Guy in the Puffy Coat

I went the Walker Art Center a couple nights ago to see Laurie Anderson perform her latest piece “DirtDay!”  The Walker’s McGuire Theater, for those who don’t know, is a really neat small theater that suffers from one major flaw:  the seats themselves are extremely tight.  If you’re a modestly wide human being, the sides of the seat will probably hug you like a child hugs its’ teddy bear; if you’re modestly tall, your knees are going to hit the back of the seat in front of you.  I’m not entirely sure why they built the theater in this manner but it’s just something that you’re forced to deal with.  The sight lines, however, no matter where you sit, are unparalleled and the sound is usually fantastic.

I showed up a bit later than I had hoped; only a few moments before the show actually began.  I was in the second row and three seats inward in the middle section.  Two friendly gentlemen where to my left towards the aisle and immediately said hello, allowed me to walk past, and so on.  The guy on the other side simply stared downwards and didn’t exactly look overly friendly.  He was wearing a brown newsboy cap and an orange puffy winter coat.  He was sitting in a manner that his arms were not only lobbing over the very small armrests but also well into the territory of the seats on both sides.

I sat down and was immediately greeted by the man’s arms in my space.  I was a bit shocked.  I kind of thought he would just naturally readjust himself once I sat down but he didn’t.  His left arm was so far into my small seating space that I couldn’t even completely put my right leg flat on my chair so I ended up doing a weird hybrid seating position, not completely unlike unexpectedly sitting on a small turtle underneath your right butt cheek.

I was a bit bewildered.  How was I going to make it through this performance that I so eagerly wanted to see while being so incredibly uncomfortable?  On top of that, I have a pretty bad back, and this awkward position spelled potential danger and aggravation.  I was having visions of suddenly having back spasms in the middle of the performance and screaming out in pain.

Not long after the show began, something rather interesting happened:  the guy got itchy.  He suddenly and very quickly reached up to scratch his temple with his left arm and then returned it back to its’ original position.  Ah ha!  I deduced that this would be the time to strike.  I patiently waited for the next itch, which came along only moments later, and immediately shifted.  Little by little, I started to reclaim my space…all the while NOT looking like I was.  Instead, I made it look like he didn’t put his arm back in exactly the same spot.

This may all seem a bit strange to some of you and I can certainly understand why.  You’re probably thinking, why not just ask the guy to move?  I can’t totally answer that.  I just got a vibe, a rather unfriendly one that said it wasn’t worth it.  Plus, I kind of figured that I’d come up with some bizarre scheme to rectify the situation, of which I did, of course.  Call it a bit of a challenge.

The funny part is that most people would be pretty annoyed with this whole situation.  I’ll admit that I was put off a bit at first but, instead of getting angry, I actually got more sympathetic as the night went on.  It became clear that this guy was more “uncomfortable” than me, whether it be in his clothes, chair, situation, or own skin.  Something wasn’t right and it appeared to me that he was clinging to this space as a sort of last ditch effort of sanity, or maybe esteem.  Rather than be angry at him, I think I sympathized with him.  I ultimately felt sorry for him, I guess.

Heck, if that little bit of space means that much to you, well, take it, or at least until the next itch.

Bones are Better than Bones

I’m eternally the guy that’s somehow and some way stuck in the past when it comes to current events.  I just don’t get it because I’m really not that out of it, as they say, and I think of myself as a relatively modern minded sort of guy.  Still, there are always little tidbits of daily life that completely puzzle me, and when asking someone else about them, I usually get the “have you been living under a rock” look, a look that I’ve grown quite accustomed to.

Take for instance the strangely named Honey Boo Boo phenomenon.  I kept seeing this name pop up all around me and so I finally had to ask a coworker, “Who or what the hell is Honey Boo Boo?”  My initial thought was that it was a cross between a cuddly bear and a band-aid promotion.  It turned out that I was more right than I would have expected, depending upon how you look at it.

I also recently entered the realm of regular television after canceling my long time subscription with DirecTv.  Now, I know, you’re thinking that regular TV channels are included in DirecTv packages so how could I not know about them?  The answer is I simply never tuned to those channels before.  Now you’re getting the picture, aren’t you?

I’ve come across the show “Bones”, apparently a rather popular program that I’ve only heard of previously and never watched more than 2 seconds of.  After watching it for a decent amount of time, I’ve come to the conclusion that they got the name of the show all wrong.  No, it shouldn’t be called “Bones” but instead “Horribly Decayed Flesh”, with the byline of “BEWARE: Don’t try to eat dinner while watching this!”  Being a newbie to the show, I’ve nearly thrown up more than once while attempting to eat my dinner during it.  Let’s just say I don’t recommend this behavior.

The truly fascinating thing is that I’m actually enjoying regular TV more than I liked satellite.  Don’t get me wrong for I miss having a DVR, but then again not having it has cut down on the amount of hours of television that I feel that I HAVE to watch because I recorded it.  I’ve also recently discovered “Family Guy”.  What’s not to love?  If only I had known years ago.

Some Like It Hot

I think it’s finally over. Yes, the summer of excessive heat that’s plagued so much of the US seems to finally be passing away. Here in the Twin Cities, we experienced a solid month of temperatures above 90 degrees, sometimes inches away from the dreaded three digit numbers, and even dipping into them a couple times. In short, it was pretty damn brutal.

As a side effect, my grass started dying at the end of June, begging for water in vain. I eventually broke down and turned on the sprinklers. I don’t usually like wasting water in this sort of manner so I usually only turn the sprinklers on if it’s absolutely necessary. In any event, the grass still seems irritated at me for my delay and is in slow recovery mode.

The times I had to do any work in the yard nearly killed me. On one particular occasion, I unexpectedly started up a conversation with a neighbor after being outside for well over an hour. It wasn’t until I went back inside that I noticed what I looked like: beet red in the face, sweat showing visibly all over my shirt and hat, etc. I can only imagine what I must have smelled like. No wonder she didn’t want to talk much.

You would think that after living in Phoenix, AZ, for 21 years that I could handle a little bit of hot weather in the Midwest. Instead, I think I deal with it even worse today than back then, and no, it has nothing to do with the humidity and all that. For me, humidity doesn’t really affect me much; I sweat either way, you see, so there’s little difference. If the weather is above 80 degrees and I’m outside in the sun for more than 10 minutes, I’m sweating, and there doesn’t seem to be much I can do about it. And it ain’t pretty either, if I must say so myself.

The real frustrating part is that someone I know can be right beside me in the same exact temperature and feel a bit “cold”. Meanwhile, I’m sweating. It seems almost absurd that two people’s body temperatures can be so varied in this sort of manner, doesn’t it? And yet, it does seem to be the truth. We all seem to have an internal thermostat and, like body weight scales that are slightly off from one another, very few of us seem to hold the same temperature as “perfect”. Most people like the 80’s; I prefer right around 68. Unfortunately, I don’t do that much better on the flipside of things, like when it’s -20 degrees. I freeze just like everyone else at that point, or, even worse, start sweating a cold sweat.

I wish I could call an A/C or heating specialist to fix my internal thermostat. Ah, if only it was that easy. Or better yet, wouldn’t it be great if it was manually adjustable? I could program it to change automatically every day while I’m at work in order to deal with their harsh air conditioning, but then it could mellow when I get home so my house unit doesn’t have to work as hard. If only it was that easy.

And so, I bid farewell to one of my least favorite summers since living in AZ. As the song says, “Some like it hot…but some sweat when the heat is on.” I guess they had me in mind when writing that lyric.

Slip Slidin' Away

Getting old is hell. This is nothing new, nor is it even a new topic for me. At the same time, though, it can be mildly entertaining and gently amusing at times.

For example, last week, I was sitting in the parking lot at Target during my lunch period from work. I tend to drive over to Target and grab a yogurt, a banana…that sort of thing. We can’t eat at our desks at work and so I usually sit in my car and quickly devour these items while watching various people walking in and out of the store. It doesn’t sound exciting, I know, but it sometimes can be a bit interesting.

On this particular occasion, I noticed something extremely odd. I had already been sitting in my car for a couple minutes and was parked next to one of those large cart corrals where customers can place their shopping carts after wheeling them out into the parking lot. The strange part was that this particular cart corral was slowly moving. I looked in total disbelief. Was it the wind? How can the wind move a cart corral like this that’s made out of metal, plastic, etc.? It was completely puzzling. I stared at it for a few seconds, pondering this bizarre anomaly, before it occurred to me to look forward… Umm…the cart corral wasn’t moving…my CAR was moving!

I quickly applied the brake, just prior to gently colliding with the car parked in front of me! Apparently, when I got in the car, as a now semi senile creature of habit, I not only started my car so that I had some a/c but also released the parking brake and, since my car has a manual transmission, it was free to “roam where it wanted to”. And so, my car evidently was slowly creeping forward for some time without me noticing it.

Now, this was pretty amusing to me since, well, it worked out okay. I’m not entirely sure that I would have been giggling about it as much if I did indeed hit the car in front of me, though. This is a fantastic example, however, of the sort of stupid thing that I find myself doing these days. I’ve never done this sort of thing before. In fact, I’ve always been quite the opposite, an incredible perfectionist. Not anymore. Now that I’m hitting middle age, perfection has flown out the window, or more appropriately helped me slide down the road. It’s actually a little scary.

Senility, here I come…

This is for the Birds

The birds are clearly out to get me. I know that sounds rather Hitchcock-ish of me to say but, well, in this case at least, it appears to be true.

I was walking out of my workplace one day when I noticed a rather remarkable looking black with orange striped bird hanging out on the hood of my car. I didn’t think much of it at the time besides the interesting colored markings on its’ side. I was heading out to lunch with someone who just happened to be parked next to my vehicle so I never really got to fully inspect my car beyond the passenger’s side door.

Later on, when I left for the day hours later, I was completely shocked to see that same bird still hanging out on my car as I approached. It barely seemed even phased by the fact that I was rapidly approaching and was more or less giving me a strange look, as if to say, “Um…what do you think you’re doing?! This is my car.” It finally took off reluctantly when I was merely inches from it.

It was then that the thought hit me, putting two and two together in my head. A bird sitting on my car evidently for hours can only lead to one thing: bird poo. As soon as the thought formed in my brain, I noticed the feared evidence…not so lovely white streaks all up and down my door. Ah yes, the bird evidently visited a buffet sometime that day, or perhaps called its’ friend over for a poo party.

My car is black and so it was pretty obvious that there was something on it, although at a fast glance it kind of looked like spray paint from far away. Needless to say, I could have done without the bird’s take on artwork. I drove home and promptly wiped it off with some paper towels.

I was even more shocked the next day to find the same freakin’ bird once again parked on top of my car’s hood. Um…?! Once again, it looked at me like I had a ton of nerve getting between it and my car. Needless to say, the “artwork” was back again, this time even greater than before.

The bird flew a couple feet away once I got near the driver’s side door but didn’t go any further, all the while watching me carefully, probably hoping I’d simply get out of the car and wander off so it could get back to business. It was almost like the bird and my car were having some sort of weird interspecies/mechanical love affair. Odd.

This time, I decided to just get my car washed. After doing so, I figured I’d outsmart the bird and simply not park anywhere near that spot again. Hah! Take that, you feather brained f***!

The next morning, I stopped off at a local coffee shop very briefly to pick up my morning brew. I was in there no more than 2 minutes. I returned to my car, coffee in hand, and found a very large splat of white bird poo perfectly splattered downward over my driver’s side door handle.

Call me crazy but I took it clearly as a message sent by some hit man styled bird, telling me that resistance was futile, and to park my car back in the usual spot at work.

Damn, these creatures are orchestrated.

Top 15 Signs You're a Midwesterner

15. You believe pork chops are fine cuisine and the thought of ever eating a vegetable simply terrifies you

14. You can't help but drive alongside 2-3 other drivers on the freeway, thus creating an automobile "wall" that none can pass through or get around

13. You’re convinced that anyone who chooses not to drink alcohol must be a recovered alcoholic

12. You think of the start of hunting season as a "holiday"

11. The idea of fishing in 5 degree weather in a small outhouse styled shack seems strangely appealing to you

10. You mistakenly think of the left lane of the freeway as the "slow" lane. Actually, you think of all lanes as the slow lane

9. You measure your own self-worth by how green your grass is

8. You enjoy a *good* parade

7. You don’t drink soda, you drink “pop”

6. You’re more concerned about your teams’ recent loss in football rather than politics or the state of the union

5. You feel that having your t-shirt tucked into your jeans, blatantly exposing a large bowling ball of a belly, is a fashion trend that never quite goes out of style

4. You don’t understand why anyone would wear a jacket that doesn’t have a large walleye on the back of it

3. You see no need in ever driving faster than 35 mph

2. The highlight music extravaganza of your year is the annual Styx/REO Speedwagon/Foreigner concert at the local casino, no matter how many actual original members show up

1. You actually think marching bands are cool

How to Speak Starbuck-ian

I stopped at Starbucks this morning for my bi-weekly dose of dark roast. A short 50’s-ish man with glasses, not much hair, etc. was in front of me in line. “What can I get you?” the clerk behind the register asked him.

“A tall blond,” he calmly replied.

A whole range of wise crack responses filled my brain, from “isn't that what we all want” all the way to “I think I’d prefer a short brunette”. Surprisingly, I didn’t actually say any of them. The man who made this statement didn’t exactly look like someone who’d appreciate my humor, and the female clerk was, in fact, a sort of short blond, so I had doubts that my comment would fly well with her either. Sometimes, it’s just better to keep your mouth shut. I’ve learned this the hard way after unintentionally insulting multiple people that I don’t even know.

Still, I couldn’t get the visual out of my head. I imagined the Starbucks clerk walking out a “tall blond” and then I could clearly see her and the man casually slow dancing in the middle of the Starbucks coffee shop. (Yes, in case you’re wondering, this is exactly the sort of thing that I see in my head all the time, hence why I’m frequently giggling to myself when there’s nothing obviously amusing happening or being said around me.)

In case you’re totally confused, a “tall” is a drink size at Starbucks and “blond” is one of their new light roasts. So, indeed, a “tall blond” is a perfectly valid request. In fact, the clerk didn’t even blink an eye when he asked for this, further proving that they probably hear this at Starbucks all the time. Heck, they might even hear my jokes about it on an hourly basis. Perhaps it really was a good choice to keep my mouth shut.

On a similar note, a friend of mine was just telling me that he stopped in at a Starbucks recently and got into a minor altercation when trying to place an order. He supposedly went up to the counter and asked for a small caramel laced drink; the clerk yelled “tall caramel” to her coworkers in order to get it prepped and made.

He was puzzled. “No, I just want a small,” he clarified.

“Yep, tall caramel…got it,” she replied, further ringing up the order.

Thinking that she was mishearing “small” for “tall”, he tried again, slightly flustered. “No, really, I want a small. I don’t want that much to drink.”

The clerk looked at him in a mildly annoyed manner. “Yes, I know, I got it. A tall is a small”.

He did a double take. “A ‘tall’ is a small?”

“Yes,” she said, now even more annoyed.

“How do you figure?! Why isn’t a ‘small’ a small?”

The clerk was growing tired of the whole conversation. “I don’t know, sir. Those are our sizes there: tall, grande, venti,” pointing at the sign behind her. “I just work here.”

So, the next time you’re in Starbucks, make sure you remember to speak Starbuck-ian, and you may just perhaps walk out with the made-to-order mate of your dreams, that is, if you’re into blonds.

I Fart in your General Direction

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything. I’m not lazy; the honest truth is that nothing too terribly interesting has happened over the past couple of months. Sometimes, you simply have to wait for the right moment to strike.

Well, something interesting happened today. I walked into the men’s restroom at work since the need and urge had struck me. The men’s bathroom is a rather narrow but long corridor that has two entrances, one from each side of the corridor. In the middle, there are toilets, and flanking each side are 2 urinals, two sinks, and of course the exit doors. I walked in to find a typical business suited younger man wearing glasses and a long expensive looking trench coat using one of the urinals. As he was doing his business, he was also texting on his cell phone. I semi admired him for his syncopation skills.

I walked to the urinal next to him and started doing my thing. Just then, he let out a rather long, drawn out fart, all the while still texting, completely engrossed in his cell phone. Clearly, his syncopation skills were even greater than I originally gave him credit for. I mean, urinating, texting, AND passing gas at the same time clearly takes some talent.

For you ladies out there, in case you’re not aware, this is a common occurrence in the men’s restroom, meaning the passing of gas randomly. I’ve had men pass gas at the sink while washing their hands. I also had a coworker of mine once pass gas as we were having a short conversation while standing near the sink. I’m not entirely sure how women act in the restroom but I can only hope and imagine that it’s slightly more civil, or at least I want to believe that.

People in general seem to choose their behavioral patterns based on the activity of others around them. So, one guy passes gas at the sink and the next thing you know it’s a trend. Pretty soon, we’ll all be in the lunch room passing gas at random and thinking nothing of it.

Some people outwardly say that passing gas is a normal human function and therefore should be embraced rather than reserved for, um, special private moments. Along the same lines, I’ve known plenty of younger women that amplify their belch’s as much as possible while in restaurants, and then follow it up with, “What?! It’s a totally normal human function!” Yeah, it is normal, but so is defecating…and I usually try to refrain from doing that in public too.

I’ve heard some men say, “If you can’t fart in the bathroom, then where can you?” That is a fairly decent point, when you think about it. I remember when I was a child that I would avoid using a public restroom like the plague for fear of making a “sound”. It took me years to get over that. Still, is making noise when actually doing your business the same as standing at a sink and letting ‘em rip? I’m not really sold on that one.

There are also all the people that like to talk on their cell phones while in the restroom. I’ve had moments when using one of the toilets when a voice suddenly out of nowhere asks, “So, do you have any plans this evening?” This always takes me by surprise. Are they talking to me? I’ve actually answered people before, saying something like, "No, not really...just hanging out and such."  You can imagine how silly I feel when I realize that they all of sudden have taken a phone call and weren't exactly interested in my weekend arrangements.  The really amusing part is that they probably think I'm the weirdo for answering, you know?  Well, perhaps I am, now that I think about it.  Either way, I always get shy when someone’s using the phone in the bathroom. After all, I don’t exactly like broadcasting my bowel movements over portable devices.

I think what caught me the most off guard was that this guy in the restroom looked like, from afar at least, a very sophisticated gentlemen type. The last thing I expected was a backfire. It’s funny that we don’t say hello to people we don’t know but yet we feel okay with tootin’ at them. Perhaps this will become the modern form of saying hello. I mean, why waste breath and energy when you can use a “normal human body function” to achieve the same purpose, right? Now, if only I knew how to text that.

Book Update

I posted my “accomplishment” in this blog back in early October in regards to finishing the book “Cold Mountain” by Charles Frazier. I finished it after a, um, nearly 7 year period (gulp). I think I might have broken the world record for the longest period of time to read one meager book. Looking at it that way, it really was quite an accomplishment.

I wanted to post an update on this whole thing. It’s now almost exactly 3 months later and…wait for it…I’m starting my fourth book since finishing “Cold Mountain”. Yes, that’s right; I’ve read three books since then. I think this clearly goes to show that “Cold Mountain” and I simply didn’t get along.

To add insult to injury, I watched the film version of “Cold Mountain” only a couple weeks after finally finishing the novel. It turned out that I had interpreted the entire ending of the book incorrectly. After watching the film, I went back and reread the ending. Oh, is that what the author was trying to say, I thought to myself. At least one reviewer stated that the style and verbiage of “Cold Mountain” was "spare and eloquent, a panaroma that the author stills long enought to make a portrait...". For me personally, I just wish the author had come out and told us readers what the heck was going on without hiding it within so much poetic obscurity.

I guess we’ll see how long this new novel reading kick lasts. As long as I avoid any of the Stephen King books post “Pet Sematary”, I would think I should be okay.