Randomalia, 6/8/10

1) The great thing about this time of year is that the weather is fine and clear and occasionally breezy. I call it High Country weather, because it reminds me of when I lived up in the the mountains in Colorado. You can finally break out your flowery, flippy summer skirts and walk around feeling all Girl From Ipanema. The downside is the inevitability that, at some point during the day, you will be waiting in your flowery, flippy skirt to cross the street, an errant zephyr will come along, and an entire intersection's worth of people will know the color of your underwear. Hello, 59th and Park, you're welcome!

2) I listened to the "Children of Sanchez" Overture -- all 15 minutes of it -- THREE times this morning. In a row. I love how it starts all arid, and dusty, and we're just sittin' here mindin' our business in this Mexican village with one guy and a guitar, and about three and a half minutes in, here comes the army marching in -- first come the foot soldiers, then behind them the cannons, and finally, here come the evil horsemen, with shining buttons across their chests and pennants flying and a fanfare of trumpets.

3) When I was a senior in high school one of my best friends became the first female drum major at BPHS, and she chose the drum line from "Children of Sanchez" as the lead-in to our traditional cadence. The other drummers hated her for it because it was intricate and fiddly, but once they all got it down, it was tight. You KNEW when we were coming. (Well, that and the fact that it took seven buses to transport us and our equipment, and that when assembling for our entrance, we wrapped around half the running track. We were huge, award-winning, and our end-zone-to-end-zone company front was something to see. I LOVED marching band.)

4) Couldn't Helen Thomas have waited until AFTER she retired, before lifting up the stone in her soul to reveal the maggots beneath? I'm a little bummed out about her, and interested to watch my own reaction as someone I respected flames out spectacularly and publicly. But oh well, the woman is 89. It was well past time for her to go, wasn't it?

5) If you're going to make your online dating username the title of a famous Antonio Carlos Jobim song, at least fucking spell it correctly. It's "desafinado," stupid, not "desafindo." And now you're stuck with it, so no Brazilian model will ever date you.

6) Some random creep tried to make me his Google Talk friend, and his profile description was "I am a nasty man." Then some idiot IM'd me on OK Cupid with a disgusting description of what he wanted to do to me, so then I had to block HIM. I mean, really? What the fuck is wrong with some men? Worse to think about, are there some women out there who respond to that shit? The next one who does it, I am going to respond, "You should know, I AM A COP, and we are tracing ISP addresses. See you in 10 minutes!"

7) You know what I hate about Yahoo? When you go onto their homepage, and you're logged in, and the little menu bar has a number in parentheses that tells you, "oh, boy, you've got (2) messages!" So you click over to your mail, and then your mailbox is empty. Is there some jokester over at Yahoo who has made it his job to fuck with me every day? And am I going to have to track him down and beat him up for it? Fuckers.

8) And why is it, whenever I so much as add a comma to my Blogger profile from my Blackberry the stupid thing wipes out my profile photo?

9) Incidentally, here in my office, we call them K-berries. Because we do the printing thing. Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Black? CMYK? Get it? Oh, and the "K" is not referencing the letter "k" in the word "black." It stands for "key" as in "key color." Because it's the black plate that makes photos interesting. Come with me to a printing plant someday, if you want to see some cool-ass machines. And if anyone ever offers you a tour of one of the BIG printing plants, one of the ones where they print all those magazines? If, like me, you're one of those people who likes to see machines doing their thing, GO. Those Heidelbergs will blow your mind. This summer, I'm going to the Finch paper mill, and I'm really, really excited. Nerd alert.

10) Of course, by the time the New York Times reports on some cultural trend, usually out in the hinterlands of Brooklyn, it's already well past its selldate. We who have lived here for many years, of course, have watched with dismay as the bankers have taken over Williamsburg, as well as all those suburban children whose parents are paying their rent, leaving the rest of us poor and middle-class schlubs out in the cold. I want to push most of them in front of a speeding L train, but I know I would get into trouble if I did.

11) I don't care what anyone says, pesto is a leafy green vegetable.

12) Oh, and one more fucking thing. It's plain rude, after just meeting someone and learning where they work, to ask, "Hey, can you get me a discount?" That shit has to be offered, unless you're family. What is WRONG with you people?