Blog

Uncategorized

What I Am Reading

the outside lane

Because you know you want to know.

I am currently reading two books. Slummy Mummy, by Fiona Neill, and Neon Angel: A memoir of a Runaway, by Cherie Currie. Very, very different.

The first focuses on Lucy, an English stay at home mom, who is questioning her place in the world now that Fred, the youngest, is in nursery school. The second is the story of Cherie Currie, the oft copied, never quite bested inspiration for and singer of The Runaway’s hit, Cherry Bomb. I am enjoying both equally.

When I was a kid, I loved Joan Jett. She was my favorite to roller skate to at the Forum Skate. Joan Jett songs would come on, and I would race out onto the rink and go as fast as I could, singing along as loudly as I could. Not your average eleven year old when it came to my musical tastes, I guess. I also loved the Bloom County version of her, Tess Turbo. I loved Lita Ford. Of course I loved the Bangles and Micki Steele (who was in an earlier iteration of The Runaways.) I never knew much about Cherie Currie, though. It’s always interesting to find out how the rock-n-roll sausage is made, and Currie doesn’t pull any punches. Anyway, she had me at Thin White Duke.

What I love about Slummy Mummy, is that Lucy seems very real. Yes, she has the cutesy foibles of a Bridget Jones, but somehow they don’t seem as contrived. Lucy just happens. But while she is happening, she is also remarking on the wonders of motherhood, the wonders of loving a good man, and the wonders of how you can be perfectly happy and want to punch everyone in the nose all at the same time. She makes empathizing easy.

Recently, I read Citizen Girl, from the makers of The Nanny Diaries. It was all right. It made me think. That’s good. Not particularly well written, but also not badly written. I preferred The Nanny Diaries as far as characters go, but Girl was a decent way to spend three lunch hours.

When I finish the current books, I am on to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke. My husband has suggested it, and he has fairly good taste.

Uncategorized

Oooh, cobwebs!

the outside lane

Er… I’ve been busy?

I have, and I haven’t. Since June, I haven’t had access to this blog from my office–I did most of my blogging from work in my downtime. Since August, when Thor started school, our whole schedule has shifted. This means that by the time I get home, get dinner on the table, get the boy’s homework done, and get him ready for bed, I have completely forgotten I ever had a blog in the first place. This is why I will never be a paid blogger.

Today, I am sitting in the hallway, outside of the bathroom, giving Thor some privacy while he bathes (but still indulging my concern about his well being. He’s out of sight, but I can hear everything.) I have already run through all the usual pages I read, and thought it might be a good time to update. Of course, having sat down to write, I find I have nothing to say.

Rather, I have plenty to say, but not anything I want the whole world to know. And this being the internet…

I do have a book deal now. My writing partner (who is the go-getter of the two of us), has been submitting our work for publication for a decade. Someone finally bit. Maybe this time next year, I’ll have a book out. Meanwhile, I am waiting to learn what happens in the editing process, and wondering how much the book will resemble what we actually wrote.

I am trying to keep a lid on my excitement, having been a frequent target of Murphy’s Law and all, but it keeps boiling out of the pot.

And that’s all I’ve got for now.

Uncategorized

Expertise

the outside lane

BODY { BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; MARGIN: 4% 10%; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; DIRECTION: ltr; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.2; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; FONT-FAMILY: verdana; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff } TABLE { FONT-SIZE: 10pt }

My line of work is almost entirely customer service.  Yes, there are the technical aspects at play, but 90% of every transaction boils down to the human element.  I see happy people, sad people, patient people, angry people, weird people, demented people, prepared people, and people who are so intimidated by the technical aspects of their transactions that they are beside themselves.

I just encountered such a person and I think that really hit me for the first time.  Some of these people aren’t mean, angry people.  They are intimidated, scared people, who are reacting to their own fears and ignorance, faced with mile long numbers, forms, tick boxes, buttons, and whirlygigs.  They don’t know what to do, so when they turn their faces to me, they look like ogres.

I can either choose to react to their upset, or I can choose to be the patient expert and walk them through the ordeal.  I like being an expert.   

Style

Clotheswhores

the outside lane

BODY { BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; MARGIN: 4% 10%; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; DIRECTION: ltr; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.2; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; FONT-FAMILY: verdana; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff } TABLE { FONT-SIZE: 10pt }

I think I have mentioned the penchant I had for dressing like a baby streetwalker in my late teens, yes?  Yes.  Well, between Hottie Fired Banker’s cleavage and Miley Cyrus’ crotch, I’ve been thinking a lot about clothes and what they mean lately.

All of us judge books by their covers.  Most of our initial attractions and reactions to people have everything to do with the way those people look.  When the scruffy looking guy on the corner starts walking to my car, I assume he is going to ask for money because my experience tells me that scruffy looking guys on corners are frequently panhandlers.  When the man with the frosted tips and Ed Hardy shirt approaches, I expect him to be unsavory and full of himself.  I expect the cute girl with the plum colored hair and nose ring to be able to tell me the hottest indie bands.  I expect the beefy guy in the hockey jersey to know sports.  I expect the girl with the Dior bag and Pucci shift to know fashion.  I expect the bleach blonde with the crunchy perm and tube top to sing some white trash version of Shania karaoke. 

I expect these things in the same way I expect a uniformed police officer to protect and serve, a uniformed fire fighter to fight fires, a uniformed soldier to know how to put together a rifle.  I expect these things in the same way I expect a WalMart greeter to greet, a Starbucks barista to barist, or a black bedecked Toni & Guy stylist to know how to razor cut.

It is wrong, of course.  Uniforms tell you what someone is paid to do, so the expectation is fair.  You expect someone who is hired to do a job, to be able to do it.  Personal clothing choices may only tell you what was the last thing clean on laundry day, but the expectations still exist.  That you would select a particular item of clothing from all the available options speaks to your likes, and your likes speak to your dislikes, and with strong enough choices, one shirt can speak of you as a perceived whole.  (Which is why my mother would never let me wear slogan t-shirts.)

Our sartorial choices tell a story.  Our style places us.  Our clothing gives a Cliff’s Notes version of who we are.  (Anyone who ever tried to pass a college course on The Divine Comedy using Cliff’s Notes knows exactly how ineffective those can be.  Don’t ask me how I know.  I got a D, all right?)  And I write that to make the next statement:

I have said before in Arwen’s blog, regarding professional dress codes, that no matter how unprofessionally a coworker dresses, your responsibility is to remain professional in your response to the coworker.  There are acceptable and unacceptable ways of reacting to the looks and attire of the people around us.  You don’t get to make an ass of yourself just because you can see half of someone elses.   

No matter what our fashion-based expectations are, there are standards of conduct to which we must hold ourselves. 

For example, no matter how much like Julia Roberts in the opening scene of Pretty Woman a girl might look, she is not "asking for it".  (Unless a woman actually "asks you for it", you should assume that she does not want "it".)

My response to Bai Ling’s states of undress, to Travis Barker’s tattoos, to Taylor Swift’s sequins will tell you a lot more about me than Bai’s exposed nipples will ever tell you about her.

I invite you to watch me on that wise. 

 


 

Lancient History

Youts

the outside lane

BODY { BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; MARGIN: 4% 10%; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; DIRECTION: ltr; LINE-HEIGHT: 1.2; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; FONT-FAMILY: verdana; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff } TABLE { FONT-SIZE: 10pt }

"I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words…  When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly [disrespectful] and impatient with restraint."  Hesiod

"The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for
authority, they show disrespect to their elders…. They no longer
rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents,
chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their
legs, and are tyrants over their teachers."  Socrates

                                    
"The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have
no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all
restraint. They talk as if they alone knew everything and what passes
for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for girls, they are
forward, immodest and unwomanly in speech, behaviour and dress."  Peter the Hermit, A.D. 1274

Whether by good fortune or bad luck, I found myself on television regularly between the ages of eleven and twenty.  At least once a year, (and for a couple of years, every month or so) I was either giving an interview about my volunteer work (the most interesting to Walker Raley, who was later accused of attempting to murder his wife), appearing in a broadcast or a PSA, or something.  And I want you to know that I said some mind-blowingly ignorant things.  Mind-blowingly ignorant.

I thank God there was no internet when I was doing my teenaged bloviating.  Listen, it’s out there somewhere and if you can find it, bully for you, but I gave an interview and talked about body image and I said such moronic, stupid, just egregiously dumb things that I would have been the laughingstock of Jezebel.com and you would probably be linking the clip to your Facebook pages with captions like, "WTF?!  Is she high?!"  (I wasn’t.  I was just full of myself.)  Worse, when I knew the camera was coming in close and profile, I was giving 3/4 Serious Actress face, like I was Olivier doing Hamlet.  So embarrassing.  If I could go back in time and talk to myself, I would land five minutes before this interview took place.

There is another interview out there with me talking about style, sniffing over it not being my fault if people wanted to stare.  I cringe, people, cringe thinking about that.  Teenagers are rotten to begin with.  Teenagers who have been led to believe they are special are worse.  Precocious teenagers who have been led to believe they are special, and who are given a platform for their not yet fully formed ideologies are insufferable.  Take my word for it that they can hardly stand themselves.

Miley Cyrus.  Lord have mercy.  That child…  When she’s not taking cell phone pictures of herself, posing in a bedsheet, getting tattooed, or running around in her underwear, she is frequently giving good soundbite in the form of ridiculous, moronic, teenaged commentary.  I shudder and quake, thanking my lucky stars that my parents were never interested in hitching their wagon to me and driving me to Hollywood (or Disney studios, though that nearly happened by accident, just like the rest of my "career" did) because every word out of that little girl’s overly-glossed mouth sounds like an echo from my youth.  Had there been cell phones, had Annie Leibovitz been interested, had I been allowed, I would have made Miley Cyrus look like Dakota Fanning.

Every generation thinks the next one is heading for hell in a handbasket.  I think it’s because we are so humiliated by our own youthful doings that we block them from memory.  We only remember studying, doing our homework, and the occasional gaffe.  Or maybe the hormones driving us as teens burn away our memory of ourselves.  Whatever, it’s a kindness that we can’t remember, but it means an endless, repeated loop from recorded history to now, adults howling and gnashing their teeth over teens and tweens.

My personal favorite comes from William Shakespeare:   I would there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the anciently, stealing, fighting.
                                                                              

He’s right, you know.