Sarcomical

Guilford Avenue Nightlife Through the Glass...

...from inside Spin in Broad Ripple Village, July 11, 2008

How Bluetooth Headsets Could Mean Certain Death

I want to tell you about a conversation The Husband and I had the other night. But before I do that, a little setup, if I could...

So, I don't try to be the Old Man in the room who shakes his fist at technology that I don't think is necessary, even though I was once hesitant to embrace the mp3 player long ago (I know! I can hardly believe it myself), and even longer before that I remember resenting the DVD for trying to replace all of my video tapes (oh, this is getting more embarrassing), but honestly, I have come full circle for the most part to be among the first to embrace and get excited about much of what is New and Shiny, Faster and More Efficient. Hey, I can be a girl of the future.

But let's talk about this thing called Bluetooth, shall we? True, it's useful. It offers hands-free talking while driving, and reduces that killer neck cramp from holding a phone between your cheek and shoulder all day long. I get it. It's great. I even have one, though I rarely use it. But there are a few things I really, REALLY hate about it.

I hate it when I see someone walking through the grocery store with his Bluetooth attached to his head. And into restaurants. And the bookstore. And the movies. And basically continually attached to his or her ear like a big, metallic tick. I apologize if you're one of those people; I'm sure you're otherwise quite a fascinating and wonderful person. I just can't deny my annoyance with this little piece of technology, and I can't explain why it gets on my nerves as much as it does. Well...I guess it's the "I'm SOOO important that I can't be unattached from my phone for even ONE moment. See how much people need to talk to me? See how vital it is to the world that I am able to be accessible even when I'm picking up these cucumbers and putting them in a plastic bag?" Yeah, I guess it's kind of like that. I suppose my Old Man was really shaking his fist a few nights ago, when I called The Husband, who happened to be in a hotel room in Tennessee:

Ring...Ring...Ring...Ring...Ring...Ring...(I think about hanging up)...Ring-
Him: Hello?
Me: Oh, hey. I was almost going to hang up. Why does it seem like your phone's ringing a lot longer before you answer the phone each time I call you today?
Him: It does?
Me: Yeah, it does. It just rang forever.
Him: Oh, well I had to grab the Bluetooth because it's connected right now and I couldn't just pick up the phone or you wouldn't have heard me.
Me: Aren't you just sitting in your room?
Him: Yeah...
Me: So you're just sitting there watching tv and it's too much of a hassle to just be able to pick up your phone normally when I call to ask you a quick question? You really have to do the Bluetooth thing constantly?
Him: Well I just don't always disconnect it, dork.
Me: So, if I was calling to tell you I was on fire I'd have to wait for you to search for your damn headset before you'd pick up the phone?
Him: Ha-ha! Um...
Me: Are you going to grab it in the dark in the middle of the night, too? Did you think about that?
Him: (Pause.) Well ARE you on fire?
Me: No, but I COULD be!

Don't feel the need to point out to me that if I were actually on fire, calling someone several states away wouldn't likely save my life. I realize this. But I was trying to make a point, albeit a shaky one.

This Is What You'd See If You Visited the SarcomiHouse

...Lucy playing emotional blackmail with her ball, that is. Resistance is futile.

Mister Anthony Bourdain, Crush for One, Please

He's sarcastic. He really knows food, and what to do with it. He's got zero fear when it comes to trying the local fare, no matter how off-putting it smells or which disgusting animal part it may be. He's a (very) bad boy. And he has no interest in self-editing his wry sense of humor while exploring the world's culinary and travel extremes.

If you have a similar affection for Anthony, you're probably also excited about his return to the Travel Channel with new episodes of No Reservations, beginning tonight. Here's a sneak peek:

In the spirit of No Reservations, I think we should take a moment and share with each other the most bizarre food items that have crossed our lips, the unique cuisine we've had on travels, where in the world we think the food is most delicious, etc. I am unfortunately going to have to live vicariously through your adventures, since I haven't really gone anywhere far enough away for the cuisine to be truly different, unless you count the Canadian McDonald's ketchup packets in French AND English or the gloriousness that is a true New York City hot dog. I have to get all of my ethnic food experiences, for the most part, from the local Greek, Thai, Japanese and Mexican joints. However, I can say that the most unusual thing I've ever eaten is the Ethiopian wats & injera bread I fell in love with before the only Ethiopian place in the area shut down.

But YOU... You, I'm sure, have all sorts of adventurous cuisine under your belt. Share with me.

(Check out the show's site here and Anthony's blog here)

technorati tags: Anthony Bourdain, No Reservations

Life Isn't a Luxury Car Commercial

When I was younger - a lot younger - I imagined that my life as an adult would be like what I saw in car commercials. Not just any car commercials...the ones in the city. You know, where there were beautiful people dressed for a night out or parking in front of their brick-front apartment buildings in lively and colorful neighborhoods.

I envisioned a shiny life, with occasions to get into slinky evening dresses and heels, friends that were beautiful and interesting and smart who threw dinner parties and could sit around together on the weekends laughing and talking, hair that always lay Just Right and skin that looked perfect upon waking up, a gorgeous and modelesque man accompanying me through all said fabulousness, and the sense that I had the financial freedom, grace and sophistication to have pulled such a wonderful life together. God, I was excited as hell to be a grown up.

In a sense, this was sort of how I romanticized the idea of my future:

I grew up so far removed from this sort of life that I didn't realize how rare and atypical it really is; I just thought it was because of where I grew up that people didn't embrace such a glamorous existence, but that it must have been Out There just beyond the borders of what I knew. I was naive enough to be able to be dreamy about it - that Put-Together feeling, the social life, the financial success, the city adventures, the beauty of it all...must surely be there waiting for me upon reaching a certain place in my life, yes?

But let's be honest, not many of us just Grow Into a luxury car commercial sort of existence, do we? Especially if we are as unfamiliar with it and naive about what it takes to actually get there as I was when I was a little girl, right? And also, even if we do "get there", does it ever really feel as delicious as it looks in, say, the commercial above? Whatever your life is, as beautiful as it may be to the casual observer, to you is merely the place where you're Still growing, Still dealing, Still searching, Still struggling, Still reaching, Still waiting to see what happens next.

I maintained a bit of that fantasy into high school and a little into college, where I also picked up a fascination for Those People who lived in artsy communities, who walked on the beach and hiked mountains and wore vintage rock tees and kept journals and open minds.

(See? There was room for all kinds of ideal grass-is-greener scenarios at the same time in this little brain of mine. Honestly, those two fantasies have kind of melded, mellowed, scaled down and realigned into a more appealing and realistic sort of idea for me today, in a way.)

I'm okay that I'm not living that Shiny Life right now (and likely never will). But I AM trying to be aware of the ways that I can make my adult life right now more and more like what I currently desire as My Ideal Real Life instead of waiting for it to arrive. Because at the end of it all, no matter how shiny or un-shiny it all may be, I want there to be more of what I Made Happen than what Never Came True.

Time For Your Thoughts: There are many things that make impressions on us when we're still kids. Tell me what might have given you an idea of what being "grown up" would be like when you were younger. Was it realistic? Completely off-base? How has your idea of an Ideal Life changed?

Some Things Friday #71: Still Childless In My 30's Edition

Some Things I Love:

1. No child vomit.
   
2. Leaving any time of the day to do a photo shoot, meet someone for coffee, go out to dinner or satisfy a sudden desire to buy new magazines without having to load up the Pack 'n Play. See, I zip MY children up in a crate when I leave the house. Can you do that with YOURS? Without going to jail for it, I mean.
   
3. Taking a bubble bath without waiting for the kids to be sleeping or for The Husband to get home.
   
4. Complete silence, anywhere and anytime I want it.
   
5. NO SPONGEBOB, NO WONDERPETS, NO PRINCESS MOVIES, NO DORA, ETC., ETC., ETC.

Some Things I Hate:

1. Seeing the Perfect most Perfect ever Perfect baby shoes with no one to put them in. Unless I decide to put them on the dogs. Which, hello, might be a bit too pathetic, no?
   
2. Knowing that even if I got pregnant this very moment (which would be difficult to do here on my chair, let me tell you), I would be THIRTY SEVEN YEARS OLD when my first child started kindergarten. Yeesh.
   
3. Not being able to use all of the incredibly fabulous baby names I've already come up with. And no, I'm not telling, Stealer McStealerson.
   
4. The twinge I get from time to time when I see a beautiful pregnant lady, or a really pretty and non smoosh-headed new baby.
   
5. The thought that I have perhaps not taken enough advantage of these child-free years I've had, and will one day ask myself, "Well, why the hell didn't I just get it over with, then?"

Some Things I Just Don't Get:

1. Couples we meet who ask immediately if we have children, and who upon discovering we don't, act as if their relationship is more validated than ours because they have procreated four times already.
   
2. That when people do ask if we have children yet and we say no, the next question often is "Oh, do you think you're going to at all?" BECAUSE WE MUST BE ETERNAL CHILD-HATERS OR INFERTILE IF WE HAVEN'T POPPED OUT A PERSON YET.
   
3. I haven't worked my ass off enough to be in perfect shape before I would ever get pregnant, anyway. What am I, the laziest and stupidest person on the planet? GET ON IT, IDIOT.
   
4. I flip-flop every few weeks between really, really thinking NOW IS THE TIME and then freaking out that MY LIFE AS I KNOW IT WILL BE OVER. Will that ever go away? Am I just not as filled with Mom Genes (hahaha Mom Jeans) as some of the rest of you?
   
5. Are there others of you who think it is actually a GOOD thing that we didn't end up having the chance to inflict our 20-something confusion, emotional baggage and immaturity onto the children we haven't yet had?

Our Beloved Internet: Discrimination at First Sight Made Easy

Ah...the world wide web in all its flash-us-your-most-intimate-details glory. It gives us immediate prying access into whatever parts of ourselves we are dumb enough to share with complete strangers who may very well be sitting in their basements with the dim light of the computer screen the only thing illuminating the dingy room, dressed entirely in acid-washed denim, unshaven, unshowered, adding more details to a spreadsheet about you based on what you absentmindedly mention about your personal life, while sharpening their axes and sipping bourbon.

What? You never know everyone who's reading, you know. I'm just saying.

Not only do we not really know everyone who's reading US, we also don't really know everyone WE'RE reading. Especially those new stumbles, the people we're trying to determine as worthy of our valuable internet time. The Internet is tailor-made for quick decisions, content-filtering and locating potential friends.

There are definite positives to this modern-day social scene, of course. First of all, your circle of friends need not be limited by where you live or who you went to school with. (Thank God.) You can be exposed to the way people live in different parts of the world, you can fall in love with their dog, you can be unspeakably jealous of their home or wardrobe, you can see what they ate for dinner...all from the comfort of the nearest wi-fi connection. You can develop a real sense of camaraderie for a person whom you've never met, and when you do meet them you get to experience that bizarre phenomenon of this era: being able to sit down for coffee to talk, share, and laugh for HOURS with someone you've never been in a room with before, feeling all the while completely at ease, because you already know she has kickass taste in music, hates when people kiss hello, loves Anthropologie & making fun of America's Next Top Model as much as you do, and isn't afraid to tell The Internet that she spent four days in the same outfit during a recent "dark period" and coincidentally also during said "dark period" told her husband she really just needed to PLEASE not have to look at his stupid arrogant ass of a face for a few hours.

You really can get to know people on this little virtual planet we're building.

On the other hand, it's so easy to just click away from any future contact or knowledge of someone in a fraction of a second based on a quick visual assessment: Crappy blog design? Click. Obsessed with web marketing? Click. Posts photos of themselves in the bathtub? CLICK.

...and maybe... Blogs in detail about their meal plans for the week? Click. Gave Disney character pseudonyms to every person in their family for when referring to them on the blog? Click. Doesn't seem all that funny? Click. Didn't write The Perfect Post at the very top of the page? Hmm...click? They don't seem to have a lot of comments... Do you click? Their page took too long to load that first time? ...Click perhaps?

We have the luxury of being so extremely selective online, and with more and more interactive social applications (like my favorite, Twitter), it's easier day by day to acquire and reject friends, usually without anyone getting hurt or being the wiser. I kind of like the ability to weed through and find some amazing people who I know I could carry on conversations with and whose mere telling of their stories online causes me to think, grow, cry, be inspired, and literally change my life (and if you have never experienced this, let me say you have not truly gleaned the full benefits of this amazing medium). In this sense and others, I can see our opportunity to meet and choose people to interact with as a largely positive thing.

One thing I am reminded of, though, is how this may possibly give a false sense of superiority that, honestly, we can't quite get away with as easily in The Real World. I don't like the fact that sometimes as bloggers we also use how much readership mileage and publicity we can get out of being associated with another blogger as a measure of their worth as a potential Internet Friend. I did happen to start writing when a lot of now popular blogs began, and I am lucky to have even limited relationships with these fantastic people (OH HAI BABIES, REMEMBER ME I AM A SLACKER LATELY BUT PLEASE ACCEPT THIS KISS AND WAVE HELLO FROM ME!), but I try to remember now that just because a person is new to blogging doesn't mean I shouldn't take the time to get to know them as well. They could be my future Internet BFF's, yes? Some people simply don't subscribe to that philosophy, though.

For instance, toward the beginning of my blogging days, a lonnnng four years ago (whoa), someone who I now know as an "A-List Blogger" (but God, I do hate that terminology) started reading and making encouraging comments on my blog. She thought I was funny (well, who can blame her) and she seemed to want to make a connection. She linked to me, which I didn't realize was such a boost to my site at the time, and sent me a lot of emails back and forth for months. She "introduced" me to several other bloggers. Then one day, she happened to see that I'd made a reference to reaching a certain number of hits (which to me was Teh Awesome! at the time), and she emailed and said "huh, I thought you had a lot more than that already". Um, okay. She then not-so-subtly stopped replying to my comments and never emailed me again. Zilch. Nada. It was obvious what happened there, and though I wasn't necessarily hurt by it (I was too busy still being all teenager-like giddy over the possibilities of The Internet), I realized much later just how this was a good example of some of the negative "I'M AWESOME GET OUT OF MY WAY YOU TOAD FOR I AM AN INTERNET GOD" vibes floating around out here.

Pick good friends. Love the options. Find cool people. Steer clear of bathtub photos. Don't treat people like toads.

THE END.

When I Was in Second Grade...

I looked like this:

Seemingly, I was in a scrape with some sort of clawed creature prior to having my picture taken. Also, I wonder if there would be any way I could replicate that exact barrette placement and perfect triangular head shape. Because that? Is all kinds of awesome.

This was my class:

At the end of school that year, I wrote the following in my diary: "Dear Diary, only two more days of school and I haven't gotten to know some people yet. ...I will especially miss Jill, Michelle G., Kim, Kristy L., and Melissa F. I had fun today! p.s. I hope I will have fun this summer!"

I started a crush:

"Dear Diary, today I had fun eating my treat. At school, David ___ pretended that he shot me with a spear! And my grandma and grandpa came to our house today. p.s. Today I found out that I sort of like David ___ and Chad ___. It's hard to say that I like them because they are very nice."

I ended a crush:

"Dear Diary, it's hard to believe that after just one day I don't like David ___ and Chad ___ any more. And someone showed our house today. We all got some ice cream sodas! And today we practiced our races. It was fun!"

This was where we ate lunch:

When I think back to those days, I remember getting extremely excited about Pizza Day, and also opening up my Strawberry Shortcake lunchbox often finding a Twinkie inside.

Speaking of lunch, here were the lunch ladies. The one, er, highlighted is Margaret. If there was anyone on the planet created to torture small children until they shriveled up and floated away in a puff of fear, THIS WAS THE LADY. We called her Mean Margaret.

In our school, we ate in the gymnasium, on the pull-out tables that came down from the walls. This meant there were gymnasium floor circles (for basketball, etc.) in the middle of our lunch area. They used to pull out kids to punish them by making them stand in those circles during lunch. This archaic punishment practice was not-so-affectionately called being "Put In The Middle". One day, Mean Margaret put me - ME, the kid who was the most straight-laced, afraid-of-offending-authority-figures kid - in The Middle.

For what, you may ask?

Well, I'll tell you.

For making that "cuckoo", "you're crazy" finger-swirling-near-your head-then-pointing-at-someone motion toward one of my friends. No, I'm serious. And it's not like anyone told on me, either. It's not like I made someone cry. We were having fun. She just saw me do it, came over, and told me how wrong what I had just done was. And, while my friends at the table watched in timid silence, I had to go dump my lunch in the garbage and stand in The Middle until she told me I could leave. I remember my cheeks burning with HOT HATRED, BURNING SEETHING ANGER at the injustice and embarrassment of it all. Oh, the tragedy!

The recess aide came to find me after she heard what happened (and when I stayed in during recess due to THE SHAME, MY GOD THE SHAME), and lovingly tried to convince me that it wasn't the worst thing in the world and that contrary to what my young Second Grade mind believed, this would not be discussed for all eternity among THE WORLD'S ENTIRE POPULATION, and that she didn't think it seemed fair and she felt sorry for me.

(...I mean, can you imagine? What if to this day when I walked into, say, IKEA or the grocery store, everyone started scattering into the corners,with hushed whispers. "That's the one! That's the girl who was in The Middle! COMMENCE SHUNNING."

The principal seemed marginally (heh) less excited about leading the school that year, at least if you go by the photographic evidence:

This year.

Last year.

Polo shirts were...well, let's just say it...HUGE this year. Bonus points if your polo shirt was striped. Super Mondo Bonus Points if it had a ringed collar. And if you had your collar popped? Dude, you were so weird, why don't you go to New York City where they do crazy things like that? We're small-town, you see? NO INDIVIDUAL THINKING.

Here were a few of the top songs from that school year, which I would have only heard
a.) on the bus
b.) at a friend's house
c.) in the car but only if my father wasn't in said car, because Secular Music is the gateway to all sorts of Sins Of the Flesh and Of the Spirit, as are most sitcoms and ANY restaurant that serves alchohol, which you are banned from eating in or even looking into as you drive past)
d.) in my room, behind my bed, on the floor, with the radio in my hands and the volume knob turned to just below 1 with my ear pressed against the speaker.

And let me preface this also by saying, I deeply, deeply apologize for what's surely about to happen inside your brain when these seep in there through your eyeballs, and for the resulting torture you will encounter as most likely the least pleasant of these ditties begins to bounce around inside your mental eardrums over and over and over and over again:

• I Love Rock 'n Roll - Joan Jett & the Blackhearts
  
• Ebony & Ivory - Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder
  
• Every Breath You Take - The Police
  
• I Can't Go For That (No Can Do) - Hall & Oates
  
• Gloria - Laura Branigan
  
• Say Say Say - Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson (whad'up, Mr. McCartney? holy collaborations.)
  
• Who Can It Be Now - Men at Work
  
• We Got the Beat - The Go-Go's
  
• Tainted Love - Soft Cell
  
• Total Eclipse of the Heart - Bonnie Tyler
  
• Beat It - Michael Jackson
  
• All Night Long - Lionel Richie
  
• Rock the Casbah - The Clash
  
• Do You Really Want to Hurt Me - Culture Club
  
• Hungry Like the Wolf - Duran Duran

Wow.

Making Up With You, Photo/Video-Style...

These past two weeks I've been incredibly bad about paying any proper attention to Teh Internets. You see, I've been doing this weirdness that involves being very, very busy in the Real World, planning and executing photo shoots, trying to get my editing done in a remotely appropriate fashion, OH YEAH, and having a birthday and 10-year anniversary this week with The Husband taking his first few days off since well before Thanksgiving.

What does Real Life think it's doing, tromping all over my blogging time? Doesn't it realize how rude it is to make me snub my Friendternets™? CAN'T IT CHILL OUT AND STEP OFF, GEORGE?

Honestly, I've had a great time, especially this past week what with all of the celebratasticness (oh yes, I made that shit up, and you should use it baby).

Let me try to catch you up on that good stuff, shall I?

Sarcomical Turns 26 32: (sigh.)

I turned a year older in a very bright shirt.

I had some Low-Key Fun in the car while distracting The Husband and, as he says "cutting the camera away (supposedly) during his sweet sweet moves".

The Husband gave me a very appropriate card...

...which was, HAHA, hilarious. Seeing as the inside read, "...you know better than to cut your bangs now." Because, you know, I JUST DID THAT LAST WEEK. Gah. And also? I totally did what that girl on the card did to her hair when I was about 5 years old. I had a quasi-mullet for about a year and half afterward just to get it grown out and look less accidental. Hot.

I ended the night with what has become a birthday ritual: swinging on the playground at the school down the road. It feels fantastic (until the pad thai starts to churn), and (apparently) it makes me laugh like a patient in a mental hospital. On crack.

I'm afraid you might be beginning to think I am not all that sophisticated. Or that I always talk like a yippy teenager. ...I can be quite charming and mature, with a womanly voice, on occasion.

I swear.

For instance, when I came home, I put on one of the freebie t-shirts iVillage sent us for DeLush, and classed it up with some chocolate cake combined with a few Lays potato chips (which was a spontaneous decision that turned out pretty well if you ask me).

Mr. & Ms. Sarcomical Celebrate 10 Years of Exclusive Dating: (heh.)

The next day was our anniversary, and after a relaxing day of doing not too much that caused us to get off the couch, we finally got ourselves out of the house for dinner at Eagle's Nest, the rotating restaurant above the Hyatt downtown (and coincidentally the place where we ate the night we got engaged). The food was overpriced but still good, and the dirty martini & view made it more of an event.

Also, the bathroom was in the middle and therefore stationary. This, I thought, was a good thing.

We then went to a teeny-tiny hole-in-the-wall spot called the Chatterbox Jazz Club, where we sat for a while and enjoyed a glass of Gewuerztraminer (me), a Newcastle (him) and a self-described "gypsy jazz ensemble", playing "30's Paris jazz". Très Cool. Alas, my flashless stupid cameraphone performed another FAIL when I tried to capture the actual ambience. Ah, well.

We did get a photo while walking back to the car, though. See?

We then went dancing, where we partied to Madonna, Usher, Britney, T Pain (boots with the fur, yo), etc. until The Husband pleaded WOMAN I AM TIRED, and I finally gave in and let him take me home.

See? And that was just two days.

p.s. Can I also mention in the past week, OMG IRON MAN. The Downeyliciousness is indescribable. Except, yum.

Face-Making...

...and practicing some lighting positions shooting the flash through an umbrella.