Does this make me a hipster?

I tweeted this like, wayyyyy before the other millions of people were hating on Rick Perry.

Hashtag options:

#toldyousoTexas

#AdiosMoFo?

#Idislikepoliticiansthatdon'tevenexistyet

The jury is still out.

Brain freeze

I've been busy with endless deadlines and emergency requests at work. I was so tired today that I thought to myself, "I can't remember if the city in Turkey is called Istanbul or Constantinople." Three minutes later, this song came on the radio. It was surreal... for so many reasons.

***

In other news, I love Gweneth Paltrow. This week's episode of Glee was the first one I've enjoyed this season.

***

After spending A LOT of time with extreme extroverts lately, I realized that two qualities I really value in others are the ability to think carefully and the ability to listen thoughtfully. I know a lot of people who regularly think things through, and several good listeners, but only two or three people who regularly do both. I really treasure their friendship. I am not always the world's greatest listener myself (the thinking takes over sometimes and I start going off on tangents), so I'm grateful that they put up with me. Introverts FTW!

Pandora

I really love the covers of pop songs that Johnny Cash did late in his career (U2, Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, etc).

I know it's probably sort of wrong to say this, but I really wish he'd lived long enough to do a cover of Poker Face.

***

My show last Monday was so much fun. I'm going to post a recap soon. I'm doing the same set tonight (and videotaping it) - I should have the video up next week.

***

I performed at my first open mic last week. It was way less scary than I imagined. Well, except that I did a joke about green dye being toxic, and there was a guy in the front row who had tattooed his entire body (including his face and scalp) green. But whatever. Irony is funny, right?

***

One more weekend of job #2, then ACL weekend (and a house-full of house-guests), and I'll finally (FINALLY!) have a weekend off again. I'm so excited.

Book clubs... and that's about it

I joined a book club at my new job.

And... Sadly, that's about the most exciting thing that has happened in my life lately. I know it sounds terrible (and terribly boring) to say that I've been too busy to do anything interesting lately, but it's the truth.

***

Yesterday I was walking through a building on campus when a news reporter from a local radio station stopped me.

"You just look so nice," she said. "Would you mind giving me a quote for a story I'm doing about a local business that's closing?"

I talked to her a while about the business, but couldn't help but wonder, What did she mean about me "looking nice"? Was she trying to tell me I have a face for radio?

***

One of my new coworkers asked me if I had religious reasons for wearing skirts and dresses all the time.

"Nope," I said. "It's just that the heat index is 110 degrees right now, and I can't stand the thought of ironing pants, let alone wearing them all day. If I were a guy, I'd probably wear a kilt."

Ask me a personal question, you'll get an honest answer.

***

I may be performing stand up again sooner than I'd intended. I was volunteered for a weekly open mic night, signed up for a performance that's happening in about a month, and added to a list of potential comics for an all-female show. I'm not sure I have enough material for any of this, let alone the cajones. But we'll see.

Awkward conversations, pt. 12

Scene: the CVS near my office. I am on a five minute break at work. There are about four customers and two cashiers.

I place my Chex Mix and Coke Zero on the counter.

Cashier: Hello. I'll go ahead and take what you have in your pockets, too.

I stare at the guy for a minute. He smiles at me weirdly. I take my car keys from my pocket and hand them to the cashier. He pretends to scan them, then rings up my other items.

Cashier: That'll be $4.50 please.

I pay. The cashier hands me my items and my keys. I say "Thank you," and leave.

---End scene---

Am I wrong in thinking that interaction was totally bizarre? Did the cashier really think I was shoplifting, or was he just trying to make conversation? Who did the better job one-upping the other person? Me, for actually emptying my pockets, or the cashier, for pretending to scan the contents? (I am afraid, Internets, that the winner in that contest may have been the cashier. After all, I wasn't really being intentionally ironic when I handed him the keys - I was mostly just horrified that he thought I might be a shoplifter.)

Jane in real life

Dear Internets,

Howdy! If you're going to be in Austin during the next two weeks, I'd love to have a chance to meet you at one of the following:

1. The 20 Something Bloggers/Glass SXSWi happy hour.
2. My comedy class performance (as long as you promise not to heckle me.)
   
   click to print

I have many updates to make later this week when I'm not running around like a headless chicken.

XOXO,
Jane

Stalky stalk stalk

Dear Internets,

So it appears that I don't have meningitis (which, logical or not, was my first thought when I woke up with a stiff neck)(I'm glad I'm not the only one whose brain works that way). I guess I just slept in a strange position or something. Anyhoodles.

I found a former coworker's blog (we worked together almost 9 years ago) and have been reading her archives all afternoon. It is so weird. I normally don't feel creepy reading blogs - after all, the writer decides what they do and don't publish - but reading J's blog makes me feel like a total stalker. Even though we haven't talked for several years, there's a weird sense of familiarity. I have eaten lunch with some of the people she talks about. We shop at some of the same grocery stores. Her voice as a writer is so similar to the way she was when I knew her: open, dry, sarcastic, matter-of-fact.

I wonder if she'd censor herself if she knew I was reading her blog (answer: probably not). I wonder how many acquaintances from my past have found my blog (answer: I don't want to think about it).

Thinking about all this has put me in a kind of weird mood. I should probably just stop reading, but that is unlikely to happen. Oh well.

I hope your day has been less weird than mine Internets.

Love,
Jane

Zaps

Dear Homeless Guy,

You zapped me as I walked by. From the surprised look on your face, I am pretty sure that you were only trying to get my attention, and had no intention of shocking me with static electricity. In fact, as I am a notorious foot-dragger, it was probably my fault.

However, it was weird nonetheless.

~Jane

Unintentionally Funny

Dear Internets,

On my way home from my run this morning, I passed a sign inviting kids to sign up for youth cheerleading.

The name of the cheerleading squad?

Hot Balls.

No, I'm not kidding.

Shaking my head,
Jane

Hook 'em?

Dear Random Horn on the Highway,

What were you doing on the highway this morning, random horn?

You looked like one half of a set of those Cadillac horns people used to (supposedly) drive around with. (I've never seen any on a car in real life, except at Texas football games and amusement parks. And possibly once at a Hard Rock Cafe. On a school trip. Don't judge us. We were in middle school.)

If that is where you came from, where's your other half? Why were you out there all alone?

You were such a strange combination of loneliness, mysteriousness and danger. (If you were a man, I probably would have fallen in love immediately.)

I spent most of the rest of my drive trying to decide what would be a more random sight on the highway: half of a set of longhorn horns (like you) or some sort of brass horn, like a trumpet. On the one hand, a brass horn could easily fall out of a moving truck unnoticed.

On the other hand, this is Texas...

Yours bemusedly,
Jane

And now for something completely different

Dear Internets,

Hum-dee-dum...

Oh... Hello. I sure was... angry this morning, huh? Sorry about that.

In an effort to get the embarrassing post from this morning off the top of the page (my finger is itching to just press "delete"), I will share an even more embarrassing anecdote from later in my day:

A student I tutor made me a CD. I think he's probably about 16. (Yes, I feel kind of creepy.) I didn't really know what to say, so I just thanked him and assigned him extra math homework.

In other news, a pregnant homeless woman (who was - no joke - holding a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other) complemented me on my outfit from across the street today while I was walking downtown.

In even more "other news," I apparently won a $350 spa gift certificate at the last triathlon I did.

Maybe I just needed a little catharsis this morning... Emotional feng shui or whatever.

Let's never speak of this again.

Love,
Jane

Jane's Fist of Karma

Dear Internets,

I thought I should tell you that I have possibly lost my marbles.

Tonight I went to a fun local restaurant with a friend with every intention of eating my quesadillas and minding my own business. As we ate though, I couldn't help but notice that the table next to us was getting kind of... loud. The woman (Loud Lady) shouted orders across the room to a waitress in another section. Her boyfriend yelled at a busboy who didn't speak English, apparently because he thought if he JUST TALKED LOUDER AND MORE SLOWLY THE BUSBOY WOULD MAGICALLY UNDERSTAND HIM AND REFILL HIS DRINK. At one point, Loud Lady went into the kitchen and grabbed a fistful of lemons with her grubby bare hand. (Bless his heart, Loud Lady's three-year-old son was the most well-behaved person at their table.)

Despite the fact that Loud Lady and her boyfriend seemed intent on causing a scene, I was doing a fairly good job ignoring them. They weren't drinking, so I figured they wouldn't get any worse. Then the restaurant manager came over to ask the family, if they could possibly help it, to avoid going into the kitchen to get lemons directly out of the lemon bucket.

Loud Lady completely lost it. Didn't the restaurant manager know that they were *regular* customers of the restaurant? Didn't he want their business? DIDN'T HE KNOW IT WAS THAT TRAMPY BLONDE WAITRESS' FAULT THAT THEY *HAD* TO GO GET THEIR OWN LEMONS BECAUSE SHE WOULDN'T BRING THEM MORE LEMONS???

I watched the manager go through the various steps of attempting to reason with a crazy person (the waitress isn't serving your section, your own waiter brought you more lemons several times, that waitress isn't out to get you because you're not tall and thin and blonde, she's just busy) before giving up. I felt bad for him; I've been in his shoes myself. It's the sad reality of customer service that the customer who insists s/he is always right is usually nuts. It's the even sadder reality of low-level management that there's little or nothing you can do to satisfy the nutty customers, except admit responsibility for everything that could possibly be wrong in their lives at the particular moment you happen to be talking to them. (Sometimes, if you denigrate yourself completely, you can even shut them up until the next time they visit your establishment.)

However, emasculating the restaurant manager was not going to be enough to satisfy LoudCrazy Lady. She set in on the sweet, dreadlocked waiter as soon as he came to refill their sodas and iced tea. How DARE he 'tell on' her to management? Didn't he know it was because he and that blonde slut couldn't do their jobs that they had to go get their own lemons? Why didn't he tell that blonde slut he worked with to do her job? WHY DOESN'T HE GO ON OVER AND GET THAT BLONDE SLUT SO CRAZY LADY CAN GIVE HER A LESSON IN HOW TO BRING PEOPLE THEIR DAMN LEMONS? CLEARLY THE WAITSTAFF IS JUST STUPID AND RUDE.

With the manager off licking his wounds, there was nothing the poor waiter could say or do to defend himself, and Crazy Lady knew it.

At this point, Internets, I am embarrassed to say that I lost my cool.

"ACTUALLY, MA'AM," I said (rather loudly). "I think that YOU are the one being rude. You are being so loud that you are disturbing other customers. You need to keep it down."

In retrospect, I know it probably wasn't a good idea to attempt to diffuse a crazy person, and it probably didn't make me look like the world's classiest individual. But Internets... it worked! Crazy Lady made a couple of half-hearted comments about me needing to mind my own business, and the table next to them being the loud ones, but she stayed subdued for the rest of her meal.

I don't know why I told her off. Maybe it was the years spent being yelled at because the supermarket ran out of cherimoyas, or the paper bag handles weren't comfortable, or I forgot to ask if they wanted five nickels or one quarter, or I followed my manager's instructions and let someone through the 10-items-or-less (didn't I know that should be "fewer"?) line with eleven items. Honestly, I'm pretty embarrassed that I said anything to Crazy Lady at all. But the waiter told me thank you, and if I made his $2.13 an hour night any less crappy by speaking up, I think it was worth it.

Don't hate me 'cause I'm crazy, Internets...

Love,
Jane

I kinda always knew I'd end up his ex-girlfriend

Dear Universe,

Why, of all the possible places in the world for my psycho stalker crazy ex to find work, did he get a job here? We dated for around a year, but he followed my movements like a creepy (but somewhat incompetent) federal agent for five years after I broke up with him. I know I work for a big employer, Universe, and that it's a small world, but we didn't even work in the same industry.

Sigh. I thought he had gotten married and moved out of state, but he wasn't wearing a ring. He was definitely still giving off that I-wanna-know-your-every-move vibe. Could you please make sure we don't run into each other very often, Universe? I know you've got my back.

Hugs,
Jane