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Tuesday, April 30, 2002
Today's Hint from Hulloise:
After a shampoo, try a finishing rinse of Our Friend, Mr. Club Soda. The bubbles help fizz out icky residue from shampoo, conditioner, chlorine and junk like that, plus it makes your hair sparkle. For fresh scent and to control grease, leave the lemon wedge in. But mind the ice cubes and be careful you don't poke your eye out with the swizzle stick.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
6:09 PM
Filling out the forms for my employer's insurance plan du jour, I noticed this among the list of benefits:
Circumcision............covered in full
That just doesn't sound right somehow.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
10:20 PM
The abbreviation "PFC" for "Private First Class" came up in an e-conversation today. Maybe it's because I recently had and satisfied a takeout fried chicken jones, but "PFC" made me think of "KFC". Must be the rank of a chicken colonel. You know, "KFC Harlan Saunders".
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
9:45 PM
You'd think I'd learn. I noticed that several posts here were recorded at 35 minutes after the hour, so when I found myself ready to post and a glace at the clock told me that it would end up being another in the :35 series, I waited a bit. Hah. Take that predictability! Next day, same thing, dang it. So again I waited before posting, only I noticed afterward that the timestamp was almost to the minute the same as the previous day's. You'd think I'd learn.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
9:56 PM
My buddy Dave responded to my e-mail directing his and a bunch of other friends' attention to the office webcam a coworker of mine has set up by seriously asking me about teleconferencing options as he is about to move to Mississippi, whence he will telecommute to his job in Maryland. After giving him a serious recommendation I opined that a more appropriate way to teleconference from Mississippi would be to photocopy his face making various expressions (e.g. happy, sad, astonished, fake-polite) then fax them to the head office as the occasion warrants. Ten years ago I would have recommended snail-mailing stick figures, but hey, it's the 21st century now.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
10:35 PM
Still no sign of the costume book, so I called Amazon.com yesterday. Usually they're unusually prompt -- once I got something the very next day -- but this order is the second in my experience with them where I've had to speak to a real live human being to inquire after my stuff. Amazon claims that UPS' dog ate the package, while UPS claims that they never got the package in the first place and that amazon.com's mom dresses it funny. Still, the Amazon rep was pleasant enough and manually re-ordered my items on the spot, upgrading my shipping to boot. As she was looking up the items and speaking their titles aloud, I realized why this order and the other one were lost: both contained "guilty pleasure" items. This one contained, in addition to the costume book, a couple of Mad Magazine anthologies and a deck of Tarot cards. Last time I had to complain about a lost item, the item in question was the 70's music box set I mentioned the other day. 'nuff said.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
6:52 PM
So I ordered these nifty cobalt blue salt and pepper shakers. Yeah, and the butter dish, too. Only instead of a "Salt" and a "Pepper" they sent me a "Pepper" and a "Pepper". Yes, I kept them. Too much of a hassle to return them and anyway I like the idea that someone out there got a "Salt" and a "Salt". Whoever he is, he is obviously meant to be my soul mate. Sadly, we'll likely never meet: he'll have long since dropped dead from hypertension. All that salt, you know.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
6:50 PM
In an interview Cameron Crowe said that he has for years made monthly compilations of the music he is currently listening to and claims it is "better than a diary." Dang, I wish I had thought of doing that long ago. Right now I'm listening to the first 4 CDs of a 1970s pop music box set, covering 1970-71. First few bars of "Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes" and suddenly I'm back in 4th grade, listening to WIXY 1260 while I do my homework.
Pleasant as this sensation is, it surprises me because my visual memory has always been so much better than my aural memory. Give me verbal instructions with more than 2 steps and I channel Otto from A Fish Called Wanda, "What was that second thing you said?" Write down the instructions for me and I'm good to go. Music is different, apparently. I remembered the chorus to "Ma Belle Amie" after not hearing it for 30 years. Makes me wish I had started learning to play guitar back then like I wanted to instead of waiting until middle age.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
5:46 PM
I've been re-reading Antonia Fraser's The Wives of Henry VIII (my first link!) As was the case the first time through 5 years ago, I am drawn in by Fraser's humanization of her subjects and agree with my friend Jan's assessment that reading dull history is "like a dry hump."
Being of a seamstress-y bent, I am fascinated by the portraits of the ladies in their Tudor gowns. So much so that I finally spent some leftover birthday and Christmas amazon.com gift certificates on a book about dress in the Renaissance, and the DVD box set of the BBC's Six Wives Of Henry VIII series that fascinated my 10-year-old self when they were first aired in the US as much as the Fraser history does now. The drama was impressive enough to me as a child, but I remember being totally captivated by the costumes: rich fabrics and elaborate headdresses. That's when my long-term love affair with the period began; one of my areas of specialization for my M.A. in French was Renaissance literature.
While I'm still waiting on the costume book to arrive (it's been 10 days so far, but it's being shipped, according to package tracking thingy, all the way from Tennessee to Virginia so I guess I'll have to be patient), the DVD set came on Friday. So far I've watched the first 3 episodes. The history seems accurate enough, and the acting compelling or at least watchable, but the costumes -- quelle letdown! While clearly based on the same portraits that I've been poring over, they show rampant evidence of cut corners. For example, married women appear in public with their hair down, sometimes with --gasp-- no head cover at all.
While it's true that my enjoyment of a nonetheless remarkable job on the part of the BBC costumers is colored by too much knowledge of the period, I must add to Jan's comment that encountering cut corners in a historical drama is as disappointing as finding out that the guy who just dry humped you did so with a cucumber stuffed down the front of his shorts.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
11:36 PM
Speaking of cousins, following the death of my Aunt Shirley last August I submitted the following 100-worder to the Washington Post's Autobiography as Haiku thingy. They had been quick to accept one I had sent earlier in the year (to be posted here later on, p'r'aps.) Nothing but crickets on this one, though. What the hell, I like it. Considering my mom's emergency heart surgery in March, it is a good thing that prophecy is not one of my super powers.
My only-child cousin got everything she desired without obligation to share or wait her turn. How I coveted her well-stocked toy chest! Lucky girl lived mere miles from our grandparents while from a continent away I envied her their attention as I battled the taunting siblings she was fortunate to not have. As she became the first to find a soulmate, marry, and have children my sincere joy for her was nonetheless tinted green. It's taken nearly 40 years but Sharon has finally experienced a first that I absolutely do NOT wish for myself: the death of a parent.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
5:34 PM
A study has shown that marrying one's first cousin carries way less genetic risk than was previously supposed, thus expanding the pool of potential spouses for many of us. Well, not me. I have only two first cousins, both of whom are already married (not to each other) and -- worse -- the same gender as me. Heavy sigh.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
9:49 PM
This springtime allergy season I'm making do with drugstore-brand caplets that for some curious reason are the identical shade of yellow as the pollen that plagues me. Is it subliminal marketing? Or perhaps a throwback to the pre-historical, certainly pre-HMO and pre-FDA days when a plant shaped like lungs, for example, was thought to be beneficial to that organ? I really want to believe it's the latter, but if so that doesn't by a long shot even begin to explain Pepto Bismol.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
8:43 PM
My agency got hit hard with the "MyLife" virus the other day. Yesterday was a zoo of a time dealing with the aftermath. Today probably was too. I wouldn't know for sure because I was scheduled to teach an all-day class away from the craziness of the Help Desk. Any relief I felt over my reprieve from virus fallout was erased when one of my students, sitting just a few yards away from me, spent the day picking her nose and snorting back the excess. I wish I was making this up. You'd think that eventually she'd run out of boogers, but nooooooooo. When I shut down her PC after class I covered my fingers with a layer of paper towels and then washed my hands manically afterward, like Lady MacBeth. Out, out, damned snot!
Give me a computer virus over a human one any day. Well, not literally.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
9:35 PM
The crow sees me coming and so must interrupt his mid-street meal of squashed squirrel to avoid becoming roadkill himself. Although equipped with a dandy escape mechanism -- wings -- he chooses not to beat a hasty airborne retreat; gauging my oncoming speed with cocky accuracy he struts leisurely away to the safety of the curb. I have to admire his bravado.
A block later a car appears at a side street. The driver doesn't have the right of way but he gauges my speed as cockily and as accurately as the crow had and pulls right in front of me. I would admire his bravado but he seems to be rubbing it in by driving a maddening 5 miles an hour under the speed limit for the entire time I am behind him. Oh, I know he's probably not doing it on purpose. I probably ceased to matter to him once the threat of collision was no longer an issue. Yet when I see a crow fly overhead I hope that it is the strutting squirrel eater and that he will relieve himself of his meal on the slow-moving target in front of me.
I would admire that very much.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
5:48 PM
This thought streaked* through my brain when I saw a passenger-less Navy Annex shuttle bus on Columbia Pike: "It's sterile -- no seamen in it."
*That's "streaked" in the sense of "took its clothes off and ran around trying to get attention but really only succeeding in displaying its shortcomings."
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
4:20 PM
Yesterday's adventure in bloodstain removal reminds me of an adventure in soup seasoning.
As I ladled myself up a styrofoam cupful of New England clam chowder at the office snack bar one Friday I saw that the guy who had gotten his cup of chowder just before me was availing himself of the institution-sized bottle of Tabasco that has a permanent home alongside the salt, pepper and crackers at the soup station. The bright red sauce, not readily absorbed by the thick white soup, remained pooled on top as if oozing from a puncture wound. Undeterred, I got my own cup of soup -- sans Tabasco, thank you all the same -- and found myself in line at the checkout behind the same guy. A friend of mine walked into the snack bar just as Tabasco Boy was leaving the register with his colorful lunch. My friend glanced quizzically at the man's tray then turned to me and asked what the hell kind of soup that was.
I smiled sweetly and said "Stigmata."
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
9:31 PM
Today's Hint from Hulloise:
Never mind how I came to find this out, but contact lens cleaner -- the kind that gets rid of protein deposits -- works wonders on small bloodstains on clothing.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
10:22 PM
A friend who took an early look here asked about the dedication to "JRW", wondering what my blog's nonsensical content had to do with the man she knew was the love of my life.
The short answer: Nothing. And everything.
The long answer: Back in 1991, I frequented a writers' bulletin board on Prodigy, where a side conversation with another board regular, Jim, quickly turned into a romance. For five years we reveled in our mutual love of the absurd with daily e-mail exchanges that I once described to someone as a "two-way diary." There were other exchanges, less electronic and more personal.
In late 1996 circumstances both beyond and within our control put an end to all exchanges. Amicable as our parting was, we had a tacit understanding that no further communication would take place. None ever did.
In the years since then, he has never been far from my thoughts. My home is filled with five years' worth of "Jimorabilia": photos, books and silly little tokens of serious friendship. My memory is filled with things he said and did that touched my heart or made me laugh, often at the same time. My need for a creative outlet was filled by humor contest entries and off-the-wall posts to e-mail chat rooms.
Two months ago on a whim I googled Jim to see what he was up to. I got a nasty jolt when one of the very first hits led me to his obituary. He died in 2001. He lived in another state and we had no mutual friends; there was no other way I would have known. Jim would have appreciated the irony of my finding out about his death via the same medium that had brought us together.
Blogs seeped into my consciousness around the same time that I was processing my grief for my beloved friend and writing mentor, so when I decided to start one with a self-disciplinary view toward forcing myself to write every day in a place where people might actually see it, he was very much on my mind, hence the dedication.
So while this particular post might be about him, very few others will be. I'm sure he'll be hanging around anyway, reading over my shoulder just as he often used to tell me he was.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
1:07 PM
Overheard in an elevator:
"Oh, what cute clogs! But aren't you afraid they won't stay on your feet?"
"No, they stay on pretty well. Except when my son walks behind me and steps on them on purpose."
"Awwwwww. How old is he?"
"Thirty-two."
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
11:43 AM
Fact: A woman wearing a sari and delicately embroidered slippers exudes elegance in any setting, even a grimy ladies' room in a turnpike rest stop.
Fact: The only exception to the above is when one of the delicately embroidered slippers has a 16-inch trail of soggy toilet paper stuck to it.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
10:58 PM
The shuttle has been launched.
this piece woven by Sandra Hull @
10:36 PM