Pointless Incessant Barking

2008-04-08T17:51:00.000-07:00

Three years into this
I can't write another paper
I'm all out of words

Colds make me cranky
To breathe through my nose again
That would be sublime!

2007-10-22T20:40:00.000-07:00

Haiku in honor of my Old English midterm

Why must nouns decline?
It's so unnecessary
Scip, scipes, scipum

2007-09-23T20:38:00.000-07:00

Haiku for delicious political scandal

He is not gay
Larry Craig of Idaho
I’ll use the ladies’

Loyal factotum
Poor Alberto Gonzales
He cannot recall

2007-09-04T20:34:00.000-07:00

Haiku for my new cell phone

Technophobe tamer
Motorolla, sleek and black
Your bell tolls for me

Three haiku on Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel
Why do you lose my data?
This isn't working

So many errors
I try not to lose patience
I'm pushed to the brink

The data I want
You just can't seem to find it
It's over for us

Haiku for my electric kettle

Melita Express
You boil my water so fast
No need for patience

2007-08-22T13:52:00.000-07:00

Dear Cathy,

My mother pointed out that I’m one of a rather select group that you asked to participate in the little “8 interesting things about me” project. Not only am I flattered, I’m also sufficiently self-involved to really enjoy a guilt-free opportunity to write about myself. This isn’t to say that I don’t usually write about myself, just that I’m less likely to feel embarrassed about it in this context.

And so, without further ado, I present you with eight things about me, which will hopefully provide at least a little amusement:

1. I’m not one of these people who have a slew of neat little party tricks. I can’t touch my nose with my tongue, I definitely can’t do a standing backflip, and, to the best of my knowledge I’m not double-jointed anywhere I shouldn’t be. I do, however, have one little talent that either impresses people or causes them to look at me like I’m Linda Blair in The Exorcist. I’m a lefty who also has an odd ability to write backwards nearly as easily and as neatly as I do normally. I don’t think I ever learned how—I just looked at the letters and instinctively inverted them. I’m told Da Vinci, a fellow lefty, also did this, which is, not to put too fine a point on it, flippin’ sweet.

2. When I was about seven, I developed a series of rather unusual habits, some of which have stuck with me. When I take a shower, for example, I always kick the tile just above the drain plug six times. For about two years, I had to go to bed at exactly 9:17. Walking down the hallway at my father’s house, I try to step only on the bumps in the carpet. Sometimes they take the form of games or challenges: If I reach the stop sign before I can count to thirty, I win. I’ve always thought of them that way, as games, although I’m told by people in a position to know that they’re more along the lines of tics or compulsions. I suppose some people would advocate medicating them away. I’ve never wanted to. They are so much a part of my mental landscape that I think I would miss them if they went away.

3. I misspelled the word “occasionally” on a spelling test in ninth grade, ruining my perfect spelling record. My asshole English teacher announced this in front of the entire class, and I’m still bitter about it.

4. When I was seventeen, I wrote an essay that was selected for broadcast on KQED’s Perspectives series. The essay was about why I was a vegetarian, and why I continued to struggle with the temptation to eat meat. A year after it aired (about six and a half years into my vegetarianism), I caved. I secretly fear someone will call me out on it.

5. Some kids go through a shark phase. Some go through an astronaut phase. At ten, I went through a serious Eleanor of Aquitaine phase. I read anything I could get my hands on, and would parrot everything I learned to anyone who would listen. My father jokingly remarked that I was the world’s foremost eleven-year-old scholar of Eleanor of Aquitaine. What’s frightening is that he was probably correct. Once I entered middle school, however, I realized that a small-scale obsession with a relatively obscure monarch of the twelfth century would do little to advance my social standing. This began my long career of trying to be liked and yet not sell my soul, an unhappy compromise I have yet to fully master. Ultimately, this all became fodder for my Stanford admissions essay. Writing is a strange kind of alchemy, transforming bad experiences into good essays.

6. I once locked my keys in the car. With the car still running. For an hour.

7. When I’m really and truly deadlocked on a paper, there’s only one thing that undoes the writer’s block: Broadway musicals. I can’t lie, there’s something about the original Broadway cast recording of A Chorus Line that always pushes me through those last heinous pages of a truly wretched paper. In general, I have fairly decent musical tastes, but Broadway musicals are my tragic and colossal downfall. Sure, they’re cheesy and bombastic, but I’m a sucker for a sweeping melody.

8. I fondly wish that Clinton Kelly of “What Not To Wear” was both straight and my boyfriend. But then, who doesn’t, really?

I hope you feel enriched by this newfound knowledge.

Cheers,
Susie

2007-08-02T15:02:00.000-07:00

Dear Cathy,

I learned recently that Avril Lavigne is entangled in some sort of copyright dispute. It's alleged she stole the song "Girlfriend" from some 1970s band. I don't really care whether she did or didn't. Mostly what worries me is that there is more than one person that actually wants to take credit for that crap pile of a song. You'd think it would be hard enough to get one person to own up to it. What's next, two dogs going to court over whose shit is on the carpet?

This has really been bothering me recently.

Yr. most humble and obedient servant &c.,
Susie

P.S. On an unrelated note, do you ever grow out of the thing where you always manage to say something really dumb when a cute guy from work is around? I really hope so.

2007-07-18T08:31:00.000-07:00

Dear Cathy,

I have decided to resume blogging so as to amuse you during your period of convalescence. I fear that you may try to do work again for want of distraction, and we can’t have that. I’ve also decided that this should be an epistolary blog, as it’s both classier and removes the illusion that anyone will read this other than you and Lumpy.

After looking over your high school reunion ephemera this weekend, I’ve made some observations about life after high school:

There’s at least a fifty percent chance of finding Jesus post-graduation. (In Soviet Russia, of course, Jesus finds you.)
Some of those that find Jesus are interested in turning out “Christ-like athletes.” When crucifixion becomes a sport, we’ll talk. Feel the burn!
Girls that used to be hoe-y (1) become schoolteachers with exceptional penmanship and attractive daughters. One can only assume such daughters have skanky ambitions of their own.
To be an adult, you must like hiking, yoga, and wine. Failure on any of these count results in expulsion from the club. If you think wine tastes like ass, I imagine you’re obliged suck it up and pretend.
Wanting to discuss one’s ailments isn’t just for the elderly and infirm anymore!
Folks, however much you’d like to believe it, dogs are not biological offspring. Fido’s affections are strongly linked to his stomach, if you catch my drift.
Everyone tells you that after high school, the smart girls do better than the pretty girls. No greater falsehood has ever been propagated. One or two smart girls might beat the odds, but the pretty girls always win.

It’s strange for me to think about these things, as I’m still very much in the process of trying to figure out what, if anything, high school Means. My strongest memory of high school is that overwhelming sensation of waiting for something to happen. It wasn’t an altogether unpleasant sensation, just an odd one. Ultimately nothing ever did manage to happen. Maybe it’s best. In my experience, when things happen in high school, they’re usually bad…or involve pig’s blood.

Go Vikes!

I remain, madam,
Yr. most humble and obedient servant &c.

Susie

(1) If you think "hoe-y" isn't a word, you're probably just imagining it.

2006-08-15T09:39:00.000-07:00

It's time to take out an enormous Sharpie pen and cross "secretary" off my list of potential future careers. Strictly speaking, I haven't actually written such a list, but should I ever pen one, I would like to publicly announce that "secretary" will not be on it.

I hate it. I hate Post-Its, "While You Were Out" sheets, and "Sign Here" stickies. I hate form 1735, form 1676, and especially form 1676A. I hate the fax machine. I hate signing for Fed-Ex packages. I hate the mailroom. I hate that my $46,000 education has abandoned me here, answering the phones. "Exobiology, how can I help you?" I feel like I lose an IQ point every time say it. I want to bathe myself in bleach after each utterance.

Oh, I know there are worse jobs. I know I could be pumping someone's gas or working at a horrible restaurant chain where they make you wear fourteen pieces of flair. I'm sure management forces you to say and do all sorts of gacky corporate things. I'm sure you make shit money from tips. I'm sure customers are rude. I'm sure reciting the salad dressing selection gets old. But you don't have to say "Exobiology, how can I help you?"

It's something about that phrase that gets to me. It sounds wrong, somehow, every time it falls from my mouth. And of course you have to say it with that perky secretarial falsetto with upward inflection. You can't just say it like a normal human. No darling, that simply wouldn't do.

I'm an English major type; perhaps I can rewrite it. "Exobiology, for whom does this bell toll?" "Exobiology, speak low if you speak spectroscopy." "Exobiology, I was your peer reviewer." "Exobiology, how may I steal your data?" "Exobiology, I'll only do your paperwork if you offer to make me a co-author."

Or perhaps something simpler, more to the point: "Exobiology, fuck off and stop wasting my time."

2006-07-18T15:47:00.000-07:00

Things To Do
(Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love My Sunday)

1. Avoid drowning sorrows in the insalubrious institutions of Diet Coke and Jolly Ranchers.

2. Reorganize closet. Refrain from anthropomorphizing contents thereof so they may be properly disposed of. (For example: the Hallmark Woodstock with Shamrock™ is a lifeless hunk of polyester. It cannot think, feel, or beg for mercy as I throw it into a trash bag. The Woodstock with Shamrock™ is not a sentient being.)

3. Look at cell phone resentfully when it doesn’t ring, but aggressively screen calls on the rare occasions it actually does.

4. Use ironing as a means of finding inner calm. Appreciate the zen of laundry.

5. Sharpen wit.

6. Think of something to write for blog in an attempt to beat the infamous two entry curse. (Possibilities: Why I Am So Incredibly Freaking Sick Of Seeing Commercials For "Little Man" on TV; There Is Absolutely No Excuse For Not Correctly Punctuating Text Messages; The Phenomenology of Dumbassery; Ramen Noodles Are The Misunderstood Geniuses Of The Snack Food Aisle.)

7. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

2006-06-28T13:33:00.000-07:00

Today is my division’s annual summer barbecue. For a cynical intern, the company picnic poses a real dilemma: the realization that there will be no one in the office during lunch clashes with primal lust for free food. (And lo, my virtue is being tested by the cases of barbecue-bound Diet Coke in our office, ripe for the stealing.) My current plan is to go, snag food, and slink back into the office to read uninterrupted. But the real danger is that in the process of food-snaggage, I will run into someone with whom I will then be forced to make actual conversation, completely destroying the sanctity of my lunch break. Despite my ambivalence about going at all, I signed up for a veggie burger, fruitlessly hoping that in some small way I was destroying their carefully designed system: “I’m not even going to eat my thirty-cent Gardenburger! Take that, fuckers!” O, the depths to which I have sunk.

Although yesterday was actually fairly busy, today has returned to usual. So far, I have had and completed one (1) task. My job was to deliver a package to another building in our complex, which, through extraordinary skill, I managed to stretch out into an hour. I easily could have accomplished the same feat in half that time—interns have access to little electric golf carts so as to deliver things quickly, but as far as I’m concerned, time is not of the essence. I hoofed it, thereby killing an eighth of the day. If that isn’t commitment, I really don’t know what is.

I take no enjoyment in time-wasting stunts of that nature, but with so little actual work and an entire day to kill, I have to find ways to avoid gouging my eyes out with a plastic spork stolen from the break room. On an average day, I’ll probably have about three actual tasks (“action items,” for Bureaucratese speakers). These take, on average, half an hour each. Like Peter in Office Space, “on a typical day, I probably do about an hour and a half of actual work.” Yet there is little joy in shirking duties when there are no duties to shirk.

The total futility of my working existence was confirmed when my fellow intern and I recently realized that our (admittedly generous) pay doesn’t even come out of our office’s budget, so productivity is not an issue. It’s both comforting and depressing now that I realize that it honestly makes no difference to my supervisors whether I do a good job, a bad job, or no job at all.

Fuck it. I’m taking the Diet Coke.

2006-06-26T10:20:00.000-07:00

At the suggestion of Cathy, I have decided to start blogging. This is an act of desparation, to be sure, but it's 10:19 a.m. and I have completely exhausted the supply of legitimate work to be done. Checking my e-mail roughly 30,000 times a minute has its perks, but I think blogging looks a little more like work to the casual observer. In the interest of full disclosure, I must now own up to a brief and ill-fated LiveJournal, which was preceded by an OpenDiary, the depths of whose misdirected adolescent angst cannot even be described. If you were unfortunate enough to experience either of the above, I apologize. I can't honestly say I've changed that much, but mercifully, I no longer channel my woes into verse. All things considered, I believe the cringe factor promises to be slightly lower this time around.

The basic gist of my problem is the following: I have a lot of energy. I like work. I'm eager to please. I'm a lot like how I imagine Al Gore might have been as a nineteen-year-old. I am currently stuck 40 hours a week in a summer job with nothing to do. I have no idea how I'm going to swing a good reference out of this experience. "Yes, Susie did a phenomenal job sitting in our office. Really stellar. She looked very decorative."

I pick up this entry again after having done an actual hour of real work (!). Filing award letters--it's a living. Also, just got back from an interesting talk on the recent solar eclipse over Turkey. It was interesting, but the best part was hearing the scientists say things like "Well, the ro-vibrations are clearly going to make your Si9 readings inaccurate." I mean, obviously.

One of my fellow interns has a handmade picture frame on her desk. It's one of those things you get as a birthday present from your best friend, filled with goofy photos, one of those tacky but theoretically meaningful knick-knacks that say "Friends!!!!!" at the top in pink glittery pen. (I have to admit, those things really give me the ass. Like, if you have a picture of someone on your desk, it's not as if you don't already know your relationship to them. I've never looked at a picture on my desk and wondered, "You know, who is that fucker?") Anyway, "Friends" is what it's supposed to say. What it really says, though, is "Frieds."