Things I Don't Get

• so-called viral videos
• trip-hop
• lolcats
  
• most micro and macroeconomics
• "pwned"
  
• wii
  

Obvious Rule #358: Do not mention bathing in professional communications.

#227: Do not to use five ellipses in a span of 28 words.
#4: TAKE IT OFF CAPS LOCK.

From: Ted

To: Holly

Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2009 1:15 PM

Subject: HELLO HOLLY

WOW.. I CAN NOT BELIEVE YOU GOT BACK TO ME SO FAST... THANKS... NOW I PUT OFF MY SWIM IN THE MOUNTAIN STREAM... I WILL CUT IT BACK...TED


From: Holly
To: Ted
Date: Wednesday, February 25, 2009, 2:06 PM

Our word limit for letters to the editor is 500 words. If you could trim this letter down to that limit, we'd be happy to consider it.

Best,

Holly

From: Ted
To: Holly

Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2009 1:11 PM

HOPE ALL IS WELL WITH YOU TODAY. I SENT THIS AS LETTER TO EDITOR. PATRICK'S GREAT REPORTING GOT ME ALL CHARGED UP... TED

Chewin' nails

while listening to a couple new songs my mom sent me (she saves the cards from starbucks and emails me the codes to redeem the free songs), the phone rings.

me: hello?
dad: hey, it's your dad.
me, thinking this is unexpected since he called yesterday: oh hey, what's up?
dad: well i saw your facebook status* and thought i should call.
me: but it was in french.
dad: yeah, i had to google it to find out what it meant.
me, laughing: wow, i'm just realizing that my dad googled my facebook status in french and is calling me at my house in costa rica.
dad: hey, i'm your dad. ... you wanna talk to your sister?
me: sure.
em: hey holl.
me: hey babe. i hear you're quite the public speaker these days.
em: yeah, [speaking at church about their youth group's 30-hour fast] was pretty cool.
me: you know, the sunday where one of the guys spoke about the fast is one of the handful of services i remember from last year. ...
em: well, i don't know who spoke last year, but my speech was way better. i was 3 for 3 making the associate pastor cry.
...
dad: you know, 'when banks compete you win.'
me: i like how you just tried to pull off a bank's tag line as some maxim.
dad: no, it's not a bank's tag line, it's the lending tree's motto. if banks are competing for your business, you get a better deal. it make sense in theory. ... hey, don't laugh at your father.
...
dad: well, anytime you put up despairing messages in french, just know your dad's here.
me: it does sound more desperate in french, doesn't it?
dad: you know, it does.

i have a wonderful family. in particular, they listen very very well. they are the best part of who i am. and if there were ever a special edition six-person family double dare where all the questions were in the form of movie quotes, we would beat the other team by at least $425 and then win all the prizes from the encyclopedia set to the trip to the nasa family space camp with 12 seconds on the clock. easy.

*Holly en a marre. 22 minutes ago

Blindsided by the seizure of a water bottle.

I believe you are the black eye, o petty, dehydrated one:

First Name: Jimmy
State: Alabama

Comments: My wife and I visited your beautiful country in mid-January. We thoroughly enjoyed the visit. Upon our departure, we were blindsided by the security procedures in the airport. In the USA, we are allowed to purchase bottled water in the airport after the security checkpoint entering the concourse. Upon our departure from the San José airport, we were searched again just before entering the aircraft and all water bottles as well as other liquids were taken away. Your airport is selling plenty of bottles of water only to have them taken away at the plane entrance. This put a black eye on your country's security methods especially when we were not previously warned of this. This seems like a small issue but it is the final memory we have of Costa Rica.

Subject: US socialization

From: Raymond
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2009 12:09 PM
To: Info

The United States uses nasal implant controlled socialization (NICS) as part of it’s national profiled indoctrination by bugging infants with puppeting bugs when they are born and still in the nursery with the program run by US intelligence as a domestic values program.

You're concerned. That's sweet.

Unlike their Latino counterparts who have no inner monologue, gringo men rarely say anything out loud to you on the street, although they do stare overtly enough. So I was surprised when I passed a middle-aged whitey with his bespectacled eyes fixed on me as I scurried to the Jacó bus station this weekend and saw him open his mouth to say something.

"Wow," he said, as I braced myself. "I hope you have sunscreen."

A superlative post script, there.

"St. Maria's School for the Grumpy Deaf"? Cute.

A superlative example sentence at the end, there.

Palabra del día:

mamarrachada f fam
1 (comportamiento) bad behaviour
2 (dicho absurdo) stupid story: déjate de mamarrachadas y ponte a estudiar, stop being so stupid and get down to your studies
3 (cosa mal hecha) botch up: esa obra de teatro era una mamarrachada, they really botched up that theatre play

mamarracho mf buffoon, clown: no sé cómo pudiste enamorarte de semejante mamarracho, how could you fall in love with such an idiot?

The hippopotamus was allergic to magic.

Once upon a time... from Capucha on Vimeo.

Francis, we told you to lighten up.

From a review for a voice recorder:

Do you work with people who will tell you one thing, then "conveniently" forget what they said when questioned by the Boss? Me too. Does your Boss never answer your emails in writing, but always calls or speaks to you personally to answer your emails? Mine too. You NEED this digital voice recorder!

"When I saw the horse's head coming toward the windshield ..."

"... I thought I was sleeping and that I was having a nightmare. How could have I imagined that a horse was going to fall into the car?"

A runaway horse was plummeting down the street at about 1 a.m. when it tried to jump over William Lerroy's taxi ... and didn't make it, but went through the windshield and was killed.

Lerroy was badly cut and shook up, but was able to leave the hospital after 24 hours.

But his car – and livelihood, for that matter – was totaled. Lerroy had only bought the car in November, after making the career switch from salesperson to what you could call freelance taxi driver.

The clincher: "Although authorities located the horse's owner, he denied that the animal involved in the accident belonged to him. The animal had no markings.

... Even though the penal code sentences 'owners or handlers of domestic animals or other animals that, either for abandonment or negligence, cause damage to others' property' of 5 to 15 days in prison, the article was annulled February 28, 2008."

(The picture is a snapped a shot of mine of the evening news.)

This is why editors become curt jerks.

Because if you give contributors even the slightest leeway you didn't even know you were giving, they end up retching worthless responses and waxing poetic about your eyes:

--- On Mon, 2/2/09, Holly wrote:

Hi Ted,

Quick question re your Perspective submission. What is your latest novel about? Thanks in advance.

Best,

Holly

--- On Mon, 2/2/09, Ted wrote:

Thank you Holly for your little sunshine on a Monday morning:

What is it about? hummm... I like to say its about getting up when lifes drive you to the ground; to make big changes in the face of doubt, don't give up on those dreams. I suppose Henry Miller summed it up for me when he wrote: "Writing is about life; and life is 880 hourse power in a two cylindar engine." Stories can capture some of this, with all the love, tears, confucsions etc, to bring home the greatest reality of life: it all happened before and it will happen again. Like the water rushing down our rivers here, it will be back.

Let me send you he cover to the book, whose back cover gives some information. (plus the covers of two other of my books soon to come out... just for your information, not to load you up) .... I live the life of a writer more than I want to.

The novel is based on a story I wrote to be published under one cover; but forces around me, with more common sense than I, convinced me to bring them out as a trilogy. After considerable re-work, it is as I once dreamed. Some writers never get to see their work as they intended as you know. A piece I wrote in 2004, if I had time today I would slash and burn pieces of it, you can scan and perhaps get for some feeling for what my storytelling is about.

I am also uploading the introduction to my poetry book; throw it away or it may be of some help.

the last page of my "Gesar Tale" sign off the acknowlegement, and reads: "San Jose, Costa Rica, September, 2008." It was published a little over a month ago. It has been send to reviewers but nothing as of yet.

give my best to (the editor). His character and his humanity glow in those eyes, a real good guy.

thanks,,, ted

1 Ulysses = 260,000 words

I like this one better: No sweet slides, but all the same enthusiasm, some of the same analogies, and less performance.



Erin McKean speaking to Google in 2006, "Verbatim."

"Some of my best friends are books."

"There will still be paper dictionaries. When cars became the dominant mode of transportation, we didn't round up all the horses and shoot them."

My one comment: Spanish long ago beat English to the whole let's-just-make-everything-a-word game. While such a (happy! non-judgmental! progressive!) fluid relation with words can at times be useful (permanecerse), inventive (mariposear), or sometimes cute (cuchear), it can also be an amorphous mess, and you end up with words like "fotorrejuvenecimiento" and "futbolisticamente." And that's just a little too close to German, folks.

"90 minutes of fun"

If I had a nickel for every cab driver who's asked me why a girl like me is single, I'd probably have at least $2 by now. I wouldn't know, I usually tell the taxistas, you'd have to ask the boys. I don't bother to tell them that, while the boys have never had enough gumption to take me on a date, they have had enough to proposition me, a few times. Other people get 15 minutes of fame, while I get offered 90 minutes of fun. It's not something I quite understand.

I've never liked to kiss & tell, for a lot of reasons, but often it's just because there's this startling paucity of any real stories worth telling. I embellish most of them (sometimes past the point of embellishing to appropriating someone else's bit and slipping it in as mine) just to be able to come up with any droll bit because the stories as they are are rather deflating. Sure, there were some nice moments with some guys, but mostly, I've just seen a lot of game, very little original material. Those sweeter moments are usually the same ones they recreate or elaborate on with the next girl, so it wasn't anything specific about me they appreciated about me, they just like appreciating girls. Like the way you have a job: if they hadn't hired you or once you leave, they just hire someone else, but no one's ever set on having you around. I'm plenty amusing and have a pretty enough smile, but nothing to compel them either. In the lower moments, it feels like a lot of wasted heart, but I'd rather feel that than that I was arbitrary to someone. At that point, there's not a lot I can do, including resent it. It is what it is.

But if you are with someone, please appreciate them. There are a lot of people who fall in love in the world, but it's not something we're ever promised. To have someone who will put up with you, to watch the game with, give to, who will challenge you without judging you, who'll stand up for you and maybe even throw a hook at the guy who just insulted you, someone who knows they want to be with you regardless of where you are or what you're in, that's a gift. So don't take them for granted and show them this. Give them a story.