On the Subway Eating Leftovers and Being Really Happy About It

Do you ever drive with the radio on and realize that you have been listening to a song for a few minutes that you really wish you weren't listening to? And you would have changed the station, except you were deep in thought about nothing in particular?

I'm driving home at almost one in the morning and as I'm getting off the freeway, or the Autobahn as some would have it, I realize I've almost finished listening to "That's the Way I Like It" in its entirety. As it finished out, I drove the rest of the way to my apartment laughing hysterically. Not sure why. Maybe because I'm a little cooky from finals week. I didn't change the station though. You'd think after I heard such a ridiculous song I'd switch it. But I don't really like the sound of changing stations. There's no continuity. It is so flustering to change stations mid-song. I'm also apprehensive because I think it's kind of rude, as if I'm offending the artist whose song I cut off.

I'm glad I didn't change the station though, because as I was pulling into the parking lot, I heard the first few seconds of "When A Man Loves A Woman." Great song. Sad to turn it off. But at least I didn't have to hear "uh huh, uh huh" running through my mind as I go to sleep tonight. Although now that I'm talking about it more, I probably will be singing it in my sleep...and tomorrow.

Some of the best moments I have with myself are in my car. First of all, I dance like there's no tomorrow, and like there's no seat belt, nearly every time I drive. And also, I just crack myself up. I'm sure you have those moments. Who sits there listening to "That's the Way I Like It" by themselves at 1 am without singing or dancing along? Just sitting calmly with one hand on the wheel thinking about where they'd just been or where they are going...That is what made me laugh.

My favorite laughing in the car moment happened about a year ago. I was driving home from work rather mindlessly when I saw the most hilarious bumper sticker: "CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF PISTACHIOS." Of course, started laughing, slapping my knee and the whole bit. What does that even mean? Do people really get attached to a particular nut? Do pistachios have some sort of cult following? Do Pistachio Groupies talk trash on Peanut Groupies because they're not really nuts, they're legumes? Or what about Brazil Nuts? Do people who have Brazil Nut bumper stickers get slashed tires because, come on you morons, a Brazil Nut is a seed!? I had to know the answers.

I followed the guy. I finally got up next to him at a stop light for the perfect opportunity to discover the story behind the sticker. I make the motion of rolling down a window.

"I love your bumper sticker!"

"Thanks!" He's a middle aged white guy who looks like a surfer.

"Where did you get it?"

"I grow pistachios!"

"Oh, no way."

"Yeah, I sell them. Go to my website."

"Okay!"

The light changes and I get behind him so I can memorize his web address. I went on it when I got home and it was down due to construction or something.

I kept laughing at the sticker, though. Throughout the week I'd think of it randomly and let out a weird noise from my attempt to contain my laughter. When someone would ask what I was laughing at, I'd tell the story. They wouldn't get it.

If I had been in the car with someone, I guarantee I wouldn't have laughed as hard as I did that night. I guess I'm just a really fun person to be around if I'm by myself. Which I know doesn't make sense. But it's the truth.

Moral of the pointless stories I just told? Uh, drive by yourself late at night.

I feel like I should put some pictures up so this post isn't so boring. You're more inclined to read something if it has pictures. Maybe I'll put pictures up of something irrelevant, yet intriguing. You'll read this entire post trying to figure out what the pictures are connected to. You'll read through my story about listening to a song and my story about a random bumper sticker, then you'll read this paragraph and discover the pictures meant nothing. Except they meant something to me: to get you to read this.

Okay I need to sleep. It's been a foreign activity to me in the past week.

Bye

Those Who Hate Poetry, LOOK AWAY

Being the dedicated Lit major that I am, browsing my awesome Norton anthologies has become one of my favorite ways to kill time. I have discovered many new poets and authors by simply flipping through pages. Several names that I have never seen introduce themselves to me and I'll read a bit of their works, musing, "Well that's nice. Very anthologizable." But none has caught my eye quite like Stevie Smith. What's unique about her is that I can't get her poem out of my mind. I'm really not that into poetry. I have one poem that I'm obsessed with (Victor Hugo's "Elle avait pris ce pli") and a couple that I love (T.S. Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and "The Waste Land"). But I don't drool over poetry the way some people I know do. I just don't really get it, honestly. Except for those rare moments when everything aligns, the poem makes sense, and I know that those words were meant to be written for some specific purpose, that they have some sort of transcendental quality.

Stevie Smith's poem "Not Waving but Drowning" struck that chord in me recently. If you know all of the poems that I listed above, then when you read this one, you'll know that apparently I am only drawn to morbid poetry. So it goes...

Not Waving but Drowning

Nobody heard him, the dead man,

But still he lay moaning:

I was much further out than you thought

And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking

And now he's dead

It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,

They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always

(Still the dead one lay moaning)

I was much too far out all my life

And not waving but drowning.

From reading the introduction to Stevie Smith, I learn that she illustrated many of her poems with line drawings, which she called "doodles." This particular poem is accompanied by one such sketches. Since I cannot find it online, (one of the only times Google has failed me) it is lucky that I pride myself in my ability to explain visual objects through words. Imagine a flat-chested 13-year-old girl staring smugly with squiggly lines across her bellybutton area signifying water. Her hair is combed in front of her face looking a bit like the infamous young lady from the horror flick The Ring. I don't know what else to say about this poem, since I am really awful at analyzing poetry. But only, I like it. I wish you could see this sketch. It's a bit freaky.

Sciurophobia

I think I have developed a legitimate, irrational fear of squirrels.  How can something be legitimate and irrational at the same time?  Not just any fear is irrational.  Let's define phobia, which is pretty much synonymous with the term in question:

phobia

[fō′bē·ə]

Etymology: Gk, phobos, fear

an obsessive, irrational, and intense fear of a specific object, such as an animal or dirt; of an activity, such as meeting strangers or leaving the familiar setting of the home; or of a physical situation, such as heights and open or closed spaces. Typical manifestations of phobia include faintness, fatigue, palpitations, perspiration, nausea, tremor, and panic.

When I see a squirrel at my complex my heart nearly leaps out of my chest and races me up the stairs to my door.  I scream and squeal like a girl who is just trying to get attention.  It's terribly embarrassing.  This has resulted in my being self-conscious of that fact which will probably lead to a social phobia where I am constantly afraid that a squirrel will enter the room or my line of vision or the car or whatnot.  I will then revert to my original irrational fear and go berserk over the squirrel, whether one has actually entered into close enough proximity, close enough for me to see its bushy tail and beady eyes and curled hands acting like they're holding a nut or acorn even when there's nothing there!

I have a phobia of my phobia.  Maybe I'll move.

Today

Today, after I bagged up a customer's groceries, we made eye contact and he said, "Coolio."

He was in his forties.

Dreams don't mean a damn thing

Last night I had a dream I was dating Johnny Knoxville.  Together we were planning arts, crafts, and activities for a day care trip to the jungle.  I asked him how his Jackass movies were going.  He told me that the UN had to shut him down because he was too dangerous.

When I Laughed Out Loud on My Tired Sunday

Ray of Self-Absorbtion, Innocence, and Mystery

Although the time is only 11:27 in the PM, I can tell it's going to be one of those nights where I lie awake until 4:00 in the AM, so I am going to write about something terribly boring that will hopefully put me in that should-be-wonted sleepy mood for which all you normal people out there should be grateful, should you be a person who does not have this dreadful disease.

I...was...going to say something but I forgot what it was.  Oh yeah!  My neighbor.

I have a very interesting neighbor.  He is a middle-aged man who I am convinced sells some sort of narcotics out of his garage, who seems to be inebriated by said narcotics day and night, who has two beautiful children who almost fall to their deaths by riding they're tricycles off the stairwell that leads to the garages on a daily basis, whose wife/girlfriend/roommate/mother of his children/some random chick with large breasts takes out the cat litter in the most inefficient way by dragging a punctured trash bag full of feces and sand and urine all the way from their apt to the dumpster leaving a trail of you know what behind along with its pungent smell, who cannot let me walk by him, whether at the pool or below his balcony or in the parking lot, without saying "Hey neighbor!" in his delightful southern drawl that cancels out all of his previous somewhat irksome attributes, yet, to which, I never know exactly what to say.

I normally do not notice the man until he calls me, but I don't notice anyone until they call me, and even then I often unintentionally ignore them.  I don't know if it's because I'm really self-absorbed or because I am basically blind, but I just don't pay attention to whether someone I am nearing is going to wave or say hello.  When people say, "Hello!!  Hannah!  I've been waving at you for like 80!"  I say, "Oh, sorry, I just have a lot on my mind right now," so I seem really important, as if I have a lot of very important things to think about, none of which concern those pedestrian acquaintances that want my attention.  That is not the reason.  I really don't know why.  

So sometimes it takes two or three "Hello neighbor"s before I look to my left or above me or to my right and then notice and wave and say "Hi, how ya doin'?"  and walk off.  

A couple weeks ago I was walking into the gate when he was talking with some mysterious man in some mysterious car, probably doing some consulting for his business, when he puts his cigaretted hand into the air, "Hey neighbor!"  "Hi."  I open the gate to continue the long trek to my door.  But he continues.

"You're so mean."  He says this in a light-hearted way, of course.

"What?"  I turn around and try to see through the tinted window of the Beamer to share a look with the driver to express my sorrow for holding him up.

"You're always scowling."

"I am?"

"Yeah.  You always got this mean look on your face."

"Oh.  Sorry.  I have a lot on my mind.  I don't realize."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm scared to talk to you!"

"Oh.  Don't be.  I'm nice."

"But you always look so mean.  You're sister though, she's always happy."

"Yeah."

I was unfazed.  Ever since I was a child I've encountered the whole, "You and you're sister are so different."  And you just know they mean a good different.  I was (am) the grumpy child, and my sister the happy one.  Nothing could (can) bring that girl down.

A few days ago I turned the corner and almost ran right into him.

"A ray of innocence!"

"What?" I said.

"You.  Are a ray of innocence."

"Oh.  Thank you."  Laugh.

"If I ever saw you rob a bank, I would pass out!"  He clutches his heart as he says this.

"Oh."  Laugh.  "That...would be weird."  I am inching away.

"I bet you never done nothing wrong."

"Well, you know, I'm a mysterious one."  I turn around and walk away.

"Oh!"  I hear him yell out laughing.  "A devious one!"

So I really don't know what he takes me to be.  For a long time, maybe a year, he couldn't distinguish me from my sister.  Now he can; I think cause my hair is short and I wear glasses sometimes.  But he is a very interesting man.  I wish you could meet him. 

[The Reader is one of the best movies I've seen in the theaters in a long time.]

Virgins

Just watched Virgin Suicides for the first time yesterday. Might be one of my favorite movies.

The 80 Theory

I hate blogging when I have nothing to say. I also hate the word blogging. Or blogger.

But yes. I have nothing much to say right now. Roommates are watching Flashdance in the other room, which I have never seen, the movie I mean; I've seen the room plenty of times.

Oh. I thought of something mildly entertaining to talk about. And mild entertainment can sometimes be such a nice refreshment from all those really intense bachelor breakups and engagements and whatnot that I know we all watch with exceptional devotion. Well, I am going to the dentist tomorrow and Tuesday. A fun activity for spring break I'd say. I have to get fillings. A lot of fillings. I think ten or so. I hope I get laughing gas. Okay I was very wrong about this. Bad topic idea. Oh, how exciting this is...metablogging.

No no. I have something to relay to you all. It's an exciting new theory. The theory was actually created in 2006, but it's never been published before. And since blogger.com calls this stuff publishing, I can call this theory published after I tell you about it right now...

Summer of 2006, my friend and I go on a road trip to Colorado. We wanted to make the trip exciting, something like that Extreme Days movie where everything that could possibly happen does and we meet people and get into romantic relationships and we have car trouble and we do something really epic like jumping off of something....or something. So. We brought our video camera, my video camera, and filmed everything little thing. Turns out, the only exciting thing that actually happened was washing our hair with tomato juice because it had turned green from swimming in the rundown motel pool while creepy men came out of their rooms to stare at us. (We heard tomato juice would help...and it did.) Anyway, since we were filming every little thing, we took our camera along when we stopped the car and stepped out to go look at a view....that turned out to be very disappointing. It was very windy and she was filming me walking (exciting, I know). The wind was so intense I was falling over myself. I turned around toward the camera and in a fit of passion screamed "IT'S LIKE 80!" We halted in our tracks and laughed at my random phrase that actually seemed to make some sense, once we teased it out a bit. What I meant was, the wind felt like it was going 80 miles per hour. I don't actually know the general speed of wind. But it gave a good impression of what I was experiencing: very fast wind. 80 mph is pretty fast. In some sense at least. So here comes the theory part...After this road trip, that Like 80 exclamation being one of the highlights by the way, we began to notice how often we said "Like 80" in whatever situation. "He was going like 80." "I think I got like 80." Then we told a few friends about our theory. They began noticing themselves saying it. And here's the weirdest part: everyone says it! We noticed that not only do we ourselves use this phrase in the oddest situations. But so many other people do, too. If there is a type of situation that calls for a number under 100, especially when referring to speed, percentages, amount of people, or prices, people tend to use the number 80 if they are unable to be precise. Look around you. It's everywhere.

I'm glad I found something interesting to talk about. I think it's interesting at least. Then again, I also thought using tomato juice as shampoo was exciting.

7 Pounds

Sorry to say I really hated 7 Pounds. Will Smith is way too generous with his bodily organs.