So I'm not sure what's gotten in to me today, but rather than feeling angry and sullen as I typically do on a Monday, I'm feeling quite silly. Exhibit A, e-mail chain from 5 minutes ago:
Me: Maybe its a post-lunch sugar low talking, but when will the Girl Scout cookies be available for consumption?
Superior: No [sic] not for a few weeks.
Me: Okay, it's probably better to have a cooling-off period anyway.
I have asked a colleague to keep tabs on me in case I have a spaz attack of jocularity.
I saw Mike Birbiglia at his off-Broadway show, "Sleepwalk with Me" Saturday night, and I realized that (1) he is a comedic genius and (2) I sort of love him, except that I accidentally said that out loud on Facebook, and now he is my Facebook friend (pity-friending if ever there was one), so now he's maybe AWARE, and he's very possibly scared of me now.
After the show, I was telling Jim how much I was amazed by not just the things he says, but by his delivery, which is so much of the funny. And then I was all fired up, like, "I want to be a comedian, so people will laugh at and/or fall in love with me, too" which is really true, except that anyone will tell you that I'm not funny in person except when I've fallen down. And I was telling Jim how I want to write funny things in nonfiction book form, but I have some concerns. Like, it's funny to tell stories about your family and loved ones, because they're inevitably bizarre, and I have this fear that said loved ones would not appreciate the humor and would hate me forever and ever amen.
I would tell the story about how just a few short weeks ago, Jim was trying to install a new Pur water filtration knob on our sink because we're tired of recycling water bottles, what with all of the walking out to the recycling bin and the depositing of the bottles and whatnot. Except that he couldn't get the old piece off. He was cursing up a storm, red in the face, getting me involved by bracing my hand against the faucet thing while he wrenched it with a...wrench. Being from the Midwest, the best I can describe this so that normal people understand is that he was being very Long Island about it. Eventually he got so pissed that he stormed off to Home Depot to get some WD-40 because by God, we were going to have clean water. And it still didn't work, and that's when things really got ugly. And as a bonus, now our faucet was in pieces and spraying water in such a manner that we could have had a very competitive wet t-shirt contest on a daily basis.
The end of the story is that Jim had been trying to unscrew the piece by turning it the wrong way. He had been tightening it the entire time. You see, Jim never learned "righty tighty, lefty loosey" like me, and America. He learned something like, "piece of sh&#$^ballsI(@*#%mother*(*&%^q&@#$WHYTHEF*&%$*$*(&T#$^($#untilitleaksoutyourundercarriage."
The point is, I don't know if Jim would be pleased to know that I'm posting this seriously humiliating and demoralizing story that would make your average man cry. And I only have, at last count, maybe 2 readers to share in the shame. And I don't want to have to pre-clear everything, because that's not as fun, but I'm sensitive to these things, and I'd probably preface everything with, "Is it okay..." as in, "Is it okay if I include the part about the leakage?" But if I ask nicely, please say yes.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
Train Ride to Disturbia
Oh dear God. I've found my "thing."
I've figured out that most everyone has a "thing," as in "it's my thing." With my friend Sean, it was feet. With my friend Kristin, it was wrists. Something that just totally skeeves you out to the point where you are overcome by the shakes and you will do almost anything to get away from it.
My thing, I figured out not too long ago, is touching knees with strangers. This was discovered in one fateful LIRR ride when I found myself seated opposite a very large male whom I did not know in a face-each-other-four-seater.*
*On re-reading this sentence, I've decided that perhaps I should have started with, "Dear Penthouse..." Alas, it is not that kind of story.
Anyway, there's this very awkward "where do my knees go" thing that happens. Unless you are seated across from a Chinese gymnast - this hardly ever happens, and also, see Penthouse letter - then either (1) your knees both go in-between his knees, (2) you spread 'em, classystyle, and his go in-between, or (3) there's an interlocking your-knee-my-knee-your-knee-my-knee thing. This last one, IMHO, is the most uncomfortable.
Because of the reasons elaborated above, I generally refuse to sit in the face-each-other seats.
Jim prefers them, because he uses his laptop on the train. There is no room for this in the regular seats.
So on nights when Jim and I ride the train home together, he tries to get this one face-each-other-five-seater and he lets me pick my seat, which I literally process in a statistical, methodical manner so that I pick the seat that is least likely to encite a person to sit across from me, or so that if necessary, Jim could scoot over and share knees with me. If we get on the train, and someone is in our multi-seater to begin with, I will go sit somewhere else - or even stand - while Jim sits there. That's how much I hate other people's knees.
Well tonight, someone sat right across from me. Fears, meet Realized. He was a very large-statured douche, who put his dong in my face while he put his bag on the overhead rack, and then sat down and spread em'. So I spent the entire ride with my knees pressed together and up on my toes because his feet and knees were EVERYWHERE. I kept looking at Jim, who was sitting next to me, mumbling, "Oh my God, oh my God" under my breath.
Oh but then.
He takes out his cell phone, and - SERIOUSLY - places it between his legs. Not on his lap or on his leg. UNDER HIS BALLS. Between his fat thighs. But really UNDER HIS BALLS. The balls were flopped over the phone.
OH MY GOD.
And then he fell asleep.
And all I could do was wait. Wait for the ringing, which would be followed by him being startled, and grinning, and then more knee touching.
SKEEVEY!
I've figured out that most everyone has a "thing," as in "it's my thing." With my friend Sean, it was feet. With my friend Kristin, it was wrists. Something that just totally skeeves you out to the point where you are overcome by the shakes and you will do almost anything to get away from it.
My thing, I figured out not too long ago, is touching knees with strangers. This was discovered in one fateful LIRR ride when I found myself seated opposite a very large male whom I did not know in a face-each-other-four-seater.*
*On re-reading this sentence, I've decided that perhaps I should have started with, "Dear Penthouse..." Alas, it is not that kind of story.
Anyway, there's this very awkward "where do my knees go" thing that happens. Unless you are seated across from a Chinese gymnast - this hardly ever happens, and also, see Penthouse letter - then either (1) your knees both go in-between his knees, (2) you spread 'em, classystyle, and his go in-between, or (3) there's an interlocking your-knee-my-knee-your-knee-my-knee thing. This last one, IMHO, is the most uncomfortable.
Because of the reasons elaborated above, I generally refuse to sit in the face-each-other seats.
Jim prefers them, because he uses his laptop on the train. There is no room for this in the regular seats.
So on nights when Jim and I ride the train home together, he tries to get this one face-each-other-five-seater and he lets me pick my seat, which I literally process in a statistical, methodical manner so that I pick the seat that is least likely to encite a person to sit across from me, or so that if necessary, Jim could scoot over and share knees with me. If we get on the train, and someone is in our multi-seater to begin with, I will go sit somewhere else - or even stand - while Jim sits there. That's how much I hate other people's knees.
Well tonight, someone sat right across from me. Fears, meet Realized. He was a very large-statured douche, who put his dong in my face while he put his bag on the overhead rack, and then sat down and spread em'. So I spent the entire ride with my knees pressed together and up on my toes because his feet and knees were EVERYWHERE. I kept looking at Jim, who was sitting next to me, mumbling, "Oh my God, oh my God" under my breath.
Oh but then.
He takes out his cell phone, and - SERIOUSLY - places it between his legs. Not on his lap or on his leg. UNDER HIS BALLS. Between his fat thighs. But really UNDER HIS BALLS. The balls were flopped over the phone.
OH MY GOD.
And then he fell asleep.
And all I could do was wait. Wait for the ringing, which would be followed by him being startled, and grinning, and then more knee touching.
SKEEVEY!
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