May 2008 Archives

1. Surprisingly coordinated chubby wiggers
   
   • Quantity: 2
   • Uniform: Baggy jeans, FUBU shirts, untied skates
   • Influences: Sweetness's gang on "Roll Bounce"
   • Specialties: Fancy footwork, shadow skating with one skating immediately behind the other and mirroring every move, suddenly "losing footing" when skating by a cute girl requiring them to put their hands on her waist to "steady themselves"
   
   
2. Former ice dancers
   
   • Quantity: 3
   • Uniform: Spandex, tight, form-hugging
   • Influences: Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov
   • Specialties: Extending arms out like a bird while gaining speed around curves, pairs skating, twirling
   
   
3. Middle aged guidos reclaiming 1978 roller glory
   
   • Quantity: 3
   • Uniform: Tight tshirts tucked in, high belted jeans, moustaches, bald spots, blinking lights on skates
   • Influences: Sonny Malone, John Travolta
   • Specialties: Doing the weavy-leg in-out thing, skating on toes, leaping in air to change from skating forward to backward, skating as close to the wall as possible and kicking the wall with the outside skate while skating by it
   
   
4. Middle aged BFF reclaiming 1987 roller friendship
   
   • Quantity: 2
   • Uniform: Floral rompers, wrist guards
   • Influences: DJ Tanner and Kimmy Gibbler
   • Specialties:  Skating hand in hand, dramatically lifting the push-off leg in perfect unison with each other
   
   
5. Middle aged people in center of rink, doing the electric slide the entire time
   
   • Quantity: 2 - 25, depending on what song was playing
   • Uniform: Varied
     
   • Influences: Various
     
   • Specialties: Stamina? 
     

For whatever reason, when I have played recreational tennis in my adult life I have always played against boys.  This has made me pretty complacent about losing.  I've pretty much deciding that losing a set 6-3 to a boy is a triumph for me.  Their wings and legs are long and strong, where my wings and legs...well, let's just extend this into a complete chicken metaphor and say that my wings and legs are the ones that have been sitting under the heating lamp at Allsup's since the morning shift.

I played Matt for the first time ever on Memorial Day, and oh how I will remember it!  He hadn't played in 10 years, so I was just certain that I would obliterate him.  Much like hangman, I was going to take him out limb by limb.  I didn't want to make him cry, but I wanted him to be awe-struck with my polished 2.5 level playing.  Well, muscle memory is a fascinating/stupid thing, and he kicked my ass 6-2, 6-1.  Now we're going to go to tennis camp together at the end of this month!  We're going to ride over together, and get slurpees after if we play good!  Maybe we'll get matching Lacoste tennis whites, which we can also use to dress up as preppie tennis zombies for Halloween!

That was not the point of this post.  The point of today's post was to recap my match(es) last night with Wade, the first of many in a series of Tennis Tuesday Challenges.  Wade and I have played quite a few times, and of course he always wins. (See "Wings and Legs" chapter above.)  It was an exciting match, my best against him ever and I actually took him to a tiebreak!  (For one minute, I wanted to refused the tiebreak and make us play until someone won two consecutive games.  I love it when there are insane scores like 28-26.)  Neither of us really knew the proper way to score/switch ends on a tiebreak...in retrospect, I should have requested a draw.  Because that weasel beat me.  It was so close.  And I was so tired and sweaty, because a 7-6 set to someone who is used to 6-1 sets is like playing two sets!  We started picking up to leave when...

..."he" finally spoke up.  "He" was an older wirey little snakey man who had been practicing his serve alone in the court next to us.  He said, "Do you two mind hitting around with an old man for a little bit before you leave?"  Well, I had seen the way he hit the ball, and I was scared of him.  He hit it hard and low and mightily.  I felt bad for a second with Wade and me playing doubles against him playing singles, but the dude kept us on the run!  From his mouth came a fountain of wisdom, and he gave us all sorts of awesome tips, and I was able to hit it back to him almost as hard and low and mightily (although admittedly with a lot more squealing when I got excited).  I wanted to call him our tennis fairy godfather and thank him, but that felt wrong so instead I muttered under my breath to Wade "Thanks, Mr. Tennis Leprechaun."

Yesterday may have been the most perfectly delightful day of my life.  If not that extreme, at least the best day of the last 5 years.  And if you still think I'm overstating, it was definitely the best day since I moved to Seattle.  I must share with you the details of my day.  Let us celebrate and rejoice!  The sun has come out in Seattle!  Summer is here!!

1. My friends Jackie and Jeremy have scooters.  Cute little fake Euro-looking Honda and Yamaha scooters.  I have never ridden a motorized two-wheeled vehicle in my entire life.  After a brief 2 minute lesson in the driveway (1.5 minutes of which was explaining how to get the helmet on), we were off!  And you know what?  It was so FUN, and EASY!!  I don't think I ever topped 15 mph, but it was still completely exhilarating.  Needless to say, now I'm thinking about buying a damn scooter.
   
   
2. I'm coming up on my 9 month anniversary of living in Seattle, and there is still so much I haven't seen, and so much I should be ashamed I haven't seen.  One of these places is Golden Gardens, which is a beach up here in my neighborhood that opens up to Puget Sound.  I expected a "beach," meaning it was a spot where the land technically touched the water and was therefore a "beach," but really no other redeeming qualities.  No!  There is actual sand and it was actually hot!  There aren't any waves, but there is a retardedly stunning view of the Olympic mountains.  I will go back.  Probably today.  And every sunny day.
   
   
3. Datarock.  This is a band.  From Norway.  Who play fun-filled electro-rock whilst wearing red sweatsuits.  They opened for Ladytron last night, and to be honest, I bought my ticket to see Datarock and couldn't have cared less about Ladytron.  Their performance was very spastic and excellent, and afterwards my friend Kelly and I were at the merch table eyeing the red hoodies that matched theirs...when the Datarock drummer and bassist walked up and faked like they wanted to buy ALL the Datarock merchandise.
   
   That's all it took.  I was in love.  (Let me remind you that this is a band who has a song about falling in love at computer camp, so I was already pre-disposed.)
   
   My friend Kelly is much ballsier than me, and struck up a conversation with them.  They chatting with us while they were signing some guy's red hoodie, when I asked which part of Norway they were from.  When they said "Bergen," my mouth (which had been fueled with no less than 4 16oz beers that evening) started uncontrollably jabbering about Count Grishnack, the main black metal villain who burned lots of churches and killed the lead singer of Mayhem...and is from (and I think is currently incarcerated in) Bergen.
   
   Scandinavians are so funny.  They light up with joy and excitement when you start talking about their precious black metal...which itself has nothing to do with joy OR excitement.  The drummer was particularly animated.   And cute.  And he and the bass player gave me official Norwegian black metal tattoos/autographs:
   
    
   
   So needless to say, I'm in love with the drummer guy.  Note how his pentagram melts into inverted crosses with a few bonus 666 sprinkles.  Just like my heart melted and inverted and got all sprinkley/sparkley.  Thank you, Datarock. 
   
   

Dear Shelley Long,

You owe me $6.99 as a form of reimbursement for the accident that occurred on 11th Street between Pike and Union yesterday in Capitol Hill.  Although you were not present, the accident was entirely your fault.  Do you remember this scene from the 1989 movie "Troop Beverly Hills?"



If it weren't for your performance in this scene, the accident would have never happened.  Here is a breakdown of the events as they occurred:

• 8:30pm - Matt and I went to the grocery store to buy booze and materials for making banana pudding.  One of these materials was a box of Nila Wafers, which we found in the cookie aisle.  This prompted us to start singing variations of the "Cookie Time" song above, including one called "Cookie Aisle."
  
  
• 8:35pm - Matt and I embarked on the 1 mile walk back to his house.  I was carrying the plastic sack with two bottles of red wine, one box of instant banana creme pudding, one box of Mini Nila Wafers, and one Disney Princess chocolate bar.  Matt was carrying a 12 pack of Miller Lite in each hand, and prophetically alluded to the poor cardboard quality of the 12 pack boxes.
  
  
• 8:37pm - During this entire walk, Matt and I were very excited about the pudding and Nila Wafers, and continued to sing the chorus of "Cookie Time" repeatedly and loudly through the streets.
  
  
• 8:38pm - I began to lament that I could not remember anything but the chorus of the "Cookie Time" song, and wished that I could remember some of the actual verses.  Suddenly, I remembered when you, Shelley Long, ad-libbed during a break of the song in a deep baritone voice: "A box of them would be so ni-ii-ce..." 
  
  
• 8:38:10pm - I sang "A box of them would be so ni-ii-ce..." in MY deep baritone voice, and at that exact instant one of the 12 pack boxes of Miller Lite ripped and cans of Miller Lite began to roll all over the sidewalk.
  
  
• 8:38:15pm - It was at this point where everything was happening so fast that it all becomes a blur.  Matt and I were laughing hysterically, both at the baritone line about cookies being so nice, and at the fact that we just dropped beers all over the street. A group of well-dressed and rather intoxicated young people approached Matt to help him pick up the beer cans.  At the same time, I doubled over laughing and, intending to set the plastic bag on the sidewalk to either help pick up the cans or to catch my breath, I managed set the bag down with enough force that it CRACKED one of the bottles of wine.  Wine spilled into the gutter of the street AND all over my WHITE shoes.
  
  
• 8:38:20pm - Matt and I breathlessly tried to thank these young people for their help and explain what had happened, and we managed to say something about the accident being related to Troop Beverly Hills and implicating you, Shelley Long, in the accident.  One of the girls in the group immediately started chanting, "Beverly Hills...what a thrill!  Beverly Hills...what a thrill!" 
  

In conclusion, we managed to save all the beer but lost one bottle of wine, which has a street value of $6.99, which is the amount you, Shelley Long, now owe me.  Lucky for you, we ran my white shoes through the washing machine and all the wine came out, so that saved you from owing me another $50, although it could be argued that you owe Matt a pro-rated amount for the water and detergent used.  We are willing to cut you some slack on this, assuming of course you produce and star in a public service announcement about the dangers of "Cookie Time."

Thank you for your prompt attention in this matter,

Halee
cc: Matt
cc: Jenny Lewis

A few weeks ago I was in a workshop on how to become a better presenter.  It went like this:

• We had to prepare a 5 minute presentation
• We had to present it to the entire class of 30 people (all while being videotaped)
• After presenting, we had to give an immediate verbal self-assessment
• This was followed by a verbal brief assessment from two of our peers
• Which was followed by a verbal critique from the expert guy leading the workshop
• Then rounding up the 30 index cards of written comments from all the peers in the room

It was an incredibly stressful, nerve-wracking day.  We all did reasonably well considering we're not seasoned presenters, and we all beat ourselves up terribly about how bad we thought we were.  Enough time has passed that last night I finally had the guts to watch my DVD.  I did okay.  My presentation was on how to better manage your inbox, and although I talked too fast because I was nervous, it was...okay.  My peers gave constructive criticism, and I learned a lot about better ways to get my point across to a room full of people, and how to create an accordionly-organized deck so that you can adjust your presentation to be longer or shorter while you're in the middle of giving it.

But the main thing I learned?  I learned that I am overcompensating for my Texas accent so bad that I sound fucking Canadian.  I didn't even recognize my own voice.  I need to identify the words that I am covering up for the worst, and restore my speech back to its Texan glory.  But I don't know how...I honestly don't even realize that I'm trying to cover up my Texas accent, so how can I stop myself?  I guess I should call home more often.  And perhaps watch more Gary Busey movies.

My friend Christina is funny.  I work with her, she sits about 10 feet behind me and to the left, and sometimes we pass notes. 

1. The other day I gave her some tiny clementine oranges with a sticky note with an arrow pointing at the oranges, saying something like: "the cutest cuties ever!!"
   
   
2. Today she put an apple on my desk with a sticky note that said: "smallest cutest apple (sorry, I'm not giving it to you)" with an arrow pointing at the apple...and she waited just long enough for me to read the note, then she took the apple away.
   
   
3. Later I put that sticky note on my boobie so the arrow was pointing at my other boobie, calling it the "smallest cutest apple."
   
   
4. Then Christina came back to my desk with a sticky note that said: "make a t-shirt!"
   
   
5. Then when Christina left for a while, I put a sticky note on her monitor that said: ""I like analog instant messages"
   
   
6. When she came back, she was quiet for a while, and then walked over and stuck this on my monitor: