May 2006 Archives
There are a million jokes about computer people. Maybe even more than a million. Computer people get a bad rap, which is not to say that they don’t deserve it . For the most part, they truly deserve all of the jokes on Letterman and SNL, all of the mockery and the shit-talking. They are the keeper of valuable information. Information that would be beneficial for you to know, but is either far too complicated or far too boring for you to even attempt to learn.
They guard these kernels of wisdom like the Holy Grail. You can approach, but beware. Choose poorly and you may as well just start speaking like a Teletubby because they have stopped listening and have branded you a MORON. I get it, really. They spend their entire day helping people who are either completely computer retarded or completely computer retarded but convinced that they know what they’re talking about. I would most definitely punch someone, and so I admire their restraint. Still, those jokes are all based in reality and everyone has their own terrible computer person to tell.
My first brush with a computer person was Mrs. Davis, our “computer teacher” at my elementary school. My school was pretty loose on most practical learning, so it is interesting that we even had a computer class considering that most of our Math classes were completely skipped if our Creative Arts teacher wanted us in the auditorium singing Joni Mitchell songs or learning skat music.
Anyway, “computer teacher” is probably the wrong word for what Mrs. Davis did, since most of the class period was spent with our backs to our Apple IIE’s while she pointed to the many posters she had printed on that awesome paper where it’s all linked and you have to tear the sheets apart, posters that said things like DO NOT TOUCH THE SOFT PARTS OF THE DISK! DO NOT TOUCH THE SOFT PARTS OF THE DISK! and KEEP YOUR HANDS ON THE HOME ROW! KEEP YOUR HANDS ON THE HOME ROW! DO NOT EAT OR DRINK IN THIS ROOM! DO NOT EAT OR DRINK IN THIS ROOM!
For the rest of the class period she placed paper over the keyboards and we slipped our tiny hands beneath and struggled through the typing program where you played Hangman against the computer . I always got stuck with the computer that had orange writing instead of green, which made me nauseous. Picture for a minute a room full of 8-year-olds being yelled at for peeking at the keyboard, hunching over keyboards as if Mrs. Davis knew that our futures would involve entry-level careers in data entry and wanted to prepare us for the inevitable bad posture and carpal tunnel syndrome. The sweetest vindication I can remember in grade school was Mrs. Davis leaning over to pick something up and ripping the loudest fart in the world in front of a bunch of grade schoolers.
In college ISS was famed for being of little to no help. I learned to rely on myself as a Mac user on a PC campus, which was fine until the week of my Spring finals, which is when my iMac decided that it was time to stop functioning and eat my papers, and I called Apple only to be told that I would have to call 4 other 800 numbers, hold for 2 hours, and finally weep uncontrollably to a man in India who would then attempt to try to help me.
Fast forward to my Junior year of college. I’m home for the summer and my Dad asks me to come to the Apple store with him. Thinking I might at least get an Orange Julius for my troubles, I accompany him into the blinding whiteness of the Mac universe. The store is not very crowded, and my Dad approaches a man in a black t-shirt standing behind a desk. “I’m sorry, sir,” the black-shirted guy says, “Are you signed up in the queue?”
“The QUEUE?!” My dad says, skipping all pretense and bullshit and going straight into are-you-fucking-kidding-me mode,
“Yes, the queue. Go to that computer, click on the Genius Bar icon, and enter your information, including name and a general description of your problem. Your name will appear on this screen when it is your turn.”
My dad does the slow jaw roll and I sign him up for The Queue because he doesn’t have his glasses and he is about to punch someone. Immediately his name appears on the screen above the man’s head and it is officially our turn. The problem is that my Dad needs a new keyboard, which he then has to stand in another line, excuse me, another queue, to purchase.
There are so many tales out there, of IT guys in Star Wars t-shirts sipping Big Gulps and asking you if you’ve rebooted or whatever, that whenever I have a good experience I want to shout it from the hilltops. Take, for instance, my fantastic brother-in-law, who is not only responsible for brining into the world the cutest baby thine eyes hath ever seen, but also for maintaining the technical sanity of everyone in the M*Inerny family. Dude, he made me this website!
My job requires me to work on a Dell. This may be why my iBook is acting up, he can smell it on me when I get home and he’ll be damned if he’s going to respond to my beck and call when he knows where I’ve been all day. PCs are impossible for me to understand. What the shit is an F drive? What is a right-click? Why can’t I just drag it and drop it and have it just be there? The possibilities for error and disaster are endless as soon as I turn on the machine, but so far things have gone pretty smoothly, until today.
Today I called IT for the first time because something was happening and I didn’t know what it was or how to make it stop. And guess what happened? The IT guy was so so so so nice. “Hey, let’s figure out what’s going on,” he said. Seriously, he used the word “let’s” and then HE FIGURED IT OUT AND CALLED ME BACK! AND HE WAS SO NICE!
He could have told me to submit a request the proper way, rather than calling him office and stuttering through the description of what was going on (I think I said something along the lines of, well, when I do that one thing, it doesn’t work. Not usually.) But he didn’t, he was awesome. So thank you, Anonymous computer guy, for using your Super-Human powers for good and not for evil.
Dick: I guess it looks as if you're reorganizing your records. What is this though? Chronological?
Rob: No...
Dick: Not alphabetical...
Rob: Nope...
Dick: What?
Rob: Autobiographical.
Dick: No fucking way.
Baby Beluga, Raffi: I am about five, we livein LaCrescent Minnesota and I am too young to understand that the situation should depress me. I’m riding shotgun in the Volvo (because honestly, how unsafe could it be) and the sun is hitting me at that really awkward angle that it does when you’re small and sitting in a car during the summer. This song is playing on the tape deck. The song makes me want to be a baby whale. Later, my dad BUYS the Raffi songbook.
Anything by Mahalia Jackson: I am ten on my first trip to California, which was also my first trip on an airplane. Patrick and I are singing “We’re blessed, we’re blessed , we’re blessed, we are bleeeeeeeesed,” we can’t remember what comes next so we sing, “We don’t deserve it, what the hell, we’re bleeeesed.” Even if you never go to church, even if you believe that there is nothing after our death but a giant taco salad in the sky, this woman’s voice will make you understand what God is.
Always Be My Baby, Mariah Carey: We just got cable. I’m obsessed with this video. I want to wear flannel shirts tied to show my belly and go to camp and finally kiss a boy. Incidentally, that summer I DO go to camp. I forget my pillow and cry on the bus ride, and spend the one week of camp wishing I were home with my parents. I do have a camp boyfriend, Devin. He is very short, with blond hair. We actually look alike, except of course I’m taller.
Volare, Gypsy Kings: I am up at the Cabin. I have earned the privilege of being allowed into my Grandparents’ cabin, which is cool and dark and smells so sweet and homey. I think my grandparents are pretty rad because they have a CD player, and they play the Gypsy Kings as I play this mind-boggling game where you try to move these dumb pegs around, a game that I never ever once one.
Mister Jones, Counting Crows: I’m in 5th grade, I have a radio/cassette player in my room, and KDWB plays this constantly. I like it, and yet I find the song depressing. Later I will figure out that is probably because the Counting Crows totally suck.
Creep, TLC: We just got cable, and apparently all I did that year was watch music videos. I have no idea that to “creep” is to have an affair, nor do I understand any of the innuendo of the lyrics. What I do understand is the TLC is supercool. Later, I will come to associate this song with college. Specifically, with Beven O’Brien pouring $8 into the Jukebox and a table full of girls shouting along with the lyrics while all the guys slam their beers and decide how the hell to get out of that bar.
Anything by Frank Sinatra: I am in my room with Erin Mulcahy, the only other 9th grader who is in love with Frank Sinatra. We are singing along to one of his Greatest Hits Cds and putting on nude lipstick and loads of mascara. We have yet to be introduced to proper blow-drying techniques or bronzer.
Moving On, Mya featuring Silkk The Shocker: I am in my Green VW Beetle with Cara Shannon. We have both been broken up with, we are both in a 17-year-old mental breakdown state, and we are on our way to the mall , windows down and sunroof open, to eat Chinese food, buy plain jane tank tops at the Gap, and talk about how we are SO over those stupid boys. Later we will most likely go home and cry and call them each fifteen times.
Come On Over Baby, Christina Aguilera: I am at my Sweetheart’s dance junior year. I went to MAC to get my make-up done, and coupled with the salsa-style dress and the red heels, I kind of look like a transsexual. But God, am I having fun. My date even wore a tie.
Beat It, Smooth Criminal, Man In The Mirror, Michael Jackson: Erin Mulcahy finally gets her driver’s license and buys the Michael Jackson HIStory CD. If you ride in the car with her, whether or not she is driving, you will listen to these songs while she dances in her seat. I’d say this reminds me exclusively of high school but to be honest, she does it still. If this comes on at a school dance or at a bar, CLEAR THE DANCE FLOOR. I repeat, CLEAR THE DANCE FLOOR.
Ex Factor, Lauryn Hill: I am 17, this whole CD rocked my face off, and I play it on repeat because I no longer have a boyfriend, even though I see him every day, take 4 classes with him, and hang out with him on a daily basis. But whatever, I am so over it and I don’t even care. This also plays on the way to the mall with Cara.
Beast of Burden, Rolling Stones: This was on a mix tape made for me by Brendan, who was a year younger than me and for whom I harbored a secret crush. Our relationship consisting mainly of chats during art class and me driving him home from school ,but he was just SO COOL. He has shaggy hair and he smoked pot. He made me the coolest and only actually Mix TAPE I have ever received, with everything from the Stones to Nelly Furtado to Duke Ellington on it. He. Was. So. Cool.
Fire and Rain, James Taylor: This is the CD I am listening to when my dad drives our car off a cliff in Italy. To this day the song makes me nervous. During the rest of the trip, I switched to the new Britney CD.
Flake, Jack Johnson: I am a freshman in college. I have only begun to start listening to music by white people, since it wasn’t exactly the popular thing to do at DeLaSalle. I love every song this dude creates, and don’t even notice that they all sound exactly alike. It is on repeat on my computer, which is a 2nd generation iMac in a flowered print.
It’s Gonna Be Love, Mandy Moore: It is the summer after my Freshman year of college. Gene Weaver got a new car, a red Jeep Wrangler. He drives me around the lakes at night while we sip on 44 oz. Sodas from SuperAmerica. He also listens to this song on repeat. This is maybe one of the best summers of my life, and I do NOT want to go back to Cincinnati. I would be content to sit in the front seat of the Jeep while Gene drives on the bike path around Lake Harriet just to make me smile.
Toxic, Britney Spears: I’m a Junior in college. No matter where the party is, some girl manages to get this on the stereo and we all jump and dance around to what we think matches the beat but is mostly likely about five seconds off.
Murder On The Dancefloor, Sophie Ellis Baxter: Unless you frequent gay bars or techno bars, you probably don’t know this song. UNLESS you lived at or partied at 1928 Cleneay during the 2004/2005 school year, in which case Beven lured you back to the house with a promise of “late night” and then made you dance to this song on repeat for about 2 hours. But come on, you LOVED it.
Autobiography, Ashlee Simpson: I am a senior in college and secretly listening to the same stuff that 11-year-old girls LOVE. I play this song in my car, I dance to it at parties, but mostly it reminds me of living on the sweltering 3rd floor at 1928 Cleneay, this song blaring over Erin Dailer’s stereo while she cleans her room and I lay on my bed with my computer.
What will remind me of now, of this first year in New York, my first year of cohabitation, my first year out of school: Leaf House, Animal Collective; 7, Prince; Gold Mine Gutted, Bright Eyes; Something Vague, Bright Eyes; Rock Steady, The Whispers; Hit The Switch, Bright Eyes; I Don’t Do Crowds, Speak Slow, Tegan and Sarah; Camera Obscura; Overkill, Colin Hay; Across the Universe, Fiona Apple; Moon River, Henry Mancini; Love And Some Verses, Iron and Wine; You Turn Me On I’m A Radio, Joni Mitchell; Twin Cinema, New Pornographers; Sleeping In, The Postal Service; Inherited Scars, Sage Francis;
I am sitting in my apartment , where marijuana and “The Cha-Cha Slide” are wafting into my window. It can mean only one thing: there is a Church festival going on down the street. St. Joseph’s is a pretty conservative congregation, which is why I’m somewhat surprised that there are so many hoodlums streaming up the street to go play skee-ball in the Church parking lot.
But that’s not why I’m writing this. I’m writing this because the bell jar has lifted, and I am happier and lighter than I’ve been in awhile. Those who know me know that I’m a pendulum and always have been. I was what people call an intense child, one who sobbed for hours in the bathtub telling my mother that I didn’t want to live in an apartment, one who sobbed silently before bed thinking about the blind kid in my brother’s class and how hard his life would be, one who adored the elderly and spent most of her time reading on the couch while her mother brought her pots of tea.
I once cried because my mother had made the mistake of buying her OCD child a DATED JOURNAL, and I HAD MISSED A DAY. AN ENTIRE PAGE WOULD BE BLANK. THE WORLD WOULD STOP SPINNING. Sometimes I would lay in bed thinking about how infinite space was, how insignificant I was in the grand scheme of things, and picture myself floating through space when the world ended in however many thousands of years it will end.
But I wasn’t a sad child. I was also nuts for Pee-Wee Hermand and the Ninja Turtles. I for some reason really liked cats, and I had an obsession with Laura Ingalls Wilder for a long time.
In a lot of ways, I’m the same. Very intense. I love to laugh and joke, but I am also completely awash with pity and sadness for nearly the entire world. “Seriously, Nora,” my brother said when I visited him, “do you make up a sad story for every person you meet on the street?” The answer is yes, I most certainly do. That old man on the subway is completely alone in the world, and goes back to his filthy apartment to sit alone on his sofa and contemplate his loneliness. That retarded little boy on my block is going to have a life full of pain and sadness and people making fun of him. Why? Because I know so.
The past few weeks I’ve been gloomy and sad for basically no reason. I’ve been a Debbie Downer, a conversational void, a real poop dollar.
So what is behind this change of heart, this sudden flip of the switch? Retail Therapy? Paxil? Sad to say, it was an article in Metro, the free paper that is shoved down your throat as soon as you enter the subway. I was reading over this woman’s shoulder during my morning commute when I caught an editorial about my generation, how we’re so incredibly egocentric (hello blogs) that it drives us into depression. In short, we’re crushed by the weight of the world that revolves around us.
Wow, I thought. That’s so pathetic. And so true.
Tonight I spoke to my mother, who brought up my dear dear friend and pseudo-grandfather Jules, a brilliant and amazing man who committed his entire life to education. Jules studied with famed psychologist Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor (as well as the founder of existential psychology and logotherapy) who said that "everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
Maybe Viktor was onto something. Maybe my whole generation just needs a big, old-fashioned attitude adjustment.
This past weekend was fantastic, in large part because I was graced by the presence of one Erin Elizabeth Dailer.
I know that many of my posts turn into lengthy missives about how awesome each of my friends are. It’s true, I could write love letters about each other them. But those are for another time. This love letter is for Dailer.
I met Erin during my freshman year, when we were both wide-eyed, dumb 18-year-olds who were both excited and terrified at being away from home for the first time, me away from the land of 10,000 lakes and Erin from Wild, Wonderful West Virginia. I was from a place where vowels are abused and stretched to new lengths and octaves, Dailer was from a place where “L” can be dropped completely from nearly any word.
During our four years together, we laughed until our stomachs hurt, made huge mistakes, stuffed our faces with shrimps and quesadillas in the caf, ate chips in our underpants in the middle of the night, and tried to make sense out of what it means to grow up.
Erin is also the girl who invented the phrase, “shit-talking mushroom,” in an attempt to repeat the words, “shitake mushroom.” Perhaps the best way to describe Erin is through this childhood photograph, which was actually on display at a local dive bar in Cincinnati until some jealous person swiped it from behind the bar.
See? She was always cool. And she grew up to be even coolor, as evidenced by this later photo:
On May 15, 2005, I drove my Honda Civic (I’m so sensible) to Minnesota, and up until last week, that was the last I’d seen of Erin Dailer. God bless the 21st Century, whose emails and phone calls have kept us connected, but there is no substitute for actually hanging out with a dear friend.
In true Nora fashion, I of course had to make a routine trip to the airport into a debacle. I was so excited to get Erin that I ran out the door and directly into a gypsy cab, having no idea what airline Erin was flying. Luckily, Dailer answered her phone and the cab driver pulled up to the right baggage claim…which is when I realized that in my haste to leave the apartment, I had forgotten my wallet.
Cabdrivers are not exactly excited to hear the words, “Um….I don’t have any money.” After much awkward silence I figured out how to resolve the issue. “Are you Catholic?” I asked the driver, “Because I am. And I swear to God, to Mother Mary, to Jesus himself that if you circle the airport I will be right here. Then you can drive us back and I’ll pay you.” FINALLY, being a Catholic pays off. Are you listening, Meghan?
An entire year had passed from the last time I had seen Erin, and still, when I saw her in the airport, it was as if we were still sharing the top floor of a hovel in Cincinnati. There she was, with her shiny new bob and her superpreppy Vera Bradley duffel, wandering aimlessly through the baggage claim looking for the terrible friend who had almost had to compromise her morals to get out of a cab.
In was great to have Erin here for a few days, not only to have a partner for shopping and wandering, but also to know that you have a friend who is always a friend, no matter how much time has passed since the last time you’ve seen her. Our weekend was a whirlwind of “First Trip To New York” activities. My favorite part was watching two extremely awkward and adorable 16-year-olds perform magic at Union Square. The first one hammered a nail into his nose and ate a broken lightbulb. The second one rode a unicycle, told stale stand-up jokes, and proclaimed, “David Blaine can DIE! I’m awesome!”
Total papparazzi shot.
Total kid-on-vacation shot.
Erin's first trip to New York was most definitely a success. Erin crept out of Apartment 9 in the wee hours of Sunday morning, flying back to lovely Kansas City. Who knows how long it will be until we see each other, maybe months, maybe another year. It's only appropriate in this situation to misquote the popular television series, "Sex And The City," in the episode where Carrie says something about something something and then the last line is something about friends being only a plane ride away. Totally fits this situation. Love you Dailer.
There is a LOT of drama going on in Hollywood, and I thought it would only be approriate for me to weigh in. After all, keeping score is not just reserved for my family (and don't think I didn't notice that I didn't get my own birthday post, Ma).
Paris vs. Nicole: Okay, so Nicole needs a sandwich in the worst way. But she doesn't have a man-eating vag and she seems to have half a brain (hey, she had a ghostwriter pen her a novel, didn't she?). So if I lived in LA and shopped at Kitson, I'd totally have a Team Nicole t-shirt.
Paris vs. Lindsay: Mean Girls vs. House of Wax. Awesome red hair vs. fake bleached out, crusty extensions. Yeah, it's totally Lindsay all the way.
Nick vs. Jessica: Okay, so he's kind of a cheeseball. But Jessica totally has a creepy relationship with her dad and has the WORST voice in the world. It's like a deaf dog imitating Whitney Houston. Other than that, I have three words for you: Dukes of Hazzard. I'm on Team Lachey.
Christina vs. Mariah: A tough one for sure. 8 years ago, when Mariah was back with "Honey" and Christina was coming out with "Genie In A Bottle," I would have been sooo Team Mariah. But let's be honest with ourselves and with each other: Mariah Carey is a huge sack of nuts. Sure, she came back again with a new CD all about how she can't keep a boyfriend, but BO-RING. Christina hasn't had a new CD since stripped, but I know her little Marilyn Monroe copying ass is gonna come out with something big. So, Team Christina it is.
Britney vs The Papparazzi: Okay, you know what? I'll say it. People need to back up off her. The only reason she's neglecting her baby and nearly dropping it is because the moment she steps outside she's got a hundred people with cameras all up in her space. Yes, she needs to take out the extensions, throw away half her wardrobe, leave her husband, and get a life coach. But somewhere in there is the same booty-shaking, pigtail-wearing hottie that taught us all that you don't need a whole lot of talent to be a huge, ridiculous success. And I will always, always love her for that.
Denise vs Charlie: : Okay, so Charlie called her a dickhead and had sex with hundred prostitutes while looking at underage porno sites and threatening to murder Denise and her parents. But she is the woman who was dumb enough to marry him even after Heidi Fleiss outed the fact that he spent tens of thousands of dollars on skirts. Still, I'm on Team Denise because she has amazing hair.
Denise vs. Heather: Okay, there's a lot of good hair going on in this rivalry, but let's recap: Heather was allegedly banging David Spade before she divorced Richie Sambora, so Denise allegedly swooped in and decided to create a cuckold love triangle? I don't care what the hell Heather did or did not do, Denise broke the Cardinal rule of being a woman: Thou shalt not be photographed straddling your friend's ex-husband on a Malibu balcony. For shame, Denise.
Tom Cruise vs Everybody: Much of Tom's troubles lately resemble religious persecution. After all, Scientology, like any other religion, respected or not, is essentially just a set of tools for improving your life. Scientology, however, is also a great way for some people to get stinking rich and is coincidentally extremely annoying when you're trying to walk through the subway station and are accosted by glossy-eyed freaks asking you if you need a stress test. And while their stress-o-meters look extremely official, nobody in New York needs a test to tell them that they're stressed. So, I'm siding with everybody on this one, and not just because South Park formed their funniest episode yet around Mister Cruise and R Kelly.
Baby brother turned 21 on Saturday. I had no way of getting in touch, but definitely thought about him and how much color he has brought to my life during these past 21 years.
Not only has homeboy broken my tailbone into a thousand pieces (making spinning classes and even sitting for extended periods of time unbearable) but he also provided the following amount of awesomeness:
1) Once sprayed Endust on the kitchen floor to clean it up...resulting in a floor so slippery that my mom walked in with armfuls of groceries and wiped out, sending fruit flying everywhere. Oh man, I'm laughing just thinking of it.
2) Glued a plastic turtle to the hood of the car. The same car my mom drove TO DROP ME OFF FOR MY FIRST DAY OF HIGH SCHOOL. The turtle stayed until it broke loose on the freeway one fateful day (sing hallelujah to the Lord).
3) Once, I crawled into his room and under his bed while he was singing to himself. He was making up new lyrics to the soundtrack from Alladin (favorite line: "Pucker up Princess, you're under a lot of stress..") when I grabbed his ankle, thus scaring the crap out of him.
4) Believed everything I said until about age 8. This includes the time I told him I was one of Santa's elves and he'd better be nice to me. I "proved" my elfiness by telling him to close his eyes and then handing him a random knick knack from my vast collection of crap. He also believed me when I told him that if he was good, Jack Frost would write something in the frost on his bedroom window. I then used my fingernail to scratch Hi, Pat! That totally freaked him out.
5) Was witness to the very longest fart in human history. He knows what I'm talking about.
6) Invented new "dives" up at the cabin.
7) Once shaved our cat in the middle of the night, making him look like a middle aged guy with male pattern baldness.
8) Dyed his hair cheetah print right before a M*Inerny family reunion. It looked like a cat was sleeping on his head. In a good way. Poppa M*Inerny was not pleased.
9) Totally stole my babysitting jobs.
10) Took fencing when all the other dudes in his class were on the basketball team.
11) Wrote the single best collection of fiction I have ever read: The Adventures of Flig and Captain Twanghooler.
Patrick might never read this, because, as he put it, "the Internet isn't super-easy to get" when you're in the military. But Happy Birthday to Spud, my only little brother. Meggie had Austie, and I had Paddy, so Happy Birthday to my very own little dude.
This past weekend I took the Chinatown Bus to Philadelphia to visit my older brother Austin and his lovely girlfriend, Lorelei. Since I spent ages 12-21 in the desperate little sister stage, begging for attention from a brother who exchanged fewer than 20 words a year with me, actually hanging out with Austin is a personal form of crack for me. I mean, my brother is just SO COOL!!!
The weekend had many highlights, not least of which was the fact that I SAW THE LIBERTY BELL. It's big. It's a bell. There's a huge crack in it. And I'm now in the back of about 200 family photos taken by Asian tourists. BUT I SAW IT. After I SAW THE LIBERTY BELL, we took a short walking tour of Philadelphia, a city my mother would appreciate for the numerous quiet streets with ancient houses and the plentiful cemetaries.
But lest you think that the trip was merely educational, let me assure you that we watched two DVDs of Lost, Season 1, and had many engaging conversations. For example, how weird is snapping your fingers? Think about it. Your SKIN is making a NOISE against your SKIN. How incredibly gross is that. I honestly feel like if people thought about snapping, there would be a dramatic dip in the activity. Even thinking about it now makes my thumbs hurt. SKIN NOISES. Gross.
We checked out South Street for some window shopping, and that is when it happened. The skies opened and the gods smiled upon me and I found everything I never knew I wanted at two different vintage stores. Why would this be such a fantastic event? Well, in the past, people were small. I mean, they say Marilyn Monroe was a size 16 so that people can feel good about themselves, but no, today's size 16 could eat her size 16 for breakfast.
Fast forward to today. I'm huge. Statistically, I'm most likely from the future, from a time where women don't need a step stool to reach the top shelf, where taking stairs two at a time is the only way to take them, and where heels are strictly for vanity and intimidation. Usually, even trying on men's shirts at a vintage store is like re-enacting the "fat guy in a little coat" scene made famous in Frat houses worldwide by Chris Farley in Tommy Boy.
So imagine my surprise when I found not one but two dresses. One is a pinky belted number with matching pearly buttons.
The other is a Zip & Go white housedress with blue and red stripes. It's a little boxy, but I can get it taken in a little or, as my co-worker Elizabeth advised, "belt it. Belt it. Belt it."
I also got a kelly green leather cigarette case with gold accents which will serve as my new wallet. It's beautiful.
But the real prize was my new cowboy boots. They're old and beat up and perfect. And yes, I have photos of all of these items, but my computer apparently was out all night doing lines of coke and taking tequila shots because she is S-L-O-W and straight up refusing to upload photos.
Today is really not that big of a deal to me. After all, I'm not a mom. But I do have a mom. And luckily, I have the kind of mom who doesn't like Mother's Day. The kind of mom who would rather have you slap her across the face than hand her a Hallmark card prefabricated with generic sentiments and sold in bulk around the nation for lazy people to express their "emotions" for only $3.
Mom did, however issue a challenge: for each of her kids to write her a poem. A way of leveling the playing field, which really was another way of saying, "Hey, Nora. I know you aren't in an Ivy league school, enlisted in the military, or a new mother, but you also have a chance or being my favorite child for at least a minute." Did I step up to the challenge? Not exactly.
I'm not much of a poet. I stumbled upon some poetry I had written in high school, so narcisisstic and overly emotional that it embarrassed me to be sitting alone in my old bedroom reading what had clearly been something I thought worthy of writing in perfect cursive on college-rule loose leaf and keeping in a 5-Star 3-ring binder and hiding in the back of my closet.
More recent efforts have fallen short. I'm much more capable of expressing myself through sarcasm or stories about diarrhea than I am at spinning my feelings into neat and moving verses, veiling emotions in well-crafted metaphors or clever turns of phrase.
Besides, how can any poem about my mom possibly compete with Tupac's 'Dear Mama' or Nelly's 'Luven Me'? Or, more importantly, Boyz II Men's 'Mama'?
The point is that I don't need a special day to tell the world that my mom is the shit. But if it will make her happy, I'll try to write a poem.
You have
beautiful hands
Strong
With long fingers
My fingers.
And your eyes are my eyes
And your mother's eyes as well
Pools of blue reflecting through generations
I have
a different nose
But you don't hold it against me.
We have
soft, round lips
And loud laughs
And long legs
(Big feet)
And a thread
that connects us each
an invisible web
That stretches across these
mountains
and rivers
and plains
The one cord that can't be cut.
Sorry it isn't a sonnet. I love you.
And yes, I stole that title from a J.Lo CD. Anyway, the coming of spring has me in a contemplative mode. Spring has sprung and for the first time I don't have a summer of utter freedom and tanning ahead of me. A year ago I walked across the stage at the Cintas Center at Xavier University, received my diploma, and, as my friend Ryan put it, dipped my toes into the real world only to find that the water was icy at best.
So in honor of that first taste of chaos and insecurity, I give you this, a portion of an essay written weeks after my graduation:
I am in transit, in emotional meltdown, and incommunicado. My broken cell phone sits on the dashboard of my car, my stereo is playing Cat Steven’s “Wild World,” and I am alternately singing along and crying as I drive exactly the speed limit through Highway-Patrol ridden Indiana. It is the day after my college graduation, and my Honda Civic is packed with all of my earthly belongings, most of which are clothes and shoes, and my mind is packed with racing thoughts about my straight-arrow past and my uncertain future.
Every song on the radio seems to send me spinning into nostalgia or falling into melancholy. I am convinced that every song has been written just for me and my journey out of the academic cocoon. A dance song comes on and I think of my friends and I getting ready to go out on the weekends, crowding in front of the bathroom mirror with mascara wands and straightening irons. A rock song comes on and I remember dancing and singing in our bedrooms with the stereo blaring. Songs remind me of our long conversations on the front porch, of our Saturday morning trips to Bruegger’s Bagels, of Burger Madness on Monday nights. I am coming from four glorious years of college in Ohio, but where am I going? Besides the obvious answer of my parent’s house, I have no idea. Stevie Nicks sings to me, “Can I sail through the changing ocean tides? Can I handle the seasons of my life?” and I choke out the next lyrics, “Ooooh, I don’t know. Oooooh, I don’t know.”
Just yesterday I walked across a stage, received a piece of paper, and ended my life as I have known it for the past 17 years. While some people couldn’t wait to be done with homework, tests, and essays, I couldn’t imagine life without them. I felt as if I had built my life around my GPA, and there was nothing for me outside the walls of the classroom. Like many kids my age, I am used to doing what I am told to do and being rewarded for it. The educational system is based on obedience and rewards. Read the story, write the essay, get an A. Do the math homework, take the test, get an A. School sports and activities follow the same criteria. I was the child who believed in the permanent record, in some unknown but all-knowing entity keeping a meticulous list of your accomplishments and shortcomings. I worked hard to make sure that my permanent record was gleaming. At age 10, I wrote in my journal, “I just feel like I could be doing more with my life” and I guess I never shook that feeling. I always want to be doing more, but I’m not sure what I want to be doing.
My business major friends lined up jobs in March, buying suits and pumps for interviews, obsessively checking Monster.com while I sat in my room reading and making my lists of things to do in the next day and week. Most of them read: 1) Revise Resume 2) Apply for jobs. At parties people traded stories about their worst interview experiences, the jobs they were after, and the jobs they had turned down. I would laugh at the appropriate moments and try my best not to scream, “What the hell am I going to do with my life? I’m doomed!!!”
My brief flirtation with the working world came through my internships at a magazine and at an alternative newspaper, and with my occasional Internet job searches. The internships, I was sure, would be my ticket into employment. After all, I was a contributing writer to a business magazine and a do-it-all intern at a small newspaper. I sent out resumes and completed job applications in every field that interested me and got my first taste of rejection. Public Relations, Advertising, and Journalism wanted nothing to do with Nora E. M*Inerny, soon-to-be Bachelor of Arts.
Why is the prospect of an undecided future so stressful for me but not for others? I am a girl who values family, friends, good books, and rainstorms on summer nights. But above all, I value order. I like to know when and where things are going to happen, and then I like to be on time for them. On my first day of Kindergarten, I waited at the bus stop a full hour before it was scheduled to pick me up. The bus stop was my own driveway. That year, before I went to sleep, I laid my clothes out in the shape of a person. To make it even more efficient, I laid according to which piece of clothing I would need first; underpants on top of the pants, socks nestled into the shoes.
My whole life I’ve done what I was supposed to do, and I’ve enjoyed it. But after college there is no next step decided for you. For the first time, life is exclusively yours to live without a syllabus to tell you what to read next, without a calendar to tell you about the next test, without an advisor to tell you which route to follow. I am almost indignant about my shapeless future. I was the girl who prioritized studying over partying, I was the girl who found two internships for her senior year, I was the girl who ate the proper amount of vegetables each day. I even drove a sensible car! Where is the justice?
I arrive at my parent’s house in Minneapolis after 10 hours in a car. I move my life from the back of my car to the garage and I head upstairs to my room. This is the same room I had when I was 10-years-old, infatuated with the Louisa May Alcott to the point that I had my entire room decorated in floral wallpaper, which I thought was exactly what she would like. The wallpaper is peeling a bit now, but it is still that cheerful and almost dizzying pattern of blue flowers. This was the room where I wrote my first “novel,” the thrilling story of the lives of my Grandmother’s cats, told through their eyes. There was something like 25 chapters, each chapter being 2 pages long in sixteen-point font.
This was the room where I wrote my college essays, secure in the fact that even if I didn’t know where I’d be going to college next year, I knew I’d be in college. This is my room again today, and for the foreseeable future. In the mornings I know that my father will grind the coffee and turn on National Public Radio on full volume to wake me up. I know that my mom will take the bus to work and my dad will go to the golf course. I have no idea what I will be doing, and that makes me nervous. I lay awake that night thinking of different places to send my resume, different careers I might enjoy, or even different graduate programs I might consider. I turn on the light to make myself a list.
If you got this far, congratulations. You have an above average attention span in an ADD world. I bet you read The New Yorker, too, don't you? You're clever and I like you. I bet you have neat glasses and drink herbal teas. Perhaps you enjoy academic endeavors in your leisure time, and take in plays on the weekends. I like you already. And if this wasn't enough for you, if you can't get enough of my narcissistic ravings and egocentric yapping, you can read the next essay by clicking below.
The combination of an early morning, the impending departure of my little brother for a faraway land, PMS, a cloudy day, a stinky person on the subway, a broken fingernail, and a lack of groceries just made my cry as if my dog had just been hit by a car. And I don't even have a dog. I did have a dog, and my mom put it to sleep and told me she put it on a farm. I was 17 and I didn't cry over my dog. I didn't even cry at A Walk To Remember. I did, however, cry after every golf match
As David watched, his face going from amusement to shock to pity back to amusement to horror and finally just to exasperation while I alternated between sobbing and laughing, I realized this: bitches be crazy.
Sorry guys, I'm not sure why your girlfriend broke up with you, why your mom gave your sunglasses to your brother, why your sister cried when you asked her if she wanted a sandwich, why your grandmother calls you Francis or why that homeless lady at the subway kicked you in the balls. But I think that it can be blamed on the fact that we are all incurably, adorably, bewilderingly, bat-shit insane. Let's face it, boys, you wouldn't want it any other way.
Sorry!
This weekend I was graced with the presence of two visitors, one of whom I see from time to time and one of whom I haven't seen in two solid years. Mike Jerman is one of those rare gems, the kind of person who makes an indelible impression, the kind of person who, when you meet up two years later on a Friday night in Union Square is still wearing the same outfit you last saw him in, can still hold a remarkably amusing conversation, and is 110% genuine.
Dave Gilmore is a tried-and-true friend from college, the kind of guy who will burn you a CD when he hears music you may like, the kind of guy who knows what era the Mastadon came from and what kind of flying dinosaur is larger than a Pterodactyl.
I'm not allowed to write about the other David, but he has been plagued with nosebleeds and softball injuries and even he, who has known me since I had braces and bangs and has usually shown very little interest in my friends, joined us for beers.
Sitting at The Quays bar, listening to some hopeless Lilith Fair wannabe sing Alanis DiFranco Non Blondes songs that just make the drunk Irishmen wanna dance (and weep), with three amazing guys from three very different and yet overlapping parts of my life was so surreal. Somehow, the blending of groups of friends always hold the potential for meltdown. But this night was different. As we all laughed and talked (even about sports) I felt a certain amount of pride for the great people in my life, my ability to choose such a range of quality humans. Like any one else, my life has had many chapters. But even with all of the change, the best part is having my favorite characters around.
Recently, I was voted #7 on someone's list of People Who Just Don't Care. I'm honored, flattered, ecstatic. But I do'nt want to take all of the credit. A lot of people contributed to my flippant, devil-may-care attitude. My ability to tell babies to shut up and to call my mother a nutsack didn't come naturally. No, it took a cultivation that can only come from being raised amongst like-minded individuals. I would like to give proper credit to people I know who JUST DON'T CARE in various ways. So, in no particular order (except #1) here we go:
1. Stephen J. M*Inerny, my father aka The Intimidator. This man knows fifty ways to kill you with his bare hands. This man owned the Raffi songbook. This man can grow facial hair that would make Tom Selleck feel inadequate. This is a man who will ask his daughter's friends what they are doing in his house at 10pm on a Friday night. Who will ask them if they were born in a barn when they leave his front door ajar. Who will tell you, when you call home crying at 11pm, to get yourself together and not call after 10pm unless you're dead.
2. Margaret M. M*Inerny, my mother aka The Obliviator. This is a woman who KNOWS she is wearing just one earring, a woman who wore high-waisted, hyper-tapered jeans both after and before they were ever in style. A woman who will tell you, "hey, that's okay," when you run the family's brand new car into the garage when you forget which pedal is the brake. This is a woman who will fall in the middle of the street in New York City when you're on your way to a college interview and not even CARE that you can't breathe because you keep replaying the image in your head and laughing hysterically. That's right, I laugh when people fall. Why? I don't care.
3. Patrick N. M*Inerny, my little brother aka The Agitator. This is a kid who inverted every American flag in our high school, which nobody noticed. This is a kid who got reamed out by the elderly history teacher for holding up a sign that said GO TWINES (he meant Twins, I'm sure) during a pep rally for the State Tournament Bound football team. This is a kid who patched his own pants with a dirty old washcloth when they sprouted a hole. A kid who argued with my father about why it wasn't important for him to shower on a regular basis. A kid who learned to use a sewing machine at age 10 because he wanted to make pillows, gender stereotype be damned!
4. Mary Clare Jensen, my cousin aka Fuzz. This girl wore nerd glasses until she was 12 and she was still one of the prettiest girls I've ever known. This girl can and does wear sweatpants and make them look hot. This girl can also hold her own at the dinner table with any 300-lb man, including myself. Fuzz has never been afraid to be herself, whether she's openly proclaiming her love for all things Britney or she's spending a night in jail at age 19. But this conversation sums her up best:
Fuzz: I have to write a paper for my media class about how one topic is treated differently by different media.
Me: Cool. You could do the July 7th bombings in London...like Fox News vs. CNN or International media vs. US media.
Fuzz: No way. I'm doing the Loch Ness Monster.
5. David Coyle aka He Doesn't Have Nicknames. If you know David, you know he hates to be labeled. Tell him to cut his hair and he'll grow it into a disgusting mess. Tell him he should was that shirt and he'll wear it again, even if the pits are so stained it looks like he's been brewing iced tea under his arms. Tell him to vote within the 2-party system and he'll tell you to go frost yourself. Mention Prince and this 6'4" 230 pound dude will weep like a teenage girl. Bring up a book and he'll tell you he straught up doesn't read. Mention hegemonic masculinities and he'll talk for hours. Mention Fantasy Sports and he'll ask to join your league.
6. Meghan, my big sister aka The Boobinator for changing her hair as often as her pants-crapping baby changes diapers, for living in sin not once but twice, for dropping out of college, for going back to college, for getting married outside the church by a Lesbian minister, for thinking outside the baby name box, and for being a D-cup girl in a B-cup family. That very last part isn't true at all, I just wanted you to know my sister has huge ones.
7. Gene Weaver, best friend, aka The Man of the 90s. This guy has crapped his pants in Aaron Spelling's offices, and he'll tell you about it with glee. Gene drove a 1986 Chevy Cavalier that leaked ecto cooler and anded up totaled on his lawn in a hit and run.He moved to Hollywood in the Red Jeep Wrangler, kept the top off until October in Minnesota, and now interns in the Minnesota Senate. He will remember every embarrassing detail of your life and repeat it in public. Or on the Internet. Kind of like...me?
8. Erin Mulcahy, best friend aka Sale Rack. Erin wants you to know that her entire outfit cost $17, that she used three coupons and an employee discount to buy it, and that she owns the shoes in two other colors. Erin will get stinking drunk two nights before she has to run a marathon, spend the day before her big run puking and crying and still finish the race. Erin will tell any guy to his face that he is too short, annoying, not funny, or a bad dancer. She will announce after meals that she has "gut rot" and will unapologetically pick food from your teeth or wipe stuff off your face after licking her thumb.
9. Beven O'Brien, best friend aka The Tornado. Beven isn't only the President of I Don't Care, Inc., she's also a member. Beven will stay up all night before a final making a photo collage, then punch that final in the face, come home and read ten Us Weekly magazines and nap for 6 hours. Beven will throw a party and change her outfit five times to reflect the way the party is developing. Beven will pour a beer on a girl who may or may not have given one of her friends a bad look, or kick a girl in the Uterus with a spike heel during a fight. In fact, 94% of those stupid Chuck Norris facts circulating the Internet were originally written about Beven O'Brien.
10. In order to round out the list, points also need to be given to my older Brother Austin aka The Stinkinator, who may or may not see or speak with the family for months at a time and then suddenly grace us with his presence. No apologies. No phone calls. No regrets.
Thanks to all of you for your absolutely indifference. Love you.
Nora
On my walk to to the subway this morning I noticed a sign that read something like this:
Have an extra room in your house or apartment? Enjoy multicultural experiences? Want to earn some extra cash? Call us for information on hosting an exchange student!
Besides the obvious issue, which is that high school exchange students are ignored and ostracized in American schools (the exception of course being Ollie, the Finn who won all of our hearts at De and was not relegated to a lonely existence in the corner of the lunchroom), I took issue with the fact that money was used as a selling point for hosting an exchange student.
Simpsons fans will remember what happened when Bart was sent to France. He ended up smashing grapes in his bare feet and sleeping in a barn. What would you say if I told you that the same thing had happened to me? Minus the whole part about grapes, France, and sleeping in a barn.
As part of my Study Abroad experience in England, we were sent on a "Country Weekend" to see part of the English countryside. For me, this conjured up images of tweed, riding horses, polo, pheasant hunts, and whiskey on the rocks in front of a roaring fire. The study abroad office did little to diminish these dreams. Tales were told of the fun we would have. Would our host parents cook us a lovely welcome dinner? Would we go on long walks together? Would we bond forever? Not quite.
Instead, I was sent to the English equivalent of Pittsburgh, where 3 other American girls and I shivered at night in bunk beds while our host mother, who had taken on extra Americans for the cash, got stinking drunk in the town pub. Within five minutes of meeting us, she had discarded our housewarming gifts and given her 2 year-old child a chocolate filled with vodka. She spent her days with her girlfriends, asking us to clean up the house and mind the children. The house and the children were all natural disasters. I thought for sure that at any moment the British version of Ashton Kutcher would fly out of the closet and tell us we'd been punked.
Alone and unsure of how to dial the cell phone numbers that our fellow Americans had given to us, we prisoners suffered through our country weekend, confident that we were not alone in our suffering. Surely all of the other kids were dealing with the same thing. We could not have been more wrong. Apparently every other group had gotten the kind of mothering we had only dreamed of. One group even spent the weekend on the sea in their host father's boat.
Clearly our host mother was the kind who saw that advertisement and thought, "Hey! Free babysitters and housecleaners who pay ME for taking them? Too good to be true!" I ain't mad atcha, Host Mother. Looking around my messy apartment, I'm almost tempted to do the same thing. Except that I have a studio apartment, and I don't believe that the bathroom counts as an extra room.
This weekend I got a little surprise. Not in the usual form of a medium-sized cockroach sweeping through my peripheral vision while I'm peeing, or the rare sight of a pizza delivery man running his bike into a parked car (which is GOLD as far as the surprise scale goes), but in the form of a street fair.
One of the busier streets in Astoria is Steinway Street, a thoroughfare noted as much for the abundance of restaurants and gold retailers as for the amount of garbage lying in the street. Imagine my surprise when, instead of tripping over a pile of old newspapers, I tripped over a group of small, unsupervised children high on cotton candy.
Nothing says Spring like the sight of hundreds of people milling through the streets pushing double-wide baby strollers and gawking at tables of discounted "NEW YORK FUCKING CITY" t-shirts, velvet paintings of the World Trade Center, and sickly turtles in plastic cages. Which are only $2 apiece, a real steal of a deal.
I caught the tail end of summer 2005 in New York City, and wandered through a few random street fairs in Manhattan, most of them boasting grilled corn on the cob or Philly Cheesesteaks. Apparently in Astoria we get the stinky street fair. I think the general odor was coming from the fact that there were entire deep fried chickens for sale next to the regular street meat vendors, who were blowing their smoke all over the Mister Frostee Truck, which was towering over the smoothie stand, which was throwing its refuse on the hot pavement next to the obese tattooed cholos who were giving away free parakeets with the purchase of a birdcage. Then again, it could have easily been the large number of shirtless and hairy men standing in a crowded street mingling their man odors.
In a way, it reminded me of the Minnesota State Fair, but only if you replace the farm animals with a box of puppies for sale, and replace all sorts of tradition and family fun with a table selling bulk thongs and socks. People were lining up for the bulk socks in numbers I've only seen line up for deep fried cheese curds. But besides those differences, and the fact that the street fair only spans the length of two avenue blocks, it was generally the same: large amounts of large people moseying about and taking anything that is free. I didn't see any free yardsticks, but I couldn't tell you how many people were already sporting their free lanyards and plastic bracelets. Oh, and they did sell deep-fried Oreos, something I had claimed to a Long Islander the night before was a delicacy exclusive to the Minnesota State Fair.
By 5 o'clock, the unsold socks and the unfried meat was being packed into unmarked 15-passenger vans, leaving behind candy wrappers and empty soda cups, fliers and pizza boxes. In other words, leaving things just the way they found them.