you know you're in love when you buy...

THIS.

yelp me, yelp me!

I didn't feel inspired to write a blog post today, but I have written a few things on my homepage here at yelp.com. I know I've put a plug in for it before, but I again encourage you to visit this handy-dandy website. There are more and more people posting reviews about Athens places, and if you're getting set to travel, it's a great resource! Find places to eat based on customer recommendations and
not advertisements. What a novel concept!

Nighty night.

Mitch Hedberg & his widow

For those of you who don't already know it, let me say it to you now: I adore (adored?) Mitch Hedberg. He died in March 2005 and I sincerely wept upon hearing the news--for several months there, I wasn't able to listen to his comedy CDs at all. It was just too unbearable.

Clearly my grief is nothing compared to that of those who knew him. I ain't claiming that in the least. But it is strange when someone whose words you've laughed at uproariously and memorized for their wit and humor is suddenly gone from the world. His wife Lynn Shawcroft was one of those left behind to mourn him, and just tonight I stumbled across her blog. I don't necessarily recommend it unless you're really curious about her as a comedienne or wondering what her life (or life as Mitch's widow) is like. In my few minutes of browsing, I did come across a few particularly candid entries dealing with her loss and grief--in these particular entries the writing was really bare and unflowery. It made me scared for the time when I will begin to lose those who are close to me because she tossed neither herself nor her readers the smallest morsel of comfort. If I knew her, perhaps I'd commend her on the bravery it took to put those words to paper (or screen, as it were). What does it say that she then posted them to the internet? I'm not sure.

In any case, now I'm thinking about love and loss and Mitch and what it must be like to lose your partner when you and he make your living as comedians. You must perform and make others laugh if you are to succeed in the business--but how do you do that when you're mourning? I suppose it's the quintessential question all actors face. Truly, it's probably what most people face whenever they're going through a period of loss. I would guess that most people struggle to maintain a somewhat normal facade to cover up what's going on behind the scenes.

Ramble, ramble, ramble.

The end.

my lotion's been stolen!

Man allegedly robbed of his lotion, beaten

Story updated at 10:35 PM on Sunday, November 25, 2007

A man selling body lotion door-to-door flagged down a police officer Friday and said a man beat him up and stole the lotion, Athens-Clarke police said.

The man told the officer he was trying to sell the lotion to a woman in an apartment in the Athens Garden complex. Another man known as "Hamp" then attacked him and stole the goods, the man told police.

The unidentified victim, who police said is homeless, had a scraped knee and cheek, police said.

The officer went to the apartment to check for witnesses, and when he returned, the victim was gone, police said.

The lotion was valued at $5 and "smells good," according to police.

Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 112507


I think what I like best is that it smells good "according to police" and not to the victim. Ha. This story seems so not worth writing about in the paper to begin with, but I'm glad it was.

about that 2000 Anne of Green Gables sequel...

...don't watch it. It's pretty bad. Anne's charm can only go so far. I consider the two hours or so of occasional TV-turning-on-ing this evening a public service for you all. Were I still in AmeriCorps, I would ask Audrey, "Do I get service hours for this?"

The end.

Anne with an e!

A couple of hours ago, I turned on our local PBS channel (GPB, Georgia Public Broadcasting). As often happens when it's time for the seasonal fundraiser, the lovely public TV folks are airing one of the miniseries featuring Anne Shirley. This evening's delightful showing is Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story, a movie I never even knew existed! Anne and Gilbert were engaged when I turned on the TV. I just came back in the room after having had a shower, and I gather they're married now. A quick internet search leads me to the information that in the last installment of the story, part two, the couple was already married--at the beginning of part three, they're not yet married. Um, where are you, continuity editors...?

But back to the good stuff. I love Anne Shirley. I just love her. I've seen the first Anne of Green Gables (originally aired in 1985) about 1,985 times. The one I'm watching now was created and aired in 2000. The beginning of this new chapter was charming. Anne was living the dream--writing a novel, serendipitously having gained employment at a New York publishing house while Gilbert had a prestigious position as a doctor at Bellevue.

It's all downhill now that I decided to take a shower break. Gilbert's in the war, Anne went to the front to find him, and I discovered thanks to this Wikipedia entry that this particular installment was not written by novelist Lucy Maud Montgomery at all. That somehow cheapens it.

Anywho. That's your Anne update. Anne with an e, she'll have you know.

I must share this Found post

I was just showing Jim a little snippet of the glory that is Found Magazine's website. (I plugged it in an earlier entry, don'tchyaknow.) And look what we came across! It truly is a gem. If you don't have someone in your life writing you notes like this, then you truly have something to be thankful for.

By the way, here's a little convo I just experienced in this very room.

Jim: "Who are you talking to?"
Janet: "No one."
Jim: (slight intake of breath) "Is this what a blog is like?"

Nighty night.

new & old fun things of the day

My new iBook battery arrived today. $113 brought me happiness and a blissful relationship with my baby computer once again. The old battery died what I now know to be a predictable death after 18 months or so of working like crazy to keep my computer on almost constantly. (I never turn my computer off. Apparently that's a bad habit.) I charged the new girl up and it's been running for nearly three hours so far--over two to go 'til it conks out. Worth the investment, I tell you. I'll take a more expensive Mac with the more expensive, long-life batteries over the quick-to-decharge Windows-based laptops any day. At least the laptops I had, for they never lasted longer than 45 minutes or so before needing to be plugged in.

In other news, I rediscovered my online persona here today. I think this evening marked the third time I stumbled across my internet self on 43things.com. Interesting to see my goals outlined like that. (Check it out if you remain clueless--it's kind of cool, but only if you can maintain 44,123 personalized websites at once. I obviously cannot.) After months of not logging in, it was rather satisfying to click the "I've done this!" icon next to a couple of my goals. It seems I'd not logged on since my trip to Europe--before that trip, I must have added "travel to Europe" to my list of goals.

Anywho.

I'm also going to buy a replacement battery for my iPod mini. Most folks would get a new iPod for tons of money. Not I, said the cat. I have friends like F'n Jimmy who let me know about replacement batteries that are cheap and can be replaced by yours truly or by Jimmy himself, who likes to tinker with electronics. I love you, Mac, but if I can spend less than $20 getting a replacement battery kit on ebay, I'm going with that instead of a $200 iPod. Yip dee do, working iPod, here I come!

Time to finish up packing. Jim and I head to Florida tomorrow. We must leave bright and early to make sure we arrive in time for the IRCC happy hour. Entertainingly drunk old folks, here we come!!!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

inspiration during the drought

For those of you who don't know much about Found Magazine or their accompanying website, I encourage you to look it up, listen to the This American Life episode(s) related to it, and spend lots of time sifting through the amazing "finds of the day" that date back to a few years ago. That's all I'll say in regards to the content.

Check out this find from November 21, 2005. Weird--tomorrow would make that two years ago exactly!

I like the dude passed out on the shore. Doesn't seem like he sees this place as the land of sun and fun.

true love is...

...a shared myspace profile.

I know this guy who is in a couple, you see. And he and the now-wife have a COUPLE profile on myspace.com. Does anyone else find this to be strange? There are blog postings to each other on there. This is what the blog headline proclaims: "A diary for just us to share our thoughts and feelings with just us. So Honest, So Open, So Exposed. No Hiding, No Walls. Just us Free with each other."

What the hell...?

Here's one of the two blog entries that's not set to private. Perhaps you, like me, will wish instantly that it was while also feeling a strange sense of mysterious glee while reading it:

SUBJECT: whatever

I'm sorry baby..

There are just some things I cannot forgive nor should I forget. Vengeance. Retaliation. Retribution. Big words with a simple, common meaning -- that good will always prevail. She will pay.

Perhaps I'm just not hip to all that is cool for internet-savvy couples these days. I mean, Liz and I had to force our beaux to make myspace profiles after all--clearly my relationship is not ready for his-n-hers romantic profiles and utterly candid blogging.

Why did I go to this page in the first place, you ask? It has everything to do with the fact that I decided to log into my Friendster account for the first time in a month or three. If you so choose, you can turn off the "anonymously view profiles" function when on the Friendster site. I turned off this function long ago, which means everyone whose page I visit can see that I've visited; in turn, I know when people have seen my page, so long as they've not made it so their visits are anonymous. The wife in this hyper-web-love-dyad-delight has looked at my profile recently, so I looked at hers. There's a link to the myspace page there.

Anywho. The myspace page in and of itself is nothing to be that entertained by; the concept of it is really what I'm trying to wrap my head around.

Does anyone else have a couple's page out there? Am I crazy to think that this is freakin' nutso? A little invasive? When I'm on their page, I feel like I'm in the middle of a coffee shop, wedged immobile between couples whispering loudly in incessant babytalk. (Maybe that's because they repeatedly refer to each other as "my baby" on the page--it's mainly written in first person, but there's clearly a dialogue between Baby 1 and Baby 2 going on. Who's who? In love, it doesn't matter, don't you see??)

It's horrendous for me, yet I look anyway.

Luckily for us all, it's time to head out the door for more tutoring. Adieu.

family dinner!

Today is Nancy's birthday. I'm going to Atlanta to celebrate, and I'm SO excited. Bethany, Todd, Heather, and I will be heading there from Athens. Jimmy's there already, of course. We're going to have an Athens family dinner before heading to her small get-together (at another friend's apartment) later in the evening.

I haven't gotten together with this crowd in a long time. I'm really happy at this prospect. Tee hee.

That's all. Carpool of friends and slobbery dogs, comin' right up!

the strike continues

The more I learn about the television writers' strike, the more irate I become. It is scandalizing, ridiculous, horrific, terrible, insulting, etc., etc. that the writers aren't paid for DVD sales and internet viewings of shows they've written.

Reading the articles and blog entries on this site is pretty useful, and watching videos online of the strike are pretty entertaining and informative. (One featuring The Daily Show writers is here. A couple with Sarah Silverman & friends are here and here.)

I'm sure I'll miss my TV shows once they stop soon (some, such as The Daily Show, already have ceased for now), but this is so important. The only way to figure out what's really going on with the strike is NOT to watch coverage on TV, of course. Whether or not you're a frequent TV watcher, it's important to keep yourself informed. Unless you've never rented or bought a DVD of a TV show or watched a TV show online, I shall not excuse you from visiting the official writers' union blog and some independent news source that will give you a relatively unbiased take on the goings-on.

The end!

I scream absurd! (or, I care about what strangers think of me)

I have loved listing all the books I've read (and want to read) on goodreads.com. There are other sites similar to it--librarything.com, shelfari, etc. For me, Goodreads had the prettiest and most coherent format.

Most of the books I finish I like. Many of them I love. (See my Goodreads books page here--most of my reviews are 3-5 stars.) Am I too kind in reviewing books? I think not. Perhaps one could argue that I am too specific in choosing them in the first place. But I can read whatever the hell I want, right? Who's to say I have to force myself to muddle through a book I'm not enjoying?

And speaking of that, let's get back to the topic, shall we? Awhile ago, I finally got my hands on a copy of Wigfield, a book I'd long since wanted to peruse. To my dismay, I didn't enjoy what I read of it. I posted a brief review about it online. (The link follows.) Last night, an email appeared in my inbox: "Notice: Shannon has posted a response to review on Goodreads.com! Click here to read it!" So I did, and I ended up feeling rebuffed. Here it is.

Why am I ever-so-slightly upset by this stranger's feedback, you ask? Because I am absurd! I scream fairly-deep-sense-of-absurdity-instilled-within! I understand her comment, as the book is goofy and strange--hey, I mentioned that in my review. But my not liking the book has noth....

Okay. I don't need to defend myself.

Let's rewind to the late 80s for a minute, for just a little context. A gangly, outgoing girl named Janet attends Huntley Hills School. Happily surrounded by friends in this very small elementary school right outside of Atlanta, Janet enjoys reading, playing outside, creating imagined worlds, bossing her next-door neighbor Jeffrey around, and writing novels whose heroines are either thinly disguised versions or herself or cats (one of her more lengthy stories was called "Ginger Kitten"). Slowly but surely, she has begun realizing that the way she thinks is markedly different from most kids and adults she encounters. Her reactions to situations, her answers to questions, her inability to pick just one "right" answer on a multiple choice test. Though she tends to remain well-liked throughout her school career, this is the age when some fellow students start pointing out that she is, in a word, weird.

This throws her into quite a state at first. Should she try to be normal? Should she pretend that the thoughts racing through her head are not actually there? Should she just pick answer b and pretend that she can't make an argument for a, c, and d as well?

This confused state doesn't last long, for Janet has an answer: she will embrace her oddities. She will let the world call her weird and smile back at them. Rather than insulting herself first before others can, she will consider this complimenting herself first before others can. Then another idea hits her oft-obnoxious mind: she will TELL others to call her weird! Aha! She tells friends, neighbors, and classmates, "Hey, call me weird, 'cause I'm weird!" She goes so far as to tell teachers (most notably third grade classroom teacher Ms. Jackson), "Ms. Jackson, call me weird!" She has now unwittingly set in stone a nickname for herself, one that will last for at least two decades to come: Janet "Call me 'Weird' " Geddis. (Only one or two friends, one of whom has a birthday in 6 hours, calls her this in the year 2007, but hey. It stuck.)

So this is why I am ever-so-slightly irked when I am called not absurd.

The end.

young ones, beware!

I was looking at Christa's ceaselessly entertaining blog tonight and, as usual, felt as if I'd come across a little wonderland of treasures. Some websites I visit every day: gmail, myspace, facebook (gotta check those Scrabble games!), and the news. But people's blogs, especially the blogs I listed on the links to your left (look somewhere to your left now), are sites I go to every week or so. And by the time I do, I'm almost guaranteed to find something new and exciting. That is, of course, unless I've clicked on the pages belonging to Joe or Amy or Kate. In that case, one is almost always met with disappointment, as they NEVER (okay, rarely) update their pages.

Back to the illustrious Christa T. Look at her blog, and look also at the Atlanta ladies' blog she writes for, Pecanne Log. It, too, is really well-written and interesting.

This particular entry by Janet Geddis is not, so I'll stop.

I did click on a link to determine my website's reading level. That was pretty neat-o.

So beware, those of you who are under the age of 18! I may be confusing you with my multisyllabic words or my run-on paragraphs. I dare you to read on. Challenge yourself. Ha.

chug a lug

Today I spent a couple of hours outside playing with a young little lad I babysit. While we were running around his yard and the cul-de-sac his family's house is on, a big ol' TruGreen ChemLawn (sp?) truck drove up. The driver sat in his truck for a good five minutes, engine loudly idling, while he did who knows what. The windows were down, so I know he wasn't using the engine to supply power to the AC or heater. (It was, after all, in the mid-70s this afternoon.)

He eventually emerged from the truck without having turned it off. Maybe he needs to hook up some hoses to the back of the vehicle or something, thought I, but instead he took out a simple pushable fertilizer dispenser and went on his way. For ten minutes he pushed this thing around the yard WHILE THE HUGE TRUCK WAS STILL ON.

I was quite confused.

And peeved.

Had he been just one house closer, I would have asked him why the car was on and wasting that much gas as toxins needlessly spat into the air. Instead, I remained timid and continued to be victim to the whims of a five-year-old, who kept insisting that we were astronauts or bratty teenagers at a birthday party. Walking up and accosting the man with a machine full of chemicals? Not such a comfortable prospect. Pretending to be a bitchy teenager at a party? Perhaps a role I could play a little better.

Passively, I stayed where I was. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to give the company a call and ask them what's up.

The end.

Wondering why I posted this on here,
Janet

Marilyn Monroe

I was never really intrigued by Marilyn Monroe. Not like most people tend to be, that is. Her life didn't intrigue me, and neither did her tragic death. Sure, dying alone was heartbreaking and sad. What I heard of her life was vaguely interesting, but not enough to even, say, watch an A&E Biography on her.

Reading Joyce Carol Oates's Blonde changed everything for me. Granted, it's a fictionalized version of her life. JCO described it as a project she hoped to make psychologically accurate despite its not being historically accurate--writing a biography was never her goal. (The book is excellent, by the way.) Since finishing the book a year or more ago, I've wanted to read an actual and factual account of Marilyn's life. And there are many to be had.

Upon investigation, I discovered that Donald Spoto's biography of Marilyn Monroe was the most well-revered and supposedly the most accurate. Reviewers claimed it was well-written, to boot. I'm only 52 pages in--it's dense and, understandably, it's filled with information that I don't want to glean over. But it is good! And I continue be intrigued.

Each time I've mentioned my reading this book, Amy has said, "I want to read Jenna Jamison's biography. I've heard it's really good." So since she doesn't comment on my blog, I'll comment on her behalf. There you go, Amy.

past lives

Sometimes the other places I've lived, the things I did, the jobs I held--they all seem so far away and unreal. Tonight I'm thinking of the Pittsburgh chapter of my life, in particular.

Those of you who've ever heard me mention my love of Pittsburgh know how deep and abiding that love goes. I think--nay, know--it's an amazing, gorgeous, magical place, one that is slowly being discovered to be what it really is: not the dirtier, industrial city of the past but a vibrant, young, and cultural center of today, mixed with lots of elements of the past that give it a strange and welcoming (to me, at least) flavor. I love it some much there.

Tonight I was at a birthday party, talking to a really nice girl who lives in New York. Usually my former NYC life is the one that strikes me as long ago and confusing--can it be that I really lived there for four years, taking subways and taxis and walking the streets as if they were my own? (I'll stop there, for I'm trying to focus on Pittsburgh right now.) I mentioned to her the time the Daiai Lama jaywalked in front of my car near Pitt in Pittsburgh's pretty Oakland neighborhood as I was trying to make my way to my grandparents' apartment. (If you've not heard this story, please ask me to tell it. I like to tell it.)

Four years and a week or two ago is when I got my job at The Coffee Tree Roasters in Squirrel Hill. Not long after getting the job, the weather got much colder than I ever remembered New York being. It was frequently snowy and icy outside, and I had to drive to work in the morning to open the store at 5:30. Could it be that I really did that several days a week? It seem so unlikely now.

This evening I got home from downtown around midnight. After the aforementioned birthday party, I headed to the Max Canada to meet up with my friend Laurie, whom I've known since birth. (Well, her birth, not mine, as I began my life a few months before she began hers.) She and her husband were in town for the game. Jim was working, and Denise and Daniel were at the bar, too, so that was a pleasant surprise--all these people I loved from various stages in my life, all in one place. I loved it. While taking to Laurie, Pittsburgh came up again.

So it was a little after midnight that I clicked on the Firefox icon and decided to check email and such. No reason, as I'm sure reading a book would be much more pleasurable right now. But I found myself looking at the pages of people I worked with when I lived in Pittsburgh, friends of mine from the coffee shop that I started relationships with that never got to go very far because I moved the February after I started the job. (I will mention that one guy and I still keep in touch sporadically and I hung out with him this summer--Jim's friend's fiancee is a friend of his, too, oddly enough, so we all had a fun get-together at a hole-in-the-wall ping pong bar.)

My GHP crew came to visit me when I lived in Pittsburgh, and of course my relatives were there since they live in the suburbs. But no one in Athens has any real reference point for my life in Pittsburgh. I don't mention the good ol' times too often (apart from talking too much about bowling at Arsenal Lanes in Lawrenceville--college night meant 50-cent games and 50-cent drafts!) and don't talk to my old friends from the 'Burgh other than the darling Sarah Beth Shapiro, who's sort of transcended the Pittsburgh category by now since we've hung out in other states.

Anywho. I miss Pittsburgh. I think I could move back. I don't know if I will, but I could. My life there was somewhat solitary, definitely cold and icy, and full of fun acquaintances and lots of family gatherings. I really miss it sometimes, especially as I bundle up in ol' puffers, my burgundy winter coat, and get ready to go into temperatures that are about 40 degrees warmer than my average Pittsburgh morning.

some books

I was snooping around Liz's blog and came across a website she recommended, a friend's blog. I don't know this friend, but the girl's most recent posting (one she claims to have taken from another girl's site) piqued my interest. So I, in turn, am taking it upon myself to steal it again!

What you do is take the following list of books (the top 106 marked most often as 'unread' by LibraryThing’s users) bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you started but couldn’t finish, strike through the ones you really sort of hated, put an asterisk next to the ones you’ve read more than once, and mark in green the ones on your own personal To Be Read list.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey*
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius* (didn't like it as much the second time around)
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books (I read the first little bit while staying with someone, as I always need to read before bed and hadn't brought a book. I really liked it and wanted to hold onto it. This reminds me that I must start it again!)
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex*
Quicksilver
Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales (We just read excerpts in high school and in my English lit classes in college)
The Historian : A Novel
A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man
Love In the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead (I started this 2-3 times when I was in high school and college. It never stuck.)
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables (I tried to read this in French. Noble goal and all, but it took longer than I thought to get through a few pages. I gave up.)
The Corrections*
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-Present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved*
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake (I can't remember if I read this or not! I think not.)
Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road (to Jim's dismay, I recently reported to him that I did not like this book when I attempted it several years back. Maybe I'd like it more now? I'm thinking not.)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : A True Account of A Multiple Murder and Its Consequence
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

another jannygirl! + a book recommendation

I know that Jannygirl is not an uncommon nickname for anyone whose name starts with Jan. (Jan, Janet, Janice, Janise, Janiqua, Janith, Janicia, you name it...) But I just came across a girl who had a blog with a web address that almost matches mine. Hers is jannygirl.livejournal.com--and obviously you know mine if you're here. Two people with the same nickname, chronicling their lives day by day. Interesting. Or not. Somehow I feel infinitely more boring now that there's another one out there.



I finished Anne Lamott's book on writing, Bird by Bird. If you've ever written anything, or thought about writing anything, or thought maybe you could be a pretty decent writer if only you'd put your mind to it, or have been told that you had talent but were too lazy to do anything about it, I highly recommend that you read this book. It is, by far, my favorite book I've read that focuses on the writing process itself. Lamott is really funny, really personable, and completely realistic about the entire enterprise. I had hoped to quote a few excerpts here, but I already returned the book to the handy-dandy Athens Regional Library.

Most sincerely yours,
The other Jannygirl

The Writers' Strike: NOW I get it!

The concise, well-made video I put at the end of this blog entry explains the Writers' Guild strike and should take care of any bitching and moaning on the parts of viewers who think that television writers are just rich gluttons who are holding out for even more money.

Here's a petition you can sign if you're in accordance with their mission. Also, check out this website for more information about the current goings-on.

Last but not least, the video. Check it out!

I CAN'T UNDERSTAND YOU!!!

I feel racist every time I'm on the phone with a costumer service person for almost any airline or online travel company. I ask questions and cannot understand the answers I'm given. My muscles tense up, I lean forward, I squint. I feel myself trying to focus all my energy on my phone ear. What is he saying? What is this man named Nick* or Sam* saying to me? Am I unforgivably rude if I ask him to repeat himself for a fourth time?

Right now I'm on hold with Travelocity.com, attempting to change a flight for my dad. He's famous for misunderstanding anyone with even the slightest accent and finds being on hold intolerable. No wonder he asked me to do this for him.


*obvious pseudonym

cell phone technology "deeply unsexy"?

"It's costly, arduous and at times a deeply unsexy job of supporting customers day by day in launching phones."
"Deeply unsexy"? I would have loved to have heard the guy say that firsthand. I'm imagining that Joe Lennon would be particularly phond of that frase.

Ta ta.

Mission: Space

I was just watching a show on PBS about space exploration. I tuned in during a synopsis on the Apollo 13 mission and, as always, got nervous as the astronauts in space and scientists on the ground had to figure out a way to get the men safely home despite a huge hole in the spacecraft, a defunct second oxygen tank, and a possibly malfunctioning heat panel. And when they landed with success in the water? Of course my vision went blurry with tears. Space exploration always gets to me.

After some unknown force guided my hand to ABC's supposedly addictive Dancing With the Stars, a show I found to be intolerable for more than two minutes, I flipped back to ol' trusty PBS, right in time to see the Challenger explode. It's funny--when I think back to the Challenger disaster, I remember being in Miss Johnson's class. I seem to recall learning about it then. I knew for sure it was in 1986, but this Wikipedia article confirms that it was in January of '86 and not after my first grade school year with Miss Johnson would've started in August. Funny how the mind convinces you of these things.

When I was younger, I remember feeling especially saddened about the death of Christa McAuliffe (back row, second from left), the teacher who was to be sent up in space along with the all-astronaut Challenger crew. In reading about her now, I understand that my sympathy was somewhat constructed by NASA and the media--one of the goals of her presence and of the Teachers in Space program was (and is) to generate more public attention for the space program. Well, it worked for me. Any time photographs of the deceased astronauts was in the paper or on television, my eyes would drift straight to hers. She had a daughter my age, and she was a teacher. A teacher. And everyday person.

Now when I look at the photo of the seemingly energetic and ecstatic crew, it's Ron McNair's face that gets my attention. He's the one in the front row, sitting on the far right. He just looks so eager and ready. I just know he was the nicest guy, quick with a joke or to light up your smoke. I get the feeling--the altogether faulty one, I'm sure--that this photograph was taken minutes before they boarded the shuttle, ready to face the final frontier.

I can't imagine what it must have been like to be in sight of the Challenger when it took off, let alone to know someone on board as we stood and watched it leave from its port. Seventy-three seconds between blast-off and explosion. Imagine the noise--the machinery, the rumbling, the vibrations, the crowd, the running.


My parents can see and hear shuttle takeoffs from their house in Melbourne, FL. Cape Canaveral is just 10-20 miles away. Oh, why do I shy away from exact mileage here? My parents tell me the exact distance frequently. It's 17 miles away. At least I think so.
The first time I went to their house after they relocated to Florida, I was up in the middle of the night. I started sensing a rumbling in the tiles under my feet, the keys under my fingertips as I typed late-night emails to my friends. What was that? I checked the dryer; I felt the dishwasher to see if it was running. I pressed my palm against the warm glass of the window. The window was vibrating, ever so gently and rapidly. Nervously, I stepped outside the front door and onto the driveway that was brand-new to me. The vibrations and rumbling were much louder out here and getting more intense by the second. Everywhere, sound. Nothing was visibly shaking, but there was an energy to the thick, humid air. I was shocked to see that my parents, their neighbors, the cops! weren't outside on the streets, curious and demanding to see what the ruckus was about. An earthquake in Florida? Doubtful, plus it was going on for too long...right?

A few minutes passed, and the sound began to subside. I crept back into the house, where things were suddenly serene and eerily quiet.

The next morning, I mentioned the strange incident to my mom--the light of day made the whole thing less alien-invader-like but I was still discombobulated. "Oh," she remarked lightly. "I told you--we're right near Cape Canaveral. There are shuttle take-offs in the middle of the night sometimes....it's really loud." With that, she left the kitchen.

my friend is a superstar, or "Matt McConkey" is from "Waverly" (to help you googlers search better)

My dear friend Matt McConkey, whom I met when we were wee little freshmen at NYU, has been living in Los Angeles since 2001. He's one of those guys who's so amazingly hilarious and talented that I can't believe he's not been discovered by some sort of reputable talent scout yet. Who knows? Maybe he has and he's going to be on some fantastically successful HBO show come next fall.

For now, I will praise him for a couple different things.

1. A few years ago when I was living in Pittsburgh (Shadyside, to be exact), he landed a commercial. This was really exciting to me, but as I didn't have any TV service during the time the commercial was airing, my actually seeing the commercial proved to be impossible. Matty explained the thirty-second plot to me so that I could, in turn, explain it to my Pittsburgh relatives. That way they could call me in from the other room if I happened to be at their houses and I could catch him "live" on TV. While they never got the chance to call me in excitedly, they did get to see the commercial themselves--my cousin Margie's husband Larry tells me he saw the commercial many times, and even during really popular sporting events! Very exciting.

I'm proud to announce that I've finally come across the youtube.com link. (Thanks, Matt.)
Watch it. My friend's a star. Tee hee.




2. Matt and his friends also wrote a piece that recently premiered at L.A.'s Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. It was so popular that the folks at the venue asked them to come back again...and again...and again...and now again! Very well-respected and well-known guest stars are gracing the stage with their presence during the performances, lending their stories and voices to the troupe's said-to-be hilarious piece, which is called Worst Laid Plans. Janeane Garofalo and Mary Lynn Rajskub are going be in an upcoming performance, if I understand correctly. And Sarah Thyre, the coach from Strangers with Candy, will be performing on November 30th!!

I really, really want to go. But since I can't, you should, you L.A. folks. You hear me?!

dreams...they can come true--ueee

I just fell asleep while reading.

Had a dream that I founded the Horse's Ass Drama School.

I'm awesome.

Darius Goes West

I missed the showing of Darius Goes West at Cine several weeks back (it was completely booked!), but I will probably be buying a copy of this documentary when it comes out.

Most Athenians are familiar with the story of Darius Weems, the young man with Duchenne Muscular Distrophy whose friends decided to take him on a road trip of a lifetime while filming the whole thing. I'll not go into details here, as it's more beautifully shown and described on the gorgeously created website.

This evening, I was looking at The Today Show's online video archives in the hopes of finding video of my friend Nadine Haobsh, who had an interview to promote her new book this morning. I didn't find her interview, but I did see that Logan Smalley, the director of Darius Goes West, and Darius were featured on The Today Show this morning and their video footage was there!

Here's their interview. It's really good. The woman interviewing is a little cheesy, as all morning hosts sort of have to be. But she seems genuinely moved, and that's saying something.


A young boy's road trip on wheels

boo!

Another Halloween, another crazy night of dressed-up tomfoolery in Athens.

Jim had the idea that I should dress up as Olive Oyl. I do believe I mentioned this in a previous blog posting. Well, I did do this, and I pulled it off beautifully, having all the makings for a genuine Olive Oyl outfit (and body) right here in this little house and head o' mine. For people reading this who either don't know me or haven't seen me in awhile, I'm long and very lanky--and a bit too skinny for my frame. Believe you me, this makes for a good start.

I found a long, stretchy black skirt I'd bought at a NYC street fair my first or second year of college. Paired it with two shirts, both of which were tucked in to the hiked-up skirt: first, a tight-fitting white turtleneck (gross), then a red, long-sleeved shirt. I made sure to show the white cuffs of the shirt and the white turtleneck from underneath the red shirt. Then I wore big, clunky, beat-up brown boots (another 1998 NYC purchase), my old Doc Martens, on top of a new pair of bright white tube socks.

The hair was the hardest part. You know how Olive Oyl has that creepy little hairdo--it's all slicked back with Princess Lea-like loops on the side covering her ears and a little rounded ponytail-bun in the back right on her neck? I managed to recreate it! Armed with handfuls of rarely-used hair gel and never-used hairspray, I created a cement-like helmet of hair.

Next came the makeup. Had to put on lots of pale makeup, exaggerated eyebrows, rosy cheeks, and not much lipstick.

I'm thrilled to report that, when all was said and done, it was quite obvious to the casual observer that I was Olive Oyl.

As soon as my card reader is discovered in this messy house o' mine, I will post some photos.