Quick, Gouge my Eyes Out.

Posted on 1/14/2008 by cheesefairy

I hate the Vancouver Sun. I hate its politics, I hate its simplification of things complex, I hate its letters section, which sometimes includes a photograph of the letter-writer, I hate its cover photos and headlines.

OK, you got me: I hate that the building it’s housed in refused to give me ice cream last summer. It was a bright, sunshiny day and in the space between my building and the Vancouver Sun’s building, a steel drum band played ’70s rock covers while people wandered between signs that declared that day “Employee Appreciation Day!” blissfully eating their well-earned free ice cream. My colleagues and I approached one of the ice cream trucks and asked for an ice cream and the lady staffing the truck said, “Oh, the ice cream is only for our building. You have to show us your building ID.”

So we went back inside and ate our lunch quietly, alone.

No but really I hate the Vancouver Sun because over the years it has stopped even trying to publish writing that is not ASS in nature. Today I winced as I read the following, a description of the so-called “umbrella jerks” of Vancouver:

“They jab us with their tips on buses and in elevators. They guide the runoff from their closed umbrellas into our shoes as we ride the bus. They rake our eyes with the dangerously pointed metal tips arrayed like a dozen dangerous eye-poking things around the perimeter of their tent-sized brollies.”

Sorry, whose dangerously pointed metal tips? And did you seriously just write, “…like a dozen dangerous eye-poking things”? And did you seriously write this? Or did your hamster?

I have no problem with the content of the story. It’s the middle section of the paper, the part that is all about what shampoo Rob Feenie uses and who charges the most for a fancy latte in the city. I don’t expect much. And it’s winter in Vancouver which means if we’re not hearing SAFE DRIVING TIPS FOR THE KILLER SNOW on the radio we are hearing about umbrella etiquette.

But “…like a dozen dangerous eye-poking things” is not even writing. It doesn’t count. You suck you suck you suck and you get PAID to suck and you get FREE ICE CREAM to suck and that is just not fair. I am going to start carrying an umbrella just so I can jab you with the eye-poking things. In the eye. Dangerously.

Posted in idiots, language, media | 11 Comments

Navel: Meet Gaze!

Posted on 1/11/2008 by cheesefairy

On the bus home, sitting between two people with small bottoms, I recalled my angry message from this morning. You know, the one about the man with the big ass. I thought as I dozed and jostled home, it’s not nice to tar all big bottomed people with a brush of any kind. I thought, I don’t care how big his ass is. So why did I feel the need to denigrate him with a comment about his size? What’s the real reason that man pissed me off After all, I sit next to all kinds of people on the bus. Big, small, smelly, stupid, very occasionally super-hot.

The part that bothered me about this man was that he was in my space. Partly that was unavoidable: we were crammed tight and bus seats are not built for big bottomed people. That part didn’t bother me. But when all the seats next to him opened up and he didn’t do the courteous thing, which to me, is to move away from the person with whom you are sharing intimate thigh moments, then I got uncomfortable.

The unwritten law of transit, to my mind, is make yourself as small as possible. Turn sideways when you walk down the isles. Keep your knees together. Keep your purse on the floor between your legs. If you are wearing your backpack, you are taking up the space of two people. (Yes, my belly takes up the space of an extra person. That’s because it is one.) When people disobey these laws, they annoy me because I follow them and that’s not (foot stomp!) fair!

Lately, though, I’ve made a new rule for myself and I try to be understanding of other people that I think might be following this rule as well. That rule is: I will accomodate as many other people as I can on this bus/train but not at the expense of my own reasonable comfort. So, yes, I will move as far back on the train as I can to make room for all of you people slavering at the doors. But I will not balance on one leg for 30 minutes, dangling my body over some guy’s briefcase, getting a terrible cramp in my ass, just so one more person can get on. I need to have both my feet on the floor, a pole to hang onto and enough space around me that I am not crushed in any way. I do not pay my transit fare every day to suffer. I do not have the balance or mobility to surf the light rail fantastic anymore.

With 8 feet of space to his right, Mr. Lean-To chose to stay wedged up close to me. Maybe that’s because I’m very beautiful.(cough) Or perhaps I smell sweet like a spring’s day. (sputter) Maybe he was thinking about something else and had become used to the weight of my body against him. Anything is possible but it was cruel of me to go with the cheap shot and insult his bottom. Sorry, Mr. Lean-To. You go rock on with your bad bottom. And next time I’ll just get up and move.

Posted in more about me!, public transit | 6 Comments

As Liz Lemon Would Say: Blargh!

Posted on 1/11/2008 by cheesefairy

I just looked closely at the illicit, non-plastics-related contents of my keyboard. There’s a whole little world in there! In fact, I think I saw Frodo and Sam having the gay hobbit sex. When they saw me peeking, they pulled a giant, ancient muffin crumb over their heads as a boulder.

I have to stop typing now and go chop off / otherwise disinfect my fingers.

Posted in ew | 1 Comment

Messages Otherwise Undeliverable

Posted on 1/11/2008 by cheesefairy

To the people in line in front of me at Trees on Granville:

You are such good people to buy your friend who is having a baby next week a cheesecake. I even forgive you for not knowing what to write on the cake. (my suggestion is: Do Not Share This Cake! It Is Your Cake!) If you run out of friends, please contact me.

To the blood lab where I tried to go and have a glucose screen this morning:

Maybe 2 people on reception? Just a thought.

To the guy who wedged his big ass up next to me on the bus and stayed wedged up next to me even after all the seats on the other side of him were empty:

Did you feel my baby kick you? Because it did.

To a work colleague:

If you are going to put a link to your new website in all your email correspondence, consider finishing building that website. If I see any more of those adorable “under construction” .GIFs, I am going to bop you on the head just like little rabbit foo foo was not supposed to with those field mice. Notice how little rabbit foo foo’s motivation is never explored? I bet he has a really good reason for bopping those mice on the head. I bet those mice are really goddamn annoying.

Posted in babby, food, idiots, public transit | Comments Off on Messages Otherwise Undeliverable

My Music Player, Continued

Posted on 1/9/2008 by cheesefairy

The thing about listening to music on headphones, in the middle of a crowd, is that you turn it up higher and you actually listen. I am not announcing this as though I just discovered it. I remembered the fact yesterday when I was on my way to work, listening to the New Pornographers album “Challengers” and found myself having to leave the train at my destination and then walk quickly outside to the farthest point facing north so that my tears could mingle with the rain for a while before going in to work became a possibility.

I have heard the album a few times since we bought it last year but, like they say in counselor training, had not listened so closely to it as I did yesterday, with the headphones on, turned up nice and loud to make sure everyone was drowned out, even the music player of the person next to me who was listening to House mixes and hitting me with her TNA bag while she danced.

The flip side of this emotional coin is that on the way home, after a day whose unpleasant tone had been set by the crying jag of first my son and then me, no fool, I attempted to play less emotional, less good, in a word, tunes, that I might be in an improved mood when I got to daycare to get Trombone. And so I did play Soundgarden, because Soundgarden has never made me cry except for that one time when Chris Cornell cut his hair, and so I did hear “Spoonman,” nay, listened to “Spoonman” all the way through and man. That is a wretched song. It is just awful. Who the hell thought it was OK? Don’t albums have editors?

More importantly, because this is my automatic comparison of late, how is it any better than Sharon, Lois and Bram?

Here, for your comparison, Trombone’s current favourite SLB song, “Little Sir Echo” versus “Spoonman.”

Little sir echo how do you do?
Hello! (hello)
Hello! (hello)
Little sir echo I’m awfully blue
Hello (hello)
Hello (hello)
Hello (hello)
Hello (hello)
Won’t you come over and play?
You’re a nice little fellow
I know by your voice
but you’re always so far
a-wayyyyyyyyyyy (to its credit, Trombone sings along with the “play” and “away” lines rather endearingly)

and then:

Feel the rhythm with your hands
Steal the rhythm while you can, spoonman
Speak the rhythm on your own
Speak the rhythm all alone, spoonman
Spoonman, come together with your hands
Save me, I’m together with your plan
Save me

All my friends are Indians
All my friends are brown and red, spoonman
All my friends are skeletons
They beat the rhythm with their bones,
Spoonman
Spoonman, come together with your hands
Save me, I’m together with your plan
Save me
Feel the rhythm with your hands
Steal the rhythm while you can, spoonman

(And – spoon solo!)

And lo, new internal standards in music have been set. If it isn’t better than Sharon, Lois and Bram, lyrically or musically, I’m moving on.

Posted in music, public transit | 8 Comments