in which I investigate why teenage girls with pink blogs subject themselves to this kind of barbaric cartoon scrutiny

They're called blogthings and they totally size you up. As usual, I'm game.

Your IQ Is 115

Your Logical Intelligence is Below Average Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius Your Mathematical Intelligence is Above Average Your General Knowledge is Exceptional

A Quick and Dirty IQ Test

I love how they just come right out and tell me that my logical intelligence is below average. Girl, you might be able to string together a sentence, but you'll get lost driving around the block. That does sound like me, come to think of it. It's tough love, I get it. Bring me some Kleenex, I'm ready for more.

Your Personality Profile

You are dependable, popular, and observant. Deep and thoughtful, you are prone to moodiness. In fact, your emotions tend to influence everything you do. You are unique, creative, and expressive. You don't mind waving your freak flag every once and a while. And lucky for you, most people find your weird ways charming!

The World's Shortest Personality Test

While I'd really enjoy nothing more than to singularly own some of these characteristics, I have a sneaking suspicion that I maaaaay not be the only person on the planet influenced by their emotions. And I love how it's such a revelation: "In FACT, your heart even pumps BLOOD."

By the way, your right to burn your own freak flag is protected 100% by the Constitution.

The Movie Of Your Life Is A Cult Classic

Quirky, offbeat, and even a little campy - your life appeals to a select few. But if someone's obsessed with you, look out! Your fans are downright freaky. Your best movie matches: Office Space, Showgirls, The Big Lebowski

If Your Life Was a Movie, What Genre Would It Be?

Why do I have a stalker if my life appeals to few? Whatever, I'm changing the locks.

You Are Likely A Forth Born

At your darkest moments, you feel angry. At work and school, you do best when your analyzing. When you love someone, you tend to be very giving. In friendship, you don't take the initiative in reaching out. Your ideal jobs are: factory jobs, comedy, and dentistry. You will leave your mark on the world with your own personal philosophy.

The Birth Order Predictor

What a surprise, I have Little Sister Syndrome; that much I knew. Only where the hell are my siblings? And can't I spell my own position in this imaginary family correctly?

Your Career Type: Social

You are helpful, friendly, and trustworthy. Your talents lie in teaching, nursing, giving information, and solving social problems. You would make an excellent: Counselor - Dental Hygienist - Librarian Nurse - Parole Officer - Personal Trainer Physical Therapist - Social Worker - Teacher The worst career options for you are realistic careers, like truck driver or farmer.

What's Your Ideal Career?

What kind of social problems could I solve... bad manners, poor form? As a parole officer, would I get a night stick? And not a good truck driver or farmer? Your doubt only fuels me to want to succeed in that "realistic career" field.

Your Ideal Relationship is Friends with Benefits

You're not looking for anything serious... just something hot! And you're little black book (or cell phone) always hooks you up. You want nothing more than friends with benefits. No strings. You also don't mind benefits without the friendship!

What's Your Ideal Relationship?

Gosh, express a few reservations about marriage to blogthings and suddenly you're a shameless whore hitting on her friends. How do they just keep hitting the nail right on the head like that?

Your Brain's Pattern

You're a simple thinker, and this is actually a very good thing. You don't complicate matters when you don't have to. You look for the simplest explanation or solution, and you go with that. As a result, your mind is uncluttered and free of stress.

What Pattern Is Your Brain?

You're a simple girl, Red, laying in a simple field surrounded by simple flowers. Don't you remember us telling you that you have no logical intelligence? Why did you have to come back for more?!

You Are 30 Years Old

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

Huh?

Your Hidden Talent

You are both very knowledgeable and creative. You tend to be full of new ideas and potential - big potential. Ideas like yours could change the world, if you build them. As long as you don't stop working on your dreams, you'll get there.

What's Your Hidden Talent?

...and in conclusion I'd just like to say, congratulations to the class of 1987! We did it! WOO! Kegger at Buffy's after sunset!

You Are Lemon Meringue Pie

You're the perfect combo of sassy and sweet Those who like you have well refined tastes

What Kind of Pie Are You?

I'm dessert and you're classy. It's a win-win, really.

what's your damage, Heather?

My theory is that you really can't get drunk at your high school reunion because everywhere you look, there's a buzzkill. And I don't even mean that in a bad way, for the most part... it's just that a reunion is kind of like work disguised as a night out. Finally, after hours, everyone is so cheek-kissed, one-arm-hugged, and "oh, hi!"ed out that when you're done, you're done. I got dressed, pre-boozed, arrived, left, analyzed, and fell asleep with two of my best childhood friends. It wasn't very stressful; for the most part my class consisted of a bunch of maladjusted rich kid hippies, with the occasional lacrosse player thrown in. Several people asked if I was still writing; two randomly asked if I had a blog. Along the way we ran into a group of people who graduated from our same school and were going to their 15 year reunion at the same bar... how delightful to know that I'll continue to be dragged back down memory lane every five years. I reconnected with the person I most wanted to see which was really worth the price of admission (which was $35, by the way). And no, no, NO DAMN IT ALL, I didn't find out if the infamous ex officially became a woman. Sigh.

So it was fun to spend a night in 1995, but better to be back to a world where I have a savings account, no curfew, and, as I learned tonight, a CVS photo guy who filed my pictures under "blond hair and glasses" instead of my name. I wasn't wearing glasses when I picked them up and I don't actually have blond hair, but a completely different employee somehow figured out they were mine. Sometimes it's not even worth asking, you know?

vroom

I'm in the market for a new set of wheels. I also just said that like the Popular Guy in any John Hughes movie, complete with a smirk and a leather jacket slung over the shoulder. Sorry about that. Please excuse me while I go make out with Molly Ringwald.

Anyway, I'm liking this particular hybrid SUV, but loving the irony of hybrid SUVs in general. This particular car won the best SUV award from some environmental agency, which is like being praised for destroying the planet only slightly less than bigger cars. Like giving Charles Manson an award for not being Hitler.

It used to be that a hybrid meant that its owner cared about the planet and conscientiously plugged in their car every night. Nowadays it doesn't mean anything quite that pure. "You know, it's just so much better for the environ...ooh, heated seats!"

gobble

Earlier tonight a complete stranger looked at me holding my bathtub-sized movie theater Diet Coke and told me that he didn't think I needed the caffeine. While the intervention meant a lot to me, sir, you must allow me my carbonation. I'm home with the family for the holiday and you should just be glad (in keeping with the spirit, perhaps even give thanks) that it's not a tub of gin.

turkey update

It's been suggested to me that perhaps I've become a little Seinfeldian of late with the tent (or, as Melissa put it, I'm in a "and WHAT is up with plane food?" phase), at the expense of talking about my actual life. So, for those of you who care, this has been what's actually happening while I'm busy pondering the inconsequential.

Much time spent at my favorite hot spot in suburbia, also known as Dorie's kitchen, dancing to Van Morrison with her kids (Bright Side of the Road, not I Wanna Roo You) and coming up with games like sock skiing that make them think I'm a creative genius. Adventures in DVR with Jen. Soup Factory with the other Jen. Movies and the pitter-pat of little embryos with Kelsey and Trent. Creepy low-voiced comedian with Steve. Getting conferenced in while Jason goes right to the source to determine the validity of the stolen penguin story (and is subsequently urged by their media person not to run the story, like he's freakin' CNN). Trying to temper Mark's overambitious gym tendencies, while spending a lot of time there myself. Continuing to nurture a union built on miscommunication and forced laughter with Supergirl. High school reunion this weekend, where I'll regale the masses with my story of inventing Post-Its and becoming a successful businesswoman, or maybe stay up late reminiscing about Stone Temple Pilots and Brian Krakow.

Now back to our regularly scheduled rambling commentary on crap that doesn't matter.

superawkward

Supergirl: I had a dream last night that you were really mad at me about something.
Me: That wasn't a dream, that was Friday.
[long pause]
Supergirl: What do you mean?
Me: I'm just kidding.
[long pause]
Me: I was completely kidding, Super. I'm not mad at you.
[long pause]
Supergirl: Oh. Okay.
[long pause]
Me: Remember that Friends episode where Rachel has a dream that she sleeps with Chandler, and Ross gets mad, and Chandler goes, "Oh, I'm sorry. I was very drunk, and it was someone else's subconscious."
[long pause]
Supergirl: I'm not sure I saw that one. What did he say?
Me: No, nothing, it just reminded me of that.
[long pause]
Supergirl: Seriously though, was there an issue on Friday, or...?
Me: No, no, no. I was totally kidding.
Supergirl: Because if there was, I'd definitely want you to tell me.
Me: So, um, what else happened in the dream?

if you read this, your crush will die

Like everyone, I hate e-mail forwards. I hate the five-alarm ones warning me not to stare at my popcorn while it's in the microwave because one time my brother's friend knew this guy who did that and the popcorn exploded in his face and then he totally DIED. And the ones frantically warning me that UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should I open any emails containing pictures from an anonymous source... seriously, are there still people left doing this? When you get an email from Patty Fuckleberry and a subject title like "check out these kool pix" are you going, "Oh, great! Are these from my cousin, of the whole family playing bocce ball together last fourth of July?" No, idiot. Delete.

I don't like the jokes. Blonds are dumb, Bush is dumb, and here are 101 things you could do to make your coworkers inch away from you in terror. They're never really funny enough to warrant the forward, are they? Sometimes you're not sure what your otherwise sane friend was thinking, sending this waste of time to everyone in their address book when you've heard them mumble funnier things in their sleep. And I hate the ones that are like women's rules for men, which always go from bland to depressing... put the seat down, learn to ask for directions, call when you say you will, stop hitting on my girlfriends, please don't make me cry anymore.

My least favorite of all time are the ones about friendship and how friends are like stars because even though you don't always notice them, you always know they're there, watching over you. What? And it's always sent to you by some schmuck you don't even like that much, and you're like, thanks, I don't recall inviting you to be a star in my freakin' solar system.

Some of these e-mails reveal themselves to have been meant for 12-year-olds because they conclude with, "If you send this to one person, your crush will notice you. If you send this to two people, your crush will talk to you. If you send this to three people, your crush will ask you out." And if you send it to everyone on the planet, your crush will give you herpes and then start stalking your best friend. Thankfully, most of them just end with that ominous threat about how you have to send it on to fifteen people in the next twenty seconds or else your great aunt will be killed within the next seventeen minutes. It may not be comforting, but at least you know the e-mail was meant for adults and not middle schoolers. After a certain age, dismemberment is just more socially acceptable than lusting after lacrosse players.

jungle boogie

"Lost" is losing me, pun intended. Let's start with the beeping box in the hatch and how they decided that they had to hit the button every hour and a half or else the world would blow up, without any real proof except for the testimonial of a hysterical Irish guy. How about you leave the crazy underground apartment and worry about actual problems like food and water and maybe put the magic world-saving button on the back burner for now?

The someone's-gonna-DIE episode was a frantic race to make Shannon relevant so that we'd care when Scowly McMeanington shot her. And as in real life, the best way to establish your identity is to have sex with a guy in a tank top. And then suddenly they were in love and making plans for being together off the island, like they're at summer camp: "So, do you think we'll keep in touch after we go home?" Um, you guys have plenty of time together, considering you're GOING TO DIE THERE. And then Shannon counters with, "You're just going to leave me, like every guy does after we get in a plane crash and land on an island full of cannibals." But Tank Top gets all DiCaprio-on-the-iceberg about it: "I will NEVER leave you." Didn't they just meet? I guess anyone starts to look good after you've been drinking sand for awhile.

The acting career of the guy who plays Walt's dad has been distilled to one line that he yells whenever there's more than half second of silence: "They took my son!" Sometimes he tries emphasizing different words to keep it fresh, but he's even starting to sound apathetic about it now.

And they found the elusive Others, but now it turns out those Others are scared of other Others. And they were all apparently on the plane together. Would this ever happen after an actual plane crash? I'm sorry, but look around next time you're flying Delta: No one on that flight is equipped to deal with life without their carry-on, much less form tribes and immediately become hardass jungle folk. Which leads me to think that were I in this situation, I would probably be worthy of induction into the hardcore Others group, except for the walking around barefoot part, because ow. We're walking on twigs and snakes here, people. They might need me for my footwear suggestions alone.

Most disconcerting is that JJ Abrams apparently only claims Alias as his other big success. I, however, remember him when. Actually, maybe he could reincarnate Felicity and help out our new friends. She could arrive on the island and say "oh...hey" to everyone and then talk about how weird and displaced and uncomfortable it feels being away from home but that she knows it's really important to grow from this and that ultimately it will make her a stronger person. Cue a Savage Garden song, and they could all hug in slow motion.

has Canada lost its freakin' mind?

I heard a radio ad for Canada encouraging us to go there. I always wonder who benefits from these commercials... it's like those TV ads for plastic or cotton. "I have an idea, let's drop millions of dollars to advertise something totally non-specific like 'the fabric of our lives.' We're sure to show...well, absolutely no direct gains from this, but everyone should know how GREAT these materials are."

This particular Canada tourism ad was normal until about halfway through ("it's so close," "we have so much to do here") and then lost its mind and started talking about how you could come to Canada and bounce on moonbeams and such. I wish I remembered direct quotes, but it was enough to make me look down at my radio in disbelief, which is never a good sign... your brain has temporarily lost that connection that the radio voice you're hearing is actually not a person inside of your stereo, but for the moment you can only look down at it as though it's a human being that you must hold accountable for the lunacy you're hearing. (I've reacted to Jay Severin much the same way; who, by the way, has been off the air for awhile. Tell me he's not going national?)

So what's going on with Canada? I feel like it's the weird brother who lives in the attic (my map skills are very literal; Canada is "up") and keeps to himself but then every now and then you hear hysterical rambling and you go, "Crap, maybe I should go check on Canada." Then you climb halfway up the stairs and tentatively ask, "So, um, how's it going, buddy?" before getting hit in the face with a hockey puck. (I love cultural cliches... reminds me of being at Epcot.)

Never mind the fact that the last time I was in Canada, there was no one at the border telling me to stop and so I just drove across, and the strategy of the police to try and get me back was to run out of their little welcome-to-Canada hut and start frantically waving their arms. Now that's what I call border security.

sleeping with myself

A chick magazine has an article this month called "The Questions to Ask Before You Jump Into Bed." I decided to ask myself these questions to determine if I'm a suitable bed partner, or if I should be making myself sleep in the guest room until we're more serious. I mean, I don't want to rush into anything here.

1) What's the best compliment anyone could give you?
Dave's suggestion: "You have beautiful cuticles?", complete with question mark at the end. My response to that: "You just used 'beautiful' and 'cute' in a sentence about me and somehow managed to not compliment me at all."

2) What material thing will you never give up?
I'm partial to the clay larynx I made in grad school. I brought it home and baked it in the oven until it hardened. I used to keep it in my living room but I think it kind of grossed people out. Apparently a clay Yukon Cornelius is fine but a clay larynx is weird.

3) What's one thing you'll never do again?
I hope to never return to adult driver's ed.

4) What's your nickname?
Red, but only if you're a scary old man working at a drugstore.

5) What's the biggest misconception people have about you?
Probably that I like them. I'm quite polite. Or, as Mark put it in his blog: Red would be great on some reality TV dating show. She'd be the only girl who'd think that she'd go on and cut people down and tell everyone exactly what she thought of them, but when she got there she'd be on her cell phone with me telling me the truth, and then when she'd be on dates with a bunch of losers she'd be nice to them and lead them on even though she has no interest in them, and be afraid to be honest with them because of her polite social party upbringing at Dirty Dancing as a child. I'd be on my cell phone? Does he know me at all?

6) What embarrasses you?
Every time I trip and fall, it's like the first time.

7) What's your favorite curse word? Why?
Freakin', which sits in for "really," "very," and also pinch hits as an adjective. I only bring out the hard stuff for special occasions.

8) What's the best/worst quality you inherited from your parents?
Best/worst from mom - spunk/ADD
Best/worst from dad - sense of humor/the bump on my nose

9) What do you want to do before you die?
Go to sleep. Have we determined if I'm worthy to have in my bed yet?

10) Would you date yourself?
Definitely. We're really compatible.

Zach Braff wouldn't have been amused, but I was

This was the "coming up next" screen on HBO last night for a few blissful seconds:

9:00 Garden State

11:00 Atlantic City Hookers: It Ain't EZ Being a Ho

Nothing like fine cinema back-to-back. I just can't decide if I should enjoy it accompanied by a vegan soy Kabbalah latte or my baby daddy.

ow

My mom broke her shoulder, so last night I was in the hospital with her for hours. The ER, as you know, is a total mind fuck...everything takes forever and someone you love is in pain and you're in that tiny room and you just want to lose your mind. But anyway, she was getting her second dose of morphine (the Red women are never happy being only slightly drugged) and she looked at me and said, "Isn't morphine the drug that you steal?" Now, by "morphine" I think she meant "oxycontin" and by "you" I think she meant "crazy people I've seen on holding up pharmacies on the news," but still...a question like that makes the nurse look twice at you.

"And I Was Like, Huh?": a special Dirty Dancing edition

And we drank water and ate his peppermints and talked about our years at school and stuff. And at one point he mentioned that he schedules his classes early in the morning so that he can wait tables at a restaurant in Portsmouth at night. He does it five nights a week and he said it helps him keep up with the tuition bills. And I was just like, oh my God. I wanted to hug him for being so smart and - I don't know - ambitious doesn't seem like the right word - maybe focused? Anyway, I just respected him a lot for it. And he told me that he goes to school with some people who have a lot and still complain that they don't have more and that I'm not like that. And then he told me that he'd gotten my number at school off the College website and that he'd thought about calling me a lot. And I don't know if he felt obligated to say that or what but then he said that he wasn't sure if calling me would have put me in an awkward position so he had decided not to and that he would just see me this summer because he knew he'd be back working here again. And all of a sudden I was just thinking "uh oh" because I hardly thought about him all year and I didn't know if I was supposed to have been thinking about him or what. I mean, we did practically have sex.

(For any newbies or forgetfulbies: "And I Was Like, Huh?" is a series of vaguely mortifying glimpses of yours truly at 19-ish, courtesy of Dave, who was kind enough to save all my old journal entries. Here are one and two.)

(Also, if you're a little unsure about Dave's beard, don't worry, his friend Keith is too.)

when appliances decide you're lame

Apparently even my clock radio thinks that we have a dysfunctional relationship. I overslept by an hour today. No, overslept is too nice a way to put it. I kept hitting the snooze button...so, I guess I oversnoozed. (I blame the monsoon and accompanying gray skies for failing to rouse me, but that's really neither here nor there.) The radio would go off periodically, so I basically just elected to stay in that constantly interrupted state of consciousness, because it's such a great way to start the day...who needs breakfast when you can have a panic attack every eight minutes? And then, after an hour of this, my clock radio gave up on me and shut off altogether: "I freakin' TRIED. What is WRONG WITH YOU? It's almost SEVEN THIRTY. Don't you have BILLS TO PAY? Aren't songs about Kelly Clarkson's tormented love life ENOUGH TO GET YOU OUT OF YOUR COCOON?"

Ironically, it was the silence that woke me up. Sounds like the start of a Hemingway novel.

So I started the day late, and then after one of my morning meetings I announced that I was feeling crabby. I just get more professional every day.

why I love Mark's job

Because every now and then he has to learn a totally ridiculous song because one of his music students wants to learn to play or sing it. This keeps me incredibly entertained. So you can imagine my DELIGHT when he told me that he just had to learn the music and words to "I Didn't Steal Your Boyfriend" by Ashlee Simpson for an 11-year-old. Mark likes emo and was not amused. But I was! I freakin' love it! This song really exists, and that's really the title! He sent it to me and I LOVE IT. The lyrics are exactly what you'd expect. There's a line where she goes, all pissy, "Well I'm SORRY that he CALLED me, and that I answered the TELEPHONE." I'm hoping it's a part of a pop culture war with Hillary Duff or Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton and it better be on the soundtrack for House of Wax: the Sequel. I wish these teen girls would just release albums screaming at each other: "Hey That's My Popsicle," "I Totally DID Return Your Shoes, Didn't You Check Your Closet?", "Whatever, It's Not Like You Called Me on MY Birthday."

Kevin McNotHisRealNamington at work heard me being excited about this and immediately told me it couldn't be the new song for our Battle of the Snuck-In Lyrics. Like I would've even asked.

Fine, I might've.

Speaking of, we're auditioning new songs. I loved the idea of Power of Love by Huey Lewis, but on closer inspection none of the lyrics are really usable...I mean, "don't need no credit card to ride this train"? Although definite bonus points to anyone who could've pulled off, "I really like this report you wrote, Bob. In fact, you might say it's stronger and harder than a bad girl's dream." Can't Get Enough of Your Love by Barry White was a fun option but it would involve a little more verbal molestation of my colleagues than is typically socially acceptable. Plus you'd give youself away when you had to punctuate the whole thing with a baritone "baby." I mean, it's tough to pick just one song that works for all of us, because the world doesn't move to the beat of just one drum, and what might be right for me may not be right for some.

That was the Different Strokes theme song. I told you I'm good at this game.

Ideas, anyone?

how interesting

Guy I Knew in College drifted back into my orbit this weekend and reinforced why he's Guy I Knew in College and not Guy I Still Know. First it was "how have you BEEN?" and then he proceeded to get drunk and decide to re-create our non-relationship. He and I were barely friends six years ago. Barely Friends Six Years Ago means that our catching up with each other should consist of what are you up to/where are you living/that's a nice plasma TV. It should not consist of the following. I wish I could remember what we were talking about, but it was literally something as innocuous as pen caps, and then:

Him: You know what I don't get?
Me: What? [Thinking he's about to make a brilliant pen cap observation.]
Him: I don't understand why you'd act interested when you're not interested.
Me: What?
Him: Why you'd act interested when you're not interested. [Did he really think my "what?" meant "please repeat yourself, I didn't hear you"?]
Me: Interested?
Him: Well, YEAH. [Said with total attitude, which is funny because whatever point he was trying to make was lost on me but he was apparently very convinced of its merit.]
Me: When? [Lest you think I conjured up this clever one-word response immediately, it was actually preceded by a few seconds of dumbfounded silence.]
Him: At College.
Me: WHAT?
Him: Yeah.

Oohhhh, and then it came right back to me: He's not just a Barely Friends Six Years Ago; I didn't like this guy at ALL.

Me: You're drunk.
Him: Maybe.
Me: Nice to talk to you again.

Let it never be said that I'm not polite.

bring on the Power Point...and pig blood

Work has been giving me way too much Tent fodder lately. So I get in today and there's a flyer in my mailbox about an upcoming workshop. It sounds interesting...and then I read on to find out that it's being presented by me. It was the first I'd heard about it. There was even an outline of the agenda!

The best part is that there's a workshop the week before to talk about effective communication amongst the staff. Oh, the sweet, sweet irony of it all.

Also? A guy I don't know asked me today how many times I've been told that I look like Sissy Spacek. Um, NONE? And thank you, total stranger, for likening me to the demonic girl who scared me almost to tears when she stood on that stage covered in blood, whipping her head around with her eyes all wide and crazy, locking doors and starting fires with her mind. That's GREAT.

best wishes for continued success, fuckers

One of the reasons I left the corporate world was... well, okay, to be able to wear yoga pants to work. But the other reason was to escape words like "open dialogue," "implemented," and "logistics," all of which were penned by ME in an e-mail to some of my colleagues tonight, without a hint of irony. Why can't I escape this business-ese? Let's pow-wow and discuss...do you have a 1:00?

learning to love yourself... it is the greatest love of all

So, okay, I'm a little twisted. There's a place in my heart for bad music. Terrible music, really. And it's that age-old question of: am I making fun of it or do I really and truly like it? Did it begin with the former and slowly become the latter? The world may never know.

Are you wondering how bad we're talking here? Think of a bad song. A really bad one. No, Peter Cetera isn't bad enough. That's amateurish and you can do better. Got one? Okay, I've got that one on the iPod and worse. Way worse. AND I know them all by heart. What's up, Air Supply?

Are you about ready to tear me to shreds, you hipster? Well, I defy you to sing along to something on the freakin' Garden State soundtrack when you're road-tripping to Maine in the rain to see Dane (Cook) with your friends. No, you need "More Than a Feeling" and maybe a little Jovi. You might need a little Scorpions as well, but you might not admit to that after the fact. That might be something that remains a vehicular secret. Hey, you can have your weekend your way, and I'll have mine my way.

Anyway. So, you know my work involves the vague performance of non-specific tasks in the field of the education of the young amongst us. It's always nice when you can mix two of your passions... your work and your love for crappy music. And what better way to do this than to bring "Greatest Love of All" by Whitney Houston into the mix. Because I'm sure you believe, like I do, that the children are the future. (And the fact that this is even something that you can choose to believe or not believe is sort of funny; they may be snorting Playdoh now, but like it or not, today's five-year-olds are, indeed, the future.)

You know this song because it was on that tape with all the other songs you made up dances to with your friends when you were nine, or you know it because your sister or neighbor and her friends made up dances to it. This song is great for several reasons. One is that it's just total drama rock, God love it. Another reason is that it's apparently the product of two half-songs that accidentally got recorded as one. Whitney starts out all like, "Kids are important! Give them pride!" and then without warning launches into, "Don't you take my dignity. I love myself. It's all right here in me." Um, I thought we were talking about kids, but okay. And then? THEN?

She sings the song again. The song consists of her singing the same song twice. The actual song is, what, 58 seconds long? And then she sings it AGAIN. Why is this acceptable? If I'm at work giving a presentation and I run out of shit to say, do I just start over, verbatim, shushing everyone who tries to say, "Red, you just told us all of this two minutes ago"? No, I don't. And I bet you don't either. And yet we let this crack-addicted pop star get all repetitive on us. Unfair.

So, basically, what I'm saying is that anyway you slice it, THIS IS A GREAT SONG. And I've had a running contest with three people that I work with and the rules are as follows: You have to work one of the lyrics from this song into an otherwise serious conversation. The person on the receiving end of the lyrics has to not pick up on this and respond to your lyrical plagiarism as though it's your actual thoughts. It's harder than you'd think, which explains why it's been going on for awhile and why I personally thought there could never be a real winner. Witness a couple of failed attempts over the past year:

Me: ...and I told Parent how funny Her Kid is...
Brian: Right... children's laughter can remind us how we used to be.
Me: Nice try.

Lauren: ...and it's just that everybody's searching for a hero, and people need someone to look up to.
Kevin: Have you never found anyone to fulfill your needs?
Lauren: Damn it.

And then this week, after a particularly brutal meeting, Kevin is seething over a lawyer's (unjustified and pointless) dismemberment of his credentials. He's complaining to me and the others. We listen, wide-eyed, supportive. Then I take a shot that I'm sure won't work: "Well, you know, no matter what they take from you, they can't take away your dignity."

He responds: "I know, it's like..."

Oh, shit. All of us around the table immediately launch into what can only be described as SHRIEKING. I won! I won the Whitney Houston battle of the wits! And WHO ELSE is more deserving, I ask you?

cutting to the chase

Pondering the Amazing Race lately has got me thinking about these kind of shows in general. The reality genre is pretty tired, obviously, but it still amazes me that ANYONE on ANY of these shows gives a freakin' crap about anyone else on the show. Isn't the point to win the money or the job or a pretty, pretty pony or something like that? And isn't it like, what, a month of this manufactured reality and then you're back to your actual life? Why does anyone obsess over a perfect stranger's idiosyncracies and try to deconstruct their issues and get to the bottom of why they wander the streets at night shouting obscenities at parking meters? Who freakin' CARES? Maybe I wouldn't make such a great contestant on one of those shows because I just couldn't engage in that shit. I have enough crazy in my life from the people I love, let alone people I don't even know. People on these shows are pretty quick to get into screaming matches with other people, without stopping to think that it DOESN'T EVEN FREAKIN' MATTER. If Nancy and Bugaboo on the other team think that I'm [insert adjective here], I believe the correct reaction is a look of incredulity that they've even presumed to make eye contact, accompanied by of the following responses:

Why are you here?
Why are you talking?
Why do you exist?
Zip it, Brer Rabbit.