Looking back on that title, a gruesome combination, no?
Christmas Eve, my family and I went to the Long Beach Aquarium. While there, I learned some very valuable things.
First and foremost, it's a great place to on Christmas Eve. There's no one there, and one of the drivers wears a Santa wetsuit while feeding the fish in the big tank when you first walk in. Right next to the trains chugging around the Christmas tree. Nearly blew my nephew's mind, a man in the water with the fish AND a choo choo? What?!
I also witnessed the perfect example of the intrinsic difference between my Daily Show lovin' brother and Fox News worshippin' father. There's this great water fountain park near the sea lions where kids can sit on statues of crabs and fish, spray each other with water, or take refuge from the water fight in a little dinghy. In the boat was a kid about twice Carter's size, who, rather than share the captain's wheel with Carter, decided to push him down. To the ground. A nearly two year old. This isn't about the potentially sociopathic leanings of this child though, so back to my father and my brother. My father, he went red in the face, leaned down to scream in the kid's face, came very close in my opinion to punching him. The kid couldn't have been more than 6 or 7. Awesome. And my brother. A few minutes later the kid was sitting on a porpoise, spraying water on Carter until he was soaking wet, and so my brother calmly leaned over and redirected the spray through his hand so it shot back into the kid's face. And right there, that's the difference. That's the difference between my brother and my father.
One more thing: I went to Big Wang's for dinner tonight (yes, size does matter,) and noticed something called the Jon Van Shake on the menu. So I think, oh delicious, something chocolatey, creamy, possibly malty... and then I read the description. It's a buffalo chicken pizza with garlic sauce and blue cheese, etc. This totally grossed me out. Not because I don't like buffalo chicken pizza. Normally, I'm all for buffalo chicken pizza, but because I expected it to be sweet and ice cream based, the reality of it was the most disgusting thing ever. The human mind is a perverse beast.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Shamed
My friend, JMoney, shamed me (completely unconsciously) into writing in my blog again. And some thoughts have been rumbling in my brain, and now I will make absolutely no attempt to put them in any kind of order.
Lacunae. These are the spaces naturally present in a story, an argument, a relationship. Gaps, missing pieces of information. I like to think of them as tidal pools; accidentally caught between rocks, almost an afterthought, but more representative of the essence of the seaside than any ocean or beach could be. Tidal pools trap the small things, like crabs or starfish or guppies... seemingly picayune details when looked at in terms of the entire ocean, but when grouped together in a small pool, all of a sudden they take on a greater meaning. They become a microcosm, they become their own contained world.
I wonder what we could learn from, oh, let's say a relationship, because that's of course what's foremost in my thoughts, me being a single girl in my 30s, one who's apparently fond of commas and run-on sentences... anyway, what could we learn if we focused on the lacunae of a relationship. First of all, we'd have to define what the lacunae are. Are they the things unsaid? Or undone? Are the lacunae the mundane details of an established relationship? I'm going to choose unsaid, because it's the most intriguing option, and because I'm a fan of Pinter. Not really.
So things unsaid. The next question that needs to be answered: how do we know they're unsaid? Is it an unnatural pause (see Pinter) or is it represented in small talk? Because we all know that small talk is just thinly disguised tension. No one really wants to engage in small talk. They're just afraid to talk about what they're really thinking.
Yeah, let's say the lacunae is in the small talk. Let's say that when someone says "Did you hear there's a chance of rain on Thursday?", what they really mean is "oh my God, seriously, I need to rip off your clothes right now, because I'm Krakatoa, and you're the poor island villagers running for their lives." When someone says, "No, I thought it was sunshine for the rest of the week, they're actually saying "Back off, Koresh, or I'll blast 5,000 decibels of "Sweet Child of Mine" in your child-loving, cult-freaky ass."
I told you I wasn't actually going to organize my thoughts. Or even find meaning or logic in them, for that matter.
See ya.
Lacunae. These are the spaces naturally present in a story, an argument, a relationship. Gaps, missing pieces of information. I like to think of them as tidal pools; accidentally caught between rocks, almost an afterthought, but more representative of the essence of the seaside than any ocean or beach could be. Tidal pools trap the small things, like crabs or starfish or guppies... seemingly picayune details when looked at in terms of the entire ocean, but when grouped together in a small pool, all of a sudden they take on a greater meaning. They become a microcosm, they become their own contained world.
I wonder what we could learn from, oh, let's say a relationship, because that's of course what's foremost in my thoughts, me being a single girl in my 30s, one who's apparently fond of commas and run-on sentences... anyway, what could we learn if we focused on the lacunae of a relationship. First of all, we'd have to define what the lacunae are. Are they the things unsaid? Or undone? Are the lacunae the mundane details of an established relationship? I'm going to choose unsaid, because it's the most intriguing option, and because I'm a fan of Pinter. Not really.
So things unsaid. The next question that needs to be answered: how do we know they're unsaid? Is it an unnatural pause (see Pinter) or is it represented in small talk? Because we all know that small talk is just thinly disguised tension. No one really wants to engage in small talk. They're just afraid to talk about what they're really thinking.
Yeah, let's say the lacunae is in the small talk. Let's say that when someone says "Did you hear there's a chance of rain on Thursday?", what they really mean is "oh my God, seriously, I need to rip off your clothes right now, because I'm Krakatoa, and you're the poor island villagers running for their lives." When someone says, "No, I thought it was sunshine for the rest of the week, they're actually saying "Back off, Koresh, or I'll blast 5,000 decibels of "Sweet Child of Mine" in your child-loving, cult-freaky ass."
I told you I wasn't actually going to organize my thoughts. Or even find meaning or logic in them, for that matter.
See ya.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Jury Duty
So, tomorrow at 7:30am (if only, if only I had pre-oriented myself online... oh, to report at 9am like the smart people,) I'm reporting for jury duty. At the Stanley Mosk Courthouse. For the second time in my life. It may surprise you to hear, but I'm actually really excited about it. Not only because one of my best friends is called for service at the same time (almost, she's one of the smart people who actually did the pre-orientation online... dammit!) and location, but because last time I served, I learned something surprising about myself. Which of course I'm going to share with you.
The case in 2005 was silly. It was Denny's franchise, it was at will employment, it was a whole lot of he said he said. There was a corporate lawyer on our jury (strange, right?,) I took copious notes which I never looked at again, at lunch everyday I ate a Starbucks egg sandwich by the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion fountain... it was a good life. I was content.
Until I learned I am Juror #8. You know, from 12 Angry Men? The juror that alllllllll the other jurors want to slap? To clarify: If I'm forced into a jury deliberation with 11 other people, I can now safely say that I'll be the one with the strongest convictions, the one who railroads the discussions, and the one, potentially, who keeps the deliberations (read: screaming matches?) going for hours longer than they really should. And you know what? I was proud of myself. I didn't believe any of the testimonies on either side, and I said so. I thought that our decision should be made from documentation, and only documentation, and I said so. I thought that Juror #5 was a raging moron whose mouth should be sewn shut with baling wire, but only after his mother was tarred, feathered, and ridden out on the rails for allowing her son to live past the age of 7, and I said so. I was a good juror.
And now the county of Los Angeles is privileged to have me on their judicial team again. I hope this time I get a murder trial.
The case in 2005 was silly. It was Denny's franchise, it was at will employment, it was a whole lot of he said he said. There was a corporate lawyer on our jury (strange, right?,) I took copious notes which I never looked at again, at lunch everyday I ate a Starbucks egg sandwich by the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion fountain... it was a good life. I was content.
Until I learned I am Juror #8. You know, from 12 Angry Men? The juror that alllllllll the other jurors want to slap? To clarify: If I'm forced into a jury deliberation with 11 other people, I can now safely say that I'll be the one with the strongest convictions, the one who railroads the discussions, and the one, potentially, who keeps the deliberations (read: screaming matches?) going for hours longer than they really should. And you know what? I was proud of myself. I didn't believe any of the testimonies on either side, and I said so. I thought that our decision should be made from documentation, and only documentation, and I said so. I thought that Juror #5 was a raging moron whose mouth should be sewn shut with baling wire, but only after his mother was tarred, feathered, and ridden out on the rails for allowing her son to live past the age of 7, and I said so. I was a good juror.
And now the county of Los Angeles is privileged to have me on their judicial team again. I hope this time I get a murder trial.
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