Saturday, August 23, 2003

I have spit the bit.

I sit before you having completely spit the bit. I went rollerblading again (two hours ahead of noon this time, thank you very much) First exercise in six days. Way to go! This plan to work out five days a week is going spectacularly! I could have stayed out longer, but came in when the batteries ran down on the Walkman, God's way of announcing "YOU ARE OVERDOING IT AGAIN, YOU STUPID, STUPID GIRL."

I have new blades; it was time. I didn't realize it was time until last week, when I discovered that the old ones had worked a gash into my left leg where the boot cuts into my calf. The wheels were completely worn down on the inside. I was taken aback; these were brand new skates.

Then I did the math. They were brand new when I was a freshman in college.... nine years ago. Nine.

When I was able to speak and move again, I went out and got new blades. They were an absolute joy to break in. The boots are tremedously stiff and one of the straps doesn't buckle properly-- I'm telling you, Target just doesn't provide quality skates for $19.95 these days. Plus it's one of those hideously semi-cloudy days out there, when it's not sunny enough for sunglasses but too glarey without them. So here's me, sweating and squinting, clapping my skates against the asphalt in galactically uneven strides.

I should've bypassed the sporting-goods section and bought some scotch instead.

Friday, August 22, 2003

So it seems that Gary "No, Seriously, I'm Fine, It's Just A Hole In My Lung" Stevens was frustrated because word wasn't getting out on what happened to him during a recent spill, a fall that earned him a fractured vertebra and a collapsed lung. You know who he called from his hospital bed? Not his spokesman. Not a journalist. Not Entertainment Tonight.

A writer.

A nonfiction writer.

Laura Hillenbrand, author of Seabiscuit, got the scoop. She got the good stuff-- not which horse fell into who and how many lengths were lost, but the "OH GOD WHAT WAS WERE HIS FEELINGS?!!?" crap that we creative nonfictioners eat up with a slotted spoon.

She got the scoop because she is Gary Stevens' friend, and because she is an honest writer. Stevens told her he was afraid he was having a heart attack as he was rushed to the hospital, that the hoof of one of the oncoming horses had grazed his ear, barely missing him, and that he'd experienced the worst pain of his life as his lung was reinflated.

He told her he couldn't breathe after the fall. That he was scared.

She told the story.

This is why I left journalism to write. I never gave one damn about scoops, about being the first with the story. I give many damns, however, about being the one with the whole story, that I might be able to help a friend hurting in the hospital who knows that the public-- and, therefore, history-- isn't getting the truth. Stevens had something like four agents, a spokesman, a track representative, and eight million different kinds of sportswriters milling around various parts of the country, and not a single one of them managed to get the story straight. I can't tell you how many blatant untruths concerning the Seabiscuit story I've found in the media since the movie was released-- one newspaper piece, for instance, ripped the historical Red Pollard for frequenting brothels when Seabiscuit states he most likely did not. This shouldn't have surprised me; after we lost Columbia, one of my co-workers at KSC found fifty-three errors in one newspaper article.

Jayson Blair.... paging Jayson Blair....your ass just got kicked by one of us lowly literary writers....

This type of famous person-famous writer thing needs to happen to me. I'd be sitting there staring angrily at a pile of incomprehensible engineering crap and the phone would ring, and there would be Gary: "Dear blonde one," he would say-- voice weak with the effort, but he has to talk to me, he just has to-- "tell my story."

Then I, with God-touched humility, would solemnly agree: "My words shall bear your will, my brave, brave knight." And then we'd both cry.

In the meantime, there sits the pile of incomprehensible engineering crap. *^%damn it.

Thank You, Inbox.

It just delivered the following Very Special Press Release:

"A joint public-awarenenss campaign, Bring Every Quart Back! encourages Floridians to properly dispose of used motor oil at public collection centers."

YOU HEAR THAT, FLORIDA?! BRING EVERY QUART BACK!

Color me REALLY REALLY motivated!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But Wait, There's More:

"The Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are joining forces. Said FDEP Deputy Secretary Allan Bedwell, 'Combining the talents of the World Champion Buccaneers with the Department's world-class used oil recycling program and ADAP's 400-plus Florida locations provides Floridians with a simple and effective way to dispose of used oil-- free of charge.'"

unable.... to ....type.... laughing....... too .......... hard...........

Why I Left Journalism

It is rife with such people, places, and things as the following actual example:

"Don Pascke, 66, took a minute from pruning plants at his Landover Boulevard home last week to offer his thoughts on recycling."

Aren't you burning to know what Don Pascke's thoughts on recycling are?

Aren't you?!

Is the suspense killing you yet?

Here it is:

"'We've got less garbage,' Pascke said."

(crowd roars)

That's Some Serious Texture, Baby

Two of my coworkers (the normal ones) invited me to dinner and a free art show. I resisted, as this would interrupt my normal productive schedule of driving home, not eating dinner, and assuming the fetal position until it was time to get up and go back to work.

"Dinner" for people in our income bracket pretty much consists of ice water and a bad sandwich. I prewarned Dan and Anamaria that "looking at art" in my world pretty much consists of "mocking the art," which they were cool with, considering much of what we saw in the beginning consisted of paintings of gigantic penises wearing ties and lizards crawling over a marching band (not necessarily on the same canvas, which I believe I might actually pay to see.) I got truly hyped at one point when I spotted free food, but not just any free food: A cheese tray. Yay, art! I tried what looked like a slice of cheddar, which tasted like peanut butter, then tried a slice of what looked like swiss, which tasted like ass. I spit everything into a napkin, which I discreetly stuffed behind a sculpture of four zebras having sex. You simply cannot trust art cheese.

Things picked up, however, as we ventured into the studios where the artists work. We passed the room of an artist displaying approximately eight million different pictures of naked fat women in various and sundry non-Catholic positions. A sign near the doorway read: "Natural II now underway! Models needed!"

Anamaria and I fled to the next studio.

Things were hardly more comforting over there, where an artist saw me looking over some of his pottery. "Do you like it?" he asked. (I hate it-- hate it-- when people do this to me. If I like it, I'll say so. Otherwise, don't bring your fishing pole to the Compliment Pond. "Do you like it?" What am I supposed to say? Here in the safety of the Bachelorette Pad, I wish I would have cast the damned thing to the ground, shrieking, "Oh God, it's evil... EEEEEEEEEEEEEVVVVIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!")

"Oh yes," I said. "The texture is lovely." (This is my Stock Art Comment; when in doubt, comment upon The Texture.)

"I'll knock fifteen bucks off if you want to buy it," he said.

"Thank you," I said, carefully replacing the Bowl O' Crap, "but my rent is due."

"Are you sure? I made that the day my son went to jail."

Oh-- well why didn't you say so in the first place? Because now I want to buy it.

What I Decided

I just got back from the deli, Twix in hand.

Damnit.

Thursday, August 21, 2003

It's calling me. It knows my name.

Somebody brought in a box of candy to sell-- March of Dimes or the Red Cross or some charitable thing-- but the important thing is, it's real candy. Twix and Milky Way and such. Not that off-brand chocolate crap Cub Scouts are shoving in your face at the doors of Wal-Mart.

God I want a Twix. It costs a dollar. I could, concievably, get up off my blonde ass, take the elevator ten floors down to the deli, and buy exactly the same thing for about forty cents cheaper, but this procedure would involve, as previously mentioned, getting up off my blonde ass. Not to mention the People Factor: If I buy it downstairs, I'd have to endure thirty, almost forty seconds of human interaction, an exchange that would involve smiling, doing that awkward change-on-top-of-bills-in-your-hand grab thing, and saying thank you.

I could, of course, do the smart thing and just not buy any candy at all.

Right.

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

What Happened to Gary Stevens

Actual, real-life jockey Gary Stevens, who plays dead jockey George Woolf in Seabiscuit, had a spill over the weekend. He was racing at Arlington in Chicago-- winningly, might I add-- and his mount, Storming Home, shied right at the wire. He slammed to the turf and was clipped by a horse or two. The stewards hit the inquiry light, and disqualified the win since Storming Home (who I'd like to nominate into the Ironically Named Equine Hall of Fame), in the act of spooking, interfered with the rest of the field.

I may be the only person in America who has yet to see the footage of this, and frankly I prefer to keep it that way. The stills alone were horrible enough. I was sitting there in front of the computer with my hand over my mouth when I saw Stevens laying on the turf, all those hooves flying overhead. At that point in the race, everybody's pouring these horses down the stretch at a good thirty-five, forty miles an hour. It is not a good place to be thrown. And here's the Powerball kicker: Stevens is lying there with a collapsed lung and a broken vertebra, barely able to breathe, and-- he wants to know what's going on with the inquiry. Man, that's a jockey for you.

Monday, August 18, 2003

Nuxie

Cincinnatians of a certain age grew up with Reds announcers Marty Brennaman and Joe Nuxhall underscoring firefly-speckled nights, spring afternoons scattered with blooming lilac. Baseball life as I know it would cease to exist without them.

The time has come, however, for official declaration of a Harry Caray Memorial Senility Moment. A couple years ago I heard the following from Nuxhall:

"It's a pop-up. Larkin circling....."

"....."

"....."

"....."

"....."

"....."

"............We'll be back after this."

.....?

For all I know, Barry is still amongst the rubble of Riverfront Stadium, circling. (This, frankly, would explain a lot about our current lack of offense, or defense, or-- hell, let's blame the pitching on it too.)

Sunday, August 17, 2003

Thanks again, Master's Degree!

Hey! It's Florida! It's August! It's NOON! Let's rollerblade for a hour.

After I drove back from the track, I left the skates behind in the car; there was no lifting them. Then I lay nauseated on the floor of my apartment for twenty minutes with a wet washcloth over my face going, "You idiot." Followed by a cold shower and many congratulations to myself over the incredible shape I was getting myself into.

Followed by a truly gigantic bowl of ice cream.

Fare Thee Well, "I Don't Wanna Work"

Hate morning radio shows. Hate. Them. When did random barnyard noises mixed with 80's music suddenly become amusing? Nobody goes around saying, "You know, I didn't much like 'Everybody's Workin' For the Weekend' in its original form, but now that they've got that ROOSTER crowing in the middle of the chorus, I CAN'T GET ENOUGH!!"

Most Recently

I was briefing some Kennedy Space Center guests on an upcoming mission once, and this guy said to me, "You are obviously an athlete!" (Seriously. Was it the cellulite, or was it the overt paleness? What, exactly, was the tipoff here?) He goes, "Which sport do you play?"

I told him I was a figure skater who missed the 1998 Winter Games by thiiiiiiiiiiiiiis much, having been railroaded by a corrupt judge of the damn-communist variety. He went away happy.

The day after that I told everybody that I had played of Seinfeld's girlfriends. "You don't remember me?" I said. "I was 'She Eats The Same Thing For Lunch Every Single Day.'" You can get away with this when your days are filled with people you will never see again.

As opposed to now, when I have passed the same damn cast of characters in the hallway 400 times by 8:09 and have to say "Hi!" or "It's Monday!" something equally scintillating EVERY SINGLE TIME. This sucks, as it involves 1) social contact with 2) other people. I think tomorrow I'm going to try spitting random phrases at people and just keep walking, things like, "I'm ovulating! How are you?"

This also might work well in an elevator. Yell it, sell it, face front.

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