This picture was on sfgate.com's DIP a few weeks ago. I immediately recognized the Tulsa skyline and felt appropriately proud of my mother city suburb. As my brother-in-law says, Leah and I can poke all the fun we want at Tulsa's, um, conservative tendancies (I'm fluent in English and red-neck) but we will not tollerate others making fun of our birthplace. However, I've learned more about Oklahoma while living in Nebraska.
When I worked in the architecture library my boss* would always tell me to say hi to the Flaming Lips when I went home to visit. Oddly, he was the one who introduced me to Okie Noodling, a sport that involves catching catfish with your bare hands. And then there was the professor I had who had taught at OU. He would talk to me about how strange it is that Oklahoma is a divided state; there is the state of Tulsa, and then there is the rest Oklahoma (I had never realized that the Tulsa State Fair was an anomaly). The day I wore new sneakers he pointed them out to the whole class and added that he knew where I bought them. "The mall with the carpet and the giant movie theater! I know the guy who designed the theater." I agreeded because the whole class was turned toward me and smiling and nodding was usually an effective way to deal with his theatrics.
Now, dear sweet Tulsa, I move farther away from you.
*He looked like Elvis Costello and when he learned we lived in the same neighborhood he told me never to drop by his house because the only thing he did in the evenings was sit around naked smoking cigarettes. He also hired a girl because she wore a Metalica shirt to her interview. Who knows why he hired me, but I do know that someone else got fired from the library for an offence I committed every Tuesday and Thursday morning (arriving late, or not even at all) until he switched me to the closing shift...Stories from the library is really another post for another time, sorry kids.
I pretty much got the coolest shirt in the world tonight; it was a gift from Angela Barber.
One reason it's so awesome is that Angela brought it back from Korea for me. That means she went through a complex process thinking about me that resulted in her seeing a shirt, most likely in a subway station, and then buying it for me. It's always cool when my friends think of me and then act on it by buying me stuff.
The second reason the shirt is cooler then my entire wardrobe combined (remember an outfit that matched my bike?) is that it was designed with the loose reasoning of if writing one word in rhinestones is awesome, how can writing a lot of words in rhinestones ever be bad?! Let's write a lot, in rhinestones!
Burn down the disco hang the blessed DJ because the music that they constantly play it says nothing to me about my
life
And I'll be damned if this bejeweled Korean engrish makes some poetic sense while the tag provides me with some semi-useful advice about getting chicks. Sweet.
Yesterday after a year of worry, I finally called the bike shop about getting a tune up for the Kona. I dropped Smoke off this morning and an hour or two later, while walking back from the drinking fountain, realized that, save for the pink sunglasses, I accidentally color-coordinated my outfit with my bike; black and tan.
To continue illustrating just how uncool I am (and I was feeling pretty good about my outfit this morning) I'm going to plug a band in hopes that their coolness will elevate my status merely by association; have you heard Tapes 'n Tapes? I like their song, "Insistor." They're from Minneapolis.
In Which I Will Try to Explain the Smear of Mustard On the Wall and the Gob of Mustard In My Pant Leg...
I dropped the jar of mustard last night.
I had forgotten that I had not, in fact, screwed the lid on, but had merely placed the lid on the top of the jar. I picked the jar up by the loose lid and, in front of my refrigerator, the mustard jar hit the floor. My calf took the direct impact but in my confusion I got the mustard on the inside and outside of my red pants; the pants I was planning on wearing to work the next day. There was also copious amounts of mustard on and in the recycling bin and on the sack of trash that was ready to go to the dumpster. The second largest deposit of splattered mustard was eye-level on the wall behind the trash.
My landlord was stopping by today, I hope she didn't see the faint reminder of my forgetfulness or wonder why there was a hint of mustard in the air.
I do not like emotional icons or emoticons, if you prefer. Yesterday I got a series of them in cryptic messages from Karen. She had been logging in and out of messenger during lunch and I received messages like this:
(Karen logs on) "Karen: What's up?" "Elenita: I feel like shit." (Karen logs off)
From them I have pasted together some meaning. One message I can divine from these highly descriptive emotional symbols is a retelling of what has happened at Karen's house the night before. The story, I assume, goes something like this: Karen's boyfriend has moved out taking all the light bulbs. However, she knew where he was moving and went over to his new place and confronted him about the theft. He is sheepish for being caught stealing something so trivial as her stock of light bulbs. As she leaves she kicks his dog. Even though she does love dogs, she does not feel bad for kicking this one because it is a cocker spaniel.
Or, she's asking if I want to grab dinner on Thursday at Oso Burrito (crossing my fingers the cute worker is there!!!), after kicking her boyfriend's dog, of course.
It's the who as much as the how-to that seems impossible.
One evening last week I found myself killing time at the library. I was circling the recent releases where a book cover with a large diamond ring on it caught my attention. Get Serious About Getting Married: 365 Proven Ways to Find Love in Less Than a Year was the bold name and after the flashy ring, how the author could promise ways of finding love in less than a year was what boggled my mind and made me read the back. How could this book promise the recipe for finding a person to marry, and in less than a year? Unimaginable.
But actually, this question was the second thing to go through my mind after reading the cover. The first was simple math; 365 days in a year means if I follow this plan to get married I can write about it on my blog and have a year's worth of posts. Yay...and then reality slowly filtered through my writing assignment glory.
Wait. A. Minute.
What if this book really does work and I, at this time next year, am getting ready to get married, like planning a wedding, not just saying "I love you" to someone else? I've always figured I'd just elope and save myself the hassle of planning, and --who am I kidding-- attending, my own wedding, that is if I ever find a person I'd consider marrying. All this not counting the complete overhaul I'd have to undertake of my personal style, personality, and losing those extra pounds that have been pointed out to me, according to a few of The Ways listed on the back of the book.
A book that promises finding happiness? Happiness and contentment are feelings I can't really imagine in my day to day life, and hardly what I had in mind for my upcoming year. Just as quickly as the book had piqued my interest it lost me with all the messy details and unreality. As it started to slide out of my hand, back between the other wedding books, the plain red cover of a neighbor had me reaching over and moving on. This one making no promises other than to be completely snarky and immediately identifiable. Reassuring me that I'm not a social outcast, for preferring rainy weather, who has a slightly dissatisfied feeling over most things, and that it's perfectly normal to feel like a fraud in most situations.
Ah yes, David Rakoff you brought me back to reality, and what a pleasantly uncomfortable thing it is.
