More than meets the I

I wonder if Rhea Perlman even fantasizes about Danny DeVito? (She's married to him, or was last I checked, for those of you playing along at home.)


This has nothing to do with today's topic; it just occurred to me and I wanted to use it as a title. :-D

So I was reflecting on one of the stupidest things I've ever done. (These things do not include Danny DeVito.) Was everyone as dumb in middle school as I was? I'd like to think I'm not alone here.

In any case, in my 12 year old brilliance, I noticed -- stay with me here -- I noticed that people tended to hang out in groups. Yes! I came upon this realization all by myself! AND -- who says lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place, namely my cranium? -- these groups often tended to revolve around one person, the popular star shining brightly amidst a hormonal preteen solar system. For example: the popular kids at my school, the skaters (sk8ters? Is that what the kids call it these days?) all tended to clump around this kid Bumper. Bumper. Andrew "Bumper" Levy III, whose phone number I still! remember despite the fact that it probably hasn't been his phone number in a decade, because I had SUCH a giant crush on him. Heh -- me n' every other girl at Mountainside in 1993. Ah. Bumper, Bumper, recipient of my first prank calls ... he answered the phone and I quickly and gigglingly pushed play on my tape deck, and dear Bumper was (probably briefly) serenaded by the Divinyls' "I Touch Myself." ... well, I digress. Anyway, there were all these groups, and they all seemed to have one ringleader, if you will forgive the mixing of metaphors.

"Well!" I thought to myself. "My group of friends needs a ringleader too!" (My group of friends at this point consisted of maybe five people.) Naturally, I assumed that this lofty position would fall to yours truly. And to prove it I decided to hold ...

*drum roll*

An election.

...

(What is the opposite of a lightning strike?)

Anyway, my brilliant idea was to hold an election to choose the ringleader of our group. Was it for self-aggrandizement, sure. A bit of an ego boost, yeah. Who's not guilty of such a thing? As I recall, it was between myself and friends Wynter and Alyssa. And we sat around at lunch, and everyone wrote on little bits of paper who they thought it should be, and ... and ...

And I lost.

In retrospect, I'm sure my ego needed the deflation, and it certainly helped underscore the fact that it was a really, really, really stupid idea in the first place.

*sigh*

... hmm. I wonder if anyone has ever prank called Danny DeVito with the Divinyls? Poor Danny DeVito.

Dear Juliet,

Thank you for your letters. You have singlehandedly rekindled my interest in mail. Though I still lack the motivation to respond in actual, paper kind, looking forward to your missives has become a particular joy in my week.

Your intimacy cards were a treat. I admit that when I first received them, I was not certain of their purpose. I read the first two or so, and thought "these can't be specifically directed at me, because I don't think Juliet and I have even talked on the phone, let alone peed on the phone with each other." But as I went further through I understood (I think) that the purpose was merely for me to choose what to do with them. I sat on the couch with my boyfriend and decided to give him all of the ones that applied -- and I read each and every one, and each and every one found their way into his hands. It was quite a beautiful shared experience. Thank you.

As to your recent question, I ask your permission to change it a bit. You asked me "what have you seen that has changed your life?" I lay down and thought on this for a while, and I came to the conclusion that I am just not a visual person. I am certain I have, in fact, seen things that have changed my life -- for instance, I once saw my mother stung by a bee, and now I am terrified of them though I have no personal experience with bee stings -- however, I cannot confidently point to a single momentous occasion in my memory and say "see that, that thing in shades of purple and gold and beige, THAT changed me forever, for better or worse."

I can, however, tell you of things I've heard.

Orchestral music. Specifically, the kind that came with Saturday morning Bugs Bunny cartoons. It didn't make a conscious impression at the time, I think, but I can say this for certain because some of my happiest moments have been PLAYING those pieces -- the William Tell Overture, those themes of sunrises and galloping horses, "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from Peer Gynt, "The Barber of Seville," Beethoven's 5th, Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and Juliet." Would I have made such an emotional connection with my violin without such a soundtrack to my childhood? It is a small, humble beginning, and yet I feel it is a very powerful connection.

My mother, louder than I have ever heard her: "GET OUT OF THE HOUSE THE HOUSE IS ON FIIIIIIIIIRE!!!"

The sound of waves. I fear I am a Selkie girl who has permanently lost her skin, and yet I will always yearn for that salty taste in the air and the crash, hiss, murmur of ocean percussion.

The awful gasp CRUNCH hissssssss of the cars smashing together. The sirens, the murmurs; my own voice, crying uncontrollably from a distance, seeming to belong to someone else. Later, through a morphine haze: my proto-tough 10 year old brother, seeing me lying in the bed with the collar on my neck, bursting into tears and burying his face in my father's side.

Tarkan's "Simarik." (The "Kiss Kiss" song.) I danced to this song on several occassions at Oasis; it's very probable that this began my path toward bellydancerdom.

The terrible, heavy absence of my mother as I closed the door to my Tempe apartment for the last time and stepped into the Chicago-bound truck.

Cliff's heartbeat; his voice in the dark: "Do you remember what you asked me for?" (This I will not explain.)



Will this do?

Sincerely,
Jeannette

Curse Myspace and its stupid hold on me. The giant juvenile juggernaut annoys me terribly: the ridiculous "top eight" politics, the pettiness, the freshman-in-high-school feel of the thing. So WHY do I still log in every day, hoping for new comments and blog posts? I mean, without that medium it's probable that I wouldn't keep in touch with a lot of people at all, but is it really worth it to trade a few one liners every few weeks?

I even find it kind of scary. People have been contacting me that I haven't talked to since high school, middle school, even grade school. And I have to wonder: if we haven't talked in ten or fifteen years, why should we start up again now? I suck at keeping in touch with people who are much closer to me, trust me; there is absolutely no point to trying to revive relationships that have been dead ten years or more. Who else is going to attemp to resurface? Goddamn, I wish I could just let the stupid thing go.

But then I wouldn't discover things like this:



Yeah, let me know how many days it's stuck in YOUR head. I'm going on four, personally. :-\ Thanks, Morgan! (Thanks a freakin' lot!) :-D <3

---Disclaimer---
There is no real point to this post. But is there ever, really? ... on with the show!
--------------


Appropriately, since Phil Collins is currently warbling over the Musak at the Pearl Tea restaurant in which I'm sitting, here is the long-awaited post on Why Phil Collins Will Always Be Special To Me Even Though It's Kind Of Dorky At My Age.

To begin, allow me to point out that Wikipedia is an awesome source of inspiration. There have been a few times now when I felt like writing but no immmediate subject leapt to mind, and it merely took a visit to Wikipedia's main page to find inspiration for the day. The entry on Hulk Hogan's Pastamania came from there. Let me re-emphasize that: Wikipedia is ___________(adjective) enough to feature a colossal failure of a restaurant by one of the goofiest characters in recent history on its main page. This is why Wikipedia rocks.

Some backstory: I have a half-sister, Julie, from my father's first marriage. She is eight years older than I am (and Price is eight years younger; Dad used to say "every eight years I get dangerous!" before my parents decided to, ah, neutralize the danger, and now you know all my fucked-up-ness can be chalked up to the fact that I am a middle child). For some reason I still don't understand to this day, and I don't think anyone else does either, Julie spent a little over a decade not speaking to our branch of the family. She got married and had a kid (and has had another since) and then, with the perspective that everyone assures me comes with being a parent, decided she liked us again. Now she's comfortably back in the picture, and Mom and Dad get to be grandparents, which has them tickled silly. (Especially Mom; it's adorable.)

Julie lived with her mother in Ohio during my childhood, but she came out to visit now and again. And I idolized her. I remember waking up one morning at some ridiculous hour, 6am or some such, and lovingly pouring Julie -- teenaged Julie, so you KNOW she wasn't getting up that early -- a bowl of Shredded Mini Wheats and placing on the table beside her bed for when she woke up. And then I waited. And waited. Aaaaaaaand waited. And when she finally woke up at 9something, she wasn't in the least interested in that bowl of Soggified Mini Wheats I had poured for her. I think I cried.

On one of Julie's visits out, she generously planted her Walkman headphones on my young ears and bade me listen to her very exciting BRAND NEW TAPE. I was around nine years old -- I have to admit, the main reason I think this is because I looked up the album she was then raving about, "... But Seriously," and Wikipedia tells me it came out in 1989 -- which would have put her at a tough, grown-up 18. Frankly, I don't even remember the song I heard that day before she gently stole the headphones back and returned them to her own ears. All I knew was, My Big Sis was listening to this Phil Collins guy, and that meant he rocked hardcore enough for me! (Not that I used terms like "hardcore" back then.)

It escalated from there. I received the tape of "Invisible Touch" (which, for those of you playing along at home, was actually Genesis and not just Phil Collins) for my birthday. I would love to know if anyone reading this actually listened to that album, because if you did then this next image might be particularly amusing and/or disturbing: picture an 11 year old (or so) Jeannette, performing some gawdawful version of ballet to the instrumental last song on the album, capering about ridiculously in a unicorn-filled bedroom before rewinding -- rewinding! -- and doing it all over again. I have always been a dork. I remember hearing some live version of the title track, and instead of saying "and you know she will mess up your life" like he was supposed to, he said "and you know she will FUCK up your life," and -- and -- WHAT? Ooh, hope Mom didn't hear that. :-D

The song "I Can't Dance" was a fairly big hit directly after my house burned down. I know this because the house we stayed in during the reconstruction gave me my first taste of cable, sweet, sweet cable, and I spent a LOT of time with my new friends MTV and VH1, and they played that video pretty often. (MTV still played music back then, can you imagine?) Darling, short, chubby Phil Collins, trying to impress women on the beach and burly rough-and-tough pool players in the bar. He even deploys The Eyebrow in that video: "The perfect body, with the perfect face ... [EYEBROW] mm hmm!"

I must admit, my love for Phil Collins has fizzled in recent years. I didn't find myself leaping out to buy the "Tarzan" soundtrack; in fact, I don't even think I have any Phil or Genesis albums in my collection today. But Genesis was The Band of my childhood. We all have that, don't we? Yes, you danced in front of your bathroom mirror, holding your toothbrush as a microphone, waving to the fans just out of sight beyond the bathtub curtain, practicing your sexy wink for the day you would have cameras pointed at you for real. What was That Band for you? I'm curious.

Anyway, like I said, no point, no moral, nothing. Kid-Jeannette liked Phil Collins and Adult-Jeannette still does. Yes, I am still a dork. :) But it just goes to show you those childhood influences are damn tough to shake, even when your friends make fun of you for liking Genesis and the Eagles and Journey.

You're just jealous cause you don't have my mad pseudo-ballet skillz.

So ... tired.

Who knew that sitting in front of a computer doing data entry for eight hours a day was so completely draining? Even if I do get to wear jeans and work with awesome folks.

I ain't complaining ... merely giving excuses for the lack of long, well thought out, non-whining-about-family posts lately. I had this great one in my head about Phil Collins and why he's always going to be special to me, and fuck, I am just too tired to write it. Maybe over the weekend.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn. Oh, hey, Allan, I was listening to this band that my friend Justin sent me, and it reminded me of you and I thought I'd pass it along. Nick Cave and the Badseeds. I'm not sure if you would actually like it or not but I say give it a whirl. :)

Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time for a nap.

I've had a lot on my mind lately.

I've been working with an absolutely lovely lady these past few weeks. She's got kids in their late teens, so she's at that stage of parenthood where she's steeling herself to let go, even though it's obviously hard for her. "I always want my kids to come to me if they have problems," she says. "They're gonna fall, and they're gonna fall hard -- but I want them to know that they can always come to us, because we'll always soften their fall for them. We are the softest place they're ever going to fall."

My folks have never used those exact words, but I recognize now that that has always been their attitude. I've been wandering around my apartment lately noticing -- really paying attention maybe for the first time -- everything I have that my parents have given me. Nearly everything in my kitchen came from my parents, over the course of several birthdays and Christmases and such. My favorite flip flops. My book of "Special Recipes Created with Love from Mom." My lamps. My bathroom towels. My TV stand. My TV. Everywhere I turn, there are objects that my folks have donated to my cause.

And these are just the tangible objects. I can't even count all the intangible ways they've been there for me. They, truly, have always cushioned my falls -- and I've rarely even noticed the padding, perhaps because I've never had to go without it.

In case you're wondering, I'm not writing this to butter anyone up. I don't even know if my parents are reading anything new I post. This blog is meant to be a record of my soul growth, and this particular entry, I think, marks a major leap. Children don't appreciate their parents. Adults do. I can't imagine what my life would be like today without all the gifts, big, small, and everything in between, that my parents have given me.

I think I might officially be grown up.

Things are on the mend; thank you for yer support. :) Perhaps I will stop being quite so personal in the future ... about other people, at least.

In any case, today is the big 6-6-06 thing, right? Personally, MY panties aren't in a bunch over it, but here are some "facts" I thought you might enjoy, from The Straight Dope.

660 = Approximate number of the Beast
DCLXVI = Roman numeral of the Beast
666.0000 = Number of the High Precision Beast
0.666 = Number of the Millibeast
/ 666 = Beast Common Denominator
(-666) ^ (1/2) = Imaginary number of the Beast
6.66 e3 = Floating point Beast
1010011010 = Binary of the Beast
6, uh . . . what was that number again? = Number of the Blonde Beast
1-666 = Area code of the Beast
00666 = Zip code of the Beast
666mph = The speed limit of the Beast
$665.95 = Retail price of the Beast
$699.25 = Price of the Beast plus 5% state sales tax
$769.95 = Price of the Beast with all accessories and replacement soul
$656.66 = Walmart price of the Beast
$646.66 = Next week's Walmart price of the Beast
Phillips 666 = Gasoline of the Beast
Route 666 = Way of the Beast
666 F = Oven temperature for roast Beast
666k = Retirement plan of the Beast
666 mg = Recommended Minimum Daily Requirement of Beast
6.66 % = 5 year CD interest rate at First Beast of Hell National Bank, $666 minimum deposit.
$666/hr = Beast's lawyer's billing rate
Lotus 6-6-6 = Spreadsheet of the Beast
Word 6.66 = Word Processor of the Beast
i66686 = CPU of the Beast
665.9997856 = The Number of the Beast on a Pentium
666i = BMW of the Beast
DSM-666 (revised) = Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the Beast
1232 Octal, Apt. 29A = Beast's hexed address
668 = Next-door neighbor of the Beast
333 = The semi-Christ

There are actual facts in the article too; you can read them here.


And now, for EVEN MORE amusement: you love Spiderman, right? Did you know Mysterio is gay for Spiderman? Did you know Spiderman is able to pay for things in Rape Dollars? You go here right now!

:-D