Shaming Mr. Shameless
The other day, Mel asked if anything embarrased me. I had to think about that one, because I couldn't honestly remember the last time I felt embarrassed, about anything. There could be a crowd of 10,000 people pointing and laughing at me, for whatever reason, and I'd simply try to make even more of an ass of myself, just so they keep laughing at me. It's hard for me to feel shame.
A blog reader once asked whether I was afraid Mel, or my parents, would ever stumble across my blog. Well, my mother did find it, and she tried to scold me for being so honest and for being (get ready) "a potty mouth." All I could do was laugh at her. My mother's solution? She doesn't read me any more. And Mel reads me all the time, but the only thing she gets upset about is that I don't blog about her enough. Whatever.
I didn't always have such a thick skin. There was a time when I was terrified of making a mistake, or making a clown of myself in crowds, or just pissing people off. For a foolish stretch of time in high school, I genuinely believed it was possible to go through life making everybody happy. If I just didn't rock the boat, and got good grades, and kissed the appropriate number of asses, I could go through life unnoticed and unshamed. Starting sometime in college, however, I just started not caring any more. So long as goofing off and being an occasional prick doesn't translate into a gun in my face, I realized, it doesn't really matter.
Not so in elementary school. No, back in those formative years, teachers and classmates used shame as a powerfully effective tool. In a time when you were supposed to snap into line and do as you're told, being singled out was the equivalent of facing a firing squad.
I really wasted no time getting my first taste of genuine grade school shame. I was in kindergarten, and all the students sat, in alphabetical order according to name, on a big green rug in the middle of the classroom. Just for the record, I should admit that I had no idea what alphabetical order meant at the time. I just knew there was a certain spot on the green rug I usually sat.
Well, back in my kindergarten days, we had what was referred to as milk monitors, or children specifically chosen to walk down the hall to retrieve milk for the other students. This required counting skills, which I hadn't quite mastered yet, so I was not qualified to be a milk monitor.
However, one day, the milk monitors were taking a long time retrieving the milk, so our teacher quickly selected a "milk monitor monitor" to go to the door to see what was taking so long. I wasn't paying particular attention at the time, because I was busy looking out the window daydreaming. When I came back to reality, I noticed that the person usually seated next to me was gone. Where did he go? My eyes scanned frantically until I found him standing outside the door, looking down the hall at something.
"What is he looking at?" I wondered. "Why was he chosen to go look? Am I next? What if I'm next? Oh no! I better do something! Anything!"
So, I stood up and walked over to the door, my legs shaking because I was taking a HUGE gamble here, assuming that I was next for whatever it was that was going on. All the other kids looked at me in stunned disbelief. What was I doing? I looked back at my little spot of green rug, and there was no other place I wanted to be. But, I had committed myself to whatever it was I was doing, and there was no going back. Then, it happened. . .
"Ryan Rhodes!" barked Mrs. Klauss, the teacher. "What do you think you're doing?!"
Well, obviously, I had no idea what I was doing. I just thought I was next for whatever it was I next for, and that it mysteriously involved standing outside the door and staring down the hall. Therefore, I had no answer for Mrs. Klauss.
"Come over here, Ryan," she said, pointing to the floor in front of her desk.
I did as I was told, and I stood there in front of Mrs. Klauss for what seemed like an eternity, so terrified I was considering peeing my pants. I couldn't see the kids behind me, but I knew they were there, happily seated on their assigned spots of green rug, all of them wondering if Mrs. Klauss was going to kill me or not.
"Okay, Ryan. Go sit in the Naughty Chair."
Not the "Naughty Chair!" Anything but the "Naughty Chair!" Couldn't she just drive colored chalk into my eyes? Surely that would be better than enduring the "Naughty Chair!"
The Naughty Chair was nothing more than a simple tot-sized desk, actually. It was positioned right next to Mrs. Klauss's big person desk, and it faced the rest of the class. Therein was its true evil. Facing the rest of the class, and in turn the rest of the class facing you, laid bare the inescapable fact that you got in trouble. It was a shame device of the highest order, and I was the first to sit in it.
I remember when Mrs. Klauss first introduced us to the Naughty Chair, and I remember thinking that I, good little boy Ryan Rhodes, would never have to place my bottom on its shame ridden seat. And yet, there I was, not only sitting in it, but breaking it in. How could I be the first?! This can't be happening! Oh, cruel, cruel world!
"Now, put your head down, Ryan," said Mrs. Klauss, and I did as instructed.
So there I sat, my head resting on the unforgiving formica, while my unseen classmates giggled and played and drank their milk on the shaggy green rug. I wanted to die.
Nowadays, it's quite a trick for me to feel shame or to be embarrased, but if I ever again bump into Mrs. Klauss, and she instructs me to sit in the Naughty Chair with my head down, I could very well burst into tears.
To Sims Or Not To Sims
Ryan says: I still have your Sims house party thing to return.
Jen says: Oh. Ok. No rush.
Jen says: Do I still have your Sims?
Jen says: The original game?
Ryan says: Yes.
Ryan says: You need it, I suppose.
Jen says: No, I don't. I can return it.
Ryan says: I already have it.
Jen says: I've been playing Sims on Playstation 2.
Ryan says: What you talkin' bout, Willis?
Jen says: You already have it?
Jen says: No no, I asked if I still have your original Sims CDs.
Ryan says: Yes.
Ryan says: I mean, no.
Jen says: Gah.
Jen says: You have it.
Jen says: ?
Jen says: My bwain hurts.
Ryan says: I have it. No.
Ryan says: I mean, yes.
Ryan says: Me have Sims. You not.
Jen says: Stop it!!
Jen says: *calms down*
Ryan says: Sims I have, yes? Jen has not the Sims, no?
Jen says: Right.
Ryan says: So, let's see if I have this right. . .
Jen says: NO!
Ryan says: The Sims that is mine, my Sims, which was for a time your's, but really not, because it was mine, but just with you, is back with me, because it's mine and not your's, although you had it for a time. Right?
Jen says: Right.
Ryan says: I think I'm beginning to understand.
Ryan says: So, the question still remains. . .
Jen says: Bad Ryan!
Jen says: No!
Ryan says: When can I expect you to give back the Sims that I have.
Ryan says: ?
Jen says: Never!
Snow Use Complaining, But Damn It's Cold
I emerged from the house this morning, and immediately I knew it was cold. The plumes coming from the neighborhood chimneys were thicker than normal, and some seemed to be frozen in time. The key seemed to actually fight back as I tried to plunge it into the ignition, and the ignition itself turned only with great effort.
Now, I own a reliable Cadillac Eldorado, and it has ALWAYS started for me. For a brief moment this morning, however, I thought my Caddy's starting streak was about to come to an end. It issued a labored, drawn-out hacking sound, not unlike an aged substitute high school teacher hawking thick phlegm into a tattered hanky, totally grossing out the students. *hack. . .hack. . .hack. . .hack. . .hack*
"Geez," I said aloud. "How freaking cold is it, for crying out loud?"
With a last hack, my car came to life, and I looked down at the digital temperature display to see what the outside temp actually was: - 8. Any time my car has to precede a number with a dash, chances are it's not a good thing. Negative eight degrees! fuck, it's cold! For you metric Europeans, with your super-modern measuring techniques, -8 degrees Fahrenheit translates into -22.22 degrees Celsius. Oy. Then again, it's 250.9 degrees Kelvin, so that sounds pretty warm. It's also -17.78 degrees Reaumur.
What the fuck is Reaumur? Answer: The Reaumur temperature scale is named after the French scientist Rene Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur (1683-1757). He proposed his temperature scale, in 1731. Reaumur divided the fundamental interval between the ice and steam points of water into 80 degrees, fixing the ice point at 0 Degrees and the steam point at 80 degrees.
Seriously, don't the French have anything better to do besides sitting around dividing the fundamental interval between the ice and steam points of water into 80 degrees?
Ah, but negative eight degrees was only the still air temperature. We hearty Minnesotans, however, want to hear about things like wind chill. According to the radio announcer, the wind chill factor translated into -33 Fahrenheit. That's -36.11 Celsius! That's 237 degrees Kelvin, which still sounds pretty warm. And, for you uppity French folks with your strange ice and steam dabbling, that's -28.89 degrees Reaumur!
It's so chilly out, even the snow is complaining about the cold. I love Minnesota, but our winters really, truly, absolutely fucking suck.
Whoops, I Did it Again
What a shock. Apparently, I've pissed off yet another Web surfer who unwittingly visited my site. So enraged was she, that she even dropped me an e-mail. I guess she took offense to the Britney Spears/Christina Aguilera barb in the upper right corner. But, don't take my word for it:
You are obviously an undersexed tool with too much time on your hands. Britney Spears is a beautiful and talented woman and you have no business attacking her in such a sophomoric fashion. Get a life. Or, more appropriately, drop dead.
*pause to remove literary knives from torso and drip Visine into my scratched eyeballs*
Well, EXCUUUUUUUUSE me! Okay, lady, you're asking for it. I can handle being called "sophomoric" and "undersexed," but saying Britney Spears is "beautiful and talented" is simply more than I can take.
Britney Spears is NOT talented. For the past three years, I've had to watch that giggly Jenna Jameson look alike parade her body on television and call it talent. Fine, she can probably sing better than me, and she'd probably make it a few rounds into American Idol before the British dude told her off, but she reached super stardom solely because she was packaged like a pornstar lolita. She was the music industry equivalent of Traci Lords.
Worse, she convinced hundreds of thousands of young girls that the way to get noticed in life is to bare your tummy, push up your tits, and show off your ass. Just for the record, I'm for all of that, but not when its paraded around by 12 to 17 year-olds. Combine that fashion trend with schools full of young men new to the effects of testoserone running through their veins, and you have the makings of a sexual frustration extravaganza. Here's a head scratcher for you: surround boys with half-naked girls and try to explain the Bush doctrine of "abstinance only" sexual education to them. Ah, but the inherent flaws of "abstinance only" sex ed is a different gripe for a different day.
More than just her shameless tart persona, and her conspicuous lack of talent, was the fact that her sugary brand of pop just represented, in my mind, everything that was wrong with popular music: the pre-fabricated boy bands playing God-awful songs were the pretty boy equivalent of Britney Spears. Even Shakira, a young woman with actual talent, was forced to dye her hair and shed most of her clothes to really break into the business in America. And let's not forget Christina Aguilera; she has an awesome voice, but OH. . .MY. . .GOD is she a hopeless tramp or what? Tiffany (you remember Tiffany from the 80s, right?) believed it would help her comeback cause if she showed off her giant bazooms in Playboy first. Has anyone heard from her since? I was really beginning to wonder if, for female musicians, the road to stardom meant checking their morals at the front door.
Then, thankfully, I heard a song by Nora Jones on MusicMatch radio one summer afternoon. I downloaded it and a few others, and then I set out searching for more info about her. I was shocked to see her wearing clothes, and a sensible amount of clothes for that matter. And, perhaps more importantly, her music was actually good. Really damned good. Could it be that a talented female musician could make it big without being a whore? I could only hope. So far, she has withstood the test of time, although it's been a short stretch of time to be sure.
I don't profess to be a fan of Avril Lavigne, a name that sounds like some new brand of headache medicine (take two Avril Lavigne every 8 to 10 hours), but I do like the fact that she's not Britney Spears in every way that matters. She dresses in clothes, for one thing, and that's a great start. Second, she doesn't sing about being a whore; she sings about things that high school students can actually relate to. In short, she's a decent role model. Not a great role model, but a decent one.
The music industry analysts are saying that the Nora Joneses and the Avril Lavignes are poised to squash the sickening pop standards set by Britney and the boy bands, and I sincerely hope so. Really, it all sounds so much the same it's like listening to the Legend of Zelda theme playing in a continuous loop. It's time for fresh sounds and new looks.
So long, Britney, write when you get work, preferably on the set of a low budget porn flick. You've gotta focus on your strengths after all, and they sure as hell don't include music.
There's No Dignified Way to Get Hit in the Nuts
I got hit in the nuts tonight. Hard. I got hit hard in the nuts tonight.
We were working knife disarming techniques, and I had a rubber knife and was attacking. The young man who was defending tried to kick the knife from my hand just as I backed up. The end result was a foot planted square in my groin. I let out a quick yelp, and then I hit the mat face first, bracing for the inevitable wave of pain that was sure to follow.
Now, getting hit in the dangly bits (a Gudy term) is bad enough. Whether male or female, you know that a lot of nerves meet up at the groin, and getting hit there is something both sexes take great pains to avoid. For guys, this is especially true, because our most favorite organ also comes into play.
Yes, getting hit in the nuts sucks, but it's made even worse when there's a crowd around to witness it. Take tonight, for example. There I was, writhing around in pain, desperately waiting for it to subside just enough so I could drag myself to a halfway standing position, and there were about 14 other people standing around watching my misery. Then, to top all that off, I had the head instructor trying to help me through the pain, reminding me to take deep breaths, as if he were my personal gonadal lamaze coach.
I certainly don't mean to to bitch about my instructor's efforts. He was just concerned and trying to help me out after all. But, seriously, the last thing I want after getting hit in the nuts is somebody telling me how to deal with the pain. I've been hit in the nuts many times before, so I'm familiar with the recovery process. Wince -> Groan -> Roll around in fetal position -> Sweat -> Whimper -> Try to stand like a newborn calf -> Walk it off. So, the instructor's help was not welcome, and in fact it only served to announce further to the class that I had been hit in the nuts. Nothing like having an attentive class so intimately aware of my shame.
People who witness a nut whacking incident treat the victim weird afterwards, like he is now a carrier of some strange disease. "Oh, you got hit in the nuts? I'm so sorry. Could you step back a bit? I don't want to catch whatever smashed nut syndrome you now may have." Think I'm kidding? Give yourself a good nut whacking amidst a crowd of onlookers some time and see how differently they treat you.
Back in my high school wrestling days, if someone took a shot to the nads, the coach would announce the situation to the entire wrestling room, and everyone would stop the workout and . . . applaud. That's right, they would applaud. This had a two part effect. On the one hand, the victim would be embarrassed. On the other hand, the victim would become indescribably pissed off. "How DARE they applaud my misery!" The situation, for me, was made incalculably worse because the coach was my dad.
So you see, there really is no dignified way to get hit in the nuts. However, if you'd like to prove me wrong, go right ahead and try. I'd love to hear all about it.
Now That's Fanaticism
Well, it turns out that bin Laden may have escaped the American dragnet in Tora Bora simply by handing off his cell phone to a lackey. Don't believe me? Well, it's right here. Try to ignore the fact that bin Laden's snarled face graces the top of the page. I swear, if I ever see that man's face again, it had better have a hefty spear through it. At least then I could stomach looking at the man. Seriously, any time I see footage of the towers crumbling, and then I see bin Laden, I literally want to attack the screen and rake that bastard's eyes from his sockets. Anyhoooooo. . .
RABAT, Morocco, Jan. 21 — With U.S. forces closing in on him during the battle of Tora Bora in late 2001, Osama bin Laden employed a simple feint against sophisticated U.S. spy technology to vanish into the mountains that led to Pakistan and sanctuary, according to senior Moroccan officials.
It's one of the dangers of today's high technology world: we sometimes become so dependant on it, we forget some of our most basic human skills, like information gathering. Spy technology has its place, yes, but we can't simply dispose of good old fashioned human spy work.
A MOROCCAN who was one of bin Laden's longtime bodyguards took possession of the al Qaeda leader's satellite phone on the assumption that U.S. intelligence agencies were monitoring it to get a fix on their position, said the officials, who have interviewed the bodyguard, Abdallah Tabarak. Tabarak moved away from bin Laden and his entourage as they fled; he continued to use the phone in an effort to divert the Americans and allow bin Laden to escape. Tabarak was captured at Tora Bora in possession of the phone, officials said.
BIN LADEN: Tabarak, here, take my phone!
TABARAK: No, you take it! I don't want to hold on to that missile magnet. Are you crazy?
BIN LADEN: Tabarak, I must live in order that I may continue the struggle against the Americans and their filthy Western ideals and technologies. Now, take my Qualcomm cellular phone and move away from me so I don't get splattered with your blood when the American satellites zero in on my phone's position and infidel missiles are launched.
TABARAK: This is sooo not what I signed up for.
But now, ladies and gentlemen, we get to the most wonderful part of the article, the part that just left me laughing for ten minutes.
"He agreed to be captured or die," a Moroccan official said of Tabarak. "That's the level of his fanaticism for bin Laden. It wasn't a lot of time, but it was enough. There is a saying: ‘Where there is a frog, the serpent is not far away.' "
What the hell are those Moroccans smoking? "He agreed to be captured or die. That's the level of his fanaticism for bin Laden." Well, excuse me, but what the hell else were his options? Hmmmm, I could be captured, or I could die. I guess I'll choose captured.
TABARAK: You'll never take me alive, you infidel scum!! Actually, that doesn't sound so bad after all! I'm coming out now, because I don't want to die! I am giving you permission to capture me!
Yeah, that's definite fanaticism there. Forget going down in a massive firefight to protect bin Laden's cell phone. Tabarak wisely chose to be captured instead.
More than a year later, Tabarak, 43, has established himself as the "emir" or camp leader of the more than 600 suspected al Qaeda and Taliban members being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to senior officials here who have visited the military compound twice to interview Moroccan citizens.
I guess being the leader of a prison full of inmates entails a certain amount of prestige, but he's still just a common prisoner. Let him claim all the titles he wants, I guess, so long as he's safely behind a mesh of razor wire.
Some of the prisoners, by symbolically holding daylong fasts on the orders of Tabarak, have maintained some semblance of a command structure in defiance of U.S. attempts to isolate and break them, Moroccan officials said.
I wonder if they'd hold Tabarak in such high regard if they knew about his "die or be captured" standoff.
Tabarak, also known as Abu Omar, is respected even more because he helped bin Laden escape, the official said. The ploy involving the satellite phone is widely known and celebrated among the prisoners at the military prison, now called Camp Delta.
It's kind of sad to think that playing hot potato with a cellular phone constitutes a great victory.
INMATE #1: Hey, remember that great story about Tabarak taking bin Laden's phone to throw off the Americans?
INMATE #2: Yeah, that is a great story, and it is one that will be told for generation to come. Long live bin Laden!
INMATE #1: Um, yeah, so what do you want to do for the rest of the day?
INMATE #2: I don't know. I guess we could fast or something.
INMATE #1: Hey, that could be fun. But, nah, I did that yesterday. Besides, the American infidels are feeding us chicken cordon bleu today. I don't want to miss that.
INMATE #2: That right. I guess I won't fast either.
*ten minute break in conversation*
INMATE #1: Hey, remember that great story about Tabarak taking bin Laden's phone to throw off the. . .
INMATE #2: Yeah, yeah. I've heard it.
"More News From the Nose," c. Ryan Rhodes, Jan. 13, 2003
In one of my recent columns I described, in probably more detail than most readers would have liked, my childhood memories of getting a button stuck up my nose and my unwitting inhalation of Endust cleaner, which momentarily got me high and made me topple off my windowsill perch. You'd think I'd reminisce about some good childhood memories from time to time, but this is the material with which I choose to work.
Well, that column generated more e-mail responses than you could sneeze at. Okay, in actuality, it generated seven e-mail responses, and if you tried I'm sure you could sneeze at each of them. But, why would you? Surely you have something better to do than sneeze at e-mails, you oddball.
>From Aubrey: You should have put a warning to young readers as you know many will try any stunt. Here come the lawsuits for Rambling Rhodes. The Endust incident now explains many things to us. Unless of course this just happened?
Just for the record, I don't believe stuffing a button up my nose or inhaling Endust really qualify as "stunts." Jumping the Grand Canyon on a motorcycle is a stunt. Inhaling Endust was a dumb and dangerous thing I did as a toddler, and that also prompted a massive headache for hours afterward. I also like to blame Endust for my early hair loss, my weak ankles, and the current slump in the economy. Beware the Endust, my friends. Beware.
>From Jody: The Endust story explains a lot about you.
Okay, short though that comment was, I can't help but believe it was just meant to be mean. Fortunately, I thrive on mean comments. Still, Jody may have a point. Perhaps my Endust sniffing incident actually rewired my brain and turned me into a super human. Perhaps the Endust is responsible for my current status as a smoking hot specimen of male hunkiness.
Or, perhaps none of this is true. After a quick online search, I found out that Endust is marketed simply as a no-wax formula that removes dust, soil and surface wax buildup. Not a single mention about its ability to cause a toddler to topple off windowsills after inhalation. How strange.
Okay, I get it, readers, you think I'm odd and that Endust may have something to do with it. Let's move on to e-mails that don't have anything to do with me.
>From Jackie: My niece once got a pussywillow stuck up her nose. Wouldn't that tickle you crazy?
Well, yes, but only because I've never been able to say "pussywillow" without giggling uncontrollably.
I remember when I first encountered a pussywillow branch outside my elementary school. I thought the little fuzzy balls were actually cocoons, so stuffing one up my nose was not an option. The next spring would come, I'd be called up in front of class to answer a question, and suddenly a butterfly would come fluttering out of my nose, but only after I writhed on the floor in agony as the butterfly first feasted on my tender Endust-damaged brain tissue.
Now of course I know that the soft little balls are actually buds, so maybe I should stuff one in my nose. Nah, I'm too old for that kind of nonsense. Or am I?
>From Becca: Hey, o-kay, I probably shouldn't tell you this, but I once got a blueberry stuck up my nose - not so bad if I had been a child, but I was in college! Just thought I'd share.
Yep, back in my college days, that was referred to as "Snorting a Blue B." Everybody was doing it, man. Gave you a killer buzz. Wait a minute, no it didn't. A blueberry in the nose? In college? And it wasn't part of a sorority initiation or anything?
I'd like to postulate how Becca managed to get a blueberry stuck in her nose, but I have to go out and buy a pair of nose plugs. Apparently, you can't be too careful nowadays.
I Wish I Had Said That, But Then, I'm Not a Woman
I rely on Anna Quindlan to say things I wish I could say. She's the thinking woman who says what she thinks, and damn she's good at it. But, don't take my word for it, clicky clicky here: http://www.msnbc.com/news/861238.asp?0dm=C12TO
Weekend Review
This weekend can be boiled down pretty much to a single term: Sleep. I got off work at 5 p.m. on Friday and drove to St. Paul to stay with the girl for the weekend. We were supposed to cook together.
Oh, for the record, two weekends ago, I introduced Mel to one of my favorite culinary discoveries from the the year I lived in Japan: Japanese Curry. This is isn't Indian curry, or the lame ass Jamaican curry, or the weak curry powders you find on American grocery shelves. No, this is Japanese curry, and I make it extra special because my parents, who live in Japan, are sure to bring back the main Japanese ingredients each year, thus satiating my occasional craving for the wonderful stuff.
I only share my Japanese curry cooking prowess with a few people, mainly because I like to hog it all for myself, but I thought Mel was ready to experience the wonder of Ryan's Japanese curry. The result? Yet another Japanese curry addict was born. She loved it so much, she wanted to cook it again when I got to St. Paul on Friday. She had even gone shopping to buy the other necessary curry components.
However, upon arriving in St. Paul, I realized my body wanted to be in a horizontal rather than a vertical position, so I plopped heavily into Mel's bed at about 7:15. Mel joined me without protest. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them I saw the clock had warped ahead to 11:30. Oh. Great. That pretty much meant I would be up until 3 a.m. Mel woke up with the same thought. We kicked around a couple of ideas. We could cook curry. We could go to a bar and ingest just enough spirits to ensure slumber. We could eat cookie dough.
We opted to eat cookie dough, approximately two cookies of cookie dough each, to be precise, and for some strange reason, that did the trick. So, from 12:15 to 11:15, I continued my sleep marathon. Mel could only hack sleeping until 9:30, at which time she got up and started doing some sort of chores. Having no chores of my own to do, I opted to complete my 15 hour sleep cycle. Ah, bliss.
Not surprisingly, I awoke with a considerable horde of energy, what with my body having spent the last 15 hours with nothing better to do than burn fat into energy, but finding no use for energy, turning the energy back into fat, and then back into energy. I apparently woke up during the energy-creation peak of the cycle, so I decided to go for a run around nearby Como Lake. In my eager enthusiasm to get my feet a' runnin', I forgot to check the weather. Hell, it was sunny, so it had to be warm. Right? Wrong. It was cold. Not just any cold, but Minnesota cold. The kind of cold that makes icicles look like warm fluffy pillows. And it was windy. So, here it was cold and windy, and I was running around a lake, a watery expanse not known for its ability to halt blowing wind.
So, there I was, running headlong into a harsh, bitter, angry cold wind, with exposed face and ears, because my idea of head protection is a loose bandana tied in skull cap fashion. The biting cold brought tears to my eyes, which quickly froze. Yet I pushed on, primarily because I knew that, once I got halfway around the lake, I would be able to run with the wind rather than against it. Como Lake isn't very big, maybe a mile-and-a-half around, which should have been nothing for me, a veteran of five mile treks. Still, when I finally started running with the wind, I felt as though I had run 10 miles while pulling a tractor.
What better way to recover from hypothermia than by taking a nice hour long nap? Which is exactly what I did, much to Mel's total and complete amazement. When I awoke again, Mel convinced me that we should try to do something, anything, besides sleep. I reluctantly agreed, even though the bed sure was still warm and inviting, but oh well.
We browsed a few shops on Grand St., one of the nicer shopping stretches in St. Paul. Our initial stop was a relatively new Chinese furniture and knick-knack shop, but I can't remember the name. For blog purposes the shop will be referred to as the Chinese shop with neat but really expensive shit (CSWNBRES). We looked around for about half an hour, when I noticed a unique wine rack, which was really a television entertainment center with a wine rack shoved where the TV usually sits. All for the palty sum of $1,600. Mel loved it.
"Honey, we should buy this together!" she said.
*Reset Brain* *Give puzzled look* *Furrow brow* *Utter disbelieving HAH!*
What? Buy what? Together what? What? What? What?
Now, I love Melissa, and I love the time we spend together, and I like buying her flowers and taking her out to eat. But, suddenly, I got the feeling she's looking to advance things to another level, a level I'm nowhere even close to entertaining. She wants to have a toothbrush at my place? Great. She wants to have deodorant? Terrific. She wants to leave some body lotions? Super! She wants to go halves on a Chinese wine rack that costs $1,600? SCREEEEEEECH! Whoa, horsies! Whoa! Come on, horsies! Please whoa!
"Um, I don't need. . . we don't need. . .I don't think we, I, er. . . *adjust common sense meter* We're not going to start buying furniture, baby." I finally said, and it took so much effort, I kind of needed a nap.
"But this would look great next to the bookcase in my apartment," she said, apparently oblivious to my apprehension.
I opted to file away the conversation into the "consult later" area of my brain. Mel and I apparently need to talk about our relationship and set some common boundaries. Thankfully, we won't see each other all this week because she's starting school again. Maybe some time and perspective will do us both some good.
Sunday rolled around, but not until after I indulged in an additional 10 hours of sleep. Mel and I finally got around to cooking the Japanese curry together and, no surprise, it was a culinary masterpiece. Man, that shit is good! Mel had to work at 4 p.m., so we said our tongue wrestling good-byes and I started the drive back to Rochester. I always enjoy the drive back to Rochester because I don't feel rushed. There's no timetable that I have to meet. I can just watch the world roll by and think easy thoughts. Car time can be pleasant time if you don't think of it as a chore, especially when you're safely encapsulated from the harsh Minnesota cold outside.
Once back on the home front, I took a quick nap, played Alien vs. Predator 2 for a couple of hours, and then went to bed at 11 p.m.
You can never have too much sleep on a weekend.
"Your Guide to weather Reporting" c. Ryan Rhodes, Feb. 1, 2000
As much as I despise the winter season with its cold weather, massive snow accumulation, boredom inducing cabin fever, and overall miserable conditions, I do enjoy one treasured aspect: the winter weather news story. They always make me laugh.
Now, I'm not talking about weather stories that warn about approaching weather patterns. Those are at least useful. If I hear that there's a big winter storm heading my way, I take precautionary measures, like leaving work early, cooking a pizza, and taking a nap. No, the weather stories that make me laugh are the ones that appear during the days after a big storm.
People love to read weather stories, because people like to believe that the weather pattern they just endured was truly a historic experience. The very fact that they survived such a traumatic onslaught of Mother Nature's wrath is testimony to their hearty survival instincts. In this case, "survival instincts" include sitting in front of the TV, eating canned soup, and stealing sidelong glances out the window at the menacing storm outside.
I've read countless storm stories. Truth be told, I've even had to write quite a few. weather story content always includes a treasure trove of humorous creative writing. If you ever find yourself under deadline pressures to write a quality weather story (hey, it could happen), keep the following tips in mind.
Be generous with adjectives and personification. Storms are really no more than random weather events that coalesce in random locations during random times of the year. However, a weather story that leads off "A random weather event coalesced over Rochester and surrounding areas yesterday afternoon," just wouldn't grab a reader's attention. Instead, make the storm come alive, and give it some human characteristics to make it seem particularly menacing. liberally use such terms as "blanketed," "engulfed," "swirled," "blackened," and anything else that has an evil undertone.
You can never have too many facts and figures in a weather story. Sure, it may have just been a light dusting of snow that fell for a couple of hours during the afternoon, but a quick perusal of weather history and a little imagination can produce the award-winning sentence, "for one-third of the afternoon yesterday, area residents endured a winter onslaught that dumped 2.5 inches of snow, a snowfall total that ranks 53rd in the state's history." Really creative writers would say that "over one-sixth of a foot of snow fell." It's important to milk every measurement to achieve the maximum "wow" effect from the readers. Find out how many businesses and schools closed, and always do an airport check to see if any flights were canceled or delayed (there's always at least one, even without a storm). Are there cars in the ditch? Of course there are. Injuries? Don't forget those.
Never forget the human interest angle. Every storm, no matter how big or small, is bound to have affected the life of somebody, somewhere. Maybe the Kendall family down the road had a window broken by the wind, and the snow accumulated in their bathroom. Or perhaps their family dog was impaled when an icicle snapped off the garage. Keep an open ear for any such angle. Your readers will thank you for it. The chance to read about another person's misfortune will have the local coffee shop buzzing with good conversation for at least a week.
Never forget to focus on "what might have been." So, the storm missed you by 20 miles. So what? Now is the time to let speculation and conjecture run wild. People also like to read about how lucky they were to miss a horrific storm, so now is your chance to stoke that fire of interest. Twenty miles? In the whole scheme of things, and the vast expanse of the world, isn't that really just a "near miss?" How much snow "could have" fallen? Six inches (half a foot)? What are the chances that a storm could miss by such a slim margin?
These are questions that can be answered by your friendly National weather Service, a group of meteorology professionals who are always good for a menacing "what could have been" quote. "I don't know how that storm missed us," said Wayne Cloudburst, chief meteorologist at the National weather Service in LaCrosse, Wis. "If it had hit with its full potential, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. Chances are I'd be floating dead in the Mississippi River, somewhere down by New Orleans. We were really lucky."
So, the next time there's a big weather event of Satanical proportions about to engulf your area, be sure to read the newspaper the next day. Even if your dog was impaled by an icicle and your bathroom's full of snow, you're sure to get a good weather story laugh just the same.
