Hey

I got a job. ! I'll be working as a copywriter for a company that offers international tours. Good news!

J K-Z

I like to think that I talk a good game, but I am interested in a couple of things that are a little kumbaya. Reiki is one of them; I went for a treatment a couple of weeks ago, and it lived up to my expectations - it's the kind of thing that I can't imagine not working (this because I think people are spiritual ding an sich).

Another is mindfulness; which I'd read about in the past. I'm a sucker for a kit, so when I saw this at the bookstore, I pounced on it. CD's! Sound therapy! Mind training cards! And best of all - Jon Kabat-Zinn*!

J K-Z is a pioneer of mindfulness, and I've bought and not read (there should be a word for that) one of his books in the past - Wherever You Are, There You Are or something - and I have to say I'm a fan. The first of the 2 CD's, which I listened to while falling asleep last night, walks you through breathwork exercises (that were really good!) and then J K-Z comes on to present mindfulness exercises: and he sounds like a Mafia tough guy. That's what I wanted to say. Also that I truly did experience little split-seconds of states of altered consciousness, and that there's this one presumably unintentionally funny part where J K-Z is telling you to focus on your breathing and bring your mind back to your breathing when it's being distracted by thought, and then he goes through this whole long description of something that is nothing but distracting, telling us to approach our breathing (there should also be a punctuation mark that indicates that something is being quoted roughly - maybe ~") like we were creeping up on a small animal, in a forest, sitting on a tree stump, in a little clearing of light**..."~

*if - when - I have a cocktail party based on psychological theories, a Kabat-Zinn will be a glass of Zinfandel and a line of coke.

**for D. Kaufer

misplaced expectations

Last night I was listening to the radio, and a song came on that I liked, that reminded me of the good old days of early high school (which meant the industrial music my boyfriends listened to), and that I thought was Marilyn Manson*. So I Googled it, and in the second line he uses an infinitive where he should have used a gerund, and I was like, "forget it."


*Funny - This book I'm reading** just talked about metonymy used as a perjorative, and hypernymy as an exaltation ("Aren't I a woman?" etc).

**The other day I was looking online for reiki practitioners, and found myself preferring one over another because one had hyperlinked a slightly long phrase and the other had just hyperlinked the significant word. The hyperlinked phrase made me instinctually find her more supportive.

This could be, though, that hyperlinking a phrase instead of a word suggests a lack of media sophistication that I subconsciously associate with touchy-feely-healiness***.

***Though I use it above so I could mention the reiki thing. I don't find myself particularly touchy-feely-healy (which my friend K calls "Kumbaya" - see asterisk 1 (or not)).

you can, can you.

I have to say, it drives me mad how everyone on a Food Network show, at the end of the cooking demonstration, says - without fail - "you (I) can really taste the (ingredient)!" Usually orange zest, or tamarind, or chervil. Do these people say "wow, you can really see the yellow" or "hmmm, I'm really hearing those trombones"?

I suppose I'm being uncharitable. I imagine there isn't a whole list of things that are appropriate to say when you're eating a meal on camera that someone with their own show has made. "I thought we were ordering pizza" is funny in theory but wouldn't be in practice. "Oh...I just ate."

"You can really taste the steak..."

some boys are shameless

I am a vertible faucet of Benefit of the Doubt. A leaky faucet. Which, I suppose, isn't the worst thing one could be, but it does lead to phone conversations like this, excerpted from a blog post about 3 years ago:


(some girl): hello?

me: Hi, I'm looking for J?

(the girl): okay, hold on.

(pause)

J: Hello?

me: Hey, this is mynamehere. Are you having a party?

J: I'm having a party?

me: No, I'm asking if you're having a party.

J: You're inviting me to a party?

me: No...just....just...I just ASKED if YOU WERE having a party.

J: No, no, my friend (girl's name) and I were at (some place) and (blah blah blah.)

me: Huh. So I uh. I wondered if you got the message I left with your housemate last week.

J: (dismissively) Oh, yeah. I got that. Sorry I didn't.....uh....

me: Okay. Just checking to make sure you got it.

J: Yeah. Were you at the Cage?

me: I was in fact at the Cage.

(pause)

J: I was going to swing by the Cage but (blah blah blah).

me: Huh.

J: Look, I should go, I'm getting food on the table.

me: Oh, yeah, all right.

J: So...I'll talk to you.

me: Yeah, bye now.

(both hang up)


This followed a night of indiscretion, after which he had asked for my number, which, when I didn't hear back from him, I thought he might have lost (I didn't think it was an unreasonable possibility). And that was that. Don't hate the playa, hate the game, my sister said, about someone else.

So who text-messaged me last night? Out of the blue? Saying hey, mynamehere, is still yr number? This is hisnamehere - remember me?

I think I might be a spambot.

Visited gmx.com because an ad in Wired all but promised whatever email address I wanted. And I couldn't read the captcha (if it was a captcha). I guessed. Right, as it turned out, but still I was only able to get (firstname)@gmx.us, and no one will ever remember ".us". Rats.