If I Ran The Circus (That's What I Want)
Things really do get stuck in my head from time to time. Which, if you know me, is something of a surprise. I always say that I have a mind like a steel colander. Not quite awful, but well below the steel trap that I had in my youth. Some things that got stuck there over the years:
When I was in third grade I ran across a Dr. Seuss book I had never seen before, "If I Ran The Circus". I read it at school and LOVED it. I didn't see it again for years, but it was always stuck in the back of my head. To this day when people ask my opinion on a decision I start my answer with, "Well, if I ran the circus..." and think of that book. Last year I made a pilgrimage to the Children's section of Barnes and Nobles to make sure that it existed and I hadn't dreamed it. (I hadn't ever seen it again in 25 years!) Then this month my husband was unboxing some of his old toys and books that his dad cleaned out of the attic and there it was!!! I knew we were a match made in heaven. He had my book.
When I was 15 I lived briefly in Chapel Hill, NC. They had the coolest, kitschiest University radio station ever. I heard part of a song there once that I couldn't get out of my head for YEARS. Since I only caught part of it and this was pre-music-on-the-internet I had no hope of finding it. Then Adam Sandler put it in his movie soundtrack! The song is "Money (That's What I Want" by the Flying Lizards.
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
If Everything Old is New Again, Where Can I Get My Hip Replaced?
Working through the WWdN archives I ran across one of my favorite subjects - aging - in his post 'ain't this the life?'. Hmmm, maybe 'favorite' subjects is pushing it, but it is definitely something that is often on my mind. Why?
My favorite music is older than I was when I first heard it.
My favorite movies, tv shows, and games are 'ancient history' to teenagers.
When my mother was my age she had two tween boys and a squalling infant. I'm lucky I finally got around to getting married and buying a house last year.
My husband is as old as my step-father was when I met him. (Which at the time I assumed was a real adult, but turns out to only be 35.)
My peeps are starting to get 'conditions'. And, MAN, are they getting crotchety.
I was starting to key into this whole aging issue when I was around 27. I had always been keenly aware of my own mortality (at 14 I was already wondering what I could do to make my legacy - what I would leave behind to mark my passing), but I was also always the youngest of any group I was in. Part of my identity, I guess, was 'youngest'. By 27 I had covered enough road to have plenty of people behind me calling the 'youngest' spot no matter where I went.
This mild fascination with the passage of time has mostly manifested at times like the following:
Waiting in line for Star Wars tickets at the re-release. Friend says, "I totally remember seeing this in the theater back in 1977. It was SO cool. I think I saw it a hundred times!" Sue says, "Yeah, it seems like yesterday. But, you know, that was twenty years ago. Twenty years before that it was 1957. That seems mind boggling to me. When our parents took us to Star Wars they were our age, so they were standing in line thinking 1957 wasn't all that long ago... How can that be?" Friend, "That hurts my brain."
Since I've been making those comments for about six years now you can imagine how my popularity has soared. My husband, however, refused to be shocked and awed by the passage of time. But he teaches college biology and got a first hand taste of how times change. While talking about animals in one lab he was really getting into his discussion and tossed off the comment, "So can you imagine wresting an animal like Jim from Wild Kingdom?!" Dead silence. "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom?.... Marlin Perkins?...." Blank looks. The sound of a lonely cricket in the distance. "Or.... the Crocodile Hunter?" Wild enthusiasm from the crowd.
But for all that I think that the rubber really met the road last month when I was talking to a young teen Lord of the Rings enthusiast and mentioned that Sean Astin had been in town back in 1991 and I had always regretted not getting his autograph. (Even more so his DAD's autograph - the uber cool John Astin had dinner at the table next to mine on my 21st birthday but I couldn't get up the guts to bug him.) I was about to try to commisserate with the girl that if only she had been here she could've gotten Sean's autograph. But shortly after 1991 left my lips I realized SHE HADN'T BEEN BORN YET. Shocking. Simply shocking.
Working through the WWdN archives I ran across one of my favorite subjects - aging - in his post 'ain't this the life?'. Hmmm, maybe 'favorite' subjects is pushing it, but it is definitely something that is often on my mind. Why?
I was starting to key into this whole aging issue when I was around 27. I had always been keenly aware of my own mortality (at 14 I was already wondering what I could do to make my legacy - what I would leave behind to mark my passing), but I was also always the youngest of any group I was in. Part of my identity, I guess, was 'youngest'. By 27 I had covered enough road to have plenty of people behind me calling the 'youngest' spot no matter where I went.
This mild fascination with the passage of time has mostly manifested at times like the following:
Waiting in line for Star Wars tickets at the re-release. Friend says, "I totally remember seeing this in the theater back in 1977. It was SO cool. I think I saw it a hundred times!" Sue says, "Yeah, it seems like yesterday. But, you know, that was twenty years ago. Twenty years before that it was 1957. That seems mind boggling to me. When our parents took us to Star Wars they were our age, so they were standing in line thinking 1957 wasn't all that long ago... How can that be?" Friend, "That hurts my brain."
Since I've been making those comments for about six years now you can imagine how my popularity has soared. My husband, however, refused to be shocked and awed by the passage of time. But he teaches college biology and got a first hand taste of how times change. While talking about animals in one lab he was really getting into his discussion and tossed off the comment, "So can you imagine wresting an animal like Jim from Wild Kingdom?!" Dead silence. "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom?.... Marlin Perkins?...." Blank looks. The sound of a lonely cricket in the distance. "Or.... the Crocodile Hunter?" Wild enthusiasm from the crowd.
But for all that I think that the rubber really met the road last month when I was talking to a young teen Lord of the Rings enthusiast and mentioned that Sean Astin had been in town back in 1991 and I had always regretted not getting his autograph. (Even more so his DAD's autograph - the uber cool John Astin had dinner at the table next to mine on my 21st birthday but I couldn't get up the guts to bug him.) I was about to try to commisserate with the girl that if only she had been here she could've gotten Sean's autograph. But shortly after 1991 left my lips I realized SHE HADN'T BEEN BORN YET. Shocking. Simply shocking.
Monday, January 12, 2004
I Finally Get It
I started blogging because it seemed like the cool thing to do and I hoped that I had something to say. I both continued and stalled because I started to feel pressure over making my posts 'good enough'. As though the title of my blog were "The Great American Novel" instead of "Thoughts That Get Stuck In My Head".
But today I'm unsettled and casting about for something to do with disquiet in my soul. It's the kind of day that when I was younger I would write letters to my best friend - my step-sister - because we were unlucky enough to live miles apart. (Yes, kids, this was back in the day before IMs and cell phones with unlimited plans and free long distance.) I was apparently very unsettled and disquieted because she has boxes of letters from those teen years. I also deluged Dwight Schultz with letters until I got an autographed picture. My letter writing became so significant over the summer of 1984 that I dubbed myself "The Great Letter Writing Bandit".
Well, now we have IM and cell phones with free long distance and I'm even lucky enough that my step-sis moved within 30 minutes of me. But at times I am still unsettled and casting about for something to do with disquiet in my soul. Yearning to reach out and communicate in an earnest and truthful way. A way that, to me, is only achieved by writing in full sentences and using clever turns of phrase that keep me entertained.
"Doh!" I said, slapping myself on the forehead. "THAT's what blogging is for!" Even now, as I'm typing this, I feel better. If I can use this forum to keep that monkey off my back - the overpowering need to communicate whether anyone likes it or not - then it will more than pay for itself. Wait a second, this is free....
The Great Letter Writing Bandit is IN.
But today I'm unsettled and casting about for something to do with disquiet in my soul. It's the kind of day that when I was younger I would write letters to my best friend - my step-sister - because we were unlucky enough to live miles apart. (Yes, kids, this was back in the day before IMs and cell phones with unlimited plans and free long distance.) I was apparently very unsettled and disquieted because she has boxes of letters from those teen years. I also deluged Dwight Schultz with letters until I got an autographed picture. My letter writing became so significant over the summer of 1984 that I dubbed myself "The Great Letter Writing Bandit".
Well, now we have IM and cell phones with free long distance and I'm even lucky enough that my step-sis moved within 30 minutes of me. But at times I am still unsettled and casting about for something to do with disquiet in my soul. Yearning to reach out and communicate in an earnest and truthful way. A way that, to me, is only achieved by writing in full sentences and using clever turns of phrase that keep me entertained.
"Doh!" I said, slapping myself on the forehead. "THAT's what blogging is for!" Even now, as I'm typing this, I feel better. If I can use this forum to keep that monkey off my back - the overpowering need to communicate whether anyone likes it or not - then it will more than pay for itself. Wait a second, this is free....
The Great Letter Writing Bandit is IN.
Saturday, January 10, 2004
Knock Me Over With a Phaser Set on Stun
There have always been certain principles in my life - things like gravity, no white shoes after labor day, and Coke being better than Pepsi. One of the other things I had accepted as a given in my personal universe was that Wil Wheaton sort of, well... irritated the crap out of me. This wasn't just a celebrity thing - he was in our town doing a film in the early 90s. Some of his co-stars won the love and admiration of the locals, so we were by no means pre-disposed to hate all of Hollywood. But then a funny thing happened on the way to the market....
You might remember that I'm a HUGE Disney fan. Ditto, maybe even times ten, on Star Trek. Classic Trek. (To quote Robert in Free Enterprise "I would never live in the 24th century! I f**ing HATE "The Next Generation". Only classic!" Well, maybe not quite that bad, but close.) I actually - no lie - got DRESSED UP for the last movie with Spock in it (1) because it was like an event for me. Back in the day it took me almost seven years to warm up to The Next Generation. Yeah, like it was going off the air and I was saying, "You know, this show isn't so bad." So ST:TNG stopped production, then faded from heavy syndication, and Wil Wheaton faded from my mind. Story became myth and myth became legend.
Then he started a blog.
Now, I don't know where he went or what he did or how everything worked out over the last ten years- but tonight I started reading his blog and I've got to say that the dude is cool. His stock rose a thousandfold with me. I was so impressed with his writing and thoughts and ideas that I dropped him an email even though I assumed it would never be read. Sometimes I just have to express my appreciation. I gave him the scope of my viewpoint so that he would know he had really changed my opinion of him. He wrote back. (2) The dude is cool. Anyone who says otherwise has to deal with me.
6/21/2010 Update:
(1) Ok, so it wasn't the last movie with Spock in it. We just thought it was going to be. Based on this logic Spock may be immortal. But the point is I put on a little black dress, heels, and pearls. *ubergeek*
(2) Wil included his now famous (but not yet at that point) tag line about not being a dick.
You might remember that I'm a HUGE Disney fan. Ditto, maybe even times ten, on Star Trek. Classic Trek. (To quote Robert in Free Enterprise "I would never live in the 24th century! I f**ing HATE "The Next Generation". Only classic!" Well, maybe not quite that bad, but close.) I actually - no lie - got DRESSED UP for the last movie with Spock in it (1) because it was like an event for me. Back in the day it took me almost seven years to warm up to The Next Generation. Yeah, like it was going off the air and I was saying, "You know, this show isn't so bad." So ST:TNG stopped production, then faded from heavy syndication, and Wil Wheaton faded from my mind. Story became myth and myth became legend.
Then he started a blog.
Now, I don't know where he went or what he did or how everything worked out over the last ten years- but tonight I started reading his blog and I've got to say that the dude is cool. His stock rose a thousandfold with me. I was so impressed with his writing and thoughts and ideas that I dropped him an email even though I assumed it would never be read. Sometimes I just have to express my appreciation. I gave him the scope of my viewpoint so that he would know he had really changed my opinion of him. He wrote back. (2) The dude is cool. Anyone who says otherwise has to deal with me.
6/21/2010 Update:
(1) Ok, so it wasn't the last movie with Spock in it. We just thought it was going to be. Based on this logic Spock may be immortal. But the point is I put on a little black dress, heels, and pearls. *ubergeek*
(2) Wil included his now famous (but not yet at that point) tag line about not being a dick.
Tuesday, January 6, 2004
Another New Word
Awhile back I shared that my vocabulary is increasing because of circumstances that are new in my life but apparently have affected the generations before me. That's why there are already words for them. Well, now in addition to kakistocracy and antinomian I have gerrymander. What is that, you say? Let us turn again to dictionary.com. It means "To divide (a geographic area) into voting districts so as to give unfair advantage to one party in elections." Surely you know where this is going. Straight to Texas. The steamroller of the Grand Old Party has struck again.
In case you would like to know the origin of gerrymander, dictionary.com tells us: A gerrymander sounds like a strange political beast, which it is, considered from a historical perspective. This beast was named by combining the word salamander, a small lizardlike amphibian, with the last name of Elbridge Gerry, a former governor of Massachusettsa state noted for its varied, often colorful political fauna. Gerry (whose name, incidentally, was pronounced with a hard g, though gerrymander is now commonly pronounced with a soft g) was immortalized in this word because an election district created by members of his party in 1812 looked like a salamander. According to one version of gerrymander's coining, the shape of the district attracted the eye of the painter Gilbert Stuart, who noticed it on a map in a newspaper editor's office. Stuart decorated the outline of the district with a head, wings, and claws and then said to the editor, That will do for a salamander! Gerrymander! came the reply. The word is first recorded in April 1812 in reference to the creature or its caricature, but it soon came to mean not only the action of shaping a district to gain political advantage but also any representative elected from such a district by that method. Within the same year gerrymander was also recorded as a verb.
Everything old is new again. And I'm not sure I like it.
Awhile back I shared that my vocabulary is increasing because of circumstances that are new in my life but apparently have affected the generations before me. That's why there are already words for them. Well, now in addition to kakistocracy and antinomian I have gerrymander. What is that, you say? Let us turn again to dictionary.com. It means "To divide (a geographic area) into voting districts so as to give unfair advantage to one party in elections." Surely you know where this is going. Straight to Texas. The steamroller of the Grand Old Party has struck again.
In case you would like to know the origin of gerrymander, dictionary.com tells us: A gerrymander sounds like a strange political beast, which it is, considered from a historical perspective. This beast was named by combining the word salamander, a small lizardlike amphibian, with the last name of Elbridge Gerry, a former governor of Massachusettsa state noted for its varied, often colorful political fauna. Gerry (whose name, incidentally, was pronounced with a hard g, though gerrymander is now commonly pronounced with a soft g) was immortalized in this word because an election district created by members of his party in 1812 looked like a salamander. According to one version of gerrymander's coining, the shape of the district attracted the eye of the painter Gilbert Stuart, who noticed it on a map in a newspaper editor's office. Stuart decorated the outline of the district with a head, wings, and claws and then said to the editor, That will do for a salamander! Gerrymander! came the reply. The word is first recorded in April 1812 in reference to the creature or its caricature, but it soon came to mean not only the action of shaping a district to gain political advantage but also any representative elected from such a district by that method. Within the same year gerrymander was also recorded as a verb.
Everything old is new again. And I'm not sure I like it.
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