Back From Dallas, A Retrospect in Fives, Part 5

Things I noticed about my co-attendees at this conference:

1. Pasty white ladies really like fundraising.

2. Comfortable shoes are de-rigueur for conference attending.

3. Ditto, pants.

4. Everyone loves that free candy in the expo hall.

5. Small talk can be elevated to something approaching either art or Armageddon, depending on your point of view.

Back From Dallas, A Retrospect in Fives, Part 4

Things that Dallas has that Washington DC lacks:

 

1.  A preponderance of nudy bars.  I’m not saying we need more, I’m just saying.

2.  Cowboys that wear their hats and boots.

3.  Mexican food.  I love you Guatemalans, but your food is sawdust compared to Mexico’s.  Sorry and stuff.

4.  A sun-sphere.

5.  Southfork Ranch.

 

Back From Dallas, A Retrospect in Fives, Part 3

What I Ate and When:

 

Friday:  Chicken Sandwich from a gas station, followed by cocktails served by gay cowboys.

Saturday:  Meat served on swords from a Brazilian steakhouse.  Then more cocktails from gay cowboys.

Sunday:  Delicious pancakes from IHOP, followed by sushi prepared by angry Mexicans.

Monday:  The most delicious barbeque ever- so delicious, in fact, that I licked the juices off the plate and didn’t feel I had committed the mortal sin of gluttony.  And a million beers.

Tuesday:  A Chicken Fried Steak the size of a baby’s head. 

 

 

 

Back From Dallas, A Retrospect in Fives, Part 2

Where Dallas Cab Drivers Hail From (unrepresentative sample):

 

1.  Iran

2.  Jamaica

3.  West Texas

4.  Sudan

5.  Romania

 

 

Back From Dallas, A Retrospect in Fives, Part 1

Things I thought I would see more of in Dallas:

 

1.  Big Hair

2.  Cheerleaders

3.  Tamale carts.

4.  Oil

5.  Cowboy boots.

Conference, Day 2

Day one was spent collecting free swag from the conference floor. So
there aren't really any good stories. Just a lot of pens,
highlighters, brochures and key rings. There was even someone here
who was selling a machine that writes your name on a piece of rice.
Really, if you think about it, that is the gift that keeps on giving.
Oh fundraisers. You're so silly.

This morning's first session went like this:

Transcribed from the margins of my session guide book, where I keep
all the important observations:

8:05 am The coffee and pastry that was promised by the conference
handbook? Non-existent. So now, hungry, tired and sitting in a room
full of people in frump suits with big hair.
8:12 am The presenter, a mid-fifties mom-type lady just referenced
Harold and Kumar Go to Whitecastle. I would have been less surprised
if she had just dropped the f-bomb. Inexplicable.
8:23 am Today's word: unfolds. It's been used four times since the
H&K reference.
8:26 am "We call fundraising Friendraising". No. No, we do not do that. Ever.
8:36 am I missed the lead up to this statement because I was writing
some notes, but "donors have placed a curse on all of your houses".
Uhhhhh… what?
8:37 am We just chanted, in unison, about donor lists. *Urge to kill rising.*
8:49 am Opening line for a thank you letter from the Alzheimer
Foundation: "You remembered for those who can't." Does it make me a
bad person that I think this is possibly the funniest opening line
ever? They must be mad hilarious over there at the Alzheimer
Foundation.
9:03 am Quote of the morning: "This is the most interesting thing of
all". No, I doubt that very much. If the most interesting thing of
all was said at nine o'clock in the morning in a conference room in
Dallas, Texas, I am pretty sure the universe would implode.

More about Dallas's Bars for Boys tonight...off to peruse more swag.

D is for Dallas, is good enough for Me.

I'm on my way to the big D, and I mean Dallas. Am attending a
conference on, wait for it: fundraising. Be still my beating heart.
But, I won't scoff at free tickets and a swank hotel room. Tonight I
get to see my good friend T who has been helping to maintain sanity
since university- we are splitting a totally crappy hotel room in
Dallas and will be persuing the 'bars for boys' section of El Dallaso.
I have been informed that it is All Texas Bear Roundup, so expect
tales of big sweaty guys in leather vests. Yeeeehaw!

Also, I am expecting that a great part of this conference will be
physically revulsive: people networking their way across the ugly
ballroom carpet, big fake laughs all around. The snarky part of my
brain can hardly contain itself. The other Midwestern part of my
brain reminds me that I came to this conference voluntarily.

Whatever, Brain. Shut up. We're here for the nachos and margaritas
and big hair. Let's never forget that.

Vive la Extra

MetrobusExtra kicks ass. It's clean, quiet, and doesn't stop every
six feet. What's not to love here? I couldn't believe the difference
in time that it made- literally cut the time it normally takes to go
from Kennedy to Chinatown from forty to twenty, max. Awesome. I love
you, Mr. Catoe. Yeah, I know you are just coasting on the coat tails
of the incomparable Danny, but well done. Another couple well
executed projects and I'll let you get to second base.

One thing, though. MetroBus Extra? Really? Rapid Bus wouldn't have
been better? Or MetroRapid? Or MetroExpress? Come on now. I know
we work for a massive government bureaucracy, but you took the time to
come up with MetroBus Extra instead of just calling it Proposal
X45J-0071 or whatever, could you have not taken an extra half a day,
brought in some Chinese food and cheap beer and let the interns go
wild with the bus naming? Come to think of the interns that I know,
that might not be the best idea. MetroRam comes to mind. Or
MetroHOTT! Or MetroSexual. Everybody's into metrosexuals these days.

Amy Winehouse Just Made My Head Explode

If you haven't heard of this woman before, imagine Aretha Franklin
belting out songs about rehab. It's all down dirty mo-town sound, and
this girl has some serious pipes. I've been biking to her, and she
has turned out to be a Sing Out Loud Album, much to the
delight/consternation/confusion of pedestrians. The Sing Out Loud
designation doesn't necessarily indicate the highest quality music in
my collection (Blondie, Eartha Kitt and Green Day all make the SOL
list, in no particular, as well as such embaress-tacular songs such as
Mika's Grace Kelly and the Brady Bunch Song), but we like what we
like.

Imagine my bizarre mind implosion when I googled her, only to discover
that she isn't black. I mean, she sings like she spent her whole
childhood belting out gospel at some AME church in Gwinett County,
Georgia. But no. In the theater of my mind, when I am belting out
the chorus 'they tried to make me go to rehab, but I said no, no, no'
she is holding one of those big old microphones that drop from the
ceiling on some smoky stage in a saloon, wearing a black dress and a
thinking-woman's afro. What am I supposed to do with that image?
Replace it with this whinging English girl, pasty skin and all?

Stupid stereotyping brain.

Je manque des cigarettes.

I feel pretty comfortable about it now. I thought it was bad luck to talk about it before. I mean, what with all the bad karma I have built up, I feel like it’s foolish to tempt fate.

I quit smoking five months ago. I think I can safely say I don’t smoke. I’m a non-smoker. Cigarette? No thanks. Very kind, but I quit. It’s taken some time to get used to saying that.

I *meant* to quit smoking like six years ago. I just sort of never got around to it. It’s hard. Long ago I stopped really liking cigarettes. I had been cutting down this year since getting back to the States, where they are not handed out on street corners as they are in Asia. They were just sort of this thing that I did. The whole reason I was able to quit is because you know when you go out late on a Saturday morning and you sit down on the stoop for a cigarette, and sometimes it is the best thing in the world? But sometimes, it makes you feel really tired, your eyes glaze over and your brain buzzes like a black and white TV warming up, and everything goes a bit hazy and you lose focus. You feel like total crap and you look at that paper wrapped tube with smoke flitting off the lit end, filter end a little bit damp, and that brown spot marking the tar’s skid marks as it rushes into your lungs. That’s when you flick it into the gutter and go back inside and try to not think about what tar looks like when it is streaking your lungs.

I got tired of having that moment.

It was hard in the beginning. It got easier, much to my self-indulgent surprise. I mean really, where is all the angst? I just wanted a cigarette a lot and then didn’t get to have one, which sucked. I thought I was going to have to sweat buckets and watch babies crawl across the ceiling.

DC’s smoking ban totally helped. Now, I don’t really want a smoke very often. But I miss cigarettes. They are the best props in the entire world. That familiar box, pulling one out and lighting it, having something to do with my hands, having an excuse to cut all conversations short, a way to ride out uneasy pauses, a reason to go out side, something to do at the bar when waiting for people that is infinitely less wanky than diddling with a mobile phone. I miss them for their theatrical value, which, I guess, makes me more of a poseur than I would have ever imagined possible.

Hello, Local.

I know this is totally lame and everyone else in the world knows about
this, but I just went to Wonderland Ballroom last week for the first
time. I love it. Why do I love it? Because it looks like a real
bar. It smells like a real bar. It would not be out of place in
Milwaukee.

That's normally my test to see if I am going to like a bar. There are
exceptions: I mean, I moved here because I didn't want to live in the
Midwest anymore. So I enjoy an evening of sucking my stomach in at
Halo or sampling delicious beer at Matchbox or getting crap spilled on
me in Tom-Tom (ok, that's a lie. That is never ok. Tom-tom can burn
to the ground as far as the Badger is concerned).

But the Wonderland! Normal bar! Good music! Outdoor patio! Be
still my beating heart. A bar where no one asked what I do.

Fake Daddy is Totally Hot

Yesterday I went to the National Portrait Gallery and the American Art Museum with M. and Baby M. I am totally stealing this picture from M's well written blog about Mom-dom. Anyway, as you can see, I make a totally hot Baby Daddy. Even if I'm just playing at fake baby daddy.


So, I have basically no experience with children. I mean, I used to take care of them, and I like them, and I used to teach them English, but in terms of doing things with them- not so much. My younger sister (shout out Goo! What's up?) (she hates being called Goo, the name my brother and I came up with for her when she was like three days old) was born when I was eight, so really, I was to young to actually do any work.

Babies are like this magical quantity- their very presence bends the rules of space and time and human interaction in towards them like some cute, if not slightly smelly, black hole.

Observations:

1. No one cares what you do, if you do it with a baby. We stood too close to pictures. We held baby M up to certain pieces of art, as if she was part of the art, or possibly as if some of the art was eating her. Did guards come and scream and blow whistles and sack us good for endangering art? No. The guard offered to take a picture of us endangering art with a baby. Were we required to leave all of our large bags and stroller in the coat check, like other citizens who didn't have a baby in tow? No. We got to wheel it all down the corridors like some mammoth, slightly milk-smelling caravan.

Just don't vomit on the art.

2. Everyone wants to talk to the baby. I have never had so many people come up and start asking questions. What would you do if I walked up to you and started asking how old your seven year-old daughter was and how much does she weigh? You would bash my head good. But everybody does it to babies. I was tempted to start providing false details:

Oh! She's adorable! How old is she?
I don't know. Ask her (pointing at any random woman in the room). She handles those details.

Oh My God! How cute! Is it a boy or a girl?
How 'bout you just check for yourself? I think it needs changed. Here's a diaper.

What's her name?
Boobalicious.

3. I got checked out more by cute guys when I was holding this baby then I have ever been checked out before. It was like I wasn't wearing a shirt in Halo. That is so totally unfair. Maybe I'll have one shipped in from Asia.

Weather Forecast for this Week:

I hate March. It is even worse than February. February is a dirty whore and all, but at least she admits it. March: the blond sorority girl of months. You think she'll be pretty, but really she is a husk of a woman filled with empty Pabst cans.

Forecast for this week:

High 6000º Kelvin, Low 2º Above Absolute Zero.

Periods of Hurricane Gale, whipping thought that cheap cardigan you thought might be thick enough for such a fickle day, interspersed with periods of calm sunshine,which will trick you out of killing your self with whiteout, paper clips, and the LAN cord from your computer. Don't be fooled. It's not worth it.

Snow, changing into rain, changing to a free for all of summer-esque bacchanalia, changing to bowling ball sized hail. Stay inside.

Safe, predictable, grumpy wintertime contentment will be shoved to the side for faint rumblings of springtime joy, which will be crushed again by a plunge into the mid twenties, followed by more snow. I urge you delicate-types to not look out the window until April.

You Shall Know Me by the Trail of My Insults

Mmmmmmmmm K Peeps. This is an open letter to the people of DC who decide to drive cars. I am not the enemy. I am just some dude who rides his bike to work and home in an effort to keep the beer from making him even fatter. Car drivers: I am a vehicle. I can take the lane if I want it. It's just as much mine as it is a tractor-trailer's. That is the law. If I want to drive four miles an hour, that's my right. I won't, because sometimes I drive a car and it pisses me off too, but understand this fact. You have to just suck it up and allow me to do so. In the last two days drivers have: yelled at me from car windows for unknown reasons, cut me off, honked because I was impeding some imaginary emergency and SPIT at me. That's right. Spit. I won, because I spit back and landed a big one on his window, but whatever. Winning isn't important. When you've won, anyway.

Now, I've been riding ye olde iron horse since December, and nothing happened until now, so I know it isn't all of you. Just a select few. Who all decided to be asshats in the same week.

Other driving people, who shall remain nameless because they are also friends, have claimed that bikers piss them off because some times they wear headphones and weave in and out of traffic. I'm sorry, I think you are breaking up... oh... what's that? You're talking on your phone while holding Starbucks and weaving though traffic listening to Beyoncé? Kettle? It's pot. You're black.

I understand that sometimes it can be frustrating while driving in traffic to have to deal with pedestrians and bikers. THAT'S THE PRICE YOU PAY FOR SITTING ON YOUR FAT ASS AND BEING PROPELLED DOWN THE ROAD. If it makes you so mad that bikers can weave between traffic at stop lights to get to the front (which, by the way, is indeed legal, Mr Yell-Out-The-Window-Toyota-Corolla-With-Maryland-Tags), well, that's the price you pay for driving a car. If you don't like it, you can get a bike as well. Don't like it that you have to allow bikes a lane? Well, then move somewhere that you don't have to do that. I recommend Dubuque, Iowa. Does it bother you that people lock their bikes to signs and parking meters? What are you, like six? Shut it.

I'm not judging you if you drive a car to work (totally not true: I'm judging you as we speak. Can you hear me? It sounds like sleigh bells. And gay porn. That's what judging sounds like.) but drivers, remember: the road is not yours alone. Share. Or my trail of insults will be accompanied with a rain of rocks, bricks, and other windshield cracking projectiles. That is all.

The Opposite of Pleasant

I should have known that it was a trap. And I, even with all my street smarts and book-learning, walked right into it. I was late to Arabic class because of the snow. Well, actually I had been sitting at my desk willing the school to close so that I could go home and drink cocoa while wearing soft pants, and I lost track of time while reading a wikipedia entry about Whitney Houston's drug problem. That's why I was late. I'm trying to be more truthful during Lent.

I walked into the classroom about ten minutes late and there was a great seat available, to my great surprise. Good board view, plenty of bag room, no extraneous spills or trash to be wary of: all in all the perfect seat. So I sat. And then my seat mate turned to me and I realized the folly of my ways, dear reader. I had sat next to the non-traditional student.

When I was in university, I defined non-traditional students very broadly. Basically, were you old? Did you have responsibilities that extended beyond fake IDs and next week's mid-term? Then you were a non-traditional student. I realize, as I get older, I must redefine non-traditional students. Much like babyboomers desperately grabbing hold to The Who in an effort to not fall into the "Old People" demographic, I, too, must shamelessly shift. Basically, my new criteria is only two simple questions: "Could you be my Mom/Dad? and "Can you use a debit card?". When the answer is yes followed by no, trouble ensues.

I mean really, it is just this one lady, but talk about crazy pants. I had no more than sat down when she started giggling and asking me if I always misspell "Hello" in Arabic. Let me take a second here to explain one of my pet peeves: laughing at people who are learning. Having learned more languages than this bored housewife has had orgasms, I know that you make lots of mistakes when learning. That's how you learn. Boat loads of mistakes. Wastelands of aborted conversations, subject-verb disagreements, illogical causative cases and accidentally adding vowels where they don't belong strewn about like so much flotsam and jetsam: that, Madam, is how one learns a language. But I digress.

I looked at what she was pointing at. "Yeah, I guess I did misspell it."

She replied: "It's such an easy word! See! There should be another line right here!"
I: "I think we learned this on the first day of class. I didn't know how to write in Arabic at all the first day of class. Did you know how the first day?" I was speaking in that tone of voice I reserve for people who are pissing me off but are too stupid to know better. It's the same tone of voice I reserve for use with telemarketers; it says "I am struggling to not verbally destroy you, you stupid clod of dirt, but I was raised in the Midwest so I am going to speak with clipped politeness spoken a half-octave above my normal voice, you complete waste of space".
She giggled.

I decided to ignore her, even though she is one of those people that constantly is begging for attention. As soon as I pulled out my sheet of vocabulary words she piped up.

"You know what a great way to learn vocabulary words is?"
"Uhhhh, I usually just make flashcards."
"Well I labeled everything in my house so I can remember! Isn't that great!"

I looked down at my vocabulary sheet. I can't really imagine how she had labeled objects in her house such as "sad", "tired", or my personal favorite "uneasy". Did she make different tags and follow her husband around, placing the labels on his shirt as his mood changed? If she did, I can imagine she quickly cycled to "Enraged". If we had learned more vocab the previous week, I am sure she could have used "Ready for a divorce."

Shortly after, we were paired as practice partners, and I patiently listened as she told me that this girl had a notebook but that guy had a pencil. I tried to not fall into a coma. It wasn't her fault. No one knows anything interesting when you just start a language. It would be easier if one could start with "So, do you come here often? Great arms. I love your shirt. I bet it would look great on my bedroom floor. Can I buy you a Kebab?" But alas, not possible. We don't know how to say that people don't have things so all of our conversations are very positive. "Yes! She has a bag!" When it was my turn, I said that he had a bicycle but she had a car. Non-Traditional Crazypants immediately jumped on that! "You used the plural of cars! He has two cars?"

That's when Dick Cheney shot her in the face.

Ok, not really, but magical realism is my favorite genre right now.

Bring Me a Hat and May West on a Stick.

Do we get to wear hats again soon?

I realize that I seem to have missed a lot while I was away, but Jesus, I have almost been back for a year. When did we all start drinking old man beer? Saturday night I enjoyed many a fine old man beer that I had not drank in years, since I was in university and Hamm's was only three dollars and fifteen cents for a six pack. I had some PBR (still tastes like pennies. Why like this?). I enjoyed several cans of Shaffers. At two dollars a can, I say why not?

This trend asks an inevitable question: when do I get my fedora and my watch fob? Will I ride the street car and send telegrams? Will I be allowed to drink at lunch again and smoke in the doctors office? Is this phantom nostalgia? I mean, my dad wasn't even born when this crap was in style.

But, really, who can argue with this hat?

Well, it's time to rush right out and buy a handgun.

Appeals Court Overturns D.C. Gun Ban

By BRETT ZONGKER

The Associated Press
Friday, March 9, 2007; 9:21 PM

WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court overturned the District of Columbia's long-standing handgun ban Friday, rejecting the city's argument that the Second Amendment right to bear arms applied only to militias.

In a 2-1 decision, the judges held that the activities protected by the Second Amendment "are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual's enjoyment of the right contingent" on enrollment in a militia.

Stupid constitution.

New York Conversations

Last weekend was spent communing with friends in New York. And by communing, I mean drinking beer. I spent one summer in New York working at a random bakery (loooooong story). It was, uhhh, well... I am searching for a word that means "a supernova of fun". I was nineteen, lived in Brooklyn, there were no parents, a fair bit of disposable income and boys a-go-go. Good times.

So why hadn't I been back to New York in so very very long? That was like ten years ago! It seems unpossible, as Ralph Wiggum would say. Maybe this conversation, put into linear form from fragments collected on Sunday, will illuminate why I don't live in New York.

Subway Toll Collecter: "I TOLD you what to do, ALREADY. What more I have to do? HMMMMMMM?"
The BoyFriend: "Uhh, but the gate you told us to go to is closed."
STC: "I TOLD YOU WHAT TO DO!"
TBF: Stunned silence.
Other Subway Passenger: "Scuse me! LET ME THROUGH! I GOTS A BABY!" She attempts to push a baby stroller with a comatose baby though an emergency exit gate. "LET ME THROUGH!"
STC: "I ain't gonna let you though there! Now go 'round like I says!"
OSP: "But I gots A BABY! LET ME THROUGH!"
STC: "Get outta here and do what I said."
OSP: "You burn in hell! YOU BURN IN HELL YOU BLACK BITCH!"
TBF: STUNNED SILENCE.

Woman on the Train: "Scuse you!"
The Boyfriend: "What?"
WOT: "I said SCUSE YOU!"
TBF: "UHhhh, no. Excuse you."
WOT: "Don'tchoo be leanin' on me motherfucker! SCUSE YOU!"
TBF: No, excuse you. And don't fucking talk to me that way."
WOT: Histerical Blabbering. Prolific dropping of the F-Bomb.

Woman in Stairwell: "Don't you tell me what to do!"
Man in Stairwell: " I fuckin' tell you what to do when ever I want to tell you what to do!
WIS: "You stupid motherfucker! Don't you fucking hit me!"
MIS: "If I hit you you be dead! Don't even be calling me motherfucker! Stupid bitch."
WIS: "What, you gonna hit me? Yeah, I didn't think you gonna hit me! Die you stupid nasty!
MIS: Incomprehensible meltdown of civility.
WIS: Further shreaking and yelling.

King of the Badgers: "Excuse me, could I get by?"
Man Standing in Front of Turnstile: "Don't you fucking touch me motherfucker."
KOB: "Shut up Jackass. If you don't want people to touch you then don't stand in front of the turnstile."
MSFT: "I'll cut you."
KOB: Internal Voice: I'm sure you would, but I'm on this side of the turnstile now and I'm pretty sure you don't have the two dollars it would take to exact revenge.
KOB: Outside Voice: Le sigh.

Ahlan Wa Sahlan

I am taking an Arabic class. Why? Yes. Interesting question. Just becasue? No, not really a good enough reason to tackle a language where one can seemingly both conjugate, abbreviate and predicate every single word in the language. I know that's not true, but after yesterday's three hour class on marks that aren't really even letters, but just help you pronounce things, but no one uses them except children and slow learners, I am starting to think this might be a bigger undertaking that previously thought. I could cop out and say things like "Well it's best to know why those A-Rabs hate us so much, and all the better speaking A-rab." But really, I've been around the block enough times to know that "they" hate us for many reasons (many of them good reasons- crushing poverty, our own hypocritical realpolitik practices, American Idol's Ryan Seacrest), and that, really, "they" includes a lot of groups, most of them not Arabs.

Do you want to know the real truth? I like the script. It looks awesome. And I wanted to be able to read it. And write in those long, drawn out words that drip off the pen like water, except lazier. I love the way it flows, and how words look like flattened clouds.

I know. I'm totally lame. And I'm fine with that.

Grump.

Petty, stupid winter. Right when we think we are going to have a long, slow, deliciously warm descent into springtime, snow magically appears, sucking the color out of life. I love me some snow but after the most boring winter followed by three attempted snowstorms I am ready for the short-sleeves to come out. Oh, but I'll show you, faceless season. Just you wait. Pretty soon I'll be bitching about how hot Metrobus is and you shall languish in the corner forgotten and unloved.

3 AM: Time for TV

Living in a city has it's advantages and disadvantages, but I will tell you this: living close to people only has disadvantages. Last night at three am, my upstairs neighbor, who must be at least sixty-five and enjoys having lengthy conversations with herself while standing next to the front door of our building, of which you as her neighbor are free to drop in and out of, decided to watch a slasher film. At jet-engine volume. Thanks, Alma: that was totally rockin'. Don't expect me to bring your Saturday Fedex delivery of insulin upstairs anymore. Let's see how much tv you watch from your coma.

I Dream of Orca Whales. Not Really.

Do you know what makes a person feel real good at the end of winter? To wake up and feel that it's over. I know that, in the near future, somehow the great cosmos will conspire to dump a foot of snow on me and kill all the spring greens, but yet work will still not be cancelled. But we're almost out of the woods. Like a terrorizing moment in a vampire movie, we're scared, but the sun is rising. Take that winter.

This morning it felt like it was over. I biked to work (that's right, all five miles of it- everyone act like I am a hero now...), I had old Regina Spektor on the earphones, I was even doing that thing down sixteenth street where you ride real fast and then put your legs out in front of you and yell "WWWWWHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!". I did that until a police car, which was behind me with me knowing it, squawked it's siren at me.

Whatever Po-Po. Winter is over. I'm going to be doing that a lot now.