Once upon a time I took a course in the History of Rock ‘n Roll. It was fantastic. I learned so much and I enjoyed myself immensely, and I even got credit for it! The only downside was the very annoying girl in the class who spent all semester trying to bond with me over rock music even though I couldn’t stand her. That doesn’t sound very nice, I know, but she really drove me bananas. She was a friend of my sister’s though so I had to play nice with her.
One day near the end of term she called me up and asked if I would comment on her final paper. She had written on David Bowie — who she didn’t actually listen to but my sister and I were big Bowie fans so she had been trying to get in on that. So we put her on speakerphone and my sister and I sat and listened to her opening paragraph. Turns out she had written an entire paper about the excesses of glam rock and how David Bowie and Ziggy Stardust had been competing with each other to produce bigger and better stage shows. I only wish I could have seen her face when my sister said, “honey, David Bowie is Ziggy Stardust.”
I was out for breakfast with a friend yesterday who had heard that story before. When we walked up to the counter to pay our bill we saw hanging there a giant black and white photograph of Bowie from the Ziggy Stardust days. I got into a conversation about my Bowie love with the server for a few minutes until my friend chimed in with “I hear Bowie was a huge influence on Ziggy Stardust.” I love reliving those moments.
Talk about a vocabulary crisis… My dad said “word” to me last night. You know what that means? It means I’m going to have to seriously re-think all my favourite slang words. Where do we go from here people, where do we go?
I’m having a real vocabulary crisis these days. Since the summer I’ve been spending a lot of time with my 17 and 19 year old sisters and they are seriously funny girls. Part of it is that they just have a really great sense of humour. Part of it is that they are teenagers, and the things that come out of their mouths are hilarious. The crisis here is that they have started to rub off on me and every now and again I catch myself saying something that sounds nothing like me. For instance, I can’t stop saying “tight.” Really. I used to think it was such a ridiculous expression but now it’s one of my instant reactions to things that I would otherwise have called “cool”. “The JT show the other night was tight.” Yes, I also went to the Justin Timberlake concert. The other thing they do is abbreviate all their words. So “whatever” is now “whatevs,” and that’s another one I’ve been using all the time against my better judgment. The other day one of the girls came in while I was reading and said to me “What’s wrong? You look hella eems.” In other words, I look depressed. I laughed to myself then but caught myself within days saying “eems” too. As if “emo” isn’t bad enough. I’ve also adopted “slash,” in the sense of actually saying “slash” in between two separate thoughts rather than trying to construct two separate full sentences. For instance, “what are you doing tonight slash what happened with so-and-so yesterday?” “Sick” is another one I’ve been saying a lot. And not “sick” as in bad, “sick” as in good. I am also disappointed to discover that “awesome,” “totally,” and various other things I usually say are just not cool anymore.Maybe it’s all part of an early mid-life crisis for me. Like I’m somehow troubled by my approaching 30th birthday and am unconsciously trying to reach back to my cooler younger years. What I’d really like to do though is bring back “dope,” but I don’t think I could pull it off.
A friend of mine reminded me of “the rules” today, after he caught me harassing my friends online last night while drunk. Never drink and facebook. Never drink and email. Never drink and text. And I added a fourth, never drink and shop online. I went through a phase of drunk online shopping when I lived in Japan. It was terrible, I would wake up in the morning to all these confirmation emails of things I’d ordered that I didn’t remember. Usually things I didn’t need, sometimes things I didn’t even want. I did once get a whole bag full of Hello Kitty charms on ebay though, and I still love them.
Here’s a random sampling of my drunk facebook messages and texts last night:
“I really love your wedding pics, they make me want to get married” (it’s a good thing my boyfriend was already asleep or I may have done something stupid)
“You should be here you heard?” (every drunken text I send to this poor friend includes some variation of that same sentence)
“This is the deal yo… you and I are going out tomorrow night and partying!!” (like I need to get drunk again today)
“Are you awake? Meet me for pizza.”
And a facebook conversation with another drunk friend — Friend: “I am also drunk facebooking! Ha!” Me: “Ha! We should be drunk facebooking together! Well, I guess we kinda are… This is silly. No, I am silly.”
The rules are in place for a reason. Though these are pretty benign messages, there is always the potential for bad stuff to come out too. Either way, you always feel better in the morning when you have no harassment to apologize for and no silliness to account for. In some places you can actually block yourself from calling or texting certain numbers between certain hours. We really need that service here. We could also use some kind of facebook and msn self-blocker. That is, beyond simple willpower.
I heard the best story last night about this very thing. A friend of mine had met a guy and they were out together with a bunch of people. He said something that made her angry, though she couldn’t remember what it was. She was completely wasted and being irrational, so she went home and changed her facebook status to “… is shocked at what some people will say,” then went to his profile and wrote on his wall: “i mean you!” Then she removed him from her friends list, took him off her msn contacts, and deleted his email address. To make herself perfectly clear she then sent him a text message saying “lose my number asshole!” The next morning she woke up and realized she’d been a bit dramatic and had to go back to him, apologize, and ask him to re-admit her into his life. I laughed so hard when I heard that story. And when I woke up this morning and remembered it I laughed so hard again. Then I remembered I’d spent a good hour messaging people before I went to bed and went into a sudden panic about what I may have said. Maybe I’ll start leaving my phone at home when I drink and ask my boyfriend to hide my laptop before I get back.
My dictionary.com word for today is “enunciate,” defined as “to utter articulately; also, to state or set forth precisely or systematically.” Is it just me or is that definition extra tough to enunciate? It’s like a tongue twister. But never mind trying to say it ten times quickly; just try to say it once! I bet I could use this to make a case for the importance of matching form to content.
At first I was very angry and a bit shaken, but I soon realized the absurdity of the situation and I laughed. I laughed hard.
I found myself in a difficult situation with a person I go to school with, and that person was being very uncooperative, refusing to deal with the situation as any adult would do. I don’t need the stress or the hassle of trying to work something out with someone who is unwilling, so I decided to drop it. But I am still angry, so I told her to go fuck herself.
Now, those of you who know me know that I am generally a nice person. Some even think I can be a bit of a pushover at times. I don’t make a habit of telling people off, but I think she deserved it. She really screwed me over. And to be entirely clear, I didn’t threaten to track her down and kick her ass or anything, I just told her to go fuck herself.
Well, two hours later I get a threatening email… from her mom! And this is what it said:
“Dear Tara,
This is not a threat. This is a fact. If you ever speak to my daughter again in print or verbally in the abusive manner which I have just witnessed you will never have to worry about what she will say or do. It will be me.
I suggest that you cease any and all correspondence and interaction with my daughter from this day forward.”
Wow — now I know how adults deal with their problems. The next time someone swears at me, I’m going to call in my mommy to defend me.
It is entirely possible that I was the last person on earth to know about this and you all saw it ages ago. But, just in case, I thought I’d better share the word. It just may be the funniest 3 minutes of your entire weekend.
My sister and her boyfriend played the most hilarious 2-person drinking game the other night while I was visiting. They put on The Police song “Roxanne,” then every time he heard the lyric “Roxanne” he had to drink, and every time she heard “put on the red light” she had to drink.
It was more entertaining to watch than I expected. Everyone out there should try it at least once. They looked like they were having such a good time!
But they weren’t feeling so great after…
And this is them about an hour later doing an interpretive dance…
Posted by situationniste 
Posted by situationniste 
Posted by situationniste 
