You're Doing It Wrong

I’m reading Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace which was reviewed in the NYT yesterday. I didn’t understand the review much better than I understood Fosty’s 10,000 word review/article (the book is a collection of non-fiction pieces) on this book about English usage and usage in general. Both probably had valid observations but these got lost among the big words and postmodern deconstructionalist modality of principle (principal?) rhetoric. No one’s going to run to the dictionary for a book review. Didn’t one of those Strunk or White guys say something about writing clearly and so people can understand you without trying too hard?

When I started this post I intended to write that reading an article on usage, even one that was hard to read, has made me self-conscious about usage. But apparently not enough to keep me from complaining about writers who are a jillion times smarter than me. Than I. Whatever.

My return flight from Las Vegas was at 8am and it was overbooked. You can’t believe how many people are staggering around Las Vegas airport before 8am on a Sunday morning. Two people boarded the plane holding boxes with freshly made pizzas. I wasn’t too happy when they sat behind me.

I wasn’t even hungover and it smelled vile. Who brings pizza onto a plane at 8am? In Las Vegas?

The flight was overbooked and these folks had volunteered their seats so the flight attendant came and got them and took them off the flight. I looked at the girl next to me and said: Good. I didn’t want to smell pizza for the next two hours. She nodded and said: I was thinking the same thing.

This was what was happening in Portland today. Aren’t we done with winter yet?

I have many tales to tell not related to weather. Come back soon.

Look what was waiting for me when I got home:

Guess where I was this weekend?

Sorry, I haven’t had good post in awhile. I think I have a good one here but too worn out to do it today, stay tuned.

A few highlights: sunny, coat-free weather; refreshing adult beverages; The Cult.

And meanwhile: congrats to Brian Van’t Hul who won an Oscar tonight. I worked with Brian at Panavision a hundred years ago and was thrilled to see him on stage tonight.

You know how you get to the point where you never want to hear a song again? This is the problem with radio because it takes about 10 songs and plays them until you can no longer stand them. I don’t get because I think the more a song is played, the more it sells. But why would you buy something you can hear on the radio 50 times a day? (Or on your ring tone or whatever the kids are doing these days.)

The only time I listen to the radio is in my car during the commute and I listen to about 6 different stations so this is less of a problem except for the 80’s station.

I listened to a lot of radio in the 80’s and I can still remember what songs I grew to loathe from overplay: anything from Tears for Fears Songs from the Big Chair; anything from David Bowie Let’s Dance. I think I cried once when “China Girl” came on the radio one more time. Dire Straits Sultans of Swing, which apparently came out in 1979. Flock of Seagulls. Men at Work. I even got tired of “Heaven” by Warrant. I could go on but you get the idea.

Present day 80’s stations do the exact same thing. They play the same 50 songs over and over. “Hungry Like the Wolf” sounds great when you haven’t heard it for 20 years but put it back into daily rotation and you hit that saturation point pretty quick. I don’t think I have ever turned on my car radio and not found a Billy Idol song playing somewhere. Seriously, does anyone ever need to hear “White Wedding” again?

Aren’t there any good and rarely played 80’s songs?

I’ve had 3 of my 4 main recurring dreams in the past 10 days.

1. Tidal Wave – I hadn’t had this one in a long time but I had it last week. Pretty straightforward dream: I’m somewhere on a beach or overlooking a beach and a regular wave gets bigger and bigger until it’s a ginormous wall of water that turns my knees to jelly. Dream interpretation guides generally see this as being overwhelmed in some way.

2. “I forget to go to class” – Lots of people have this type of dream although usually more in the form of test trauma like the person forgot to study for the test. Mine is always that I keep forgetting to go to class and to do the homework and I can’t remember where the book is and I’m worried what the teacher thinks. And it’s always math. This is often seen as self-esteem thing: not being good enough, being tested or under scrutiny.

3. “I have to pee, but can’t” – This is my most common dream, common being at least 3-4 times a year. It takes many different forms but generally I have to go the bathroom but I can’t because I can’t find it, it’s locked, there’s a long line, it’s broken, it’s dirty or in one dramatic instance, it was in the middle of a party and the walls were glass. I interpret this as being unable to express myself about something.

So in sum, I’m feeling overwhelmed, not good enough and unable to express myself. That could be my entire life. I don’t feel like there’s a particular crisis at hand that’s bringing this all up. [Update: I just read the post below this. hm. A clue.]

4. “I’m going back to college and have no place to live” – This is my 2nd most common dream but not one I’ve had in the past 10 days. It also takes various forms: Which room will I have in the sorority house? Will I live in the dorms? Can I find an apartment? Who will my roommates be? Why did I wait until the last minute? I’m guessing this about feeling like I don’t fit in a situation or maybe a variation of the not being prepared thing.

The only part of the Olympics I watched was women’s figure skating (big surprise).

They should have had medals for the ugliest outfits. That adorable Swiss girl in the horrible outfit would have taken home gold. And the Russian skaters wore ugly pants, too. I don’t think the idea of women skaters in pants has to be bad, but as executed at these games the look was just tragic.

I tried to find photos of the skaters to show you but no luck so I came up with these instead. You get the idea and if you like these outfits, the photos were mined from a catalog. You can buy them yourself. Maybe dress as a figure skater next Halloween. Look very serious, have a friend read from a card about how hard you’ve worked for this moment. Then fall down. HA!

Also, who was that woman commentor? Did she utter one intelligent word? If she did, I didn’t hear it. And how come when an American falls on her ass it’s unexpected and when any other skater falls on her ass it’s Olympic pressure, or poor training, or because her “light just went out” ?