Monthly Archives: June 2005

Amelia

Amelia and the miscarriage of justice.

“Dude! He got off! He got off on all counts. Yeah.. all of them!”

Amelia: what’s he yelling about now?

Jodi: hmm? Oh, the Michael Jackson trial. He was found not guilty of about 900 counts of child molestation.

Amelia: was he really innocent?

Jodi: I doubt it. It’s not normal for grown men to have slumber parties with little boys.

Amelia: but why is the monkee yelling like that?

Jodi: He’s probably excited to have a reason to yell, to hear his own voice. Plus, he probably wants to be seen as hip, being the first to tell everyone.

Amelia: That’s not hip, that’s sad. The whole thing makes me feel ookey.

Jodi: Yeah. Besides, at least two people told me the verdict before he started yelling. I’m way hipper than he is.

Amelia: Word.

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music

When we’re about to do something stupid, we like to catalog the full extent of our stupidity for future reference.

Well, I think 10 out of 10 people polled say “no money for people who come to your door to beg!” Excellent.

I decided, in preparation for my grandma’s visit, I should do some cleaning this weekend. The bathroom really needs a good scrubbing. And I did clean, in my own way. I’m tired of all the music that’s on my iPod and hard drive. I wanted some new stuff. So I unpacked a box of cd’s. I never unpacked them when I moved in October. Now, first I had to make room on my old computer to store more mp3’s, which turned out to be a bit trickier than I thought it would be and I had to go into Terminal and get all sudo and chmod on it’s ass. But finally it was clean and sparkly and I had cleaned off 10gb’s of crap. So I unpacked the box. I cataloged each CD into my Delicious Library, setting aside the ones that did not bring up a cover image, so I could scan them and make one myself. Seriously. Other’s I set aside to rip mp3’s from. The rest, I put away in alphabetic order. [except for the soundtracks.] All that took hours, 147 cds. And there are two more boxes. But it’s just the type of “cleaning” I like. And if you box up all your music for over 6 months, when you open it, it’s like brand new stuff! You are so excited because you have not seen these cds in so long.

I was thrilled to see my really old Chris Isaak stuff and my Peter Gabriel cds. My Sarah McLauchlan and Letter’s to Cleo. Cherry Poppin’ Daddies and Jesus Jones. So fun! I still have a pile of cd’s to work through, ripping to mp3. I don’t know if I will finish the boxes before this weekend or not. I really should do some kind of “practical” cleaning. bah.

In Sims2 news, it starts shipping today. It won’t be in stores for another…. 3 days 10 hours and 25 minutes as I write this. I know because aspyr has a nice countdown clock on their website. And no, I’m not just sitting and staring it, in anticipation… much.

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Uncategorized

Oh, she can’t help it. It’s just her tough luck that she wasn’t born deaf and dumb.

Remember when I told you that I don’t like answering the door if I am not expecting someone? Well, this is why. I’m sitting in the purple chair, reading a rather dark and twisted mystery, when someone starts banging on my front door. Not just knocking, but banging. Then they ring my door bell three times, wait a beat, and start knocking repeatedly. I’m thinking, this has to be a neighbor and it has to be an emergency, what with the knocking and the banging and the repeated doorbell ringing. So I open there door and there is a woman standing there, she hands me a business card. On the business card it says “I am deaf.” It goes on to say something about looking for work, not having any work, oh did I mention I am deaf… this part was hard to read because the card had been copied from a copy many times over. Then at the bottom it says “Donate as much as you wish.” In her hands, she held a pile of bills. Not a lot, but enough to let me know that other kind souls had, apparently, given her money.

I was speechless. Which hardly mattered in this situation. Now, I only know a couple of things in sign language:

“Surprise!”

“Dead Dog”

“Shut up, bitch, go make me a turkey pot pie.”

None of these seemed appropriate. I did not know the sign for “What? Are you kidding me? You come to my home and bang on my door, ring my bell over and over, and I am supposed to give you money? You come to my door to beg for money?”

So I’m stuck. Do you go with compassion, or do you go with indignant annoyance? I went with annoyance. The sign for “oh no, no thank, no… shutting the door now!” is universal, kids. But it ticks me off, because some part of me wonders if I am supposed to feel guilty because I can hear and I have a job. While the other part of me is thinking that this is a total scam and the previously mentioned part of me is a sap. The sap side of me tells the cynical side of me to have a heart, and remember how very very fortunate we are. So the cynical side of me smacks the sappy side of me upside the head and tells her to quit being such a pussy. And then they get in a big fight and are currently not speaking to each other.

And that is why I don’t answer the door.

And yes, I really do know how to say “shut up, bitch, go make me a turkey pot pie” in sign language, although I find very little use for this knowledge.

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50 Word Fictions

50 Word Fiction Fridays X

Ooo.. hey, you guys, sorry. I was caught up in a book last night and completely forgot to prepare the 50 word fiction. Ok. so this week’s theme is “ennui” considering I am suffering from it. You don’t have to use the word, just the idea of it. I’ll have to post mine a bit later, as I am already late for work.

Bad bad Jodi

EDITED to add:

The girls leaned out the window of the third floor dorm room, arms outstretched. The water balloons were straining with their cargo and poised for deployment.

“Ready? Ennui! One…. Two…. WHEEEE!”

The fell back onto the bed laughing, as soaking wet sorority girls screamed their annoyance below. Ah, sweet satisfaction.

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books, macs

I think so, Brain, but where are we gonna find a tattoo parlor that’s open at this time of night?

I had a lovely email discussion the other day with Chris about books. The recommendations were flying fast and furious, I know I put some books on my reserve list at the library already. I’m going to have to review those emails and make myself a little list. Anyway, the point is, one of the books was available yesterday. [ “The Sparrow : A Novel” (MARY DORIA RUSSELL), in case you are curious. ] Since I had finished The Shadows of the Wind book, I scampered on down there to get it. But it seems that somewhere between the arrival of the book, the updated status in my account, and my scampering, the book disappeared. And I just looked at that librarian with frustration and thought ” Cmd+F! Cmd+F! come on… Cmd+F The Sparrow, it’s gotta be here somewhere!” [that would be Control+F for you Windows users.]

That is what the computer has done to me. When I can’t find things, my mind instantly thinks “Cmd+F” and I’m always so disappointed with my brain remembers that life does not work like the Mac OS. More’s the pity. Am I the only one who does this? Have you ever done something and then instantly thought “Cmd+Z” because you wanted to undo it, to take it back?

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books

What the world needs is more thoroughly evil people and fewer borderline pigheads.

I am reading the most delightful book right now, “The Shadow of the Wind” by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Actually, I am almost finished. I went home yesterday and picked it up, to start it, thinking I would be reading it over the next week or so, it’s almost 500 pages. But I could not put it down. I kept reading until around midnight, when I was just too sleepy to keep going. The title is from the book, from one of the more enjoyable characters I’ve read in a while, Fermín Romero de Torres.

On the radio this morning, the dj’s were talking about advice for graduates. Some woman called up and said the best advice she had was to do what you love to do, do what you did naturally at about 8 or 9 years old, because that is probably your passion. So I thought about it, and these are the things I can remember doing. [I don’t have the best memory]

  • watching tv, mostly sitcoms and cartoons
  • eating candy
  • finding money to buy more candy so I could eat it.
  • reading
  • playing with barbies
  • building forts, both inside and outside.
  • engaging in a pine cone war with the neighbors
  • riding my bike
  • playing a game with the neighborhood kids we called “murder!” Could only be played at night.
  • playing a game with the neighborhood kids we called “babies.” Could only be played in the basement of the Murray house.
  • playing elaborate games of fantasy that required a great deal of back story. And horses.
  • swimming
  • writing letter’s to Donny and Marie, as well as the cast of Little House on the Prarie
  • interviewing people with my little tape recorder
  • singing and telling stories into my little tape recorder
  • convincing the youngest Murray kid to do whatever we told him to do. Run out the house naked… eat a slug…. I was really not the ringleader here. My brother was.
  • listening to my mom’s records. Either with giant headphones on my head, or while dancing and singing in the living room. Depended on the album.
  • avoiding my brother and his wrath
  • sledding
  • eating more candy
  • playing in my grand parent’s bar before it opened, pouring cokes with four cherries
  • not doing my math homework.
  • occasionally telling some pretty wild stories. some might call them lies. I call them stories.
  • Playing dress up.
  • not cleaning my room
  • living in a fantasy world all my own.
  • contemplating my existence in the universe and the meaning of life.
  • listening to music on my little radio.
  • trying to look into the windows of the funeral parlor across the street from my Grandparent’s motel, to see if we could see a dead body. Answer: no.

And I probably rounded the whole thing off with more tv watching, candy eating, and book reading. Can someone please tell me, now, what I should be when I grow up?

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Uncategorized

Oh yes, that’s right; you’re dying, you’re bitter, blah, blah, blah… Fortunatley, I’m shallow, so I’m impervious to that, now eat it.

Evildeb has diagnosed me with ennui, and she is absolutely right. I am definitely suffering from an acute case of the blahs. I told her it was even hard to blog… as I had nothing to say but blah. All I really want to do is lay around and day dream because it’s less blah than real life. blah.

My stepdad is back living in the house for the next two months. The lease on his wee little cabin is up, the ski bum who lives there in the summer is back. For the rest of June he’ll be commuting up north. Which sucks for him. But he’s taking July off to work on the house. What this means is, I do not, currently, live alone. That is hard for me. I’m used to living alone. Not that it’s hard to live with my stepdad, it’s just, I’m spoiled and selfish. My home is my sanctuary, it’s a haven and a hiding place. I don’t answer the phone if I can’t tell who it is. Sometimes, I don’t answer it even if I know who it is, if I want to be alone. If I want to vacuum at 3 am, I do. Not that I vacuum all that much. But you get the point. And if I don’t want to answer to the door for fear of being served with legal papers, I don’t. But my stepdad does. Answer the door, that is. You have NO IDEA who is on the other side of that door! It could be one of those kids who talks a million miles a minute and sells you a dozen magazine subscriptions at once. Which is why I always go to door with the phone in my hand, yelling “No No! It’s 1 breath for every five compressions if you are doing it alone, trust me, I know my CPR, I’ll talk you through it… put the phone up to grandpa’s ear… LIVE GODDAMN YOU, GRANDPA, LIVE!!” My stepdad, however, has a dozen magazine subscriptions. Which sort of shocks me, because he is more than capable of looking at that kid and saying “no.” while shutting the door.

What I’m saying is, it’s me who has a problem. I’ve probably lived alone too long. It will probably be good for me. My grandma is coming to visit us, and I’ll have to clean the house and NOT play the sims2 24/7 while she is here, in my underwear. This is good for me. But, I WANT TO PLAY THE SIMS2 24/7 IN MY UNDERWEAR! But.. .it will be good for me. And maybe, after two months, I’ll know whether I can come out of my cave and have mature relationships with people. Or whether I should just give up now, get some more cats, a ratty bathrobe, and start yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off my god damn lawn.

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Amelia, evildeb, work

Evildeb thinks I’m crazy, Amelia is striving for more, and Louise is on a boat to Russia.

After Evildeb responded to a managerial request with a buttload of information:

Jodi: Hello ball! I’m Deb, and I am going to be on top of you now.

Evildeb: I fell off right after

Jodi: louise did that a couple of weeks ago. she was sitting on my exercise ball… fell right off. hit her head on the desk. i hope you didn’t hit your head on the desk. 

Jodi: hey… my eye is twitching, it won’t stop. it was doing that last night too. does that mean i am crazy?

Evildeb: Yes.

Jodi: whooo-hooo!  good-bye rational thinking!!

Louise is on sabbatical now. At least I hope she is, the last thing I heard from her was a totally stressed out email on Saturday. If everything went according to plan, she flew home to Scotland yesterday. Then she and her mum are going on a Scandinavian cruise. So I kinda hate her. Not kinda…I do. She’s going to St. Petersburg and I’ve always wanted to go there! Since way back when it was Leningrad! Not fair. She’s also going to Sweden, probably Stockholm. And Coppenhagen, Amsterdam and something German. Can’t remember what. I told her to bring me back something Russian. Like a sailor. Hoo-boy! I’m going to miss her. I’ll have to find someone else to come and visit me every day and tell me how hard it is for someone like herself to deal with the “regular” people. That’s my girl!

Amelia: Why is he so excited, and loud, today?

Me: Beginning of the quarter… fresh clean sales slate. He’s “striving.”

Amelia: “Striving?”

Me: Yes, he’s rilly rilly striven.

Amelia: Is that a word?

Me: Look it up.

Amelia: Do you see a dictionary in this poster with me?

Me: Sheesh… you used to be such a striver, too.

Amelia: I could strive your ass off, kid.

Me: Word.

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50 Word Fictions

50 Word Fiction Fridays Vol. IX

This week’s theme is sleep, because I am very tired and want some. Sleep. Also, there is no fiction from me until tomorrow… or later today is it would be, as I have stayed up too late reading, and am too tired to think of even 27 words, let alone 50. I almost forgot it was Friday, because of those two days off at the beginning of the week.

So … on your mark… git set…. gimme 50 words!

EDITED to add my story:

Night Sky



She opened the back door, slipping outside, spreading her blanket on the lawn. Looking up at the clear night sky, this was her favorite time, when everyone was sleeping. Which is why they did not see the beam of light come down and carry her up into the night sky.

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