PlazaJen: The Blog

Riding the Bike with One Pedal.

      Month: September 2011

      Hook, Line & Sinker

      September 30, 2011 /

      The Wo and I went to Red Snapper for dinner the other night, before heading over to Starlight to see the Night Ranger, Foreigner & Journey concert. It was more of a “listen”, since most of the original band members are long gone, but they’ve gotten good replacements and all the songs sounded just like they did on the radio, 20+ years ago. Journey, of course, was the most fun – lots of tunes that take you back to being young and clueless, though I think “Don’t Stop Believin’” is now associated more with the Sopranos than anything else. It was bittersweet, because I listened to Journey’s Greatest Hits album a ton after my dad died, so even though I had the association of songs with being in high school, I also had the correlation to driving around and crying. Anyhoo, it was nice to have my husband’s arm around me as the crowd swayed, real lighters were held up to the sky, and we all sang along to those familiar songs.

      But back to dinner. I opened my fortune cookie first, and it said “Happy news is on its way to you.” I read it aloud, said something to the effect of “That’s good,” and waited to hear what the Wo’s was. He opened his, read it, and then said, “You will be the bearer of happy news.” I was like, ZOMG! That is SO AWESOME! And he studied his for a little while longer, and then tossed it down.

      I eagerly snatched it up, because if that was not a picture opportunity waiting to happen, I don’t know what is, and immediately my brow furrowed, because I could see his fortune had a LOT more words than what he’d spoken. “Dude. What the hell. That’s not what your fortune says.”

      He didn’t even realize I’d fallen for it! But I had. While he laughed, I explained, earnestly, why I thought it was SO EPIC, and yes, I was disappointed because, DUDE, the universe was saying HAPPY NEWS IS COMING, and while I don’t put much stock in fortunes or horoscopes, I was entertained that we would manage to get such symbiotic messages.

      Alas, it was not to be. But, I’m ultimately an optimist, and I’m also pretty confident – so I actually know some good news will be coming my way really soon, and if a slip of paper wants to echo that sentiment, excellent.

      I realize I’m a slacker with my blog. I think part of me was surprised to discover people read it? I mean, I know my friends sometimes read it, my husband keeps up, family does here & there, but after several people told me randomly they follow my blog, I realized I started writing (and not writing) with the audience in mind, deciding how much I did (and usually didn’t) want to share. I guess that’s the thing about blogging, huh? You go out on the front porch & play your banjo, and you just don’t know who-all is listening. Most of me doesn’t really give a shit, but the part of me that’s been stepped on, blindsided and where the memories of the personal hurts reside? That part has held me back. It’s not about work, really, it’s not about politics – it’s just…. finding the balance of giving, taking the time to find the words, deciding if something’s REALLY that funny, or did you just have to be there?

      But then I look over my shoulder, at even just the past few weeks, and I think, ok, haven’t blogged about the Caffeine Crawl. Haven’t told you about how I went to prison this summer (just visiting!), haven’t chortled at the misfortune of those who deserve it (well, ok, maybe that’s one of those things I shouldn’t share…too often.) Sometimes I want to use my blog to twist the knife, because if you’re really still reading it, I want you to know I think [your baby is ugly] [your husband thinks you’re nuts] [you’re the reason you’re unhappy] [man I can be a bitch]…. ha! So I edit myself. It’s the long pauses in my head, the ones that took me so long to recognize and hear, that say “Don’t say that out loud.” or “Maybe just let that go.” But typing those things out sure did make me laugh.

      Maybe that’s all part of it, too. The Wo and I have been together over 11 years. We have thousands of inside jokes accumulated, and it’s one of the elements of our marriage that I treasure – we know how to make each other laugh, we know how to prank each other, and it’s never done with malice.

      And it’s why, as we were standing side-by-side under the stars, singing “Faithfully” in a sea of 8,000 people, that when we got to the part in the song where he sings, “I get the joy of re-discovering you…” I started to shake. Wo was alarmed a bit, at first, thinking perhaps I was having an Emotional Outburst. But instead, I was shaking with laughter, thinking of our dog Tripper, who, whenever we pull out the couches and chairs and unearth the bones of days gone by, seizes on one with great gusto, and as only this dog can do, rockets it all the way to the back of his jaw and rolls it while biting at it, resulting in the stupidest dogface ever, combined with a crazy rattling sound of bone-hitting-teeth repeatedly. The first time it happened, James said something about them rediscovering the bones, and I immediately started singing, “I get the joy of rediscovering bone,” to that very Journey song. Because that’s what we do, song-association, all the time.

      The girl can’t help it.

      Rock-n-Fuckin’-Roll, Baby

      September 17, 2011 /

      We had the good fortune to see the Foo Fighters last night at the Sprint Center.

      Oh. Mah. God.

      They blew the roof off the joint! Dave Grohl stopped after the first four songs and told the audience that they were gonna play a fuckin’ long show. They weren’t going to play some piddly-ass hour & a half show, they had 16 years of music and they were gonna play as long as they fucking wanted to. (He dropped F-bombs in almost every sentence, which instantly endeared him to me.)  They did not short-change us on that promise. Two & a half hours later, they concluded a massive setlist that contained a six+ song encore, including three amazing acoustic versions with just Dave Grohl, doing what he does best – playing rock & roll, pouring his heart into those raw vocal chords, and being a kick-ass rock star who loves what he does and doesn’t seem to have been turned into an asshole by his fortune.

      One of those acoustic songs was a song I’d forgotten had been my anthem when I worked at WGITWL (white guys in ties who lie) – and it brought tears to my eyes, all the emotion he can pour into his music, that you can still feel your soul vibrate without explosive guitars and Taylor Hanson’s spectacular drumming.

      After the show, we were famished, having skipped dinner and bypassed the concessions; we contemplated a street cart hot dog before driving home, but when I heard “$6 for one”, I was having none of it. That would have to be one special motherfucking hotdog.

      Instead, we went to Chubby’s on Broadway, where breakfast fare was had, the people-watching was spectacular, and the only blemish on the evening was the douchebag who parked so close to my car, I had to clamber into the driver’s seat from the passenger side. (Hope I dented your door, asshole!) Finally crawled into bed around 2 am, a little surprised at our late-night adventures. Not too shabby for a couple of middle-aged folks who are usually in bed by 9?

      Before performing “These Days”, Grohl said it was his favorite song he’s written, and it’s a great song – powerful words about heartbreak, death, all the things you start to think about when you’re in your 40′s (as he is, as well) and you’re facing your own mortality and that of those you love, and still don’t want to go gently into that good night.

      One of the great things about a band like the Foo Fighters is that they’ve had so many hits, so many great songs, that hearing them live and remembering the words and where you were when you were singing along in your car, at the top of your lungs, it does get a little nostalgic. Songs that aren’t in your “rotation” today come back and remind you of how much you enjoyed them, what your life was like, the person you were before you knew the things you know today. So – indulge my snippet from “Best of You”, the anthem I mentioned earlier. I fuckin’ love that song. Thanks, Foo. Thanks for an awesome night.

       

      I’ve got another confession my friend
      I’m no fool
      I’m getting tired of starting again
      Somewhere new

      Were you born to resist or be abused?
      I swear I’ll never give in
      I refuse

      Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?

       

       

      ~~~~~UPDATE: 8:51 am~~~~~~~~~~

      Forgive me, I’m running on about 5 hours of sleep. But there was a lovely confrontation the Foo had with the idiots from WBC. He talked about it during the  show, and how they were calling him a “faggot” but smiling the whole time. Obviously, like 99% of the universe, he finds them as stupid and baffling and nonsensical. They heard they were going to be “protested” and so they dressed up like their current alter-egos, truckers, and sang ‘em a nice song about man-fucking. Here’s the video:

      And since we’re talkin’ Foo Truckers…. here’s my REAL favorite… heh.

      New Day, New Decade

      September 12, 2011 /

      We spent last week, and much of the weekend, watching many of the programs dedicated to the memory of 9/11.

      I spent a lot of time in tears, and despite that sadness, the explanation I have for that choice is simple. I feel, as a citizen of this country, that it is my duty to know as much as possible about what happened that day, and to never forget it.

      Because here, in flyover country, that day was as blue as the skies in Manhattan.

      And as I drove to work, listening to the DJs in confusion and not having anything visual to go on, I just kept  yelling, “WHAT IS GOING ON?” which probably sums up how most of America felt that day.

      When the first tower fell, I was sitting in our conference room. My mind went blank and all I could think was, “All those people.” I started to cry. Nobody else was crying. I still don’t understand that, everyone around me was silent and stoney-faced.  Maybe it was the horror, the shock, just being in the workplace – but none of it was a barrier for me. I went to my office, shut the door, tried to call my friend still living in Manhattan. All the lines were down. (He was fine, I found out later.)

      So I called my father. The man who always had an idea, a solution, greater knowledge of the world and what to do. This would be the only time in my life with him that he didn’t have an answer. “Why is this happening? What is going on?” I could see  him shaking his head as he told me he just didn’t know, that it was terrible and awful. Things we both knew, small words that couldn’t capture the enormity of it all.

      I left work, listening now to reports that our president was flying all over the country, and I was angry. One of the shows we watched last week was on NatGeo, and it was an hour, interviewing George W. about that day, and despite my feelings about his politics in general, it was an excellent show. It really explained the chronology of events, how information was being gathered, how that day unfolded, how even our government was in shock, reacting, doing everything possible to keep our president out of harm’s way, while trying to prevent more of the same from happening.

      Later that afternoon, I called James. We had been dating for two years. He still lived in Clinton. He described walking out onto the playground and looking up at the sky, seeing all the hairpin vapour trails from the planes that had left MCI, and then turned back around, grounded. Hearing the fighter jets take their place, departing out of Whiteman AFB.

      For the rest of the night, I watched the news, horrified but unable to turn away. Also, unable to knit, I could only wind yarn. I still haven’t worked on that project, but for the first time, I think I can again.

      Ten years later, all I’ve got is this: Love, Solidarity & Wisdom. They all came with a painful price tag.

      Anger Needs No Translator

      September 3, 2011 /

      Have you ever seen that episode of Seinfeld, the one where Elaine goes to get her nails done, and she’s convinced the employees there are talking about her in their native tongue? I always think of it when I get my own nails done – though at this point, I’ve been going to the same salon for 7 years or so, I don’t really think much of it. I did go recently, and there was a new woman working there, and she was grinning and talking away, and I imagined she was saying something to the effect of, “Whoa, girl, you got yourself a big girl there!”

      But, I am always curious about what they’re saying, and this time was no different – I listened to the subdued conversation/back-and-forth among the staff and realized that so many of the words are short, staccato bursts that have strikingly similar sounds, but the emphasis and cadence are what seem to vary the words as well. Nearly all the words seemed to start with the letter “D”, but it could have been my own American filter trying to make sense of a language I’ve never even studied. There came a point, though, when knowing the actual words took a back seat, quite rapidly, to the overall communication.

      It started with one of the nail techs standing up from her pedicure station, and speaking loudly and clearly, quite strongly, at someone else (we couldn’t tell quite yet, but it became clear within a minute.) She was PISSED OFF. Immediately, several of the other women began softly speaking, obviously trying to diffuse whatever this situation was. (I could actually tell two women said the same thing within 30 seconds of each other, presumably “calm down!”) The music had stopped and the silence became palpable. And then? The tech completely lost her shit. She was moving her customer over to her nail station, and apparently, she was really pissed at the guy who sat behind her, and she was shouting at him at the top of her lungs, while he quietly tried to interject what appeared to be his defense. Another worker got up, went in the back, and put the music on – full blast. So now we have Mariah Carey warbling her head off, and Angry Tech is now shrieking at the guy, and she’s holding up the light boxes for curing the shellac nails, and basically having an explosive episode in this dude’s direction. With another bewildered customer in-between them.

      Allllllll the customers start looking at each other. Because THE HELL, we can’t understand a goddamn word, but as I muttered to the lady on my left, we didn’t really need to know what she was saying because every single one of us knew she was LIT UP and pissed off. Someone down to my right said, “I think it involves that box.” We’re trying not to laugh, because it would not only be rude, but none of us really wanted the focus of her anger to find a new home! Angry Tech marches back and turns off the music. Returns, continues to fume. The customer of Angry Tech is looking at all of us in the pedi-chairs with wide eyes and a face of confusion while she’s stomped off – so of course I have to say, “What the hell did you do?” which makes us all chuckle a little, but not too much, because AT is back, holding up the light box (which is plugged in and glowing), she is yelling, and frankly, I didn’t want to have a toaster-in-the-bathtub incident.

      My tech, who is at the top of the hierarchy (there is always a hierarchy at these salons), goes back and turns the music back on, but at a lower volume. Right as she returns, AT picks up the light box again and continues to scream at the dude, who is working away on another woman’s nails, and murmuring every so often. At this point, my lady goes over and turns AT around (because she was like a Jack-in-the-box at this point, up/down, up/down, SCREAM SCREAM BRANDISH), and physically thwaps her on the shoulders and basically tells her to sit the hell down and calm down in the process. (All in Vietnamese, mind you.) I whispered when I was paying, “What’s the deal?” She whispered back that apparently the male tech had taken AT’s light boxes for his client. I asked if they had to buy their own boxes. Nope, they always share. Nope, the ones he took weren’t any different than the ones he had.

      We concluded something else was probably going on in her life. I walked out, marveling at how I had specifically been thinking about the language when I got there, and how I never really know what they’re saying – but in this case, there really was no translator needed. I’m sure there are statistics on communication and all the pieces that go into it – words are just one component. Brandishing a light box? That speaks volumes as well.

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