A complete list of who is great

It's really hard to compile a list of who all is great, because it seems like every day, you're reminded of someone who is, or someone new who is pops up on your radar. Like, I totally forgot about the cast of "WKRP in Cincinnati" for a while, and they're all great. So in April, if I'd tried to make a list of who is great, though I probably would have remembered Howard Hesseman, because he's in "Clue," and probably Tim Reid, because he was on "That 70s Show," I might have forgotten some others. In brief, an incomplete list.

Also, until the other day, I didn't know about the show "Clean House," so I wouldn't have been able to put the cast of that on a list of who is great. So while there are people who you'll remember, like Anderson Cooper or Mark McKinney or Rick Moranis or Bruce Dern or whoever, there will be names that just escape you. Like just now, I remembered Dave Barry. Dave Barry! How the hell did that get away from me?! Also, Michael Hedges. That guy was awesome! Rhea Perlman... Christopher Cross... Marc Chagall....

You see what I'm saying? You don't hear from people for a while, and they always pop up in your brain with a ton of frequency. So it's a difficult list to make. And... there's no accounting for taste.

That's great. It's starts with an earthquake...

First I want to start by saying that I am feeling FANTASTIC. No joke. I could actually not be better right now. So despite the fatalistic tone of my title, I am happy to announce that I am in a great mood and have been for at least a week. I am on vacation, done with my summer class in statistics (in which I earned myself a big, giant A, thanks very much!) and am therefore OFFICIALLY enrolled at Roberts Wesleyan College come this fall in the Masters of Social Work program. Also, in one month and three days, I will be completing my final shift in at Kinney HealthDirect and shortly thereafter moving to Rochester. I ditched PCs for Mac and it's made my life better.

In the vein, however, of my fatalistic title, is this: Jesse Helms is dead (not that I'm too worked up) and Rev. Billy Graham wrote some blah blah about, essentially, what a great guy he was. Far be it from me to criticize the words of a guy who has made his living being a man of God, and I know a whole lot more people care what Billy Graham has to say than what I have to say, but Jesse Helms was not a great guy. Maybe he was wicked nice to his wife, kids and grandkids (doubt it) but he was also a bigot and homophobe. How you treat your family is great and everything, but true character is judged by how you interact with strangers and what you do when you're NOT posing for a photo op, there, chuckles. Okay? In my estimation, it's even got little to do with whether you believe in God and which version you believe in if you do. There's a simple guideline that pops up in virtually every single society and form of spirituality: do not treat people like crap. Period. This includes the waitstaff, the maid, people who are a different color than you, people who are a different orientation than you, even people who you just don't like. You treat everyone with AT LEAST courtesy. AT LEAST. Not because you expect a reward. Because it's the correct thing to do. Period. 

And frankly, I would love to hear from Andy Cooper on this one, but he's too busy working on stuff that actually matters, like what's going down in Zimbabwe. 

The Inevitable (AKA, I am old) (AKA, I love Birbigs)

I do not understand why people hasten the inevitable. For instance, I know two men who consistently lie upward about their age. One in my trainer, who always makes himself a year older, and the other is one of my pharmacists who makes himself 50, even though he isn't yet, and could easily pass for being about 40.

Whenever Al, my trainer, says he's 54, I say, "Al, why do you hasten the inevitable? You're 53." And Al says, "Yeah, I know. What's the difference?"

Whenever Bruce, my pharmacist, says he's 50, I say, "No you're not, you dork! Why do you insist on saying that? You're not even 49!" And Bruce says, "Yeah, I know. But what's the difference?"

What's the difference?! I am sure not the person to ask! I *freaked out* when I turned 27! I actually thought, "Well, what's a good lie? How old can I say I am, but still be, like, a grownup, and have my timeline of work experience not be suspect?" I think I settled on 24, but it was a moot point, because nobody asked me once, in 12 months, how old I was. Then I turned 28 and stopped giving a shit. Because I'm NOT old. I guess.

I was leaving my apartment the other day with my roommate, and at the last minute, I shot back in because I wanted to grab this CD I just bought. Amanda said, "Oh, what CD is it?"

I said, "It's that guy I was telling you about that I LOVE, Mike Birbiglia!"

"Oh yeah!" she said.

"Oh man, he is so freakin' awesome, " I said, engaging in my new favorite pastime, aside from talking about how awesome Seth Green is and how awesome Beck is, which is talking about how awesome Birbigs is. "He's like wicked young. He's our age."

Medium-length pause. Followed by, "Oh."

"What?" I said.

"Well, when you said young..." Amanda said.

"Oh, right," I said. "I forgot. You don't think we're young."

"We're not," said Amanda.

I do not feel quite as comfortable lying about my age now, which I apparently should be doing, see as how I am now old. Again. And what with all the views and stereotypes of the so-called "mature" or "non-traditional" student, which I am due soon to be, I really need to get my ass to work on tricking people. Alas, I think it might not work. Here's why.

Last night I was at a liquor store in Skaneatles and I happened to spy a bottle of the particular kind of dry sherry my dad favors, which I was unable to find around the holidays. Anywhere. I picked it up and took it over to the counter for purchase, whereupon I asked the lady, "Do you know why this stuff is so difficult to find?"

"No, I don't," she said. Which was fine. Almost nobody (myself included) knows anything about sherry, because almost nobody (myself included) drinks it, because it's repulsive.

"Okay, well. I'm glad you have it," I said, and pulled out my wallet, which contains my money and my driver's license.

WHICH SHE DID NOT ASK FOR.

Didn't even bat an eye! Just told me my total and sent my on my merry way with a bottle of alcohol as if to say, "Sure! You look old enough to drink that!"

Well that's true! I do! But I wasn't going to, because it's repulsive, and she didn't have to imply such a thing!

And I didn't even notice that she didn't ID me, until today, when I saw the same item for six dollars cheaper elsewhere, got annoyed about that, and then got annoyed about the other thing.

Hence, the Inevitable.

Seth Green, Beck and Mike Birbiglia are awesome.

I know stuff about drugs

Today I was at work, working (I know that kinda sounds like a gimme, but trust me: unless you're me, or a small, select group of others, it is NOT) when Stephanie, one of the keyers calls my office (read: CAVE) and says, "Hello?"

"Hello!" I say, making an effort to be cheerful despite the fact that I am really in the mood to either crash to the floor or drink a whole urn of coffee.

"Do you have any Tylenol #4 back there?" she says.

"Nope!" I say confidently, because I do not.

"No?" Stephanie says. "Okay. Thanks."

And then she hangs up.

And then it occurs to me that I did not even know there was such a thing as Tylenol #4, or "acetaminophen with quite THAT much codeine!"

There is.

In fact, I didn't even know there was such a thing as Tylenol #1. I guess it stood to reason that there would be, since there's #2 and #3. But all I know about those is that no one ever gets #2 and that #3 has a big "3" on it and comes in really handy if someone takes out all your wisdom teeth. (In my case, there were 3 of them. How interesting...)

In case you were curious, Tylenols #1, 2, 3 and 4 contain, respectively, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 and 1 grain of codeine.

Also in case you were curious, Platypi have venom in their hind claws and it's possibly that only half of a shark brain sleeps while the other half is awake, and then they switch. And I love Wikipedia. And Target.

-C

The thing is...

Original title: The thing is...
Original date of publication: November 3, 2007*

The thing is, it should have been easier.
Trading empathy for understanding
Understanding for reproach
And reproach for indifference set into motion under the influence
Faded into the background one autumn night.
Volumes of writings, it turns out, can't be set aside
Can't be bonfired away, even when you make me too mad to even tolerate.
Sooner or later, a window opens. Through it, a woman catches a glimpse of a figure
Moving in a crowd. Adapting, shifting, moving forward into the future. His future.
Someone's future, anyway.

My friend, there was no indifference.

Reproach, all right, and a lack of understanding
Of what in the world had happened
Of where one can go so wrong.

She thought of you often, however.
With fondness and with anger
And with hope that you'd put your head on straight.
There are times when we pull the blame all over and around ourselves
Like the blankets on a January morning, and times
When we just cannot get far enough away.
If you ever wondered why…?
If every headline is a love note
And ever letter to the editor an exercise in candor
No need remains to be in any way dishonest.

*As to when exactly I wrote it, I couldn't tell you.

(To the tune of "Saturday Night" by the Bay City Rollers) G-R-A-D-U! A-T-E! SCHOOL!

After weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks (okay, I think it was actually four weeks. Or maybe three) of being touchy and impatient
and breaking out at even the thought of makeup touching my skin,
and getting a canker sore,
and I think an ulcer,
and not being able to sleep,
and kicking stuff
and wondering HOW ON EARTH I COULD HAVE WRITTEN A BETTER FREAKIN' ESSAY (I couldn't have) and WHY I DID NOT WORK HARDER AS AN UNDERGRAD (ummmm...I was a little bit of an idiot then...) AND WHY OH WHY I COULD NOT JUST PLEEEASE GET AN ANSWER TO MY APPLICATION...

I got a call Monday morning from one of my prospective graduate schools telling me that I have been accepted to their MSW program for this fall! YAYYYY!

There is nothing quite as refreshing, following a long spell of crippling self-doubt--you know what, maybe it wasn't exactly "crippling self-doubt." More like...the slowly creeping, greatly disconcerting notion that perhaps you are not quite as smart as you thought you were, or as determined, nor do you necessarily know what you are doing so much. Let's call it, in brief, the sneaking suspicion that you might suck. Anyway, following that, there's nothing quite as refreshing as someone sort of telling you, "No, you were right in the first place. You kind of rule. Come rule here. We feel good about your ruling, and the possibility of you continuing to rule in the future."

The impending work ahead does not freak me out. Not even the stats class I have to take as a pre-req over the summer. I feel really, really positive about this. Super positive. Yeah.

The "Old Person" blogs, part the deuce

Original title: Grown-up/Not a grown-up
Original date of publication: September 18, 2007

How you can tell you're a grown-up:
*You have conversations with other grown-ups about IRAs and 401-Ks.
How you can tell you're not a grown-up:
*You are secretly pleased when you've made better investment choices than they have, and they have 20 years on you.

How you can tell you're a grown-up:
*You and your roommate buy a whiteboard to keep on the fridge in order to exchange vital information such as groceries you need and where you can be reached if there's an emergency.
How you can tell you're not a grown-up:
*It immediately becomes home to vital information such as movie quotes and how good kettle chips are. It also serves as "the leaderboard;" a list of who is "on notice" and/or "dead to me."

How you can tell you're a grown-up:
*You pay NiMo and your landlord on time every month, along with your insurance, credit card bills and student loans.
How you can tell you're not a grown-up:
*With the rest of your hard-earned money, you plan to purchase a Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man.

How you can tell you're a grown-up:
*When your shift ends, if your work isn't done, you stay to finish it instead of bolting out the door and hoping you're faster than your boss.
How you can tell you're not a grown-up:
*You gloat almost audibly when you see even ten bucks of overtime on your check.

How you can tell you're a grown-up:
*You're a stickler for spelling and accuracy.
How you can tell you're not a grown-up:
*When people spell poorly or make silly mistakes, you threaten to "kick their ass for an hour."

How you can tell you're a grown-up:
*A good night's sleep becomes more important to you than a fun night out.
How you can tell you're not a grown-up:
*Wine is still more important than...well, a lot of stuff.

How you can tell you're a grown-up:
*Yankee Candles fall into the "luxury" category.
How you can tell you're not a grown-up:
*You still keep buying 'em.

How you can tell you're a grown-up:
*You have intelligent and well-reasoned political opinions.
How you can tell you're not a grown-up:
*You're not above calling the opposing candidate a "dumbass."

How you can tell you're a grown-up:
*You think kids today are not as smart as you were at their age, and are complete wusses.
How you can tell you're not a grown-up:
*You announce frequently that kids today are not as smart as you were at their age, and are complete wusses.