My Hypocritical List.

    Truth is, as hard as I try not to be, I'm a hypocrite.  Of all my character flaws, of which there are many, this is one I really try to fight.  When I pontificate about being a better person, I generally start with trying to not be hypocritical.  But it's a tough standard to keep up and when faced with the dilemma between the principle and the behavior, I tend to just lean into the behavior and compromise my principles. 
     The hypocritical list:

• I hate talking about the weather, but I usually end up talking about the weather all the time.
• People shouldn't stand in front of the doors on the Metro, except  I can do it because I understand how to do it right.
• Reading is fundamental, but I don't read as much as I say I should.
• Tardiness is unacceptable, unless I'm late and then there was probably a good excuse. 
• People should clean up after themselves, unless I forget to wash a dish or don't want to pick up.
• Going to the grocery store in pajamas is weird, except for when I always wear my pajamas to go grocery shopping.
• I hate the phrase "to tell the truth," but to be honest, I use it all the time.
• I hate when people pepper their speech with the word like, except I do it, like, at least once a day.
• It drives me nuts when people talk in questions, but I do it when trying to make a joke.  "Did you remember to mail your rent?  Yes?"
• Your rent should never be late, except when I mail the rent late because stamps are difficult to come by.
• I bitch about the intrusiveness of Facebook, but not only do I not delete my profile, I leave my pictures up and update my status if I had a great meal.
• I argue that brevity is the key to conversation, yet I send three page emails.
• My mother's super short emails drive me nuts, but if I got a three page email from my mother, I would lose my shit.
• I insist I can't afford new clothes, but I just bought a new TV, a few DVD collections, and improv classes, all while spending every weekend in New York City. 
• I complain about the prevalence of fast food, but I still pay $8 for a burrito about twice a week.  
• Corporations are ruining the country, except for the ones I go to because local businesses in cities I'm not familiar with scare me.
• I hate when people complain about everything, except ugh, isn't everything just the worst?  Gross.  
• I don't like spicy things but I insist on coating my buffalo wings in as much sauce as possible and then bitching about how I hate spicy things.  
• I like my coffee black; I'm not picky unless you're making my coffee in which case just move out of the way and let me do it because it'll never be right.
• I'm not a picky eater except that I don't like condiments or fancy things or Mediterranean food or Indian food or Greek food all that much and only some Thai food.  Also, I like anything on my pizza, except pepperoni.  Or pineapple.  And light on the onions.  And no basil or basil-based products or white sauce.  

That's not really an exhaustive list either.  Apparently I am a huge hypocrite.  I try to keep it under check for the really big things.  For example, I don't throw buckets of paint at people wearing furs and leather coats while I enjoy my giant bloody steak.  But the small ones creep in.  Perhaps it's because sometimes life gets too daunting and going to the trouble of putting on clothes to go to the grocery store and reading entire books seems like too much.  To tell the truth, I like, don't really know.   I sure as hell can't afford to pay someone to tell me either. 

My Trouble With Words

     I have trouble with words sometimes.  When trying to describe something, words just won't come out.  I flail my hands around in an attempt to spit the word out.  It's not because I don't know what I'm talking about, it's just because the word isn't right there.  I think more conceptually.  I think in shapes and abstract ideas and it takes me a little longer to translate those abstract things into words. 
     One of the best examples is from a few years ago.  There's a decent amount of back story, but I'm going to try to just give the bare bones of it.  A friend of mine had applied for a job and interviewed with my boss.  After the interview I asked my boss about the whole ordeal.  She told me that it had gone well and she passed the application on to The Steaming Kettle.  The Steaming Kettle was a location I wasn't familiar with but from the tone in her voice, I should have been.  When she said the name of it, it conjured an image in my mind.
     Later that day, or the next day, my friend asked me if I knew anything.  Yes!  I do!  "She really likes you and passed your info on to another store.  Uh, the smoking cauldron I think she said."  The exact details of the rest of that conversation are a little hazy, but I know we were in the pool at the time, and I almost drowned from laughing so damn hard.  My friend was pretty sure I was mistaken.
     A day or two after that my friend confirmed she received a phone call- from The Steaming Kettle.  "That's pretty much the same thing." I said.  We never let it go.  We used to refer to it as The Smoking Cauldron all the time.  I tried to explain what happened in my head.  My boss said the words steaming kettle.  I pictured what a steaming kettle might look like.  My image of a steaming kettle was slightly askew.  When asked to recall what my boss said, I conjured up the steaming kettle image and then tried to name it.  I named it a smoking cauldron.  It made sense to me. 
     Sometimes people really think I don't know what I'm saying, or what I'm talking about.  I need to practice being able to get to words faster, especially if I want to go anywhere in improv.  I tend to have a go-to of potatoes, because even though the picture in my head is of an old woman stirring a cabbage-based Irish stew, all that comes out is "POTATOES!"  Great.  My scene partners are a little fed up with potato scenes. 
     Here's another example of the searching-for-the-word phenomenon.  I was in line for tickets to the Top of the Rock Observation Deck.  I got to the front of the line and approach the counter:

How can I help you?
I'd like two tickets for the tour please.
What tour is that?
Nope.  I did not mean tour.  Uh, the top.  The observation deck. 
The Top of the Rock?
Yes please.  

The lovely woman behind the counter thought I was a moron.  To make matters worse, there are actually various tours you can take of Rockefeller Center.  I almost ended up on a three-hour (I don't know how long it is) Art Decco tour of Rockefeller Center. 
     Perhaps I should invest in flash cards.  I'm not going to change my way of thinking, it has come in handy when tackling calculus and rocket scientry.  But I would like to combat that glazed over look in my eyes when asked to describe that thing on pipes that holds them together and kind of looks like a donut.  Yes, a flange.  Exactly. 

Because Misery Loves Company

     It's the impetus behind complaining and the concept of "this is gross, smell it."  Misery loves company, that is why I am going to share my horrible oatmeal experience with you. 
     A few days ago I discussed how much I regretted buying sugar free oatmeal.  It is, indeed, gross.  I didn't want to be wasteful though so I started just mixing in a packet of regular sugar with it.  This made it palatable.   Last Wednesday or Thursday sometime I bought a small container of milk (a quart I think) so that I could enjoy Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast.   It happened to be whole milk.  This isn't my milk of choice, but I was purchasing milk at CVS and their selection was lacking and I didn't have the time or desire to huff it over to the grocery store an entire Metro stop over. 
      It was a little later than I normally eat, but the hunger pangs were kicking in so I decided to bust out the oatmeal.  I grabbed the packet of instant oatmeal and my microwave pyrex container I use for breakfast every day.  Considering myself to be quite genius for this, I put the oatmeal in and mix in a packet of regular Dominos sugar.  Then I add a little bit of water and  decide mixing in some whole milk would make it great.  I open the fridge, grab the milk, uncap it, and pour.  Glump.  Glump.  Oh god.  I stop pouring and look in the milk container and it was basically a gel now.  The expiration date is April 25th and apparently that is a hard-fucking-expiration date.   I scrape the milk curds out of the top of the oatmeal, not sure I got it all, and then add more water.  Too much water.
     Sixty seconds later the mixture in the microwave had slightly congealed, but it was clearly too liquidy.   Luckily, I thought, I had another packet of oatmeal in my drawer.  I slowly mixed it in and eventually added the whole packet to get it to the correct thick consistency I like my oatmeal to be.  Too much oatmeal.  It looked like this:

The oatmeal was so thick, the spoon could stand straight up.  I took a few bites and was overcome with the fact that 1. I did not add more sugar when I added more oatmeal and 2. the taste of sour milk is very overpowering.  Also, the whole thing smells bad.
      I'm really looking forward to lunch.  I'm sure nothing can go wrong with left over rice and salmon.

My Favorite Part of Holidays

     The only part of Easter I'm willing to observe is the after-Easter candy sales.  Everything pastel and bunny shaped will be two-for-one at the local Rite Aid, and I'm going to stuff my candy drawer with enough chocolate to choke Jesus.  (Jesus is my building's maintenance man.)
     I'll try to stock up on enough peanut butter M&M's to get me through until the next major candy holiday.  Unfortunately,  that's Halloween, so it's not very realistic.  Hopefully there'll be red, white, & blue M&M's for the Fourth of July.  As a side note, I like to holiday peanut butter M&M's a little more than the regular peanut butter M&M's because, in my experience, they have a more consistent shape.  I don't know why this is, and I may not want to know, but there seems to be a process when making the specked "looks like robin eggs" peanut butter M&M's that forces them into a mold and they come out perfectly shaped.  The non-holiday ones are more randomly shaped.  It's fine, they still taste right, but aesthetically, I like the consistency of the holiday themed ones.
     Somehow I missed Jelly Beans this year.  I'm one of those freaks who really likes black jelly beans.  Really.  I love them.  I used to pick those out of the dish when I was a kid.  My mom used to make these Easter dessert things out of shredded wheat, chocolate, and jelly beans that were supposed to look like birds' nests with eggs in them, and I would go through and take all the black eggs off.  My second favorite was purple and I firmly stand by the opinion that they taste like purple.
     Happy Candy Sale Day!

East-what? Please Pass the Champagne.

     I've been trying to learn new words.  I miss the organic way I would stumble upon them in school, and it's been a bit of a struggle for me to really incorporate the words from my Vocabulary Builder into my everyday speech.  There are two words that were in yesterday's lesson that I'm hoping I'll be able to use very soon: bacchanalian and dionysian.  According to my Vocabulary Builder, the have the same meaning: frenzied or orgiastic.  (I would also like to start using the word orgiastic.)
     I have a pretty good weekend planned and I imagine being able to describe it in these terms.

Here's the itinerary for the weekend in New York City.  I think you'll find it's very bacchanalian.

One may want to point out that having an itinerary wouldn't be inherently bacchanalian, but to that I say nay.  You can plan for frenzied and orgiastic.  Having a plan keeps you from sitting inside all day staring at the walls and recreating the scene from the Jungle Book with the vultures.

We have two options: we can go shopping on 5th Ave and catch a show later.  Or we can follow this dionysian plan. 

See, it totally makes sense.

What's this blacked out part at the end of the schedule?
That's the orgiastic portion of the evening.
So you scheduled an orgy?
Yes.   But I didn't want to use the word in the definition of the word.

Realistically, the weekend won't be completely bacchanalian or dionysian.  I'm getting a little too old for that shit.  But hopefully the bacchanalian plan will produce a weekend that is quasi-orgiastic, thereby deaming it demi-dionysian.

Losing One's Shit

     I am cutting it close to getting today's post up in time.  I cycled through a few ideas hoping to find something that could be mined for a few paragraphs.  Nothing really came to mind.  I have to keep reminding myself what day of the week it is and I considered a post about the days being long but the weeks also being long or some bullshit.
     I am getting increasingly closer to losing my shit each time I ride the Metro.  The escalator situation is out of control.  The announcer woman says clearly "please move to the center of the car" but no one does it.  Hoi polloi insist on strolling as slowly as fucking possible onto the train car increasing the risk of me losing a small body part in the "these doors are not like elevator doors" doors.  Each person thinks the entire Metro system was put in place for them. 
     Let me clarify on the escalator situation being out of control.  All stations in the Metro center have escalators.  Most of them are broken.  I know the old joke- a broken escalator is just stairs.  Wakka wakka wakka.  No.  It is not.  Given the option of stairs, I would take them.  Rarely are there stairs available in the Metro system.
     I get off the Metro every morning at the Navy Yard stop.  To exit the platform there are actually a set of stairs as well as an up direction escalator.  I opt for the stairs.  I began opting for the stairs because standing in line for the escalator is fucking stupid.  Often there is a wee bit of a line for the stairs as well because so many people are exiting at that time, but it tends to be manageable.  Except for when people don't get that the stairs work both ways- up and down.  So when 200 people start going up the stairs, the 3 who need to come down cannot.  Fights break out.
     Then we make it to the turn-style type mechanism we pass through to exit the station.  More lines.  I take a deep breath and count to ten.  Then, THEN, comes the most ridiculous part.  The exit to the street.  Another escalator.  It's an escalator bank actually, there are three of them.  On very rare occasions all three are in operation and during rush hour two go up and one down.  Again I say, this is rare.  Apparently rush hour is also the best possible time to repair an escalator.  For the last week or so there has been one escalator completely out of service and blocked off, one in the down direction, and one just stopped.  It is maddening.  There are several hundred people trying to huff if up an escalator that would be about 4 stories worth of stairs if they were just stairs at the same time.  When you get to the top there are a group of asshats distributing newspapers and a guy whose job is to wear a baseball cap and wave at people leaving the Metro, telling them to "have a nice day."
     It's the kind of thing that makes me almost lose my shit.
     Yesterday on my way home the escalator bank at Dupont Circle was out.  This is not a small or insignificant thing.  If you were to google "Dupont Circle escalators" you would see many news stories about their consistent crappery.  These escalators are pretty fucking serious- they're steep and tall.  I counted once when walking down and it was 120 steps.  I've walked up before but then needed to seek ambulatory care immediately after.  When I approached the broken escalator yesterday (day before, whatevs) I just took an immediate left and went towards the elevator.  Surprise.  There was a line.  (This was not a surprise.)  In the line were a few families, all of whom had strollers and tennis balls.  The escalator is very small, meant for a singular wheelchair and its occupant.  More breathing, more counting to ten.  By the time I made it out of the station, the escalator had started working again.
     It's the kind of thing that makes me almost lose my shit. 

Buyer's Remorse

     The thing I most often get buyer's remorse over is food.  It's also a ridiculous thing to get buyer's remorse over because I'm going to be able to do it all again about four to five hours later.  I'm not good at ordering food- I am the opposite of Sally.  I spend an inordinate amount of time agonizing over what to get and then when my plate arrives, I'll regret it.  I see what someone else has ordered and think I should have gotten that.  Why didn't I just get that?  Waaaaa.
     This happens a lot when trying new things.  I try to be adventurous, to branch out, but then I end up branching out a little too far and being envious of the chap next to me with the cheese covered burrito.  A wedge salad?  Really?  I guess I can say I've done it, that's something. 
     Sometimes I stick with my old standby because I'm confident I'll like it and I'll still end up regretting it.  Someone near me will have gotten the special and I'll immediately feel the pangs of regret.  Oh the specials.  They're special, so I should get them, just because they're special. 
     Friends have pointed this out to me and I think it annoys them.  Like clockwork when our food is put in front of us I'll stare at their plate and say "Mmm.  I should have ordered that."  Every time.  Now I even do it when we order the same thing to keep the joke *fresh* and *original*. 
     I've even done it at the grocery store.  I'll get home and put my food in the cupboard and just be disappointed in my choices.  Why did I buy sugar free oatmeal?  I regret this decision, but now I'm stuck with it.  Such a large ticket item and I'm stuck with it, at least until the next time I go to the store which will probably be tomorrow because I stand to eat sugar free oatmeal.  It's gross.