Reality Bites, The Television Series

Big shout out to my parents for inviting me to dinner and letting me borrow their computer. You guys rock.

Well, that bad train wreck of a television program called Big Brother is finally over.

I grudgingly admit that I watched more than one show. (Actually, in retrospect I'm ashamed to say I watched more than five minutes.) For about a week and a half, I was watching pretty regularly. I think someone had been slipping crack in my morning coffee. Yeah, that's it. It had nothing to do with the fact that at the beginning, the idea sounded kind of interesting.

I was over at JohnnyB's watching television the night the Houseguests were sequestered into their Ikea crackerbox. We were flipping channels, looking for something to hold our interest for longer than thirty seconds. "This sucks," JohnnyB lamented. "There is absolutely nothing decent on."

And then we stumbled upon it. Julie Chen, excitedly introducing the contestants to the viewing public. "What the hell is this?" he asked.

I'd read a little bit about the premise, and explained the rules as I understood them. "It's kinda like that Survivor show, except they're going to be in this house with no outside contact, and the public gets to decide who gets voted out. And they're going to be on camera 24/7."

"Weird."

"I agree. I see a psychology experiment gone bad. Someone's gonna go nuts. I know I would."

"No, you wouldn't. You could just bring a notebook and write for three months."

"I don't think they're allowed to bring in notebooks. Or books or anything. That would make for rather boring TV."

JohnnyB pondered this for a moment or two. "Man, this is just a screwed up idea. We may actually have to watch."

And like I said, I watched for a week or so, when there was nothing else on. (I don't have cable, so I have rather limited choices.) I watched and waited for something interesting to happen. And waited. And waited. It was like watching paint dry, except I think I would have rather watched the paint. I turned the TV off, and swore never to watch again. And for the most part, I kept my vow. I watched a few seconds here and there, on commerical breaks. It was easier to keep up with the shenanigans (or lack thereof) online, on the MightyBigTV forums. And more entertaining. The folks who were posting were hilarious. I stopped watching the show completely, and became obsessed with reading the boards.

It turned out that I wasn't the only one who had the guilty secret called Big Brother. Nearly everyone who posted to the forum questioned their own sanity for even watching one show, and figured that the fact that they kept coming back for more punishment was a sure sign that they were ready for a private room with padded wallpaper. But still they watched. It was like a ten car pileup on the expressway. No one really wanted to watch, but something sick and twisted deep inside refused to allow them to look away.

So now the show is over, and Eddie, the last Hamster in the cage, has gone home to count his $500,000.00. (I'll admit it, I watched tonight. Well, kind of. I was at my parents' house, and they're babysitting my niece for the weekend. It's hard to concentrate on much when a small child is running back and forth in front of the television, asking you to read her a book.) And I do have a few things to say about this "entertainment program," and all of the other "reality" programming, for that matter....

Please, for the love of God, don't ever do this to us again. Do you hate the viewing public that much? Is everyone in the entertainment business out of fresh ideas? Were the executives at CBS doing acid when they greenlighted this piece of crap? Have we truly gotten to the point where all of the originality is gone, and the best we can do is show ten boring people locked in a house talking about nothing of consequence and dying each other's hair? Or sixteen people stranded on purpose on an island, eating rats and building shelters, plotting about who they're going to vote off the island in that night's tribal council? A bunch of guys auditioning for the latest second-rate boy band?

This is the kind of programming that makes Two Guys and a Girl look like Shakespeare in comparison.

I've had it with this whole "reality TV" thing. The Real World was stale after they kicked out Puck and Pedro died. I avoided the Survivor addiction, and I was more than a bit too old to care about who was Making the Band. The only reality shows that I watched where I didn't feel unclean afterwards were The 1900 House on PBS and Hopkins 24/7, which is more of a weekly documentary than one of these contrived "let's throw people into a situation and see what happens" shows.

But it's over, for the moment. The jury is still out as to whether CBS will attempt another season of Big Brother, Survivor II won't start for a while, and O-Town is not exactly breathing down 'N*Sync's neck on the pop charts. The new seasons are starting, giving me dozens of new shows with scripts to ridicule and loathe. The public can sleep at night again, knowing that the next few months of television will actually have plots that can be summarized in TV Guide.

Or so I thought. Until I saw the commercial for The Real World - now in syndication. (Check your local listings.)

I'll just tape the New York shows. And Los Angeles. And maybe San Francisco. And maybe...

Someone, please help me.

Javapalooza

Not so well-kept secret about me...I really like coffee. A lot.

This thought crosses my mind a lot now that I have a day job. I'm not a morning person, and I usually will grab a cup on my way into the office. The day seems a bit more bearable with a steaming cup of joe on my desk. But over the years I crossed the line between "morning drinker" and "slave of Juan Valdez."

I remember my first cup of coffee. I was in Kentucky for my grandmother's funeral, and was sitting in the kitchenette of the funeral home. It had been a long couple of days, and frankly, I was exhausted. There was a soda machine, but I didn't have any change on me. I'd already had several cups of hot tea, and one more would have made me physically ill. ( I start feeling nauseous after three or four cups. I have no idea why.) I needed something to keep me going for the rest of the day.

There was a pot of coffee brewing, and I swear to God it was talking to me. Beckoning me. Calling me by name.

What the hell. I poured a cup, added a ton of cream and sugar, and drank it. Mmmmmm. Yummy, and it gave me the much needed jump start to survive the onslaught of mourners that I barely knew. And that was the beginning of the end.

I ditched the additives about a month later in college when I got back to my table one morning and realized I'd forgotten the cream and sugar, but was too damn lazy to go back to the counter and get them. Tried it black. Bitter, but still pretty good.

At this point, I was still only drinking a cup in the morning before classes. After all, that was what normal people did, right? No one I knew drank coffee after 11 am. And then...

I was working with a friend at a summer job, and every time I was at her house, there was a full pot of coffee ready to go. Didn't matter what time it was. Between that and the fact that the after-bar meeting place was one of those 24-hour breakfast joints, I started drinking coffee at new and different times. The middle of the afternoon. Three in the morning. Once I discovered the angst-ridden havens of the local coffeehouses, I was pretty much a goner.

Sometimes I drink it to wake me up. Sometimes I drink it because I'm cold. Sometimes I drink it just because it sounds better than anything else. I was at a club last night, and ordered coffee. Not a beer. Not the $1.50 double well drinks that were on special. Coffee. Black. Three cups, in quick succession.

So I'm an addict. And I'm helping others join me in my overcaffeination. Last month I showed my friend how to work her Mr. Coffee machine. She had received it as a wedding present and had never used it, but stopped at Dunkin Donuts every morning on her way to work. After I showed her how much coffee to put in the filter basket (and replaced her two year old can of Maxwell House with freshly ground beans), we drank three pots and proceeded to stay up all night watching movies.

I also got my father addicted to flavored creamers. After searching desperately for Cinnamon Hazelnut at the supermarket the night before my sister's wedding, I finally settled on French Vanilla and went back to my parents' house. The next morning Dad gave me a pretty hard time about my "wimpy" creamer...until he tried it when he ran out of milk. I'll lay good money that there's some in their refrigerator right now.

I have my favorites - the hazelnut coffee at Kaldi's, Dunkin Donuts French Vanilla, the Indian Malabar at Sitwell's, the Cafe Mocha at Buzz, Millstone Maisonette Blend - but I pretty much will drink whatever is poured into my mug. The aforementioned nightclub is notorious for having mediocre coffee, but when I worked there I drank a pot of it every night. But I draw the line at Starbuck's. Ugh. I swear it tastes like it's burnt. (But that's just me. My sister made her husband drive to the nearest Starbucks and get her a latte less than an hour after giving birth. I rolled my eyes, mumbled something about the 20 or so mom & pop coffeehouses that were closer to the hospital and had better house blends, and let her order her drink. She'd been coffee-free for months, after all.) I think Starbuck's just opened a few locations in Hell. Why not? They're everywhere else.

My freezer has next to no food in it, but I have five or six varieties of beans on the door shelf. I've never used my Crock Pot, but I have a cappucino maker. I have too many mugs to fit in my kitchen cabinets. The first thing I think of when winter storm warning season rolls in is "Do I have any Bailey's and Kahlua in case I get snowed in?" I constantly make fun of Roger Mexico because he has a teeny tiny 4-cup coffee maker. I mean, 4 cups? What's the point?

I need help.

Yeah, it probably hasn't helped my insomnia much. (I swear I had trouble sleeping long before I sold my soul to the demon bean.) Yeah, it makes me babble incoherently at times. But there's new research that coffee drinkers have lower rates of colon cancer, liver disease, gallstones, and Parkinson's disease. So there. Good and good for you.

So anytime someone wants to buy me a cup of coffee, I'm there. That is, unless it's decaf. That's even more evil than Starbuck's.

Names Have Been Changed to Protect the Innocent

Thanks to all of you who pointed out the archive problem. I think it's fixed...for the moment. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program....

The Internet is a funny thing.

Let's think about this. Here I am, posting my weblog online, where anyone and everyone can read what's going on in my life. No holds barred, the straight dope. I am far from the only person doing this. (By the way, we got another one. Look who's blogging now!)

But while I feel comfortable rambling on and on about inane topics, I feel a certain reluctance to reveal my actual name to my reading public.

Granted, at this point the majority of the people reading my stuff are friends and family - folks I emailed with my URL, begging them to check me out. But sooner or later, links will be followed, someone may pass my address along, and there will be complete strangers reading about my life. Someone in Nova Scotia may be reading about my lack of career direction. Weird.

And we've all heard the horror stories. Online stalkers. Internet crime. There's a lot of freaks out there. We live in dangerous times, and the idea of some crazed fanboy showing up at my door three years down the road is a little creepy. Hence, the pseudonym. Not exactly foolproof, but better than nothing.

However, I felt bad about allowing myself this anonymity and not extending it to anyone I might write about. So, in an effort to be fair and to steal a quote from Oingo Boingo, I've been asking my friends an odd question lately:

Who do you want to be today?

Some have opted for pseudonyms, and some have just stuck with their given names. Some already had names that they used on their own sites, and to avoid confusion I just adopted their pre-selected noms de plume into my new "little black book." Obviously, I don't know someone who was given the name Hacksaw upon birth. Or SchizOphelia Jones, for that matter. But I think the world would be a better place if I did.

(Actually, the aforementioned Ms Jones had a pretty apropos comment about the whole weblog concept: "I enjoyed reading your journal, but I did feel a little like a voyeur. In the best and most honorable of ways." Thank you. I think.)

So read on, kids, with the knowledge that I don't really know anyone named Roger Mexico or Rosencrantz or Guildenstern. And no, I'm not telling you who's who. It should appear obvious among most of my friends eventually anyway.

Hey, every known publication in the world reserves the right to withhold names and private information. And I'm not answering to anyone, so you better believe I'm going to reserve that right.

Of course, if any of you tick me off, I also reserve the right to expose you. So play nice.

Postcards From the Edge of the Hellmouth

I had every intention of stepping up on my soapbox and rambling about censorship last night in honor of Banned Books Week, but I suppose that will have to wait 'til another time. Until then, go out and read a book that makes someone nervous this week. Check out the list; there's lots to choose from. But sorry again for not posting last night. It was not by choice; work trumps the weblog on the list of priorities.

I really gotta get my priorities straight.

Tonight, there's no question about priorities. I'll be over at JohnnyB's apartment, watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel on the WB.

I see you shaking your heads out there. Snickering to yourself about my programming choices for the evening. Yeah, that's right. I watch Buffy. Stop laughing. Yes, I am a grown-up. (Sometimes, at least.) Yes, the show is about a blonde college student who fights the forces of evil, whether it be demons, vampires, or secret government experiments gone awry. Yes, it's got that girl from the Stone Temple Pilots video in it...as well as the flute player from American Pie ("one time at band camp...") and the guy from the Taster's Choice "couple" commercials.

It also happens to be one of the most consistently well-written, creative shows on television, with a rather strong cult following. Entertainment Weekly can't make it through the month without getting all gushy about it. Although for the most part overlooked by the awards folks, it was nominated for a few Emmys this year, including an award for best writing (for the episode entitled "Hush," which played out sans dialogue for half of the show...neat trick).

I remember going to see the movie back in the early 90's at the second run theater. Strictly substandard comedy/horror film. Luke Perry was in it, for crying out loud. It had a few moments, but for the most part I felt cheated. I'd paid $1.50 to see this piece of drivel, and I wanted at least $1.00 back. (And a better date, but that's a whole 'nother ball o' wax.)

And then, rumors of the television show surfaced. (They were only rumors here for a season or two. Cincinnati did not have a WB affiliate.) And the show was supposed to be good...I remained a non-believer until I saw my first episode. And then I was hooked. A closeted fan, but addicted nevertheless. Once I found out that JohnnyB was watching as well, I not only admitted my addiction, but reveled in it.

No show has made me laugh harder, or cry harder, for that matter in recent years. (Ask JohnnyB how much Kleenex I went through when we watched "New Moon Rising.") The writing is fresh and witty, the cast is one of the finest ensembles working on television these days, and it satisfies the campy pseudo-horror geek in me. The writers don't seem to be afraid to take chances on different storytelling devices (a half hour of silence in "Hush," symbolic dream sequences in "Restless," and completely rewriting reality to make a minor character the actual star - including reshooting the opening credits - for "Superstar"). Critics fawn over the show, and still the public at large gives you a weird look if you mention you watch it. WHY?

Beats me. Maybe it's the name. It's hard to consider a show with a main character named Buffy to be a heavy-hitter. The only other show I can think of that had a character named Buffy was Family Affair, and I'm not even going there. Maybe it's the subject matter. Let's see...ER deals with the day-to-day trials of doctors in a Chicago hospital, The Practice is about lawyers in a Philadelphia firm, NYPD Blue follows police officers in New York City, and Buffy deals with...um, well...it's about a teenaged girl kicking evil supernatural butt in beautiful Sunnydale, California.

I know, I know. It sounds dumb. Impossible to suspend that much disbelief. But the people that roll their eyes about what I do with my Tuesday nights are the same ones who have never questioned that Monica and Rachel could afford that huge apartment in Manhattan on the combined salaries of a chef and a really bad coffeehouse waitress on Friends. Oh sure. That's realistic. Lighten up, folks. It's TV. It's not CNN; reality is allowed to take a back seat.

And as for the "silly monster" argument, let me remind the non-watcher of a little show called The X Files. How many seasons have Mulder and Scully been looking for aliens and other unexplainable phenomena? I guess UFOs and government conspiracies are more socially acceptable. Whatever. (I'll save my X Files worship for another time.)

Oh, like I care what anyone else thinks. I recommend the series whole-heartedly, but if you'd rather watch Big Brother or some other such nonsense tonight, then more power to ya. Just don't call me between 8:00 and 10:00. I'm not picking up the phone.

So Much For Planning Ahead

Unfortunately, due to time constraints, there will be no post tonight. It's almost 6:45 pm, my lunch consisted of a bag of pretzels and a Diet Coke, and I'm still working. For those of you keeping score at home, that's going on ten solid hours at my desk, not counting running downstairs to grab food from the overpriced coffee shop and bathrooms breaks...all two of them.

And of course today would be the day I forgot my badge, so when I leave today, I'm gone for good, because there's no one left to let me in when I bang on the door. So tonight's post will be delayed for a day or two. Sorry, gang. I'm pissed too.

And I still don't have all my work caught up...guess I'll be coming in early tomorrow.

Missing in Action

Remember when you were younger and you had the best friends ever? The ones you went to school with, hung out with in the evenings, called every time anything of remote interest happened? You laughed together, you cried together. You celebrated each other's personal victories. You provided the Kleenex and the shoulder to cry on when disaster struck. You swore up and down that you would always be friends with them, and nothing would ever happen to change that.

And then something did happen. The nemesis of friendship, Growing Up.

Growing Up sometimes means growing out of those friends that you had way back when. Someone moves, someone starts dating someone's ex...people change. Things change. Life moves on. You moved on, you made other friends, as did your previously sworn closest buddy.

And now here you are, years later, wondering whatever happened to so-and-so.

That's where I've been for a lot of this year. I've reached that age in my life when reminiscing about "the good old days" isn't something that's reserved for old people. (Oh, wait - that's right. I'm old.) Over the years, I'd lost track of my two best friends from junior high/high school and countless friends from college. These were people I saw on a daily basis, and had shared much of my life with. Everyone moved; I stayed. Phones calls and letters became less frequent as we all got on with Living Our Lives. But I never stopped thinking of them.

Once I started played around with the Internet, I discovered all the different ways to track down those long-lost friends. Searches for addresses and phone numbers, searches for email. But then came the hardest part: actually making contact. What if the address was incorrect or outdated? What if the John Smith you found wasn't the one you were looking for? How do you sum up the last five years in a brief concise letter?

I gave a few of them a shot. I emailed every address I found for one friend, even though I knew some of them were long since discarded. (One listed email address was from when we had gone to college together, if that gives you any idea of how ancient some of these online search results are.) Finally, after about five or six tries, I got a response. We traded thumbnail sketches of what we'd been doing lately. At this point, we keep each other posted when something good or bad happens in our lives. I told him about my upcoming shows with my poetry group, he let me know he had quit his job and was moving. We read each other's weblogs. Good result there. I'm glad to have my friend back in my life.

Another friend had an email pseudonym that I recognized immediately, so I sent him a message. He sent me a brief description of what was going on in his life; I responded with my bio in 500 words or less. And then...nothing. I have heard nothing more since June. I try to keep him posted and include him on my distribution list for major announcements, but I get the feeling that he's moved on and really didn't have much else to say to me. Discouraging, but sometimes it happens. Oh well.

Some others have just miraculously reappeared. My best friend from junior high was sitting at the bar in the club I worked at one night. We didn't even recognize each other at first. We spent the next hour catching up as best we could, and trying to figure out what happened to other high school friends that had disappeared off the face of the earth. He was in town for a funeral, but he called me last month to let me know he'd moved to New Mexico. So, hey. Yet another success story.

The reason why this is on my mind right now is because of some information I received about a week ago. Back about ten years ago, I went on vacation with my parents and three other families they were friends with. I wasn't really all that jazzed about it; everyone I knew was going to Cleveland to see New Order, but I was stuck going to Florida with Mom and Dad and Sis. (Yeah, I know. Poor little me. Boo hoo.) So I moped around the condo. I moped around the pool. I moped on the beach. (I was really into moping back then.) After about two days of dealing with me and the permanent little black raincloud over my head, some of the guys in our group offered to take me to the bar across the street. (They coaxed me by telling me there was an alternative band playing there. Liars. It was a reggae band. But I digress....)

While we were there, one of my companions spotted this guy he'd met on the beach earlier that day, and invited him to sit with us. Nice guy. Attractive, intelligent, funny as hell. We hit it off. It turned out we were in similar places in our lives (Now Leaving Angstville, Welcome to Mass Confusion and Insecurity. Population: you), and spent the next three days practically inseparable. We refused to refer to our time together as a summer fling, because that meant once vacation was over, everything between us was over. After we went home with our respective families, we kept in touch. Letters, the occasional phone call. We shared news of new significant others, college failures, concerts we'd been to, car horror stories. But the letters were starting to taper off. I looked him up once while I was in Chicago for the weekend, and I met his girlfriend, who was a bit stand-offish to me. I guess she thought I was looking to rekindle an old flame, but frankly I was just glad to see my friend. (Actually he and I discussed her not-so-subtle jealousy while we were all out at a bar that night, and were kind of amused by it.) But after that...the end. I think sent him a Christmas card one year.

But anyways, I'd always wondered what happened to him. I'd found an address for him in Illinois, and sent a carefully worded letter, explaining that I was not dying from an terminal disease or completing the "making amends" step of a 12-step program. I just honestly missed having him in my life. I received a phone call a few days later from the woman who'd bought his house a year or so back. She didn't have a forwarding address, but she remembered he'd moved to Jacksonville, Florida.

So I hit the Internet searches again, this time targetting Florida. Nothing. I finally left a message on a missing person board and gave up.

And then I got an email with his current address. And even though this isn't the first time I've tried to contact him, I'm having a hard time actually sending this letter to him. What if we're completely different people now? What if he married the jealous girlfriend and she's forbidden him to have contact with any past girlfriends? (Not that I ever fell under that definition, but...you know what I mean.) Does the fact that I'm trying to catch up with this guy after all this time make me a freaky stalker? WHY IS THIS BOTHERING ME SO MUCH?

I think I'm thinking way too much about this. I should just send him the letter that I wrote the first time around, and let the chips fall where they may. Then the ball's out of my court and what happens is up to him.

Sometimes I think I should have never discovered InfoSeek. At least I haven't hired 1-800-U.S.-SEARCH yet.

My Biological Clock is Unplugged

Wow, I had a full inbox of emails today! Thanks for all the support, everyone. I feel so loved.

Big news, everyone. My sister is pregnant with her second child. Yep, I get to be an aunt again! Needless to say, the whole family is elated. Especially my mom...she's really groovin' on this grandmother thing.

My sister and I are polar opposites on a lot of things. She's married with a house in the suburbs, conservative, dog owner, country music fan, and drives a brand new minvan. I'm single and live in a dinky one bedroom apartment near the university. I'm far from conservative. I have a cat. My musical tastes range from classical to industrial, but nowhere does George Strait fit into the equation. I've been driving the same car for almost ten years. The only things holding it together are bungee cords, rust, and a stubborn sense of determination. We may be from the same parents, but my sister and I are definitely both individuals in own our beliefs.

Nothing drove that point home more than a trip to Chicago we took together about six years ago, back when the car was still reasonably shiny. After a brief battle over what radio station to listen to while we were passing through Indianapolis (we compromised on a classic rock station playing the Eagles), we got around to the time-honored subject of "What Do You Want to Do with Your Life?"

"You're gonna think I'm crazy," she began. "But all I've ever wanted to be was a good mother."

"But what about a career?" I asked.

She thought about it for a second. "Well, I guess I'll have a career. But it'll have to be one where I can take time off for my kids."

"What about travel? Stuff like that?"

"Naah, that's not ever been all that important to me. I just want to be a mom."

Now, I'm not knocking her choice. My sister is a wonderful mother, and she and her husband were blessed with a beautiful daughter. I love her to death. As the aunt, it's my job to be the playmate. I'm the first one on the floor with her working jigsaw puzzles or offering to read a book. She even suckered me into doing the Hokey Pokey with her three times in a row one night. That kid got the cute genes, and she knows how to work 'em already.

And I do love kids, really. I just don't want any of my own.

I've known this for a while now. I remember the first time I dropped this little bombshell on my mother. We'd been arguing about something - my grades, my messy bedroom, take your pick - and we'd reaching the screaming and crying part of the fight. My mother laid the ultimate guilt trip line on me.

"You'll never understand how I feel until you have children of your own!"

"Oh yeah?" I shouted back. "Well, I guess I'll never understand then, because I'M NEVER HAVING KIDS!!!"

I think I was eleven at the time.

My opinion hasn't changed over time. Children are great, as long as they're not mine. I'll play Hide and Seek and Candyland, I'll change stinky diapers, I'll read the same books to them over and over again if that's what they want, but at the end of the day, those kids will be going home with their parents and I'll be going home to watch TV alone. Call it selfishness, I guess. I like the fact that I can go out at night, change my plans at the drop of a hat, even leave for an impromptu vacation, and the only living breathing creature I have to take into consideration is my cat. No babysitters. No two o'clock feedings. Food bowl full? Check. Water dish? Check. Litter box reasonably clean? Check. Bye, kitty. No wild parties while I'm gone. (He's not happy when I'm gone, but he's pretty self-sufficient.)

Actually, the best part of my sister being pregnant is that it takes the heat off me for another year or so. My grandmother, a product of her generation, is convinced that my life is not fulfilling because I'm not married and haven't started procreating. Every holiday dinner ends up the same way:

"So when are you getting married?"

Gaaaaaah.

I don't blame her. She wouldn't understand my lifestyle any more than I would understand hers. I can't explain to her that I have my friends and my writing and my cat and my job and tickets to a concert this weekend, so finding Mr. Right and getting hitched ASAP is not Priority #1. It would be nice, but my sun will rise and set without a Bridal Registry. And repopulating the family is right out. That's my sister's job.

But I still hope I get to go to the birth again, and hold the new baby, and take a million pictures. I want to be there when he or she cracks that first smile, takes those first steps, says that first word. And then I want to go out, get a beer, and drive everyone I know in the bar crazy with the new pictures and goofy stories.

Besides, there's only room for one child in my life - me. I need to learn to take care of myself before I can think about taking on another one.

Slacker Girl

Oh, this day just dragged by. Time is definitely an abstract when you have things you have to do before you can do the things you want to do. My job is mind-numbingly dull, and my mind was all awhirl with things I wanted to write about in future posts.

Before I go any further, I want to thank my personal guru, Vahn. He's the one who sent me here in the first place, and has patiently answered all the dumb questions I had about getting started and setting things up the way I wanted them (for now, at least). And since I'm waiting to get a little more experience and posts written before I unleash this blog on an unknowing public, he's one of a select group of readers I have at this point. I owe you a beer the next time you're in town, dude.

I live about 5 blocks from the local university, and school started today. Getting out of my neighborhood this morning to go to work was not a fun experience. The first few days of school are always a free-for-all, with students madly scrambling for every available parking area within walking distance. Argh. Off-street parking is so my friend....

I keep telling myself I'll go back to school, I'll complete that degree. When, I have no idea. I have even less of an idea what to major in now than I did as a confused 17 year old filling out college applications. Business? I have no interest in the corporate world, but it's what's paying the bills right now. (Just barely.) English? My old standby, but the last thing the world needs is a retail employee with aspirations to win the Pulitzer Prize. Psychology? No, that won't work. You need graduate work to actually do anything, and I'll be in my seventies by that point.

It was so much easier when I was little. Back in elementary school, when they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I knew. In a room full of would-be firemen and doctors and baseball players, I was the lone wanna-be herpetologist. The teacher had to go look it up. (For those readers who are equally confused, a herpetologist is a scientist specializing in the subject of reptiles.) I had a big thing for snakes. At seven, I read about snakes. I wrote about snakes. I begged my mother to let me get a pet snake. Mom, who has a phobia of snakes, looked me in the eye and said, "You are not my child."

So I never got my snake, and had to be happy with goldfish. I got older, and discovered other subjects to hold my attention. Too many, as a matter of fact. My problem has never been figuring out what interests me; it's been more of a problem of what doesn't interest me. Over the course of my high school years and what little college I managed to finish, I considered the following careers for at least five minutes: education (English and music), journalism, radio broadcasting, nursing, medicine, psychology, zoology, photography, technical writing, sociology, philosophy, and creative writing. And I'm not even taking the unrealistic pipedreams into account. I will never be saying "I'd like to thank the Academy..." for my acting ability.

My past job experience is even weirder. Convenience store clerk, bartender, secretary (for a zoo, of all things...I got to feed the snakes every week. Not your average typing and filing job.), brokerage cashier, postal and packaging clerk, data entry drone, nurse's aide, amusement park food service employee, auto assembly line worker, telemarketer, and more retail positions than I care to think about.

Time has not narrowed down my interests. It keeps getting worse. With the discovery of Blogger.com, I've kicked around the idea of learning HTML several times today. I find myself enthralled watching one of my friends compose music on his computer (I have a strange thing for watching people work in creative fields) and wish that Cakewalk had existed when I was taking music theory classes. I found myself swapping drink recipes with the bartender at Uno's last night. And of course, there's the ever-looming novel in progress.

WHAT THE HELL DO I WANT TO BE WHEN I GROW UP??? (Assuming that I ever grow up, that is.)

Too much to think about tonight. I'll save career development for another time. I'm going dancing tonight, so all I'm concerned about is finding my boots and the right shade of black to wear to the club. Someday I'll figure out what color my parachute is.

I've got a sneaking suspicion that it's plaid.

...check...one, two, one, two...hey, is this thing on?

Ok, so after a lot of cursing last night, I think I'm finally up and running. This is my first time doing anything like this. Be patient, be gentle.

So what do I hope to accomplish with this weblog? Ummm...I've been trying to get myself trained to write on a semi-regular basis, but I'm a professional procrastinator. Maybe if I have an actual project I'll be more apt to stick to it. (Yeah right...don't be surprised if I post faithfully everyday for about a week or so, and then disappear into the ozone. Did I mention the fact that I have no mental discipline?)

Admittedly, I'm writing this mostly for myself, but I'm sure people will eventually stumble across my ramblings. When I feel comfortable enough with writing here, I'm sure I will tell everyone I meet to come check it out as well.

About me: I'm a thirty-something tortured artist (but aren't they all?) masquerading as a corporate clone. Single white female, attempting to live the somewhat enlightened and liberal lifestyle in the most uptight city in the known universe. I fancy myself to be a poet, and actually have subjected the public to my verse on more than one occasion, and have recently started preparing to undertake that elusive project known as The Great American Novel. So far it's a big pile of notes written on paper ripped from eighteen billion different spiral notebooks. But I guess we all gotta start somewhere.

I'm an entertainment junkie. Music, movies, TV, theater, books...Media Play loves me. I have a brain full of useless trivia where important knowledge should be. I'm a technological moron, so let me once again re-emphasize the "be patient with me" thing. I'm learning as I go, and decided to take the plunge on this venture at the urging of an old friend of mine.

So what will I be writing about? What goes on in my life, I guess. My crappy job (in a field I know next to nothing about). My friends. My cat (who is actually a minion of Hell). My love life (or lack thereof). Interesting things of note going on where I live. Things that piss me off. My writer's block. Possibly working parts of the novel-in-progess. My angry white girl poetry. In other words, whatever crosses the few brain cells that are still working in my head. And I'll just go from there.

And a word of explanation about the title...it was actually the working title for my first collection of poetry, but I decided to go with "Whining in Meter and Verse" instead. I'm a caffeine junkie, and I have the tendency to be bitter at times. And sometimes my Reality is not what others perceive it to be. So double play on the "Acid" part...I'm so clever. Not.

Enough of this intro crap. I'll start off with a combination of a rant and my bad poetry...

I have come to the conclusion that Magnetic Poetry is evil. Pure unadulterated evil that sticks to your fridge. Sure, it's fun at first, but then...I was house-sitting for a friend this past week, and she encourages anyone who visits to compose something. I had written a line or two on Tuesday, but got distracted by something. Then on Sunday, I went to get something out of the freezer for lunch and got sucked in. One hour later, I was still standing in front of the refrigerator, starving and had this to show for it:

I listen to the shadow symphony of your heart
A dark winter ache
I want to sleep in wild eternity
Sing delicious drunk poetry in the porcelain night
Rob the void of its prisoner
And give you the music of a translucent blue morning
Surround me with desire
Take in my brilliant spring light
Dazzle and pierce the blind vision
And linger not in the madness of the storm
We could dance
Drink
Smoke
Whisper
And fall in the deep languid peace of our warm skin together
Friend
Lover
Angel
Child
Fool
Speak to me
Love me
And make me picture
The sacred delirious moment
Of always

Damn you, Dave Kapell. Damn you and your little money making invention. Almost everyone I know has these teeny tiny little words all over their fridges, and I always end up standing there for way too long, looking for just the right word to complete my thought. I know I looked for "eternity" for a good ten minutes. Maybe one of the cats ate it.

And all I wanted was a sandwich....