I'd Rather Be...

I'd apologize for not blogging, but I'm not sorry. I'm just very tired. I haven't really responded to personal email in over a week and I checked it for the first time in three days this morning. I want to curl into a little ball, but instead I'm pretty much working around the clock through Friday night.

So French-Roast is officially on holiday, even though my most of me is not. Have a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and if you're lucky enough to be on my holiday card list, you should have something in the mail within the week--assuming I don't die, which I might. But probably not.

See you next year!

Your pal,
MaryT

She Sells Cinnamon Rolls Down by the River Styx

This is a point of disagreement in my house, but I need to get it out or I'm going to continue fixating on it.

I don't think that people with speech impediments should be radio announcers. There, I said it. (Matt believes some microphone adjustments are in order at the station, but to my highly-tuned ear, no one else is asking us to support "Red Ribber Radio" or talking of delicious "thimmon rolls.") But aside from my annoyance at these linguistic missteps, here are my totally rational justifications for this declaration.

1. Engineers do not build a bridge with a total mastery of MOST numbers, occasionally switching 4 and 9 all willy nilly do they? Fie! Or maybe they do a la that bridge in Minnesota. But it also might just have been old.

2. New York Times readers certainly wouldn't just let it slip if Will Shortz occasionally misspelled the words in his crossword, leaving letters out where his abilities were short.

3. More examples could go here, but I think you get my general drift.

If radio announcing is the main thing you do, you should actually be able to do it. You can't be a cab driver if you can't drive. Well, maybe that's a bad example. But here again is another instance in which I truly prefer a person to be qualified for the job they are doing. What's with people filling their jobs with such mediocrity? Don't answer that.

Look, Red Ribber Radio dude, I'm sure you have a lot of nice qualities. Being articulate is not one of them. Consider a career in set design. Or pantomime--even better. I'm not trying to shun you; I'm just saying you're not qualified for your job. Just as I would not be qualified for my job if I could not produce high-quality word documents completely in bold or stand on my head every time the wind changes. But I can and I do. Now that I think about it though, I might like to be a radio announcer.

Sorry for the Delay...

Sorry to those of you who I excited by telling you of my just-now post. Unfortunately, F-R has blazed through the initial extra parking space I bought for it in June and we are marching right into 20MB territory. I was having publishing issues when I tried to post my entry from this morning, discovered my overage, and then had to get some ordering stuff straightened out with my domain host. It should be smooth sailing until the next storage crisis, which I hope won't be for another 1005 posts. But you never can tell. I like to keep it wacky. Thanks for your loyal readership!

There's No Competence in Team

It's sometimes hard to be associated with a group, especially for me who--let's just get this right out there--is not a team player. I think it's my own vanity because I am usually way too mortified to be associated with a particularly moronic brand of group think when in my highly haughty opinion, my personal behavior, opinions, and performances are always above reproach/exceed expectations. Let's all have a good laugh at that, shall we?

But seriously--this is a deep-rooted problem for me and possibly explains why I like to be the boss of every group I'm in ever, even though I have certainly had occasion to enthusiastically sign up (initially, of course) as warm body-only for assorted groups. Then one of two things happens.

1) I attempt to boss everyone around, which isn't as hostile as it seems. I am diplomatic and nice usually and work hard to prove my worthiness as a leader.

2) I totally lose interest and try to pretend I never had anything to do with the group at all ever and for God's sake--stop sending me your grammatically painful emails. Inevitably, every group of my association sends me tons and tons of grammatically painful emails. There are so many roaming the internets that certainly a few are bound for my inbox. "What'm I gon' do?" I ask you.

A good example of this is any Democratic organization I've ever run across. I always want to join. I want to open the polls at 7 am and make myself into a sandwich board. I want to fight the good fight. (Once in 2004 I even threw this huge fundraiser for John Kerry--my veeeery distant third choice for the nomination-- and sold bumper stickers and stuff. It was crazy.) And then the current leader of the group starts talking and I start crying. I cry for the fact that my political ideals are the same as those of someone I perceive to be an incompetent goon. Actually, any political organization will do for this example, but especially those in the minority of a place. I reason that with a larger group to choose from, you're less likely to get a goon as the leader, right? Right! Maybe. (I have no explanation for the fact that Republicans nationwide twice sent us a goon for the White House or the fact that a large group of some of the coolest people I know live in this somewhat small town. Both facts are kind of ruining my "expert" statistical analysis. Damn you!)

Of course, I guess with any big group, you're also more likely to get a lot of everybody--including goons. And then when you get a big bunch of goons together, you call that a political organization. I do not exclude myself from these goons exactly. I once bribed Matt F./M! to attend a meeting of the Montrose chapter of the Green Party with me by promising him an Elvis platter at Chuy's after. And since the meeting was held in the public library, we applauded the way that deaf people do, by shaking their best jazz hands in the air. And that was the most normal thing about the meeting. In retrospect, I see the goon I was for having to bribe someone to attend what was, indeed, a very jazzy event. And the fact that M! was the only one willing to be bribed. (My other friends probably gave me dirty looks. But M! loves Chuy's a great deal more than he dislikes jazzy political meetings.) Where was I before Chuy's and jazz hands? Oh yes, political organizations. No, any organizations.

In conclusion, I'm very sorry if I'm bossy. I'm sorry if I'm disinterested after an initial outpouring of community service and enthusiasm. There just really is no I in Team. And I is one cool cat. Or misguided. Either way--keep away from Team* for best results.

*Unless you are grammatically-painful email free or you're willing to let me be the boss of you, so as to keep the group grammatically-painful email-free.

Bed Sore

This weekend I had a brush with death--by which I mean, I spent some time throwing up. I'm not sure why, but this always feel like the next worse thing to death to me. My severe bout with food poisoning in 2004 still sets my mind reeling as the highly memorable, worst few days of my entire life. When I have had occasion to camp out on various cold bathroom floors, I always think "If life were always like this, I bet the suicide rate would be much higher." Anywho, this last sickness event, while incredibly icky, was not the heave-fest of 2004. I was sick for about a day and today I'm recovering at home, still trying to keep a comfortable distance between myself and the flavorful world of digestion--or lack thereof. The thing is, even though I both want and need to recover, I'm a bit bed weary, having spent the majority of the hours not spent in the bathroom there yesterday. There are floors to be vacuumed and laundry to be done.

My mom theorizes this was a sickness a few weeks in the making for doing too much and sleeping too little. Perhaps she's right and in light of this, I have determined to spend a leisurely day online shopping and scrabulous-ing on facebook--a rare luxury for me. Plus, enough can't be said about wearing pajamas relaxation wear* for two solid days.

The only bad news is that now my favorite of grilled cheese and soup is out of the question for the next like, I don't know, two years. After the notorious FP of 2004, I am still cautious when eating spaghetti. Cruel world!

Sure, it wasn't the earth-shattering blog post you've been waiting most of November for, but give my stomach a few days to get unraw and we'll see what I can do for you.

In the meantime, happy internetting to all.

*Soma, the loungewear branch of Chico's the women's retailer, haughtily informed Jen that they don't sell jammies, only "relaxation wear." So I am doing my part to snidely acquiesce.