Extra

Tastybaby. I'm not sure what this is, but I would like to take this opportunity to publicly state that I do not endorse eating babies, tasty or not.

I'm Not Mad, Internet, I'm Just a Little Disappointed

It is almost never a good idea to buy something from a rinky-dink website.

How do I know this?

I still haven't received my pens!

I know that there were many warning signs along the way that should have told me not to buy them, from the fact that I had never heard of the website before (Graveyardmall.com? Sounds like an alternate working title to "Dawn of the Dead") to the fact that I had no idea of the answer to the question of how very happy the prospect of bringing five pounds of unmatched pens into our living space would make my beautiful and loving wife (answer: not very).

Now, it's been three weeks, and I still don't have them. To make matters worse, I have called their customer service department twice and emailed them twice, and I have yet to receive an answer. To make matters even worse, when I ordered them, I had no idea that I checked a box that entitled me to win some internet lottery, which has only made the Zimbabwean princesses come out of the woodwork with, either, offers of large sums of money to be deposited into my bank account if I will just send them my account number and my social security number (FYI, my SSN is 7...I'm older than I look) or offers of male enhancement (which turns out to be, surprisingly, NOTHING like the adamantium claws that I thought it was).

Fortunately, I paid through Paypal, so if those glorious pens that I was so excited about do not come, I should be able to get my money back.

So, like I said in the title, Internet (if you're still reading grad schools, I am currently utilizing apostrophe), It's not so much that I'm mad, but I will certainly miss that thing that I love most of all, that is to say, my appointment. I am left with just disappointment.

An Open Letter to the Graduate Schools to Which I Have Applied

To Whom It May Concern:

You, as schools, need students. I, as a hopeful student, need a school. As you can see, these goals are mutually inclusive; or, to use a double negative, these goals are not mutually exclusive. Though I realize that we are not supposed to use double negatives in our writing, I figure that by my pointing it out, you will consider me clever, and I understand that that is the sort of thing in which graduate schools are interested. Please also notice that I left a dangling preposition neither at the end of the last sentence nor in the title of this post.

I realize that you may have been thrown off by the amount of talent that I exhibited in my audition, and you think that you should come and learn at my university. While I appreciate the thought, I firmly believe that it should be the other way around. Please note that this paragraph used sarcasm as well as an exaggerated description of my talent, a hyperbole, if you will.

So, I guess all I'm saying is, give me a shot, baby. Give me a shot.

Your dearest darling,
AC

Ridiculous?

In the past two months I have purchased:

1) Running shoes,
2) A watch that measures heart rate and distance,
3) The book "Running for Dummies,"
4) A subscription to Runner's World.

In the past two months, I have gone on substantive runs:

zero times. I have gone on very short runs once or twice, but nothing more than five minutes or so.

Though I am keeping my fingers crossed that my growing head knowledge of running will make me wake up one day with the body of a gazelle*, so far, this has not come to fruition. But, thanks to articles as specific as one on how to tie one's shoes**, I feel that soon I will have the body of a god***.

However, I have decided that tomorrow morning is the time that I begin. I practiced this morning by getting up slightly earlier than I normally would have, and I have earned a smug sense of satisfaction that allows me to look at others and scoff and I think to myself, "Did you get up slightly earlier than normal and consider it practicing for running? I didn't think so."

While I will still be taking a short run, I consider this one up from the very short runs to which I have become accustomed. I'll let you know if anything notable happens****.

* I would like to have the swiftness of a gazelle. I would neither like to wake up a centaur-type creature nor with a headless gazelle's body in my bed as some sort of mafia message.
** Serious.
*** Currently, I'm working with Chinese restaurant Buddha. Long-term, I'd like to lean more towards ascetic Buddha, though I would like to stop well short of being able to see the outline of my spine while looking at my stomach.
**** Honestly, part of my aversion to running is that people passing in cars really like to throw things at me. On at least two of the times I have gone out with friends, people driving by have thrown reasonably full cups of soda. On one instance, I think they threw an apple. Fortunately for me, their aim was poor, but it's a bit disheartening to know that I appear to be a waste receptacle for the discriminating person on the go.

Among the Reasons I Love Her

ACWIFE: 03:54:45 PM : hey
ACWIFE: 03:54:50 PM : you back?
ACWIFE: 03:55:01 PM : ever think about the word we use "decremental"...
ACWIFE: 03:55:34 PM : if I was going to think of an opposite of "incremental" it would have be excremental.... LOL get it?
ACWIFE: 03:55:37 PM : POOP
AC: 04:19:17 PM : hahahaha
AC: 04:19:27 PM : you are the funniest love in the world!
ACWIFE: 04:19:44 PM : hahahaah
ACWIFE: 04:19:54 PM : I'm just sitting over here looking through excremental usage...
ACWIFE: 04:19:55 PM : lol
AC: 04:20:03 PM : hahahah

You're a Funny One, Fedex

Don't get me wrong. I appreciate the speed with which Fedex delivered my package yesterday (even if it did cost me a pretty penny...okay, nearly two thousand pretty pennies), but I can't help but think that the following is not the best route to LA:



Oh yeah, just like the best way to a man's heart is through his stomach (depending on which way you're cutting), the best way to Los Angeles from San Diego is via Oakland. Nice work.

Every Timeshare Worker Is a Liar, Plus, Adventures in Surrealism

ACT I

(Scene: A Man in a bowler hat and his wife with a tiny umbrella walk down the Las Vegas Strip)

Man: What a lovely day for a constitutional!

Wife: Rather!

(Enter: a nefarious Penguin)

Penguin: Good day, goody two! Do you like steak?

Man: Do I!

Penguin: Would you like to see a free show?

Wife: Does the pope expunge his bowels in the woods?

Penguin: (With nasty, nefarious maleficence) Then just hop on this bus! It will take you to a vacation-ownership presentation that will take no more than one hour and one half!

Man: Bully! Capital idea!

ACT II

(Scene: Man in bowler hat and Wife with tiny umbrella are seated in a room with other presently happy couples. Sitting with Man and Wife is Imperial Penguin.)

Man: Now I understand this presentation will take no more than one hour and one half.

Imperial Penguin: Absolutely. This meeting will take no longer than one hour and one half. I assume you are already owners?

Man and Wife: (Blinking, in unison) Sorry, no. We sort of assumed us not being owners was what you were looking for when the other penguin got us from off of the street. Har Har!

Imperial Penguin: Absolutely. This meeting will absolutely take longer than one hour and one half.

Wife: But! You just said...

Imperial Penguin: I just said this meeting will absolutely take longer than one hour and one half.

Man: But! Before that...

Imperial Penguin: (Glances at waterfall in corner; water starts flowing backwards) QUACK! QUACK QUACK QUACK!!!

Man and Wife: (Run towards door.)

ACT III

(Scene: Man in bowler hat and Wife with tiny umbrella are seated at a restaurant.)

Wife: I am surprised that the Hawaiian Tropics Zone's waitresses are clad merely in swimsuits.

Man: (Removes bowler hat to reveal a daisy growing out of his bald head) As am I, my dear Wife; as am I.

Curtain

Grad School

I had this big audition for a variety of different grad schools for acting this morning at 11:53. I would like to think that I did well, but that can in part be gauged by if/when I get any interviews this afternoon with the different programs.

I guess there's not too much funny to talk about as far as today goes. I really, really hope that it works out for me.

Nostalgia

In my seemingly never-ending quest to jump through all of the hoops to get into graduate school, I called one of my professors from the college where I did my undergraduate work to ask both about a letter of recommendation and about a accompaniment track (as I need to sing for part of my audition this Friday (!) and the auditioners do not provide an accompanist, I need to find someone to record a track of what I will be singing).

When I called, it became obvious to me that I had called during a class-time, because I started to hear audio of this professor's music class. I assume that he had meant to press the red button to send me to voice mail, but had inadvertantly hit the green button which opened up the line. The obvious choice would have been to have immediately hung up, but I couldn't help remembering a lot of happy times in college learning and developing my love for music.

What I heard was some indistinguishable talking, and then notes on a piano. He must have been teaching a sight-singing class, and I immediately had a guess about their solfege form:

Do, re, mi, mi, fa, mi, re, do.

I listened as he explained that this easy sequence of notes was foundational to a good understanding and development of sight-singing and ear-training.

I immediately thought back to yesterday, when I showed up late to a call-back for a show, they asked me if I could sight-read music, I nodded, and they gave me a sheet with pretty difficult music and told me to go into the hall to review it. Fortunately, I had heard some of the song before (though not all of it together, and only the easier parts; I know this doesn't mean anything to most of you, but this song was going back and forth between major and minor in keys relative to the printed key: this was a difficult piece of music). When I got into the audition room, and they played the melody for me once or twice, I was actually pretty pleased with how close my practicing in the hall was to the actual melody; I think that my auditioners were impressed with how quickly I picked it up.

The next thing I heard on the phone call was a wavering voice, unsure of the solfege, trying to duplicate what the teacher had played on the piano. I remembered what life was life back as a freshman, and how impossible the idea of four semesters of sight-singing was. I even briefly switched majors because I of how much I didn't want to do four semesters of sight-singing. The wavering voice sang out:

Do, re, mi, mi, fa, mi, re, do.

My initial analysis had been correct.

I stayed on the phone for a couple of minutes, essentially peering in on this music class for a second time. I knew how hard it seemed, and I had just recently reaped the rewards of fighting through. I finally hung up the phone when the voices became too scrambled to really ascertain what was being said, but I did so with a smile.

Sometimes teachers know what they're talking about. Sometimes you can't help from smiling when you consider the foundations. Sometimes the hoops you have to jump through end up making you the person you wanted to be in spite of yourself.
Sometimes, just sometimes, you get a precious chance to look at the person you were from the vantage point of the person you are.

And all because somebody had the gift of mercy to press the wrong button.