PunkKittyDiddy

Mr. Rogerski's Neighborhood

Living in an urban setting as we do, we're up to our chins in neighbors.  One of our bedroom windows faces the building next to us, which is twelve feet away, at most.  This building is largely populated by Russians.  Some are deaf.  Some are drunks.  Some are deaf drunks.  Our proximity to their building inevitably provides a really intimate look (and listen) into these strangers' lives, whether we want it or not.  Now that the heat wave has passed and the din of our monolithic air conditioning unit is no longer drowning out all the background noise, at night I can now lay in bed and hear a pin drop - or, more specifically, a Russian drop, felled by massive amounts of vodka.

The other night, one fellow was wailing for his lady friend, or wife, or whatever, to let him in.  (I.G. and I cleverly deducted that she had locked him out in the first place due to the staggering level of inebriation he had reached.)  And boy, was he persistent.  "Brana!" he kept slurring at the top of his lungs.  "Braaaaaaaaaaaanaaaaaaaaaa!"  Followed by a BANG BANG BANG.  Followed by more "Braaaaaaaaannnnaaa!"  BANG BANG BANG.  It was amusing for the first hour or so, but by hour three...not so much.

Another one of these neighbors is lactose intolerant.  Well, that's my diagnosis, anyway (I'm not a doctor, but I watch some on TV), based on the amount of phlegm this guy keeps hocking up.  I.G. and I will occasionally amuse ourselves by trying to out-hock him, only I don't think he even notices our feeble attempts to engage him in phlegm-hocking tennis, so we eventually grow tired of our childish little game.

Mixed within this motley crew is a couple, one or both of whom are deaf.  A TV over there is always cranked up to ear-splitting decibels, and its owners are constantly shouting at each other over the noise of the TV - with Russian being such a coarse-sounding language, it's impossible to tell if they're fighting a lot, or simply hard of hearing.  (Is this couple one and the same as the famous Brana and her wailing suitor?)  I did study the Russian language once upon a time, and I.G. often encourages me to shout back at them with a request to pipe down, only I'm so out of practice that I now wield a woefully limited Russian vocabulary.  And somehow I don't think me shrieking, "I take my tea without milk, you sons-of-bitches!" in Russian would have much impact.

A different old couple, in the apartment directly across from us, has just moved out.  Two of the few non-Russian inhabitants, they had thick Jersey accents in lieu of Slavic ones, and while they weren't quite as loud as the deaf inhabitants below them, they compensated with an aversion to clothing.  We're not talking sexy naked.  Rather geriatric wrinkled-and-sagging naked.  It reached a point where we'd keep the bedroom curtains drawn, even on nice sunny days, just to avoid getting an eyeful.  I thought this was bad enough, but who knows who'll be moving in next? The new residents could be geriatric wrinkled-and-sagging naked and deaf.  Maybe even geriatric wrinkled-and-sagging-naked deaf drummers.  Oh, goodie.

This whole parade of characters often keeps us up at night and sometimes well into the wee hours.  We've more or less resigned ourselves to ignoring it the best we can, or having a laugh over it if we can't ignore it, but it is weird how complete strangers can have such a direct impact how well you sleep night after night.  I'm half-tempted to approach the next door building's manager and beg him to lease the now-vacant apartment across from us to a nice librarian.  I.G. would like to cast his vote for a young, sexy, naked, nice librarian, and so long as she's into quiet activities like reading, I'm fine with that. 

Stay tuned.

Adventures in Netflixing: "Vacancy"

I love a film title with multiple layers of meaning.  Take "Vacancy."  Of course it lends itself to the whole creepy-motel-where-guests-check-in-but-don't-check-out theme.  It's also relevant because clearly while crewing up to make this film, they had a job vacancy for a writer which they never wound up filling.  For that matter, Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale wander through this whole fiasco with ......wait for it......wait for it.......decidedly vacant looks plastered across their mugs, as if saying, "Yeah, we used to be classy A-list actors, but even classy actors go through a dry spell once in a while......"

That's seriously the scariest thing about this whole movie.  I love Luke Wilson.  Bottle Rocket?  The Royal Tennenbaums?  Allright, he went down slightly in my estimation for dating Gwenyth Paltrow somewhere along the way, but besides that......Luke, what happened?  My Super Ex-Girlfriend, and now this?!?!

Wilson and Beckinsale play Amy and David, a couple on the brink of divorce who encounter the requisite car trouble and find themselves requisitely stranded in the middle of nowhere, forcing them to check into the requisite creepy motel where things are exactly what they seem, if you've seen a scary movie before.  The twitchy desk clerk watching a snuff film with a couple of six-shooters mounted nearby doesn't seem to dissuade the plucky duo from checking in, and yes, hilarity ensues.  (I don't think the filmmaker intended hilarity, but that's what we as an audience get stuck with.)

One of many plot loopholes involve this motel's out-of-the-way location.......it's not so out of the way that a pair of yuppie knobheads like Amy and David can't accidentally stumble across it in the dead  of night, and yet it's out of the way enough that no other guests will show up for the rest of the night and disturb the silly-mask-wearing psychopaths who are plaguing Amy and David with knives and guns.  (Uh, is a mask really necessary when no other guests can find your motel, and the only people who see you are about to perish?  Not to mention, the psychopaths flip the masks up onto their foreheads a lot in order to look befuddled and say, "Uhhhhhhh....." when David and Amy repeatedly elude them.  Kinda defeats the purpose, doesn't it?)

Now, business is so slow at this motel, the proprietors have installed hidden cameras in the rooms as part of a money-making scheme to bump off the motel's paltry trickle of guests on a regular basis, so they can turn around and sell these snuff films to perverted truck drivers who, I'd like to point out, have no trouble finding this out-of-the-way motel.  (Apparently a steady stream of big rig truck traffic still doesn't draw anyone else's attention to this place.)

Seemingly trapped in their room, David comes up with a particularly clever ploy at one point, instructing Amy to bang on the back window of the bathroom in such a compelling fashion that all three crazed killers will be forced to linger there in a state of slack jawed catatonia and wait for her escape, so David can escape out the front door!  Fortunately for the couple, they are being pursued by half-wits, so this ploy actually works.  Sort of.  David, apparently being a quarter-wit himself, is soon herded back into the room in an inexplicable sequence of events.  (Amy's no rocket scientist, either.  She's the type who likes to core apples with a jagged knife while her half-asleep husband drives their car all over a bumpy, winding, racoon-littered road in the dead of night.)

Oh, and in the middle of being terrorized, David and Amy decide to get back together, because nothing helps a pair of quarter-wits on the brink of divorce reconcile faster than recognizing if they don't stick together, they won't have half a brain between them.

I actually felt myself growing old while watching this movie.  Don't bother.

I give this a D+.

Toddlers Gone Wild

Soundbite of the day:

"Grover's a bit of a loose cannon."
- I.G.'s somber assessment of a certain Sesame Street resident

In other news.....

B. recently relayed a story to me of how she was in the restroom of our local upscale movie theater, where some little boy was running amuck, bouncing off the walls like a rogue ball of Silly Putty and shrieking "Pffffffffffffffft!" at the top of his lungs, as his mother did her thing in a stall.  Apparently this unruly urchin expected B. to keep him entertained in and amongst this bouncing off the walls stuff, and when she did not leap at this enticing opportunity (probably because nature was clamoring for her attention too), he ratted B. out to his mother for the crime of not playing with him.  His mum responded to her pint-sized little ape with something along the lines of, "Well, honey, some people just don't like kids."

Ugh.  It's these morons who give parents a bad name.  I'm well aware that nobody is ever gonna find Z. as adorable as I do, and I certainly wouldn't expect total strangers with their pants pulled down around their ankles in a public bathroom stall to find her as adorable as I do, especially if Z. were to, say, crawl into their stall, steal the toilet paper, gnaw on their ankle for posterity (she's teething, after all) and then come yammering to me in protest that they didn't find her to be the very epitome of preciousness.

I wish I'd been there in the restroom when that kid's mother was labeling B. a child-disliking grinch.  I would have reassured B. with something like, "Well, my friend, some parents just don't like taking other people into consideration."  Heh heh.  But it probably wouldn't kill us in such a situation to take a few minutes out of our day to play with the tyke, either.  Like lifting him up and hanging him by the pants off that hook on the back of the restroom stall door.  That's a fun game, too.

Seriously, people....I'm learning firsthand that yes, sometimes kids turn unruly in public despite your best intentions, but when did this become other people's problem to fix?  Especially in the restroom?  Unless you find Mary Poppins hanging out in the stall next to you, with her carpet bag filled with magic and singing chimney sweeps and carousel horses and with nothing better to do, don't blame others if they don't jump at the chance to join your tot for a rousing rendition of "Supercalifragilisticexpiallidocious" while in mid-pee.

(And if you spot Grover loitering around the women's restroom, steer clear.  I'm told he's a bit of a loose cannon....)

Does Nyquil Work On South Pacific Pygmy Gypsy Flu?

I've been getting repeatedly sucked into two riveting shows on TLC - Mystery ER and Diagnosis X.  Not shows that I'm ever intending to watch on a regular basis, but inevitably I find myself channel surfing at roughly the same time every night while laying in bed with Z. and nursing her to sleep and getting some cuddle time in (yeah, yeah, bad habit, I know, only I don't have any good habits lined up to replace the bad habit with, so we're kinda stuck), and these damn shows keep popping up.  Much as the titles suggest, they are both medical mystery reality shows, starring real doctors, and both feature re-enactments of people walking into the hospital with very pedestrian complaints (headache, sniffles, fever, etc.), and finding themselves diagnosed with, you know.......a tapeworm lodged in the brain, or, say, a really rare and obscure 1-in-1.7-million-people-get-it disease that is more typically diagnosed in male pygmy gypsies living on some remote island in the South Pacific. 

One episode even featured a couple who were building their dream home themselves from scratch - while cutting up the lumber, they neglected to wear protective masks, and it just so happens the lumber they were using was treated with a chemical that, if inhaled, resulted in arsenic poisoning.  I think we can all learn a valuable lesson from this - namely, that being industrious and budget-conscious can kill you.  Then again, I'm a laid-back shopaholic, so I might be coming at this with a bit of bias. 

At any rate, Mystery ER and Diagnosis X are not good shows for me to watch.  I'm already paranoid.  If I feel so much as a twinge in my elbow, my first thought does not tend to be, "Hmmmm, I bet that's due to bumping my elbow on the door frame when I wasn't paying attention to where I was going a second ago."  My first thought is always, "Elbow cancer."

I don't think I am your typical hypochondriac, exactly - because I tend to not share my fears of elbow cancer, or brain tumors, or accidental arsenic poisoning, with anyone else out loud.  I just quietly let my fears fester.  Yes, I'm well aware of all those studies indicating that bottling up stress and worry can make you sick - I've already devoted ample hours to stressing about that, too.  And now, thank goodness, there's a TV show or two that can point out all the other diseases out there I wasn't even aware of that could tiptoe up behind me and permeate my immune system, or elbow, or wherever.

These shows have the added charm of interviewing real doctors who confess to the camera, "We don't always know what we're doing!" or even "Man, I couldn't figure out what was wrong with this guy, and he was obviously moments away from death - I nearly crapped myself!"   I appreciate that doctors are fallible human beings, capable of crapping themselves if spooked, just like the rest of us, but I'm not sure I want to be reminded of this.

And yet I keep watching.  Why?  I'm not sure.  Perhaps the segment of my genetic coding that is responsible for this is the same one that has infused me with a love of horror movies.  Maybe I just enjoy a good, benign, cathartic scare.  Hopefully this likes-to-watch-slasher-flicks-and-doom-mongering-medical-reality-shows gene is not next to one that will make me more susceptible to an acute case of South Pacific Pygmy Gypsy Flu down the line.......but you never know. 

Scary.

......And Every Dr. Frankenstein Has His Igor......

For once, my twin super-powers of exaggeration and pessimism failed to fully capture how awful Z.'s blood draw would prove to be.  It's a good thing I.G. offered to accompany me, and even so, I was really operating under the assumption that they would just be drawing the blood by pricking her heel (as they did in the NICU when she was born) or perhaps a wee finger, because in what sane universe would they expect a baby to sit still as a tourniquet was applied, a vein located and tapped, and blood drawn in the manner used to bleed fully grown people?

On the other hand, the universe rather consistently makes a monkey of me when I expect sane behavior. 

So we arrive at the lab, and proceed to brush aside the requisite cobwebs, ignore the body parts preserved in jars and make our way to the front desk.  Well, it felt that scary, nearly - I mean, there were no pictures of kittens or ducks on the walls, no toys in the waiting room, and no other indication of any sort that this place catered specifically to wee ones.  It's just a run of the mill processing lab, it turns out.  But hey, they've surely developed special techniques for working with the bebes, oui?

The lab assistant greets us.  For illustrative purposes, we'll call him Igor.  Perfectly okay guy by grown-up standards, but he wasn't oozing a pediatric-specialty aura by any means.  Both I.G. and I grilled.....er, questioned.... him as to how prepared he was to work with a person of such small stature as Z., and in retrospect, his admission that "I have a one year old at home" kind of sidestepped the line of inquiry, because for all we know, (a) it's not even his one year old - more likely one he snatched from a passing supermarket cart, and (b) he could very well keep this one year old chained to a tree in the backyard.  However, we followed him into the bowels of the lab to take care of business. 

Igor starts messing around with the tourniquet, and Z. quickly becomes agitated.  Then, the fumbling fellow can't quite find a good vein, on either arm.  In an attempt to win my confidence, Igor confesses, "Geez, that vein is really close to a tendon...I dunno about this........."   It turns out that this is not the ideal thing to say to a concerned and highly nervous pair of parents. 

All this mucking about has Z. whipped into a sobbing lather at this point.  SO, Igor goes for the needle insertion the first time, and her evasive acrobatics quickly cause it to pop it out.  He tries a second time - holding Z. now is a bit like wrestling a greased squid into submission.  A hysterical greased squid, and that's not even taking into consideration my own barely contained hyperventilating.  The needle pops out again.  Igor continues fumbling and instructs Z. to "sit still, sweetie."  Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaah - if there was an even more glaring admission of lack of pediatric experience forthcoming, we sure weren't sticking around for it.  I.G. earned major bonus points in my book here for uttering a booming directive along the lines of, "UNHAND MY DAUGHTER, YOU BUTTERFINGERED BUFFOON!!!!"  We left skid marks in our wake.

I was torn, because it turns out she was jabbed two or three times for no reason, but we failed to see how allowing Z. to be used as a practice pincushion was going to yield any more productive results the tenth time around either.  I.G. called the doctor's office, begging for a more child-friendly approach.  All we really got was an assurance that this blood draw could be postponed for another six months if our offspring was currently "uncooperative."  I'm still scratching my head over this one........so, are all the other one year olds in our doctor's practice a lot more amenable to being bled dry by an inept Igor?  We seem to have merely postponed the inevitable (and impossible - in another six months, she'll have that much more practice saying "NO!" under her belt).

To cap it all off, when we got back to my car, I had a parking ticket.  The parking meter I'd plugged had expired a whopping seven minutes earlier, and in that time span, the ever-efficient parking gestapo had accessorized my vehicle with a lovely little decorative ticket-shaped flourish.  Good times.

No offense to Igor, but when we return to the lab in six months time, I think I'll request that one of the flesh-eating zombies attempt Z.'s blood draw next time instead.  At least we can swap anecdotal "Ugggghnnn!"'s while we're tending to the task at hand.  In the interim, I'd love to hear from any parents who've got suggestions as to how to make this procedure less traumatic.....

Dr. Evil, Dr. Kevorkian, Dr. No, Dr. Moreau....(can YOU spot the common denominator?)

Friday was Z.'s one year checkup, and alas, she's at a developmental stage when she's armed with otherwise useful tools like awareness and memory.  Awareness and memory are handy if, say, you want to go for a ride in your push-car, and you see your push-car, and you know its a push-car, and you remember that if you go sit in your push-car, a parental type person will push you around in said push-car for hours on end.  Awareness and memory become a curse, on the other hand, when you don't want to go to the doctor's office, and you find yourself in the doctor's office anyway, and you remember that if you go sit in the exam room of said doctor's office long enough, eventually some white-clad cretin is going to show up with a sharp object and stab you with it.

Not that any of this is ever a picnic for wee Z., but I now fully appreciate how it hurts me about fifty billion times more. 

She had to have two jabs, one for chickenpox and one for measles.  The first shot is bad enough for all concerned, but you can tell Z. is under the impression that we were both caught unawares.  As far as she's concerned, we were just hanging out, making a little conversation about the waiting room's deplorable lack of Elmo-related paraphernalia, when a random maniac suddenly came out of nowhere and did unspeakable things with a needle.  Her little arms went around my neck and she shrieked in terror.  I feel bad enough already here, as if I'm the safari guide she's hired for the day, and I turned my back for a second to take a nip from the flask of bourbon in my pocket, during which time I've neglected to notice the man-eating lion leaping from the bush and taking a swipe at her.  She's not happy with my services, but she's willing to let it slide.  Until the second needle comes at her from the opposite direction, in the opposite arm.  It's here when Z. looks at me through those big, teary eyes with a dawning realization: "Wait a minute....you're in on this?"  Now I'm no longer merely feeling like a negligent, boozing safari guide.........I'm Stalin in drag.

And it breaks my heart.  I know, I know...it's for her own good.  But boy does it suck festering rat vomit to have to put her through it.  Worse still, I have to take her to have some blood drawn tomorrow to wrap up this whole cruel and prolonged saga.  My stomach's been churning all day just thinking about it, and I can see where the post-doctor's office bribe can become a regular guilt-alleviating form of penance.  Is there an ice cream sundae big and chocolately enough to make amends?  What about one with a pony on top?  And dancing fairies to feed it to her?  Alright, yeah, it could get expensive and impractical to turn every unpleasant moment of her life into a Broadway-quality production, but I tell ya what, if money were NO object, I'd be saying "Cue the juggling monkeys, goddamn it!  And if I don't see some marshmallow fluff doing some serious spewing out of that strawberry shortcake replica of Mt. Vesuvius in like five seconds, heads will roll, and I'm not talking about the gummy bear kind!!!!!" a whole hell of a lot. 

Hopefully an unlimited supply of hugs and kisses will suffice.  And maybe her own ice cream cone. 

Your Funny Parenting Tidbit For the Day

I was gonna take the day off from blogging, and as luck would have it, this gem arrived in my Inbox courtesy of the fabulous C.R.!  Amen, sistah!

HOW TO KNOW WHETHER OR NOT YOU ARE READY TO HAVE CHILDREN:

MESS TEST
Smear peanut butter on the sofa and curtains. Place a fish stick behind the couch and leave it there all summer.

TOY TEST
Obtain a 55-gallon box of LEGOs (or you may substitute roofing tacks). Have a friend spread them all over the house. Put on a blindfold. Try to walk to the bathroom or kitchen. Do not scream because this would wake a child at night.

GROCERY STORE TEST
Borrow one or two small animals (goats are best) and take them with you as you shop. Always keep them in sight and pay for anything they eat or damage.

DRESSING TEST
Obtain one large, unhappy, live octopus. Stuff into a small net bag making sure that all the arms stay inside.

FEEDING TEST
Obtain a large plastic milk jug. Fill halfway with water. Suspend from the ceiling with a cord. Start the jug swinging. Try to insert spoonfuls of soggy cereal into the mouth of the jug, while pretending to be an airplane. Now dump the contents of the jug on the floor.

NIGHT TEST
Prepare by obtaining a small cloth bag and fill it with 8-12 pounds of sand. Soak it thoroughly in water. At 3:00 p.m. begin to waltz and hum with the bag until 9:00 p.m. Lay down your bag and set your alarm for 10:00 p.m. Get up, pick up your bag, and sing every song you have ever heard. Make up about a dozen more and sing these too until 4:00 a. m. Set alarm for 5:00 a.m. Get up and make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.

INGENUITY TEST
Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and pot of paint, turn it into an alligator. Now take a toilet paper tube and turn it into an attractive Christmas candle. Use only scotch tape and a piece of foil. Last, take a milk carton, a Ping-Pong ball, and an empty box of Cocoa Puffs. Make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower.

AUTOMOBILE TEST
Forget the BMW and buy a station wagon. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there. Get a dime. Stick it into the cassette player. Take a family size
package of chocolate chip cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There, perfect.

PHYSICAL TEST (Women)
Obtain a large bean bag chair and attach it to the front of your clothes. Leave it there for 9 months. Now remove 10 of the beans.

PHYSICAL TEST (Men)
Go to the nearest drug store. Set your wallet on the counter. Ask the clerk to help himself. Now proceed to the nearest food store. Go to the head office and arrange for your paycheck to be
directly deposited to the store. Purchase a newspaper. Go home and read it quietly for the last time.

FINAL ASSIGNMENT
Find a couple who already have a small child. Lecture them on how they can improve their discipline, patience, tolerance, toilet training and child's table manners. Suggest many ways they can improve. Emphasize to them that they should never allow their children to run wild. Enjoy this experience. It will be the last time you will have all the answers.

America's Next Top Narcoleptic Who's Mildly Attractive.....

....is what the show should be called.

I admit it. I caught part of the America's Next Top Model season premiere last night.  And watching the premiere was more than enough to tide me over for the rest of the season.  The show used to be good - what's not to love about cramming a dozen starving nincompoops into one apartment and watching the fur fly?  Plus it's just darn amusing to observe girls whose loftiest ambition is to model.  Better yet, so many of them combine this with a simultaneous bid for the Nobel Peace Prize by insisting that their main motivation for modeling is to "be an inspiration to other girls everywhere."  Yeaaaaaaah.  Hopefully earning mountains of cash for doing nothing, driving a Ferrari, and dating movie stars won't get in the way of the altruism.  (Not that they'll reach that pinnacle, anyway.....they would have to actually look like...you know....a model for that to happen.)

I understand that reality shows must cast in order to generate the most drama and conflict, and I'm obviously taking the title of the show too literally.  But casting for the past few seasons really took a nosedive somewhere along the way......they're now trolling the gutters and trailer parks and psych lock-down wards for fresh meat that is relatively easy on the eyes (if you've got double cataracts and squint really hard).  Plus the producers and Tyra keep casting their net for the same stock characters over and over again.  There's the requisite Hard-As-Nails-Beeyotch who likes to say stuff like, "I'm here to win this thing, and anyone who gets in my way is gonna GET CHOKED TILL SHE BLEEDS FROM HER EYEBALLS!!!!!"  Later in the season, she will protest that she is misunderstood - she's not a bitch, she's just a "strong woman" who happens to enjoy choking people till they bleed from their eyeballs, that's all.  And don't forget the Pretty-Girl-With-A-Random-Medical-Disorder.  Past season contestants have represented partial blindness, lupus, and serious fainting spells (I don't think that girl was a full-blown narcoleptic - I think she just forgot to eat....).  This season's poster girl is representing mild autism.   Frankly, I think Tyra is just looking for situations in which she can cry on cue, embrace the afflicted, and say in a quivering voice, "I think you are so....brave....for being here.  Now stop rocking back and forth saying, "I'm an excellent driver! Kmart sucks!" and go fix your lipstick."  On last night's opener, there was even a girl with a Brooklyn accent that was so strong, it was a speech impediment: "Yeah, I've always wanted to mawhduhl 'cause them broads are real classy...... yo, where's my f***in' nailpawlish??!?!?"

It was excellent comic fodder, but being busy with a toddler this time around, I have to budget my television-watching time a lot more carefully, and there's a whole slew of other shows to poke fun at this season.  Did you hear they've built an entire sitcom around the GEICO spokescavemen?!  Seriously.  I might have to take a gander at that.  Here I spend months on end banging my head against a wall trying to write original comedy screenplays, and it turns out that coming up with a new hit show is so easy, a caveman can do it............

Stay tuned.

AHOY! Read this, mateys!

Arrrrrrrrgh!  I had to tell ye, it's "International Talk Like A Pirate Day" today, September 19th!  Twasn't even me own idea!  Look here, with yer one good eye, if ye dare:

www.talklikeapirate.com

The site even offers an advice column, "Ask Cap'n Slappy"!!!!!!!!!!   And there's pirate lingo in German and Swedish.  Not to mention, ye should partake of the Top Ten Pirate Pick-Up Lines, in case ye be needin' 'em:

Top Ten Pickup lines for use on International Talk Like a Pirate Day

10 . Avast, me proud beauty! Wanna know why my Roger is so Jolly?

9. Have ya ever met a man with a real yardarm?

8. Come on up and see me urchins.

7. Yes, that is a hornpipe in my pocket and I am happy to see you.

6. I'd love to drop anchor in your lagoon.

5. Pardon me, but would ya mind if fired me cannon through your porthole?

4. How'd you like to scrape the barnacles off of me rudder?

3. Ya know, darlin’, I’m 97 percent chum free.

2. Well blow me down?

And the number one pickup line for use on International Talk Like a Pirate Day is …

1. Prepare to be boarded.

(I be new to this, so excuse the fumbling attempts to insert "Yarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!" wherever possible.  But what a GREAT DAY THIS IS!  See, this sort of thing renews my faith in humanity.  If we can all stop war-mongering and driving like jerks and bickering long enough to have fun being pirates for a day, there is hope, surely.)

Elsewhere on the internet, I even found a pirate name generator.  Check it out!  Today me and Z. shall be known as Decrepit Eve Read and Butterfingers Abigail!  Butterfingers is particularly appropos for Z. - on account of her not quite having the whole hand-eye coordination thing down yet.

Raise a cup o' grog to toast this fantastic holiday, say "Yarrrrrrrrrr!" whenever possible, and do a jig in spite of yer peg leg today!  Parrots on yer shoulder earn ye bonus points!  So get to it, ye scurvy dogs! 

In Defense of Introversion

Introverts Vs. Extroverts

I've heard many people tell tales of being sent to their rooms as punishment when they were children, and I've always scratched my head in bewilderment over this.  I loved being in my room, what with the books and crayons and imaginary friends, all in abundance.  My parents used to have to drag me out of my room.  In fact, this morphed into a rather creative form of punishment whenever I'd do something wrong as a kid, at least when the transgression was a mild one.....Mom and/or Dad would remove my bedroom door from its hinges with a screwdriver, hence impeding my strong desire to shut the world out.  This door-removal business became such an effective deterrent, I would fall to the floor and grovel for forgiveness if they so much as looked in the direction of the toolbox.  To this day, screwdrivers make me a bit twitchy.

Yes, I am on introvert side of this particular debate.  I attended a psychology lecture once in which the professor broke down the introvert vs. extrovert profile like so:  introverts get recharged by solitude - being alone with their thoughts relaxes them.  This "alone time" fortifies them to face situations in which they must socialize, because being with people drains them.  Extroverts, by contrast, get energized by being with other people - this "social time" fortifies them so that they can face the times when they must be alone, because being alone drains them.  Which is not to say that introverts can't be charming and highly sociable, or that extroverts can't spend ten minutes in a room by themselves without feeling like they're in a sensory deprivation chamber.  (I've clocked it - some extroverts can go a whole twelve minutes before clawing at the door and demanding to make a phone call.  Of course this observation is based on a slightly outdated field study, as my more extroverted friends refuse to come over anymore until I promise to stop locking them in a room in the name of research......but I digress......)  At any rate, the extrovert/introvert distinction merely highlights what an individual's requirement is in terms of how they recharge their batteries, so to speak. 

I live with two raging extroverts in the form of I.G. and stepdaughter C. Sometimes all this extroversion whizzing about our apartment and volleying off the walls does prove a challenge for me.  I.G. and C. both narrate their every move.  I.G. even likes to interject random pieces of obscure trivia into his ongoing daily-life narrative.  "I'm gonna brush my teeth now.....hey, did you know the first toothbrush was invented in ancient Mesopotamia and was made from the whiskers of the ridge-backed platypus?" he'll say in passing.  (Well, at least I'm bound to learn something, right?)  And when C. comes at me with her "What's your favorite color?  What's your second favorite color?  What's your third favorite color....?" game, there are times when I have to refrain from cowering in the corner and sobbing, "BEIGE!  For the love of god, it's beige!  Now leave me in peace, child!"  Instead, I try to smile politely and say, "Hey, now might not be the best time for the color game, OK?"  Which is often met with an entirely new line of inquiry.  "Are you OK?  Are you sure you're OK?  You look a little mad - are you mad?  Are you sure you're not mad?  Are you extra super double sure you're not mad?  You wanna know what I do when I'm mad?  Are you sure you don't wanna know.....?"  As Sartre said so eloquently, "Hell is other people."  (At the very least, it's too much of other people.)  I'm wondering if Sartre had a kid sitting next to him grilling him over what his favorite color was at the time when he wrote that.

While I am perfectly capable of babbling endlessly in print, this is actually a rather common characteristic of the introvert.  Writing is a popular medium for those of us with inwardly focused minds.  For one thing, writing provides a means of communicating at a more leisurely pace, without interruption, even, and the way I see it, it's courteous to the other party, too.  They can read at their leisure - or not, if they have something better to do.  Their choice.  Writing also provides precious time and space to deliberate over every word, to ponder message and meaning and nuance, to decide which tangents one wishes to entertain, and which ones ought to be edited or deleted altogether.  (Boy, I've often wished that real-time conversation came with its own "backspace" and "delete" buttons.) 

There's a scene in Fargo which perfectly illustrates the whole introvert vs. extrovert chasm.  Remember when the two hitmen, played by Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare, are driving into Minneapolis, and Steve's character Carl is trying to get a word out of the other guy?

                              CARL
               ...  Look at that.  Twin Cities.
               IDS Building, the big glass one.
               Tallest skyscraper in the Midwest.
               After the Sears, uh, Chicago...
               You never been to Minneapolis?

                         GRIMSRUD
               No.

                         CARL
               ...  Would it kill you to say
               something?

                         GRIMSRUD
               I did.

                         CARL
               "No." First thing you've said
               in the last four hours.  That's
               a, that's a fountain of conversation,
               man.  That's a geyser.  I mean, whoa,
               daddy, stand back, man.  Shit, I'm
               sittin' here driving, man, doin'
               all the driving, whole fuckin' way
               from Brainerd, drivin', tryin' to,
               you know, tryin' to chat, keep
               our spirits up, fight the boredom
               of the road, and you can't say one
               fucking thing just in the way of
               conversation.

Grimsrud smokes, gazing out the window.

                         CARL
               ...  Well, fuck it, I don't have
               to talk either, man.  See how
               you like it...

He drives.

                         CARL
               ...  Get ready for total silence...

So maybe Grimsrud shoving Carl into the woodchipper at the end was overreacting, a tad.  But I can understand the impulse of wanting to shove an extrovert into a nearby coat closet, or down a storm drain, or maybe onto a rocket bound for Mars on occasion.  Hmmmmmm......maybe I'm the one who needs to board the Mars-bound rocket.  Frankly, there are days when the whole no-oxygen-to-breathe situation up there seems like a fair trade-off in exchange for a little silence.

With I.G. and C. prancing around our pad in full-throttle extrovert mode, and me hovering in a corner of the bedroom in semi-catatonic introversion, it's hard to predict on which side of the fence Z. will choose to set up camp.  Sometimes she chatters gaily, other times she sits and entertains herself with her stuffed animals and nary a word.  I may lean toward encouraging her extroverted tendencies - I think society caters to the extroverted more than not, and I'd like her to have an easier time of things as she makes her way through this big, weird world. 

Lest you get the wrong idea, I'm no anti-social freak, either.  I groom myself (most days), I've subdued my facial twitch to a barely noticeable tic, and I only wear my tinfoil hat on days when it seems particularly crucial to divert the mind-control technology of the government.  (Kidding.)  And I do enjoy meeting up with friends and chatting about stuff and partaking of this grand spectacle of life - in manageable doses, anyway.  Eventually one day I may even wander back into a bar and enjoy a nice long gossip session with girlfriends over cocktails.  A mojito sounds good right about now.  Or maybe a beer.

Just don't make it a screwdriver.