I'm a riddle in 140 characters

There are certain behaviors and observations that just do not work as Twitter updates.
To wit:

"The plastic fork keeps catching on the bottom of the plastic container and spraying little bits of quinoa everywhere. Aim at clothes, or desk?"

It is nearly impossible to post about eating quinoa and not come across as snooty. Oh ho ho, I purchased this "cheesy quinoa with spinach" at the food co-op! Tee hee, observe as tiny flecks of this obscure grain anoint my sweater and desk chair! Note that I pointed the fork in the other direction — ha ha, oh I can barely catch my breath — and the same thing happened to my monitor!

Replacing the word "quinoa" with "food" is not an option. The dictum goes, "Never say 'pass the ketchup,' say 'pass the Heinz.'" Specifics are crucial. Revising quinoa as food changes the meaning from snob to slob, and that wasn't exactly the point of the post either. I gave up on the update without further attempts to endearingly spin my complex lunch experience.

So now you, and only you, nonexistent readers, know the truth. I like overpriced specialty health-store food, and I cannot eat something without also wearing it. I would say that contradiction makes me fascinating — if saying so didn't make me self centered.

What a dog wants

Let me under the blanket.
Under the blanket. Here! Here! I'm pointing with my nose!

No, I want to be between your knees! Move your feet. I'm pointing with my nose.

Walk in a circle under the blanket. Walk in a circle under the blanket. Walk in a circle under the blanket. And...lie down. Sigh.

What's that sound? Bark! Bark bark! Run to the front door! Run to the back door! Rrrrrr...bark!

Hi. Want to be under the blanket. Why did you take off the blanket?

Want to be under the blanket.

No, you have to be under the blanket too. Under. The. Blanket.

Cry cry cry cry cry cry cry cry cry cry cry cry cry cry cry cry.

You pretend like this is hard to understand.

Evolve, already

I was watching an episode of Project Runway in which the contestants were interviewed about how they missed the most recent cast-off, and, you know, how it's difficult because you make friends with these people but they're also your competition. The episode originally aired October 22, 2009. Survivor, generally credited with popularizing competitive reality television in the United States, first aired in 2000. Why am I watching a narrative thread that hasn't changed, from season to season or from show to show, in almost ten years?

Reality TV is ubiquitous now. Casting directors thrill to find contestants who aren't already longtime fans of these long-running shows, so that we can get those juicy "I wasn't expecting a twist!" voice overs. Viewers are getting wise to the dread beast editing, how contestants' footage can be spliced, or the boring parts omitted, to create drama where none existed. As soon as a controversial episode airs, the Internet is flooded with debunking and interviews with the participants, supposedly to clear the air. We've learned not to believe what we're shown, yet the powers that be seem to think this is the only kind of story we want. Moreover, the unchanging narration (oh, is someone going home tomorrow? I had no idea!) suggests a tone deafness on the part of producers and editors, still spelling it out for viewers new to the genre — yet I defy you to find one.

We get miniscule advancements, tiny nods to the fact that the format is old hat by now. All recent Bachelors and Bachelorettes, inevitably rejected contestants from recent seasons, get to confess how they didn't realize just how difficult it is to make the keep-or-dump choices on their first season, but now they understand. This is supposed to redeem them in our eyes and remind us how much we liked them before overexposure bred distaste. Every once in a while, Survivor pays off when some self-declared "student of the game" is outlasted by the rivals he considered beneath him. Even then, the rivals are never asked how much Survivor they've seen, because it isn't vital to their story line.

It's time to stray from the formula. No, further. No, further. I understand that, no matter how outstanding a show's concept, what truly makes a reality show successful is people who are feeling...feelings. But what we've been shown for a decade have been the same feelings, brought about in the same way, by a seemingly endless supply of contestants.

The people on reality television have seen other reality shows before. Almost all of them. You can't tell me that "I'm not here to make friends" is the best quote from their confessional sessions. I bet these contestants are saying things that are fantastically self aware, possibly even meta, offering a commentary on the format, perhaps comparing their experience with past seasons. I'm looking forward to the time when producers begin to stray from coaxing the familiar sound bytes out of their contestants and show us a new take on the format altogether. I bet the raw materials are already there in incidental and confessional footage; it's just a matter of making a new approach to storytelling that I believe is long overdue.

Eau de fogey (Obey the Word Limit)

Submitted by: R
Topic: Laundry detergent
Word limit: 583

It just so happened that the summer after Bestemor died, Chris played with the Windy City Thunderbolts. The team’s home field was a few minutes’ drive from Bestemor and Bumpa’s house, so he stored most of his belongings in a locker downtown and brought some essentials for a temporary stay at the home we’d both known our whole lives. Like most minor-league baseball teams, Windy City was short on host families; there were no more beds when Chris joined the team in late June (after Northwestern’s later-than-everyone-else commencement), and the team wasn’t too concerned with the housing of a player who seemed comfortably settled with nearby relatives. This was how he wound up expanding a few days’ stay into living with Bumpa for months.

The fact of their coexistence didn’t turn out to be noteworthy. Their schedules were so different that often, the only time they spent together was at home games. I heard little bits about how much food Chris ate, or about Bumpa’s passive-aggressive communication via Post-It, but for the most part they seemed satisfied with the arrangement. Chris had lived with roommates for years, and knew to take his clothes out of the dryer and wash his dishes. The rest seemed to be grumpy old man rumblings.

That summer was Chris’s modest foray into professional baseball. I correctly suspected that the Midwestern venues of the Frontier League would be as close to my home as he would be for a long time, and vowed to take advantage of the relative proximity. Weekend after weekend (after weekday, sometimes), I drove to Kalamazoo, Chicago, Rockford. Game after stupid game, my brother never left the bullpen. That’s the danger in going to nonconsecutive games to see a relief pitcher: he plays on the one day you can’t be there.

It was after one such game. Whether or not he plays, a baseball player nightly showers off the dust of the field and emerges from the clubhouse in fresh clothes. We hugged each other in a way that said seen you recently, see you again soon, but we both traveled to be here so hello again. When the hug ended, Chris had a little smile on his face: hidden, expectant. I knew there was something I had missed — like every Easter egg hunt, he figured things out first.

“Smell my shirt,” Chris said.

I touched his arm and put my nose to his shoulder. When I pulled away in realization, his smile had grown to that familiar grin of satisfaction at a joke well told.

“You smell like Bumpa!” I shrieked.

I made him confirm that he was wearing his own shirt. He was. I smelled the shirt again.

There was no question. The smell was the smell of Bumpa’s closet, of every years-old nubby polo shirt, of my bed at home when he would nap there while visiting us. It was so pervasive — strong enough to compete with the linger of Bestemor’s cigarette smoke, the other smell in their house — that we had both assumed it was the smell of Bumpa himself; we equated the smell with him. It was the smell of every Christmas with our grandparents, and it came in a box. If I asked Chris the name of the detergent, I’ve since forgotten it. If I knew, I wouldn’t buy it. It is enough that for one summer, my brother lived with Bumpa, and did laundry in his garage, and the smell of clean old man rubbed off on him.

You don't have to smile (Obey the Word Limit)

Submitted by: Mom
Topic: Going to the DMV to renew a driver's license
Word limit: 199

Here is how they get you. When you get your first driver’s license, ostensibly at age sixteen, it doesn’t need to be renewed until you’re twenty-five. That’s nine years out of mind. Between first and second license: leave parents’ house, go to college, move out of state, buy a house. When I had to get a Michigan license, that responsibility pertained to the moving checklist; I didn’t think of it as a you’re-a-grownup chore.

It was the week before Christmas, 2005. I was standing in line to renew the registration on my plates (see, that they have you do every year!), still in my coat and hat, when I tired of reading the signs on the walls and perused my driver’s license. I found the expiration date. Whoops. It seemed I would be there longer than expected, and would probably start to get uncomfortably warm in my coat and hat.

…the hat I had been wearing all day because I renew things on my birthday, which is in December, the beginning of hat season.

“Yes, you have to take it off,” the clerk sighed.

Hat-hair license (with bonus grumpy prison face) doesn’t expire for another year. Yes, I’ll forget.

David after dentist (Obey the Word Limit)

Submitted by: Tracy
Topic: Things people say when under the effects of anesthesia
Word limit: 753

Upon reflection, I haven’t spent too much time around people just recovering from surgery. I took care of my boyfriend when he had his wisdom teeth removed, but all he did was dribble blood down his chin and look wan.

As for myself, I’ve been under general anesthesia twice. The first time was my own wisdom tooth extraction when I was seventeen (it was a very good year, otherwise). The oral surgeon put an IV in my arm and pushed the medicine. I asked, “How long does this stuff take to work?” I’m pretty sure that I got all the words out before the inside of my mouth turned to wet plaster. The surgeon said, “Oh, pretty quickly,” and my last conscious thought was of the obvious smirk he threw to his assistant as he said it. The bastard smirked at me, a poor kid going all woozy and slumping over in front of him! Then, after briefly listening to a drill going nuts in the back of my mouth, I regained consciousness face down — maybe it was face sideways; anyway, my face had something to do with it — in a recovery room. Although I don’t remember the details of the room very well, the sense of a confessional booth stays with me. I don’t remember what I said; my mouth was tender, so I might not have said anything at all.

The second time was almost exactly a year ago, when I had a minor laparoscopic surgery. I remember being apprehensive about the stupid stuff I would say under general, and then becoming preoccupied with saying the absolute funniest thing possible to my doctor just before I went all the way under. This was spurred by an anecdote from my grandfather, himself no stranger to surgery: my grandmother would pin comic strips to his hospital gown so the last thing he heard was the laughter of the surgical staff. That story got into my head. I coveted that laugh.

Maybe I should have been a little more somber while being wheeled into an operating room. Yet the goal only materialized before me after I had been given something they described to me (though not in so many words) as a pre-party dose, so it was in between brain echoes of WOOOOOOO and ceiling tiles! when I decided I must be my absolute funniest. I do recall, in this long trip down the short hallway, debating whether dropping the f-bomb would be too shocking.

DOCTOR: Good morning. Are you ready to go?
ME: Just don’t fuck up. (Doctor and staff dissolve into fits of raucous laughter.)
DOCTOR: Okay, everyone, obviously this patient is extra special. Let’s really try our hardest here.

What I wasn’t about to do was say something that I hadn’t chosen and vetted in my head in advance. Nothing drives me crazy like when I say something innocuous that, once spoken, turns out to be funny. My unintentional humor is always better received, and it makes my brain want to assassinate itself. Hello! Why am I even trying in here? I don’t even enjoy the unexpected laugh, because my brain gets mad and wants everyone to shut up and save their laughter for its own best efforts. This dichotomy has led to lifelong self censure: if I’m going to say something funny, it had damn well be of my own invention. I’m probably less funny in the long run, but the parts of my brain don’t get envious this way. Yes, it’s true: my wacky and free-wheeling antics are all thorougly scripted and staged. To wit: my singular focus, while high on medical drugs, on saying something perfectly engineered to be funny. When the time came, however, I couldn’t even muster a weak “Rock ‘n’ roll!” I believe I said, “What’s up.”

If I said anything exceptionally funny, or even remotely so, in the aftermath of these two procedures — both of which were pretty brief and didn’t require a whopper of a knockout — I never heard of it. My mom would know; she drove me home from both of them. Then again, she knows how I feel about being unintentionally funny, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s withholding the truth from me. Maybe it’s a vast conspiracy, like everyone I know has secretly seen the YouTube video of me, with gauze falling out of my mouth, trying to sing the words of the Gettysburg Address to the tune of “Freebird.”

Probably not. I don’t even know the Gettysburg Address.

Taking the deliciously marbled plunge

I went for it. In just a few weeks, the Year Of Meat begins.

Form letter apology

Dear [cast-mate],

I wanted to let you know how deeply sorry I am that I [accidentally called you a fairy].

Of course, there is no excuse for my actions, and I acknowledge that I have already apologized to you [twice]. However, because [we haven't known each other very long], I'm compelled to further explain myself. This is not the first time I've acted inappropriately, buoyed on a sense of my own hilarity. Here is a partial list of past infractions.

• In eighth grade, a few friends and I were being driven home together by one friend's mom. We were joking about this friend entering high school and seeing her older brother in the halls. I don't remember what I said that had the car rolling with laughter, but I do remember what made it stop: "Hey, look, someone who's even shorter than you are!" Both the conversation and the station wagon screeched to a halt. From the driver's seat, the barely controlled voice of this friend's mother — herself around five feet tall — asked me to repeat myself. I quietly declined, and the car continued in silence.
• In high school, we were about to watch Thelma and Louise as a counterpoint to our study of Hedda Gabler. I had only seen bits of the movie while flipping channels, so I knew from the Brad Pitt/Geena Davis hotel scene that we were about to get a disclaimer about sexual content. The teacher, one of my favorites, cautioned that the movie depicted an attempted rape. I jumped the gun and crooned, "Yay, rape!" Another student, the only person in the class not too shocked to speak, scolded me, "Rape isn't funny."
• I was sitting in class for my masters program, thrilled about the pitfalls-of-grammar lecture of the day. The instructor told us not to use while unless we literally meant "at the same time as." I was anticipating the admonition that the better word choice of although should not be shortened to though. When the instructor (with whom I had a great rapport and who I might otherwise have asked for a recommendation) said that although — or even though — was preferable, I sputtered, "You shut up about that." In contrast to the frightened looks and murmurs of my classmates, the professor took it in stride, and I was permitted to explain to the class that using though for although is one of my pet peeves, about which I am (apparently) quite passionate.

I hope these anecdotes make it clear that I have a storied history of finding myself quite funny until I go too far and seriously embarrass myself. In the present case, [I was helping a colleague practice her lines, filling in your lines for a scene between the two of you. Your character reaches for a prop, but he's rapidly dying and the prop is behind him, so the physical weakness and the pleading are fodder for parody. I was paraphrasing your part of the dialogue, and thought to make a joke about the character's frailty that you would appreciate — after all, you were sitting next to me at the time, and you've made fun of that line yourself in the past. My brain searched its lexicon and decided the best word to say would be "fairy." (I confess there may have been a subliminal element, as your sexual orientation had only recently been made known to me.) This turned into me half-reciting your line, essentially mocking you, and topping off the entire effect with the sing-song, "I'm a fairy." Only after the word escaped my mouth did I realize how awful it sounded in that context. Incidentally, in its grand tradition of revisionism, my brain has since decided that "weenie" is both a more appropriate and a more fitting word for the occasion.]

My reaction at each such incident is deep shame and the helpless sense that I am a better person than I have just let on. The intention is never to put people down, or speak out of turn, but always that manic grab for a laugh that goes awry. I would say the politically incorrect invective is generally the worst, because it contradicts my actual values. [In the present instance, what I said flies in the face of what I believe to be my extreme open-mindedness, and I worry that Oberlin is going to find out and demand their diploma back. I assure you that under normal circumstances, when I'm in control of myself, I would not use that word to mean other than an actual woodland sprite. Nor would I demean you with that or any other slur to your face or behind your back. It's not that I'm embarrassed at getting caught, but that I said it at all.] Please be assured that although you may one day forget my offense, you have assumed a permanent seat in my hall of excruciating memories.

I wish I could erase what I said. [It crushes me to know that because of my actions, you may have doubted being open about yourself with me or with the cast. I wish that this letter proved that I am the better person I profess myself to be.] Instead, I humbly request your undeserved forgiveness.

With the utmost disgrace, I unfortunately remain,
C

[P.S. I will certainly be adding this story to my letter for future apologies.]

Spending time deciding how to spend my time

Be warned: after I've finished writing this, they'll have to spray for crazy. You might get some on you.

Every year, I make a spreadsheet of the new fall TV schedule.

...Shut up.

That isn't even the half of it. One tab of the spreadsheet is the entire network schedule, which I assemble from various blogs and the network sites themselves. There's always a bit of shuffling before September, so I review it every once in a while to make sure I have the right times and days.

...yeah, I do. Shut up.

You might say I really excel at Excel, so I've got quite the attractive grid at this point. Which I then color code. One color for new shows, one color for returning shows I don't watch, one color for returning shows I have to watch, and one for returning shows that I don't hate, but could live without.

Then (...shut up!), based on the grid of five networks times umpteen primetime slots, and my convenient color coding of same, I choose up to three shows per time slot. Yes. Three. Shut up. Two get recorded on the dual-tuner TiVo upstairs, and the third is recorded on the old TiVo in the basement.

Yeah, we have two TiVos, technically three — one is on loan with a friend. Shut. Up.

The second tab of the spreadsheet is the list of shows I plan to record, and on which machine. There's also an alternate column for shows that I can record when they're rerun in the middle of the night.

But that's not all. Because what kind of TV watcher would I be if I didn't color code my own personal schedule as well? When I was in school last year, there were more colors for shows I would save for between terms, shows I would regularly download to watch while on trains (so many trains), and then red text instead of black for new shows. This year I've settled into two colors, for new and returning only. Nothing like a simple spreadsheet to reflect my simplified life.

I have the capacity to record about 60 hours of primetime TV per week. Not even I reach this maximum — it's generally between 20 and 30. However, I have to arrange my more than 60 TiVo Season Passes by what day the show airs and then review the list to make sure everything will be recorded. (In case you're wondering, this takes about 45 minutes. Moreover? Shut up.)

It's safe to say I watch a lot of television. However, just to be clear: I have a decades-long history of not watching Jay Leno, and that's a tradition I wouldn't think of abandoning. Shut up, Leno.

Week in review

Reasons why I haven't posted for eight days.

• If I can't find the time to exercise, how can I justify writing a blog post?
• My busy social calendar. First the Wilde Awards on Wednesday, then a birthday party on Friday. Where does the time go?
  
• $30 at the farmers market goes a long way. Saturday turned into a festival of prepping and cooking, and I still have pounds and pounds of vegetables to eat before the week is out. I think I used and washed the same pot and mixing bowl 4 times in 12 hours.
  
• Today is the deadline for being off book in Hamlet. I'll have to prove myself at rehearsal tonight. Between keeping all the "my good lord"s and "good my lord"s straight — and knocking the incorrect memorization out of my head; it's "if again this apparition comes"! — I've been studying harder than I usually have to. (I figure that if I lose my line, I may just start reciting "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." It's like doing extra credit because you haven't actually completed the assignment.)
• Finding an attractive, inexpensive, and opaque plain black turtleneck in August.
  
• "I'm Peggy Olson, and I want to smoke some marijuana." I learned that I sometimes guffaw.