Sitcoms

Somebody told me recently that on sitcoms nowadays, the actors make a joke every three seconds. So basically, every line they say has to be funny. This is a lot different from older sitcoms, where it wasn’t as urgent to keep viewers laughing in order to keep them watching. It is true though. Try it next time you’re watching a sitcom. Weird.

Also, I think it’s kind of funny that two actors from Buffy—Seth Green and Alyson Hannigan, are both on new sitcoms. And they’re both funny, surprisingly. Seth Green is on “Four Kings” and Alyson is on “How I Met Your Mother.” Also of note on “How I Met Your Mother,” reaching comedic genius not seen since “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle,” is Neil Patrick Harris, AKA Doogie Howser (wow, he was little).

Fun with links, yes indeedy.

I wish I had some candy right now. I’ve got some Triscuits, but man, that’s so not the same. . . .

I'll think of something whimsical and thought-provoking soon--give me a minute.

Pants on Fire, So Sad

This came up on the MSN homepage and it caught my eye. Christy pointed out that James Frey, the author of A Million Little Pieces, the book I told you all about, apparently fictionalized parts of his memoir. Here's an article about the fallout.

Making Up for Lack of Blogging

Stop me if you already know this

The Partridge Family was on TV tonight. Mrs. Partridge (or whatever her name is) has the same exact outfit as Austin Powers, with the maroon velvet suit and the fluffy lacy white necktie thingy. And I think even the bangle-y necklace. Come to think of it, Mike Meyers and Shirley Jones kind of look alike. I'm serious--look! (Unfortunately, all the ones of Austin in the red suit were not quality pics, so this one's blue. But trust me, he had a maroon one.)


Now here's the part my guy friends kick me off their web discussions for

I remember how in high school, anytime it was the last day of something--closing night of a school play I worked on, the end of the season for a sport, the end of a semester of class, people would get sappy and say stuff like, "I just love you all," to everyone there, even the people they really didn't know very well. Some people would get so worked up they'd cry about it. I remember saying and doing this myself, and I remember that at the time I meant it. But it couldn't have been true--I mean, can you really say you loved all the people in your sophomore Spanish class? A year later I couldn't even remember everyone's names. I think people should study this generalized love thing, because it's an odd phenomemon. I have to say I'm kind of skeptical. Maybe it's really mostly a sense of pride from having accomplished something as a group, or maybe you loved a certain situation or point in your life and don't want to leave it, and by extension don't want to leave the people who were there with you. . . . well, anyway, they should make a name for that feeling, because now that I think about it, it's sort of weird to call it love.


Other Random Thoughts

Every day my train gets into the city with about 10 minutes to spare, so about every other day I go into the Claire's store in the train station before I start walking to work. Most days I just look and look at the same old earrings and necklaces I see every day, hoping there's some great treasure that I've missed. Sometimes I buy things, but, on average, I end up returning about half of them the next time I buy something else. What does that say about me?

I've mostly stopped taking the bus from the train station to work in the morning because the people waiting in line piss me off. "Where's the bus? We've been waiting 10 minutes! This is ridiculous!" Blah blah blah! What do you want? It's a nice plush bus for $1.25--that's a good deal! Take a cab if you're so impatient. God. I'd rather be cold for 15 minutes walking than start the day listening to someone else's bitching.

. . .Except for if it's really really cold. Then I'll take the bitching.


I just realized today that, besides teddy grahams and red hots, there are no cinnamon-flavored snacks. There should be. For example, tortilla chips with cinnamon sugar are really good. But you have to make them by hand. Why can't we sell these? Come to think of it, if you want a sweet yet crispy snack, you don't have many options. Cookies and candy are about our only choices for sweet snacks. I think there should be sweet corn or potato chips. If I had a chip company, I would develop a whole sweet chip line.

I'm thankful for backs. They do so much work for us every day. And mostly without complaining. Without backs we would just be crawling around on the floor. Good job backs.

One more thing. (I always think of this when I'm out partying, but then I forget, probably because it always happens to drunk sentimental Becky, 1/2 a beer before drunk melancholy Becky. Anyway.) When you go out to a bar/club (anyplace dark) and someone takes a picture, look at the person they're taking a picture of. The reflection of the flash off that person's face in the dark makes an image in your vision. If you close your eyes you can still see their face in your mind. Then they slowly fade away. Drunk sentimental Becky always likes the little 3-second mental photographs of her nearest and dearest.


Good job if you read through all this.

Potties and Comic Book Characters

I have some comments about public bathrooms. Interesting how they function as meeting places, especially for women. Now when you go out, it kind of makes sense. It's quieter in the bathroom, and the boys aren't there, so you can talk about them. But at work, it's even weirder. Here are these people that you're trying to impress, so much that you're ironing shirts and wearing uncomfortable shoes for them, and yet you talk to each other through the stall doors while peeing. Doesn't this seem at all strange to anyone?

Yesterday, while talking to one of my bosses (Yeah, I'm saying. . . weird) from a few stalls over, I thought someone came into the stall next to me, because I saw a shadow. Upon further inspection, I found out it wasn't from a person; it was the shadow of the toilet. But no, wait--it wasn't a shadow at all: it was a reflection. Yes, apparently the black tiled bathroom floor is so shiny you can see reflections in it. Which means if someone really tried, they could see. . . well, things you're hoping your coworkers aren't looking at.

Onward. So I was walking to Christy and John's yesterday and noticed how many of the buildings have holes near the top, or ledges, decorations, etc. Spiderman would have an easy time--lots of places to grip. And speaking of, wouldn't whatever city Spiderman is supposed to be from--wouldn't the owners of buildings in that town have to be constantly cleaning giant cobwebs from the tops of their buildings? Because you never see Spiderman suck the webbing back up, so he must leave it behind.

I won $5 at poker. Not great, but it's something. Also saw part of "Kill Bill Vol. 2," and may I say, about the grossest scene I have ever seen: when she plucks Daryll Hannah's eye out. And then after, she squishes it on the floor. Ugh. I repeat, ugggghhh. I had to watch a full hour of "13 Going on 30" and "LOTR: Return of the King" (flip-flopping back and forth) to clear the nastiness out of my system. Speaking of "Return of the King", so good. And may I say a prime example of a movie about man-love. I think they (he, I guess) made the hobbits show the man-love because humans can't get away with it. I could discuss this movie for hours. But the books are boring. Too bad.

I have a meeting soon, but I wanted to get something up.

Things That Annoy Me

As you know (or do now), I like lists. They are cute, in their own way. Sort of smug, but musical. I submit for your approval things that make me annoyed.

1. Unnecessary e's in business or product names. For example, more and more restaurants are calling themselves “bar and grille” with an e. This, apparently, is to separate them from a low-brow “grill,” where you can never expect better than hamburgers and fries. But for the discerning consumer who prefers jalapeño poppers and extreme fajitas, head on over to the Bar and Grille. I’m convinced they would put an e after "bar," too, if they could, except that “barre” is the bar ballet dancers hold onto at practice, and I’m guessing that’s not the image they want. Only slightly less annoying is "shoppe" with an e, frequently seen in high-end suburban strip malls with names like “The Shoppes on the Glen” or “The Canterbury Shoppes.” I encourage you, if you find yourself in front of a restaurant or business which is in clear violation of normal e usage, to boycott that establishment.

2. The embroidered short sleeved knit polo shirts that middle managers wear. Any time I’ve worked in retail or any type of hourly wage job, my managers have had these shirts. Sometimes they have little checkered designs on them, or stripes on the collars, and other times they’re just solid color. But they always have the annoying company logo sewn ever so tastefully and smugly over the left breast, as if to say, “Look at me, I don’t even really like this company but I am wearing this corporate catalog special to subtly assert my authority even while being remarkably unaware of how dumpy it makes me look.” Even if I see a guy wearing one on the street and I don’t even know him—the embroidered polo/khaki pants combination puts me in a bad mood, on everyone else’s behalf.

3. Advertisements that take trivial things and make them seem like life and death. Remember when the disposable toilet-cleaning brushes came out? They showed a normal toilet brush in extreme close-up with scary Star Wars-type music playing, and then showed all the things you must have to do to get it clean again, like power-washing it with a hose in the yard. Hello! Put some bleach on it! It's not like you have to eat off it! Germ-phobia is big business. There's another one for Lysol wipes or something, with similar scary music behind kids playing outside, blowing their nose, etc., and then touching things in the house. Why don't you be scared of something that will actually kill you? Like the bird flu. . .

Anyway.

4. Relating to this, advertisements that make it seem like you can be a wonderful, serene, perfect Zen-type person if you only buy their product. For example, Dove chocolate recently came out with ice cream bars. Have you seen the commercials for these? This woman eating the chocolate bar, savoring it blissfully, moaning in pleasure while swirls of red and brown silk flutter in the background. I always feel kind of gross when I watch that commercial. Note to advertising execs: don’t make your potential customers feel gross. She’s not even that good looking, not for a “chocolate equals sex” commercial. Although maybe guys find the woman pretty. Also consider the Uncle Ben’s rice commercial, where this frazzled woman comes home, obviously unable to handle the stress of balancing work and home life; she heats up her rice bowl, curls up in a big comfy chair, breathes deep, takes a bite of Uncle Ben’s, and suddenly all is right with the world. All it took was some rice! And lest you may think this is a gimmick used only for women, let me tell you about an SUV commerical (I can't remember which one it was for). It shows a young virile man (of course) kissing his (of course) beautiful, put-together, indulgent and 50’s-era providing wife goodbye and stepping out of his perfect white picket-fence house. “Off to work; see you tonight!” He whips out a helmet, straps it on, rock music starts in the background, and we see him hang glide (or something—I can’t remember) down to the bottom of a canyon (We now see the house was at the top of a cliff) where his car is. Yes, this SUV promises men freedom, adventure, and a tucked-away, warm, safe place to come home to. I’m saying. You can have it all if you buy this product. It annoys me, yes, but it works. So I guess I’m helpless to stop it.

5. This is more of a personal story: how when it's really cold out and people are getting on the bus, they go in and sit right down in the front instead of going to the back. This means that the rest of the people who aren't on the bus yet have to stay out in the cold waiting for people to sit down and get out of the way. If everyone just made a little effort and filled the back seats first, everyone could be warmer faster. Why can't people just realize this? Don't they put 2 and 2 together when they're at the back of the line and have to wait? People when they're on their way to work are more self-involved than I think they are normally. Not as nice. I'm working on a theory why.

6. Finally, the dried-up lotion goobers that get stuck on the end of lotion-bottle pumps. They grow and grow like slimy stalagtites until finally, one day, they fall off in your hand and you have to throw them away like real-life boogers. Or, less gross in the short term but possibly more annoying is when, because the pump is clogged, the lotion shoots out super-far and gets all over your clothes, or your dresser, or whatever. You have to take time out of your already-rushed morning to clean it up, especially if it gets on your clothes (it leaves a suspicious-looking stain) . We have engineers making robotic vacuums--we can't fix this? Priorities, priorities.

Subtitles

Cheerful Anecdote

I had a great great waitress today. She needs to go on my all-time top 10 list of waitresses. Me--no decision-making whatsoever. This is the way eating should be done. I asked her what her favorite dishes were. Chicken Vesuvio, Cod, or Eggplant Parmesan. Eggplant Parmesan, done. Pasta, potatoes, or vegetables? Vegetables. Done. Rum cake, cheesecake, or chocolate cake? Rum cake. DONE. Beautiful. And instead of coffee she brought me steamed milk and a bucket of chocolate syrup so I could make my own chocolate milk. Oh baby.

Slightly Gross But Mostly (Hopefully) Engaging Discussion

This morning on the train, as we stopped to let more people on, I needed to blow my nose. So as people are filing onto my car, there I am, blowing my nose. And I think to myself, Hey, good deal--no one will want to sit with me if I'm blowing my nose, and then I'll have the seat to myself. It worked--when the dust settled, there were vast oceans of empty seat beside me! So I'm wondering if people do this as a general practice--use clever ruses (I like the word ruse) to make sure no one sits with them on the train. Now, you can't be just rude and leave your stuff all over the seat--I consider that cheating. The seat-savvy commuter appears as if he doesn't mind anyone sitting with him, but then, just as luck would have it, no one does. Acting sick, obviously, is one way to go. But a hacking cough is grosser and I feel an unnecessary level of contamination to accomplish this goal. Same with body odor--everyone suffers there. What about bad acne? Maybe if you made weird faces and noises just as people were walking in. Or looked them each in the eye and mumbled something vaguely crazy-like. I think that might work. Hmm. Decisions, decisions.

Trivia and Frivolous Chattering

Here is some trivia for you from Scientific American.

Q. How much space junk is thought to be currently orbiting the earth?

A. At least 110, 000 objects one centimeter or larger in size that have broken off from space missions are thought to be orbiting the earth.

Do you think eventually Earth will have rings around it like Saturn, just from our crap? Will space shuttles have to arm themselves with extra protection so they don't get cut up by the space junk? Or are they already outfitted for worse, such as asteroids and all the other natural stuff that's out there? Say you wanted to launch your old toaster out into space so aliens would bump into it and wonder at it. How fast would you have to shoot it? It would probably have to be self-propelled, like by rockets. Hmm, a rocket-powered toaster. I think it'd be neat.

Discuss.

Sub-Par Post (I Apologize)

I just realized my point about not getting annoyed very easily is an argument for getting a roommate--not against it. But no matter--I stand by my faulty logic.

I left the house 3 minutes early today. Yay me! This meant I didn't have to run at any point on the way to the train station. I hate that. Run half a block, walk, run half a block, walk. It's not fun, and you look pretty stupid.

I'm trying to think of funny stories, but I've been pretty boring lately. Like right now I'm just sitting here at work eating Wint-o-Green Lifesavers. Like chain-eating them. I wonder how many you could eat before you really start to lose feeling in your mouth? That's okay, I'm not that curious. I wouldn't have any left for tomorrow if I did that.

Speaking of curious, did you know they're making a Curious George movie? I'm sure Laura's very excited. Curious George is like her thing.

Maybe today's just one of those days. It serves no purpose other than a placeholder for tomorrow.

If you could take all your boring days, good days, and bad days, let's say, per month. . . if you could rearrange all the days each month (and assuming you knew in advance what type they were going to be), would you choose to have all the good ones together, all the bad ones together, and all the boring ones together? Or are they better mixed up, so things are more balanced? Hmm.

Listen to me--I'm so bored I'm playing with the time-space continuum.

Back to work. . .

An Apartment, a Movie, and a Book

I saw a really nice apartment today. It's a lot of money, but I'm pretty sure a place this nice would normally be even more expensive. I'm still looking at other places, but I'm leaning toward this one, partly because it's nice, with everything I want, in a good neighborhood (Southport and Addison), and I just want to be done looking at apartments! I know I'm not going to escape paying at least $800, because I decided I for sure want a one-bedroom. Yes, I choose loneliness over being annoyed, and I feel I will be happy with this choice. I don't get annoyed that easily. In fact, I probably annoy you a lot faster than you annoy me, really. How late was I the last time I was supposed to meet you somewhere? ...Exactly.

I have now tripled my number of enemies. Yes, they have gone from one (the fellow teacher who stabbed me in the back--that was not a fun lesson to learn about workplace politics: TRUST NO ONE (or was that the X-Files?)) to three. The new additions are the two maintenance people who took my green conference chair away. I wasn't planning on keeping them as enemies--it's not like I go looking for enemies. It's just that every time I see them, my stomach clenches up and my face goes stony and my eyes get a little beady. I try not to let it show, but I can't help it. Such is the depth of my non-gratitude (there should be a word for that. Rejection?).

I am trying to be witty and endearing, but it's hard! I've had a rough couple of days. Migraines on Saturday and Tuesday. No fun. Being temporarily blind sucks big time. It gives you a panicky feeling, as you can imagine. Speaking of, I just saw Ray on cable (yay for Christy and John's apartment-o-wonders) and it made me think a lot about what that would be like. To go blind, not get addicted to heroin. Although it did give us a good idea of that, too. Hey, if you want to have the pants scared off you as far as not doing any scary drugs like heroin, read A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. True story, this 20-something guy wakes up from a two-day bender, bleeding from a gaping hole in his cheek, on an airplane. Doctors tell him he's done so many different drugs for so long that if he does even one hit more of anything else, his heart will probably stop and he'll die. He then goes on to tell you, bit by gory bit, of his experience in rehab. Funny story of how I heard of the book. . . last summer, my friend Ellen and I went to Italy. When we got to this one hostel, there was a girl checking in who didn't have a room. We told her she could stay with us. I noticed her book (yes, you're so smart; it was, in fact, the above-mentioned A Million Little Pieces) and asked her what it was about. She told me how good it was, that I could look at it while she took a shower, but that she was in the middle of it and I couldn't have it! Well, long story short, over the 2 days we all shared a room, I hijacked it every moment she wasn't reading it (I swear I always asked first), and then when we got home the first thing I did (after eating some good old American cereal and watching "Friends"), I had to check it out of the library to finish it. The next day I gave it to my mom and sister and they both devoured it in a day each. (I like when people say devoured for a book. You know it's got to be good if people are devouring it. Like watermelon. Something that's so good you don't care how much of a mess you make). So anyway, there you go.

I need to go. Better blogginess tomorrow.

En español

Aquí está, el blog en español, que les escribo porque mi papá, el fuente di mi locura, está tras mío. Acabamos de discutir--de a gritos--de--qué más? Departmentos. Porque les hablo, no sé. Nada más les doy más amunición. Esta noche era de que si vivo con artistas, seguro que van a ser drogadictas. Que TODOS saben que toda la gente creativa usa drogas. Que soy una IDIOTA si no pienso igual. RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

(Translation to be added soon. I'm too angry now. But I think you got the RRRRR! part. Guess who it's about. . . .)

Upon Reading the Fine Print. . .

After 8:00 all they play is commercials on the radio. It's really annoying when I only have the house to myself until my parents get back from the play they went to go see, and I want to listen to music!

Anyway, my main reason for posting is a random thought that occurred to me today and I wanted to share. It's sort of PG as opposed to G-rated, but no matter.

So you know how in the Christian tradition they say how all the virgins go to a special place in heaven? ...Would that be the same special heaven where the jihadists go, you know, to reap their reward of 40 virgins? If so, I'm thinking the virgins don't so much want to go there. "No, thanks, I'll take plain old regular heaven, the one where I don't get raped."

Betcha you didn't think of that either, until now.

Danger and Intrigue

So as I was on my way to the bathroom at work this morning, I noticed this girl with a backpack use her keycard to enter a door in the hallway I had never seen opened before. She disappeared inside so quickly I couldn’t even get a glimpse inside. And I thought, what if she’s going to a super-secret spy-type job that is housed in this building, unbeknownst to the other residents? That would be cool. For a while last year and the year before, I watched Alias, and the first time viewers saw Sydney go to her new spy headquarters we saw her go down into the subway, walk along the track into a tunnel, through one of those airlock-type metal doors that said “No entry” or something, and end up in a damp, dark, dingy, and (to our eyes) seldom-used electrical room. She flipped the right combination of fuses in the rusty fuse box, and voila! A door opened up for her to walk into the shiny new, white tile and glass intelligence headquarters. How awesome would that be? This place that’s completely overlooked, apparently forgotten, turns out to be the key to everything? So mundane you can hide it right under people’s noses. Like Orion’s belt in Men in Black.

I actually won at poker last night. It was a banner day! I put in $10 and left with $22. It was lots of fun. Much giggling. I like it when the weekend starts on a Wednesday.

Want to hear a story about corporate red tape, messed up priorities, and protocol? No? How about a story about a chair?

See, the chair that they give us in our cubes is really uncomfortable. Not at first, but then it starts to cause pain. After a few weeks, I couldn’t sit in it anymore because it hurt my back and hips so bad. I would kneel on the floor to use the computer, or stand, lie on the floor, or sit cross-legged on the counter to do my work. Obviously, I couldn’t get much done that way. So I asked the boss’s secretary if she thought I could get a new chair. No, she said. I would need a doctor’s note testifying to the fact that it was "medically necessary" for me to get a new chair. And this company being what it is, it doesn’t give me health insurance, so I would have to pay $200 or whatever it is for a doctor’s visit just to get a note so they could send it to the right people who would then dip into the company funds to bestow upon me the privilege of a chair that doesn’t cause me physical pain. This sounded like bullshit to me, so I asked if there was anything else around that would work—-a box, an upside-down bucket, a dining room chair, anything. I didn’t care what it was, just so long as it wasn’t the black chair that hurt. See, I wasn’t picky, right? No, she said, but maybe I could switch my chair for one of the fancy conference room chairs. . . however, that would have to be “off the record,” wink, wink.

I did that, and hallelujah, for 3 weeks I wasn’t in pain. But then yesterday, a gray-shirted mailroom/facilities guy came by and noticed my chair was different from everyone else’s. He said I had to put it back in the conference room because it was “his job” to make sure everything was in its place. No amount of patient explanation could change his mind. He even brought his supervisor lady down to tell me, and they both basically said, yeah, that sucks, but all of our chairs have to match up pretty and your pain is a price you should be willing to pay for that aesthetic. I felt like crying because I was basically being told, “Go have an 8-hour time-out in the pain chair now, because we say so.”

After an afternoon of getting no work done because I was standing up the whole time, I decided to e-mail my story to another secretary, the one who does time sheets and new hires, because she seemed like a lady that knew what was going on. I went by her cube today to see if she’d had a chance to read my e-mail, and she told me that she herself had fought the same battle this summer and eventually gave up, because they wouldn’t give her a new chair. And she had been in a car accident and herniated a disc in her back as well as some other things that forced her to need physical therapy, and still, they had no sympathy for her. She ended up having to do like I did, steal chairs when no one was looking. She was much better at it than me: "Oh you took one of the green conference room chairs? Oh no, you can't be doin' that. . . You've gotta find one less conspicuous. . . and you have to switch it back at the end of the day so no one notices. . ." She told me she would ask around about a new chair for me, and see if, now that there’s two of us, it will make a difference to the powers that be (powers that shouldn’t be?). But then she also took me around the whole office and pointed out the pros and cons of each of the 3 stray chairs on the floor and whispered to me how I might go about obtaining one. At this point I felt like I was doing some black market drug deal, or, at the very least, considering buying some illegal tropical birds. I knew I had work to do today and couldn’t do it standing up, so instead of waiting for glaciers to cut the red tape, I decided to make a run for it, and steal the best candidate, a blue wire chair in a small back conference room that didn’t match any of the other chairs. I planned out my escape route, knowing that if any gray-shirted facilities person saw me, I’d lose my prize. I look around, don’t see any gray shirts, and then grab the chair. I get about halfway back to my cube, walking as quickly as I can, with the chair bouncing noisily against my nametag, yet I don’t have the time to stop to fix it, when I realize I’m going to have to pass the copy room, and there might be a facilities person in there. As I hurry past, my pen slips out of my hand, and I think to myself, “Man down! Man down!” But then quickly I push on as I think “We can’t stop, man, no time! Get to safety! Save yourselves!!!” And so I kept on, leaving my red pen conspicuously in the middle of the hall, but I didn’t care. I made it back to my cube without further incident, and am happy to report that I am now typing you, calmly, victoriously, from a pain-free chair. That I had to steal. Because it doesn’t match. Which messes up the mojo more than an employee being in pain. But I'm not bitter.

I do have some work to do now so I'll get on that. I hope you liked my story. No dictionary references today, in honor of Christy.

Boosting My Immune System

Do you really think it's true that you learn something new every day? Have you ever had a day where you didn't learn something new? Like say you sat at home and watched videos all day, videos you had already seen tons of times. Do you still think an original thought would pop into your head? I'm thinking it would. That's kind of nice and reassuring. I think we're built to be anti-stagnating.

I have a funny story. This morning, as I got off the train, I noticed a plastic grocery bag under one of the seats in my train car. It had someone's brown bag lunch in it. Oh no!, I thought, and I grabbed it and took it off the train to see if there was anyone coming back the other way looking for it. (I knew how the conductors, when they clean the cars, throw stuff away, having not too long ago lost my purple glove, and, possibly, my soft black wool button-up sweater (may it rest in peace).) Anyway, so I've got this lunch that I'm thinking I'll have very little chance of finding the owner of. So then I decide, well, if no one claims it, I'll give it to the homeless guy I see every morning. Won't that be nice of me (considering I ignore him every other day... I don't know what to do about that. I feel so bad, but we're told don't give them money because they might spend it on alcohol, etc...)? And wouldn't he like a free lunch? (Of course, seconds later I thought about if he really would want it, and what it would mean for me to hand him my cast-offs and the greater social implications, blah blah Becky-type excessive thinking scenario). It turns out that on the day I was looking for homeless people, I didn't see any at all. So I got to work with this unopened lunch--all I can see is there's potato chips sticking out the top. So what do I do? I eat the chips. Oh yes I do. I got much crap from my next-door cube mate Shannon about eating a stranger's food. But it was going to go to waste otherwise! Kind of gross, right? Oh, well. If I was a boy, you wouldn't think it was so weird, I betcha. So I guess I'm just asserting feminist values, that's what I'm doing. Incidentally, upon deeper inspection I found that the rest of the lunch was two sandwiches on white bread--gross round lunch meat turkey with too much mayonnaise and nothing else. That went in the trash. I do have standards, you know. I suppose on some other day I may not have eaten those chips, but today I did. And I'm still alive, so there you go.

On the train home today they announced our trains were running late because there was "an accident involving a fatality" at one of the crossings. I wondered how often something like that happens. It's just really sad. I bet that guy didn't wake up thinking he was going to die today.

I'm about to lose some money tomorrow. . . poker cash games tomorrow night. Why do I always lose so bad at cash games!?!? I'm just always the corporate sponsor of any poker night that doesn't play hold 'em. Fine, fine. At least there's free snacky food. . .

A short tally: no mean people today. One girl chased me down this morning to give me my glove that fell out of my pocket, and the lady who took my order for lunch was really nice and patient with my special order considering the 30 people bustling around in there. Final score: Nice people, 2-0.

Pretty Good for a Monday

So I was reading the dictionary this morning (Shh! I’m an editor! C’mon, I was looking something up, I got distracted, one thing led to another. . . ) Anyway, I came across this section on names and how to index them in bibliographies. What was interesting about it was that it explained naming customs of various cultures around the world. For example, the way that in Vietnam, China and Japan, the last name comes first (although, some people who are born in Western countries or have ties to it choose to write their name in the western, given-name-first order). Thus the correctly written Japanese name Tajima Yumiko (Yumiko being the given name and Tajima being the family name) can be reversed, if the person wants to conform with Western tradition, to Yumiko Tajima.

Burmese (incidentally, Burma’s the one that is also called Myanmar), Javanese, and other Indonesian names (good thing Laura bought me a map for Christmas—I’ll have to get it out) don’t have family names at all. They just have personal names. Which seems like it would get very confusing. I guess, until recently, there probably weren’t that many people around, so it wasn’t an issue. Or maybe they refer to them like “Aung San the artist” or “Kin-Kin the teacher”. . . or maybe that’s just me thinking that’s what I would do. They also have some other interesting naming customs over there in Burma/Myanmar. I’m supposed to tell you this info is from Kate Monk, off a web page.

"Burmese only have a given name without an inherited surname. It is polite to add the prefix 'U' which is equivalent to 'Mister'. A Burmese given name often indicates which day of the week a person was born. For instance, 'A', the last letter of the Burmese alphabet, is used for the names of people born on a Sunday. Those born on Monday to Saturday use names beginning with the first five letters of the alphabet."

And anyway, the dictionary is pretty interesting. I like to look at the pictures and see which things they chose to put a picture of. How do you think they decide that? To show lobster pot but not line graph? Eel and elephant but not tiger? And who was really dying to see a picture of a minaret (a tall slender tower of a mosque having one or more balconies from which the summons to prayer is cried by the muezzin) anyway? (Actually, come to think of it, it looks kinda cool. Here are some photos of minarets.)

And, you know, they have to hire people to draw those pictures. I bet in the whole country there are only like 10 people who have that job. I have a friend who’s a medical illustrator—does renderings of body parts for medical textbooks and such. Now that is a narrow field of study.

Moving on. I have a theory about the heating system on trains. See, it’s always so toasty warm on the train, and in every car it’s the same amount of toastiness. So it really doesn’t make sense that those heaters would work the same way car heaters do, now does it? Pulling heat off the engine? Because there’s only one engine and like 8 to 10 passenger cars. That’s a long way for air to get pumped, and, besides, by the last car, hardly any air would be coming through. I’m thinking they’ve got an alternative heat source—maybe converting the kinetic energy of each car’s wheels into heat for each individual car. And if this is the case, when did somebody figure that out? Because I can’t imagine the very first trains were like that.

I bought a new winter coat today. Well, actually two. One short and one long, because I can't make up my mind. But they are cute and will last me a long time. They're gray. If I could figure out how to get pictures to work, I'd put up a picture. But no dice.

I had some interesting thoughts today. Unfortunately, some of them have gone away. But here's one I remember. On the train this morning I was sitting near a man and a woman who were making medium talk (you know, what you do with your co-workers and people you talk to a lot but don't particulary socialize with normally) about restaurants. Which ones were good, too expensive, blah, blah. "Oh, isn't that one a Lettuce Entertain You Restaurant?" (By the way, I always liked how they spelled "Lettuce Entertain You." So witty, those corporate brainstormers!) Anways, I could tell neither of them cared very much about the conversation, and they'd probably talked about the very same things before with different people. So why did they bother? And then I thought, hmmmm, maybe they're not really talking about restaurants at all. They're carrying on this uninteresting conversation in the hopes it will establish a bond. They could be talking about deep sea fishing, or Bill Clinton, or women's fashion, and they would still be having, in some way, the same interaction.

I used to be afraid of sewers. Not the round manhole covers, but the grates that are at the curbs, the rusty iron ones with the slits. I think it's because our street flooded once and somebody told me I could get sucked down there. Or maybe it was Baby Jessica getting stuck in the cistern in her backyard. (Do you remember that? They saved her, right? Wonder what she's doing now.) Anyway, I passed one today and thought of that. Funny how when we're younger all the objects around us are more intrusive: they either scare us (like the sewer) or fascinate us (I remember when I was little how I'd look at the ceiling and imagine what it would be like to live in an upside-down world. I thought that was just so trippy, in my 7-year-old mind). Then maybe later we get used to things and stuff is just there. But I suppose if you want to know what it's like to live in my head, it would be sort of like you at 8 years old. Oh! One more thing! Did you ever look at someone's face upside down for so long it looked like they had lips in their forehead? That's some creepy stuff.

Bye!

Small Rant, Ralph Macchio, and Morbidity

So I was looking at apartments again on Craigslist and took a detour through the personals section. Ay. Ay Ay AY AY. Stupid, stupid everybody dating people Becky not Becky bored Becky actually turning into Buffy the Vampire Slayer with the cheesy hair and the kickboxing and the aloneness and the witty banter that comes to nothing. Stupid dating-oriented world.

Okay, glad I got that out of my system. The reason I thought to write is that someone listed Wrigleyville as "Wriggleyville" and it just made me giggle. He he. Wriggley. ville. Makes me think of putting worms on a hook. And yes, I have done that, and yes, it is gross, and also, worms do bleed. I didn't know that. Blech.

So last night I saw a commercial that they were showing The Karate Kid III on one of the Spanish stations today. And it got me to thinking two things:
1. Why do the Spanish stations run better American movies than the English stations? They're not even as good in Spanish, because all the pop culture references and jokes and stuff don't translate.
And 2. What ever happened to the guy who played the karate kid? He was cute, and, if I'd been 14 (as opposed to an infant) when The Karate Kid came out, I'm sure he'd have been on my "oh so dreamy" list.

Well, I couldn't answer the first question, but I did find some info on the second. Ralph Macchio, who played the karate kid, didn't do a lot else besides the three Karate Kid movies. One well-known exception was playing opposite Joe Pesci in 1992's My Cousin Vinny. He lives what seems a very normal life by Hollywood standards: wife of 18 years and two daughters. Anyway, I was curious, so I thought you might be. I won't write any more about him, but if you really care, go to his page on imdb.

I'm feeling bad about worrying about Hollywood as opposed to real things, so to counteract it, let's check in with the bird flu, shall we?

. . .Oh, I shouldn't have done that. The headline of the CDC article reads "Turkey Reports Human Cases of H5 Avian Flu." Two confirmed infections, two fatalities. Now it's traveled all the way to eastern Europe. Can I just say I told you so about the whole bird flu thing? We all should be scared shitless. But I suppose, what are you going to do? For further morbid thoughts, please see my diary or the inside of my head--I won't write any more here.

Okay, I resisted the urge to delete that, because some people (ahem, certain sisters come to mind) like to worry about me (and it's kind of nice, actually). But! I am just passing the information along.

So finally, one more silly question: You know how frozen Snickers are better than regular Snickers because they're crunchier? And you know how Heath bars are good and crunchy even when they're not frozen, but they just don't have nuts or nougat? Well, why can't they cook the caramel and nougat in Snickers bars to a different consistency so they're solid at room temperature? I would totally buy those kind of Snickers.

Back to the working world tomorrow. Bye!

1:51 am. . . Much More Fun Than 1:51 pm

I just made myself some toast with my mom's homemade raspberry jam. As I was spreading it on, I said to myself, Man, this jam is seedy. And I thought how that's one of the few times I've ever said seedy to refer to something literally having a lot of seeds in it. So how did seedy come to mean "unseemly"? Certainly my mom's jam is on the up and up.

Coldplay was on Austin City Limits tonight. They are so so good. They said their influences are U2 and Depeche Mode, and it shows. My little ears also heard a touch of Sarah MacLaughlan, but I wouldn't tell them that--maybe they don't want to be that girly. So as I was watching it, I got out the guitar and started trying to play what they were playing. . . . me, not so sucessful, as it turns out, but I did figure out some individual notes here and there. I also got a cool idea for how to draw the guitar strings superimposed on a piano keyboard, so hopefully I can use that to better figure out what strings and frets do what. I'm still optimistic about my Great Challenge, learning guitar from piano, AKA Becky's Excerise of Sheer Mental Will. Yeeeaaaaahhh baby. No books or lessons for me. I scoff at them. SCOFF!

I may break down and do lessons or a book or something at some point, but for now, it gives me something to do when I'm up in my room, hiding from my parents.

Titles Are Hard Work. No Title I Say!

The depths of despair have set in. I hate it when they stop by.

Anyway, I am trying to be productive and look for an apartment again. I had to put the whole process on hold for the holidays b/c I had too much stuff going on. Before, I really wanted a 1-bedroom so I could do whatever I wanted--cook, put on music, dance around, be messy, talk on the phone or watch TV at all hours of the day or night. But now I'm thinking I should get a roommate for the company. It's just the prospect of getting another roommate is not very appetizing. I just don't like having to choose between being lonely and being annoyed.

I said I would find out about revolving doors. Funny how something so common is hardly written about at all. I could only find three sites that mention it. One was an online thesis of some sort; one was an Onion-type spoof on the first paper, and one was a semi-incomplete Wikipedia article. But from what I gather (based on the Wikipedia article), one H. Bockhacker of Berlin got a German patent on it in 1881, and later, Theophilus Van Kannel of Philadelphia got a U.S. patent in 1888. Van Kannel marketed it as having "numerous advantages over a hinged-door structure . . .it is perfectly noiseless . . . effectually prevents the entrance of wind, snow, rain or dust . . ." "Moreover, the door cannot be blown open by the wind . . . there is no possibility of collision, and yet persons can pass both in and out at the same time." It also was good for "the excluding of noises of the street." Eleven years later, the world’s first revolving door was installed at Rector’s, a restaurant in Manhattan, in 1899.

Now, isn't that something you didn't really care so much about, but now, through no choice of your own, you have been forced to learn about? You're welcome. And no, I cannot give you the last 3 minutes of your life back.

When I was walking past the Daley Center on Friday, I saw a guy taking a picture of a girl in front of the big Christmas tree (yes, it's still up). She struck a pose against the guard rail while he walked way way far back so he could get the whole tree in the picture. And I thought, Man, that girl's going to come out really small if he's backing up that far. But then again, I figured, if he took the picture closer to her, then he couldn't see the whole tree. And suddenly I was struck by a lightning bolt that said, "Duh!" Why doesn't the girl just stand near the camera, far in front of the tree, so she is close up, and let the tree show up in the background? Why have I never thought of this? Such a simple idea. Anyway, so that's what I'm doing the next time I want a picture of something really big. (If you already knew this, please don't rub it in that I never thought of this until now. . . )

I talked to my Honduran friend Mili the other day. I embarrassed myself by making beginner-level mistakes in my Spanish grammar and I realized it is high time I either use my Spanish again or kiss it goodbye. Amazing how fast things can leak out of your memory. Once I finish Dune, I'll have to read a Spanish novel. They're just harder than English ones, and I'm lazy. Which my vast circle of readers (4? 5?) already knows.

I'm curious to see Brokeback Mountain. Heath Ledger used to be on my "oh so dreamy" list when I was in high school. (Silly Becky, he wasn't that cute.) Well, anyway, I would like to see it. And I'm glad I'm not a boy because then I could never see it without facing neverending torment from my friends. Plus some of the scenes would probably be very uncomfortable for me. Makes me wonder how it was for the actors--these presumably straight guys, used to being courted by Entertainment Tonight, posing for Seventeen and signing autographs for shrieking 14-year-olds. They must have faced a lot of heckling from straight people not wanting the movie made, and pressure from gay people to give an accurate portrayal. And now will there also be gay men waiting in line to buy their posters? Although, I guess Jude Law supposedly has a big gay following and he didn't play any gay roles that I've heard of. . . so maybe anybody who was going to lust after them would already be doing so. Well, the whole thing is interesting anyway. . . I guess it's what Boys Don't Cry was a few years ago.

I feel like I should post a longer blog since it's been a few days. But why should I feel guilty? If you really wanted to hear Becky thoughts you would just call me. So I guess it's time to put on a Buffy episode or two then. . .

Smorgasbord

In an effort to amuse and entertain, today I bring you a smorgasbord of information.

First let me say I am so thankful for online dictionaries. They make it so much easier to guess at a word such as smorgasbord and find out the real spelling. I always thought it was stupid how to look it up in a regular dictionary you had to know how to spell it first. Did you know how to spell berserk? I didn't, not until I looked up crazy in the online Thesaurus.

Speaking of fun online, here’s a piece of trivia for you, brought to you by Scientific American.

Q. What is parthenogenesis?
A. Parthenogenesis is the development of offspring from an unfertilized egg. It is known to occur in animals such as fleas, lizards and turkeys.

That’s kind of freaky to me—don’t know about you. Spontaneous cloning, sounds like. It makes me think of Jurassic Park and psychotic turkeys running around attacking people.

So today,(since I finished two big projects yesterday and now have nothing to do. . . can you tell?)I decided to make it mystery day, or puzzle day, or internet awareness day, depending on how you look at it. I have several mysteries that have been bothering me and it was high time I figured them out.

First, lately I kept seeing news headlines online and on newspapers about Knight Ridder--how they’re selling Knight Ridder, how the business market all depends on Knight Ridder. And I just had become very confused. Were people getting this excited over an old TV show that they forgot how to spell? Were they making a movie? How out of touch with reality were these people to think it would be that big of a deal? Finally I went to Wikipedia and checked it out (I am now a huge fan of this site. So many embedded links you could play around all day from just one entry!). Anyway, so turns out it’s not that people are confused and can’t spell. Knight Ridder is the name of this big publishing company that owns about 20 newspapers nationwide. They’ve been going through financial problems and so they’re getting bought up or something. Knight Rider, the 80s TV show starring David Hasselhoff, is probably only occasionally seen on TV Land on Sunday afternoons. (I looked it up and can’t even find a TV listing for it—-maybe it’s permanently off the air. . . not that’s I’d be so sad—I never watched it.) Is anyone else immensely relieved to not have to puzzle over that one any longer?

And speaking of shows that are no longer on the air, look what I stumbled across:


MOST MISSED TV SERIES

1. Star Trek
2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
3. Friends
4. Fawlty Towers
5. Blake's 7
6. The X-Files
7. Babylon 5
8. Stargate*
9. Seinfeld
10. The A-Team
* Stargate is still in production. Source: Home Media Networks

Funny how just yesterday my sister and I were commenting how we wish Star Trek: The Next Generation was still on, and even a random person who came across this blog would know I love Buffy (not the character, the show—in fact, Buffy herself is one of my least favorite characters (this may or may not have to do with my Mean People Rule*)), and for several years I based my life around the 6:00 and 10:00 episodes of Friends. So there you have it: Statistics indicate that I am overwhelmingly average in my TV-watching tastes.

(By the way, all this info is from a BBC article.)

*The Mean People Rule is a rule I conveniently abide by and at other times disregard. It is the rule that says mean people should not be rewarded. If I find out someone is mean (I had heard, you see, from my big important Hollywood sources that Sarah Michelle Gellar was “difficult” and “demanding”), I have a hard time enjoying their work, even if they are talented in addition to being mean. The point of the rule is that I don’t want to help their career by buying their stuff or promoting their work, because I don’t think mean people should get ahead in this world. They’re using the world and the people in it completely selfishly, and they shouldn’t be able to feed on the rest of us who actually try to make the world a better place. However, I don’t always stick to this rule. The most glaring exception so far is Eminem—I did go to his concert this summer, thus benefiting him financially and furthering his career (as opposed to listening on the radio, which really doesn’t do much for him monetarily). But! I can always use the excuse that it was on a date so it didn’t count.

The other mystery that had been bothering me was this flag that I see every morning flying alongside the U.S. flag as I go to work. A lot of buildings fly it, not just one, and ever since I started working downtown I had wanted to find out what this one flag is. It’s white with a light blue stripe on the top and the bottom, and red 6-pointed stars across the middle. I knew the Israeli flag had light blue stripes, and so I thought maybe that was it. But no, the Israeli flag has a blue star of David on it.

Every day I would say to myself, “I’ve gotta find out what that flag is,” but then when I got in to work, I’d forget. Well, today I remembered! And after much searching, I discovered that it is (duh) the Chicago flag. Yes, apparently Chicago has a flag. Australian aborigines have a flag. Your mom has a flag, or can make one. So, yet another mystery solved. Here are some fun flag links if you’re bored.

http://www.flags.net/search.php
http://crwflags.com/fotw/flags/g(worl.html

I haven't resolved the final mystery for today, but I'll get right on it. Next time I will have the answer to: Who invented the first revolving door and in what country? Was it for climate needs? (Today I saw a custodian cleaning a revolving door and it was funny. Go in, mop, mop, mop, all the way around, and come back in on the same side. Like how a little kid would play in it the first time he saw one.)

I need an ending thingy. You know, like a "Thank you for watching and as always, keep the faith" or "Goodbye, neighbor" type sign-off. But until I think of one. . . bye.

Beck to Work

It was foggy today. When you don't have to drive in it, fog is pretty cool. It's like snow in that it makes everything quieter and closer. And it's warmer, usually. It looks pretty cool wound around the skyscrapers--today I could only see about 15 stories up. That's some seriously foggy fog. Good job fog.

I went to find out about Wicked tickets today. Apparently they raffle off 20 tickets the day of the show, but you have to put in your name 2 hours beforehand and hang around to see if they call you. I'm gonna go see how much real tickets are. Maybe it's worth it to get them the easy way. [By the way, I feel like I have to get this out there since I am an editor and former teacher. . . yes, I am well aware that gonna is not a word--I just like it. Okay?]

I only got like an hour, maybe an hour and a half of sleep last night. I'd been staying up all weekend and then couldn't fall asleep last night. But it was a grand victory--I had tons of work to do today, and I actually finished it. . . didn't fall asleep once! That's a big deal, so yay me.

I like the holidays because when you go back to work you have something to talk about with your bosses and other people who you feel like you should talk to but don't have anything to say to. I had a nice chat in the bathroom (weird how it's a gathering place, but the rest of the time we're all in our respective cubes, so it sort of makes sense) with Joan, one of the ladies who interviewed me. I'm not on her project now, but I probably will be at some point. So it was good to start the schmoozing process.

Right now my parents and I (and Laura, via phone) are having a lively (read: bitter) dispute about what should and should not be included in our annual holiday newsletter, which, in true DeForest style, never goes out until after New Years. But that's not the point. The point is. . . oh, the point is. The rage is at a 5 today. Which may not seem so bad, but over the long term, you just can't sustain that. It's like having a pot of water on medium low for a few hours: eventually the water boils off, you scorch and warp the pan, and in some cases, you start a fire. Not recommended by the surgeon general or Smokey the Bear.

Sorry my blog's so boring today. Hopefully I'll come across an original idea tomorrow.

A Dang Near Perfect Day

In the last 24 hours, I got to do some of my favorite things: stay up late, sleep in, watch Buffy, eat junk, and have the house to myself. It began by Laura and me staying up 'til 6 am because she was flying back to San Francisco at 8. In that time, I came upon a new method for reading a book that is much more worthwhile. Just pick it up and read about a page from the middle. If you like it, skip ahead to 3/4 of the way through and read about another page. If you still like it pretty well, skip ahead a chapter or two and read to the end. Or, if you really like it, go back closer and closer to the beginning as much as you need to in order to figure out what was going on in the middle. This way you only have to spend about 15 minutes on a book if it's no good, but you can read as much more of it as you want if it turns out to be good. It's book-reading for the lazy or commitment-phobic.

So anyway, at 6 am we said goodbye and then my parents took her to Midway (which meant I got to go to bed). I set my alarm for noon but slept until 1:45. Then I laid (lay?) (lied?) (English sucks sometimes) in bed for another hour, in the warm cozy darkness. Then I watched part of Buffy season 4 overview. Then, when I heard my parents leave for Wal-Mart, I got up, ate some Clusters, called my sister, and played on the internet. Now I'm eating leftover chinese food rice (much stickier and chewier and overall yummier than regular homecooked rice) and blogging again. And it's only 5:55! The night is young. I am considering showering, but if I don't even leave the house, I may decide this is a pointless waste of time, water, and soap.

No deep thoughts today. I'm tapped out.

New Years

Lots of fun last night. My sister and I went to John Barleycorn with lots of people. I got drunk, danced a little (but not so much that Christy had to remove me from the dance floor like last time), ate pretty good buffet food, and didn't cry. Also didn't get a migraine--another big accomplishment. After they closed, Mike and I ended up separated from the group, hanging out at McDonalds for seriously 3 1/2 hours, much of it spent waiting in line. (I'm not sure how we were in line so long--maybe we were so drunk we thought we were in line when we really weren't.) But first, on the way there, we met two young military guys. We ended up talking to them for at least two hours. It was really interesting to talk to them and hear from the horse's mouth how they felt and what they saw in Iraq and Afghanistan. They were (obviously) very much in support of what the US military is doing. The one guy, Dustin, who was the more military of the two (as exhibited by his bomber jacket with military paraphrenalia on it) was a sargeant or something. He told me one of his friends got shot and killed right next to him. But they were running for cover and he couldn't stop to help him. And yes, he had shot at people. Ug, it was so sad. Both of them just kept saying over and over how they did it for us, for the average, slovenly drunk and spoiled American (okay, those are my words) because we were worth protecting and our way of life was worth preserving. Very much in our service. And Dustin kept calling me ma'am. "Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am." It was weird because he was like my age, and he's certainly done more with his life (good or bad, that's another judgment) than I have. They must have a hard time, because they obviously are very proud of what they've done (again, whether they've used their own measure of ethics or stood by their superiors' notwithstanding), but they must feel, here, like they can't express that pride. I would find that very stifling and frustrating. And it wouldn't incline me to fight for us Americans anymore. But they seem not to care whether we're grateful or not--they just do what they are told and what they believe or are led to believe is right. Despite the fact I don't entirely agree with what they are being told to do (but then I don't know the whole story--who does), I was humbled by their unwavering dedication and willingness to give their lives to make things better for Americans and the world in general. I think for them, that pride fills in any rough edges or doubts they may have about particular actions they're not so proud of.

After they left, we got in line at McDonald's. We met some cool Lithuanian people. I talked to this one girl who said that in school there, they start learning English in 2nd grade, and then they have to learn another language after that--either Russian, German, or French. Or maybe they had to learn Russian, too. I don't remember. But she was cool. There were 5 or 6 Lithuanians there, one videotaping on his digital camera. Wonder if back home he'll show his Lithuanian family the video of drunk Americans from the inside of a McDonald's.

Then we met another guy who was getting his PhD so he could be a professor. Just about our age, again. All these people were about our age and it definitely made me feel like I'm behind the game. We ended up sitting with the professor guy, Haiken (his first name, weird, I know) and eating for another hour and a half. Very much fun. We were there so long they switched over to the breakfast menu. Yes! I never get there early enough for those greasy, cripsy little hash brown patties-- but if you stay late enough at a 24 hour McDonald's. . . .

After that we took a cab back and met up with Laura, Christy and John. Slept, woke up, drove home with a headache. At about 8 pm tonight, when both Laura and I woke up for the last time, she told me she had lots of fun. So did I. . . too bad it took me all day today to recover. Thank goodness I have the day off work tomorrow, so I can actually do something.

Also, I got more Buffy episodes from John, so I watched 3 more episodes today (my idea of a perfect day: sleeping, watching Buffy, eating cookies). Tonight I actually said the word "spiderwebby" instead of "complicated," and I know it's directly related to the insane amounts of time I'm spending watching Buffy.

Oh! New information on the people on the train thing. I think it's more a factor of the time of day. The only times I'd been on the el before were at night, when people were going out with frends, so they'd obviously talk within their groups on the train. I was on the el the other day on a weekday morning, and it was just like the Metra--nobody talked.

One more thought--I'm reading Dune, a semi-Star Wars reminiscent blend of science fiction, politics, mysticism, and human nature. (Ooh, so concise of me. I should write blurbs for book jackets.) Anyway, in it there are these Jedi-type people who are trained to have superawareness. They can identify shifts in posture, voice inflection, conversational cues, etc. to find out what's really going in in any situation--whether someone is lying, what undercurrents, feuds, or power struggles lie beneath the surface. Without having to ask (and possibly be lied to), they can get at the truth of that moment for each person. And once they know where everyone is coming from, they can splice together those different takes on the situation in order to create a more complete picture, a more unified reality. I would love to be able to do that. I hate depending on other people to tell me what the truth is, because they never tell me the whole story. I wish I could just find out for myself.