was AWESOME. There was going to be intrigue and romance and adventure and a monkey! But sometimes you just have to take a stand and say, "No, I will not compromise my principles. I will not write!" So I didn't. And, you know, I really feel like I made my point.
But now I'm just ready to get back to work! You know, the work is what's most important.
So...
What's new? Yeah, I got nothing. I had a thought: I look at what people my age had accomplished, oh, say, a hundred years ago, and I think that maybe all these advances in medicine that have prolonged our lives have done ambition a disservice. Just like that paper assigned on the first day of class that's not due until the end of the semester, there's no sense of urgency anymore. "You know, I probably won't die in childbirth. I'll write that novel later." "TB? Oh, they've totally got a shot for that. I'll travel to a distant continent when I'm 40." Of course, the joke continues to be on we mortals, because there are still buses to run us over and things to fall onto our heads from great heights and totally batshit insane people holding a grudge and a gun. I guess we should all, like, seize the day or something.
I'm going to go on writing these entries as if someone is reading them, even though I know I've probably alienated most of my audience with the prolonged strike. Just remember: my long silence was political, not personal. Solidarity!
Believe me, all these weeks I've spent not writing or thinking about writing have been very difficult. You probably thought that I was just sitting at home, drinking cosmos in the middle of the day and giving myself pedicures, but I assure you, it has not been a vacation. I had a creative vision for this year of entries on Blog of Woe, Wonder. There was an intricate story arc in place; it was all mapped out, and it was AWESOME. There was going to be intrigue and romance and adventure and a monkey! But sometimes you just have to take a stand and say, "No, I will not compromise my principles. I will not write!" So I didn't. And, you know, I really feel like I made my point.
But now I'm just ready to get back to work! You know, the work is what's most important.
So...
What's new? Yeah, I got nothing. I had a thought: I look at what people my age had accomplished, oh, say, a hundred years ago, and I think that maybe all these advances in medicine that have prolonged our lives have done ambition a disservice. Just like that paper assigned on the first day of class that's not due until the end of the semester, there's no sense of urgency anymore. "You know, I probably won't die in childbirth. I'll write that novel later." "TB? Oh, they've totally got a shot for that. I'll travel to a distant continent when I'm 40." Of course, the joke continues to be on we mortals, because there are still buses to run us over and things to fall onto our heads from great heights and totally batshit insane people holding a grudge and a gun. I guess we should all, like, seize the day or something.
I'm going to go on writing these entries as if someone is reading them, even though I know I've probably alienated most of my audience with the prolonged strike. Just remember: my long silence was political, not personal. Solidarity!
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Pony Up
Like that creative writing teacher in high school, Blog Action Day has provided me with a prompt today: “The environment. You have till midnight, the end of Blog Action Day. Go!"
It is with pangs of guilt that I write about the environment. Not only am I currently driving by myself to and from work every day, but I am doing it in a car that is more liberally spewing pollutants into the air than other cars on the road. I am, in fact, a hypocritical ass.
I recently made a huge life decision: that I would get rid of my car and try to, like, save the Earth and stuff by personally accounting for less pollution than I usually do. As soon as the idea entered my mind, it just felt right. Not only would it help out the aforementioned Earth, but it would make me feel better about myself, and that’s really what ultimately matters.
My plan hit a snag, however, when a little light depicting a submarine and the word “check” flashed on my car’s dashboard. I took the car to a mechanic, who informed me that there was in fact no submarine to check and also that the drawing was of an automobile engine. After checking the engine, he told me that the catalytic converter in my car was no good.
The mechanic now put my two options before me. One: I could fix the catalytic converter for an absolutely obscene amount of money and dismiss all hope of even breaking even on the sale of this car. Two: I could just have him turn off the submarine light, because Minnesota doesn’t have emissions standards. With what I’m assuming would be a flick of his wrist, he could make my little submarine problem disappear.
I looked up the catalytic converter and its function when I got home. If I’m understanding the internet diagrams correctly, the catalytic converter is like a magical pony attached to your car’s undercarriage whose favorite food is pollutants. She could eat that stuff all day. Sure, some gets by her, but she eats what she can, and the air is better for it.
Oh, Universe! Why do you got to make shit so difficult? The price of a new pony was truly atrocious, and, so very soon after making my resolve to get rid of my car and be less of an asshole to the planet, the Universe was like, “Hey, asshole, why don’t you just go home and watch some TV instead?”
So, sadly, that’s what I did. What difference would it make anyway? I’m just one person with one car, and it looks like I’ll be keeping it for now.
If I believed in fate, I’d think it was a sign that "The Day After Tomorrow" was on television the day I decided to sell my car and take up the carless lifestyle. In this film, mankind has puffed so much pollution into the air that the weather gets apocalyptic and ushers in a new ice age. Cities are laid to waste by massive tornadoes, and golf-cart sized hail squishes unsuspecting Asian people. The entire Northern hemisphere is plunged into frozen chaos, all resulting in poor, lovely Jake Gyllenhaal being trapped in the New York Public Library with a killer superstorm fast approaching. That is how bad shit can get, people.
And if I had any hope that there was a deus to ex-machina our asses out of the trouble mankind is in, none of this stuff would seem scary. But the cards are stacked against hope for children of the ‘80s. Ours was one of the first generations to be sat down and told in firm tones by reliable authority figures that the environment was in trouble. Furry creatures were endangered. Exxon was a dirty word. There was a hole—a giant freakin’ hole—in the protective ozone barrier between us and the careening asteroids. Had we been allowed to swear, our collective cry would have been, “Holy fucking shit!”
And the world seems to have stalled in that moment, if pop culture—which is really the only culture, if you ask me—is any indicator. All the end-of-the world references have me scared out of my mind. According to my exhaustive research, mankind’s destruction by global war, pandemic zombie infection, asteroid collision or robot uprising seems a foregone conclusion. Sometime after that “holy shit” moment in middle school and all these glimpses into the dismal, dismal future, me and many of my generation seem to have lost all hope that we as a species might actually pull this one out of the fire.
But wait; it gets worse. Having gathered a great deal of evidence in watching a great many of these scenarios unfold on TV and in movies, I must conclude that I’m not pretty enough to survive the apocalypse. While I enjoy the stories of the ragtag group of survivors eking out an existence after the decimation of their cultures by war or by superstorms or asteroids or cylons, I know that were it to come to that now, I’d be among those cautionary tales the good-looking ragtag survivors would tell.
“You’ve got to pull yourself together, Chloe! Sure, food is scarce, human skeletons are lying everywhere, and all the wild animals that were in zoos are now roaming the deserted streets of ruined cities with enormous chips on each of their four furry shoulders, but you’re a survivor. You don’t want to end up like those people who gathered their most precious seasons of TV on DVD and wandered around for weeks, finally succumbing to the ravages of hunger and disease on the plains of South Dakota? Do you? Huh?” Man, if the apocalypse hits, I just know I’m going to end up in South Dakota.
The problem seems too big. What we need, children of the ‘80s, is a sledgehammer of hope to break it down! South Dakota looms large, but it seems the first step, the only step we can take is to believe that what we do makes a difference. In my case, that will allow for possible future steps: a new pony for my car, carpooling, getting rid of my car altogether. Who knows? It’s easier on my conscience and my wallet to ignore the submarine light, but Jake Gyllenhaal is counting on me not to be a jerk to the environment. Just say no to superstorms!
So while my point is vague at best, as if seen through a veil of smog (See? It's an intentionally hazy blog entry.), and I don’t seem to be taking any immediate action myself, damned if my blog can’t be active on Blog Action Day. Just you wait. On Crotchety Girl Action Day, I’ll be all kinds of motivated and specific. It’ll be sweet.
It is with pangs of guilt that I write about the environment. Not only am I currently driving by myself to and from work every day, but I am doing it in a car that is more liberally spewing pollutants into the air than other cars on the road. I am, in fact, a hypocritical ass.
I recently made a huge life decision: that I would get rid of my car and try to, like, save the Earth and stuff by personally accounting for less pollution than I usually do. As soon as the idea entered my mind, it just felt right. Not only would it help out the aforementioned Earth, but it would make me feel better about myself, and that’s really what ultimately matters.
My plan hit a snag, however, when a little light depicting a submarine and the word “check” flashed on my car’s dashboard. I took the car to a mechanic, who informed me that there was in fact no submarine to check and also that the drawing was of an automobile engine. After checking the engine, he told me that the catalytic converter in my car was no good.
The mechanic now put my two options before me. One: I could fix the catalytic converter for an absolutely obscene amount of money and dismiss all hope of even breaking even on the sale of this car. Two: I could just have him turn off the submarine light, because Minnesota doesn’t have emissions standards. With what I’m assuming would be a flick of his wrist, he could make my little submarine problem disappear.
I looked up the catalytic converter and its function when I got home. If I’m understanding the internet diagrams correctly, the catalytic converter is like a magical pony attached to your car’s undercarriage whose favorite food is pollutants. She could eat that stuff all day. Sure, some gets by her, but she eats what she can, and the air is better for it.
Oh, Universe! Why do you got to make shit so difficult? The price of a new pony was truly atrocious, and, so very soon after making my resolve to get rid of my car and be less of an asshole to the planet, the Universe was like, “Hey, asshole, why don’t you just go home and watch some TV instead?”
So, sadly, that’s what I did. What difference would it make anyway? I’m just one person with one car, and it looks like I’ll be keeping it for now.
If I believed in fate, I’d think it was a sign that "The Day After Tomorrow" was on television the day I decided to sell my car and take up the carless lifestyle. In this film, mankind has puffed so much pollution into the air that the weather gets apocalyptic and ushers in a new ice age. Cities are laid to waste by massive tornadoes, and golf-cart sized hail squishes unsuspecting Asian people. The entire Northern hemisphere is plunged into frozen chaos, all resulting in poor, lovely Jake Gyllenhaal being trapped in the New York Public Library with a killer superstorm fast approaching. That is how bad shit can get, people.
And if I had any hope that there was a deus to ex-machina our asses out of the trouble mankind is in, none of this stuff would seem scary. But the cards are stacked against hope for children of the ‘80s. Ours was one of the first generations to be sat down and told in firm tones by reliable authority figures that the environment was in trouble. Furry creatures were endangered. Exxon was a dirty word. There was a hole—a giant freakin’ hole—in the protective ozone barrier between us and the careening asteroids. Had we been allowed to swear, our collective cry would have been, “Holy fucking shit!”
And the world seems to have stalled in that moment, if pop culture—which is really the only culture, if you ask me—is any indicator. All the end-of-the world references have me scared out of my mind. According to my exhaustive research, mankind’s destruction by global war, pandemic zombie infection, asteroid collision or robot uprising seems a foregone conclusion. Sometime after that “holy shit” moment in middle school and all these glimpses into the dismal, dismal future, me and many of my generation seem to have lost all hope that we as a species might actually pull this one out of the fire.
But wait; it gets worse. Having gathered a great deal of evidence in watching a great many of these scenarios unfold on TV and in movies, I must conclude that I’m not pretty enough to survive the apocalypse. While I enjoy the stories of the ragtag group of survivors eking out an existence after the decimation of their cultures by war or by superstorms or asteroids or cylons, I know that were it to come to that now, I’d be among those cautionary tales the good-looking ragtag survivors would tell.
“You’ve got to pull yourself together, Chloe! Sure, food is scarce, human skeletons are lying everywhere, and all the wild animals that were in zoos are now roaming the deserted streets of ruined cities with enormous chips on each of their four furry shoulders, but you’re a survivor. You don’t want to end up like those people who gathered their most precious seasons of TV on DVD and wandered around for weeks, finally succumbing to the ravages of hunger and disease on the plains of South Dakota? Do you? Huh?” Man, if the apocalypse hits, I just know I’m going to end up in South Dakota.
The problem seems too big. What we need, children of the ‘80s, is a sledgehammer of hope to break it down! South Dakota looms large, but it seems the first step, the only step we can take is to believe that what we do makes a difference. In my case, that will allow for possible future steps: a new pony for my car, carpooling, getting rid of my car altogether. Who knows? It’s easier on my conscience and my wallet to ignore the submarine light, but Jake Gyllenhaal is counting on me not to be a jerk to the environment. Just say no to superstorms!
So while my point is vague at best, as if seen through a veil of smog (See? It's an intentionally hazy blog entry.), and I don’t seem to be taking any immediate action myself, damned if my blog can’t be active on Blog Action Day. Just you wait. On Crotchety Girl Action Day, I’ll be all kinds of motivated and specific. It’ll be sweet.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
The End
--No spoilers for Harry Potter follow. None.--
Oh, man. I've been so busy lately with all this...um...math. I've been doing math...and other grown-up things. I've been, you know, paying bills and taking meetings.
Oh, I can't lie to you, blog. I've been reading Harry Potter. I read most of the seventh and final book over the weekend and then spent an agonizing day at work on Monday while 250 pages of the last of the unread Harry sat at home, all its secrets and revelations practically shaking its binding with the effort of remaining undiscovered--or at least that's how I imagined the book while I tried to concentrate on working.
I was like a hawk--no, the opposite of a hawk--all day. I strove to have the senses and world perspective of a mole. I avoided any internet sites I didn't absolutely have to visit for work, and I didn't even read the news. I needed groceries, but the fear of some loud-mouthed preteen at the store yapping on their cell phone about the ending of the series drove me straight home after work.
The bittersweet moment came, I turned the last of those pages, and now it is done. And I have to say I'm glad. Those damn books made a tool of me, and frankly, I've had it. Upon the release of book six, I sat on one chair in my mom's otherwise empty house, reading for two days. And that's what Harry has done for me: revealed who I am when no one's looking. When there isn't anyone there to cast a look as they pass your completely immobile body at all hours of the day; when there isn't anyone to see the stains on your clothes from food you finally forced yourself to eat, evidence of failed attempts to balance a 700-page book and a plate of macaroni and cheese; when no one is around to watch the shower go unused or to finally ask, "What's that smell coming from that chair?" then, I say, you meet your true self.
So I think that, like people who discovered these books much earlier in their lives, I, too, can say I've grown up with Harry. It took real maturity to turn out the light on Sunday night, set the alarm, go to work Monday.
And now it is time to get on with my life...
...and, I have to admit, most likely find some other series of books for adolescents. But you know, until they label a section at the bookstore "Old Adult Fiction with Whimsy," I'll just have to remain a young adult at heart...and in posture.
Oh, man. I've been so busy lately with all this...um...math. I've been doing math...and other grown-up things. I've been, you know, paying bills and taking meetings.
Oh, I can't lie to you, blog. I've been reading Harry Potter. I read most of the seventh and final book over the weekend and then spent an agonizing day at work on Monday while 250 pages of the last of the unread Harry sat at home, all its secrets and revelations practically shaking its binding with the effort of remaining undiscovered--or at least that's how I imagined the book while I tried to concentrate on working.
I was like a hawk--no, the opposite of a hawk--all day. I strove to have the senses and world perspective of a mole. I avoided any internet sites I didn't absolutely have to visit for work, and I didn't even read the news. I needed groceries, but the fear of some loud-mouthed preteen at the store yapping on their cell phone about the ending of the series drove me straight home after work.
The bittersweet moment came, I turned the last of those pages, and now it is done. And I have to say I'm glad. Those damn books made a tool of me, and frankly, I've had it. Upon the release of book six, I sat on one chair in my mom's otherwise empty house, reading for two days. And that's what Harry has done for me: revealed who I am when no one's looking. When there isn't anyone there to cast a look as they pass your completely immobile body at all hours of the day; when there isn't anyone to see the stains on your clothes from food you finally forced yourself to eat, evidence of failed attempts to balance a 700-page book and a plate of macaroni and cheese; when no one is around to watch the shower go unused or to finally ask, "What's that smell coming from that chair?" then, I say, you meet your true self.
So I think that, like people who discovered these books much earlier in their lives, I, too, can say I've grown up with Harry. It took real maturity to turn out the light on Sunday night, set the alarm, go to work Monday.
And now it is time to get on with my life...
...and, I have to admit, most likely find some other series of books for adolescents. But you know, until they label a section at the bookstore "Old Adult Fiction with Whimsy," I'll just have to remain a young adult at heart...and in posture.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Is this thing on?
So this is a blog.
Nice. Spacious. Black. Like outer space. Look at all those sentence fragments! They're just sitting there, verbless and unending. Like outer space.
Now what? I bet that's what most people who go into space say when they get there.
Today I must report a newfound kinship with people who use the word "kin." I slipped on my sandals this morning on the way out the door, only to find my roommate's dog had apparently spent the better part of her morning helpfully applying a layer of saliva to the soles of my shoes. I winced with each squishy step to the car and then into work. But once my feet were safely under my desk and free from the prying eyes of the world, I slipped off the spitshoes and felt a freedom I never thought possible. The stale office air moved freely across the bare bottoms of my feet, a soft whisper of freedom in the workaday world. I felt secretly rebellious and kind of naughty.
Like all rebels, however, I soon became complacent in my disregard for societal norms. The next step, of course, was to spread the revolution. When a coworker called me across the room to her desk, I didn't slip on my shoes but rather marched over with my naked feet. And as I stood there, hair all messy because I woke up too late to take a shower, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, completely devoid of footwear, the final phase of my devolution flashed before my eyes. Take me in my current state exactly, stick me on a dusty porch, and just you try to come onto my land!
Nice. Spacious. Black. Like outer space. Look at all those sentence fragments! They're just sitting there, verbless and unending. Like outer space.
Now what? I bet that's what most people who go into space say when they get there.
Today I must report a newfound kinship with people who use the word "kin." I slipped on my sandals this morning on the way out the door, only to find my roommate's dog had apparently spent the better part of her morning helpfully applying a layer of saliva to the soles of my shoes. I winced with each squishy step to the car and then into work. But once my feet were safely under my desk and free from the prying eyes of the world, I slipped off the spitshoes and felt a freedom I never thought possible. The stale office air moved freely across the bare bottoms of my feet, a soft whisper of freedom in the workaday world. I felt secretly rebellious and kind of naughty.
Like all rebels, however, I soon became complacent in my disregard for societal norms. The next step, of course, was to spread the revolution. When a coworker called me across the room to her desk, I didn't slip on my shoes but rather marched over with my naked feet. And as I stood there, hair all messy because I woke up too late to take a shower, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, completely devoid of footwear, the final phase of my devolution flashed before my eyes. Take me in my current state exactly, stick me on a dusty porch, and just you try to come onto my land!
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