The Rage Diaries

Why I will never be an advice columnist

Because I read this in "Dear Prudence" :

I tearfully explained to him how sad I was that we don't hold each other at night. He then told me that it's uncomfortable for him—too hot and confining. Is it unreasonable to ask a partner to change their sleeping style to accommodate this particular show of affection? Maybe one night a week? Sleeping entwined with my lover is a very tender experience for me, and I intensely don't want to lose this lover, yet I'm finding it very hard to accept that he is unwilling to find a way to make this meaningful act a possibility for us.

And my first response was to tell the letter writer to save that adolescent drama for Cary Tennis.

My second was to write a response to the letter-writer's new luv-ah. "Dear Solo Sleep Fan: Get out. Now. Ten bucks says she likes to watch you sleep, and we all know how creepy that is."

Lessons from my father

Mom got her tribute last month. Dad gets his due today.

Every day will be like this when we're married

We're sitting at home, reading the papers (online) and just chillaxing. Isabel, our smaller and formerly smarter cat, launches into her mid-morning freakout, and goes to round the corner at a dead kitty sprint. However, because our floors are all hardwood, she goes sliding sideways, pinwheels against an opposite corner, then scrambles to get her legs underneath her so she can resume sprinting.

Once I stop laughing, I tell Phil, "See, this is why I am reluctant to get rugs for the house."

"Because we'd lose our cheap entertainment," he confirms.

(Wondering who the handsome couple is up there? Watch this and see why Phil & I have embraced them as gurus.)

I think I may have found a lucrative sideline

I don't recall whether or not I've told youall this already, but our trip to the Big Island that I was all excited about a few months ago ... was cancelled. We had our tickets on Aloha airlines, and while we were in Blacksburg, that's when we learned that Aloha had shut down operations.

In theory, I was supposed to spend this past week marveling at lava flows at Hawai'i Volcano National Park. In practice, I have been reading about the vog that the park is grappling with and fuming at our credit card company. You see, when we learned that Aloha was shutting down, we turned to each other and said, "Hey! One of the good things about using a credit card to purchase goods and services is that when said goods or services fail to materialize, you can call them up and dispute the charge! Credit card companies even tell you this!"

I first contacted the customer service hotline at our credit card company on April 1. We are still negotiating with the company. We have sent them copies of the billing statement where the tickets showed up (copies which -- heh -- they had to send to us first before we could officially send them back), copies of our e-tickets and proof that we tried to resolve this matter with Aloha airlines before asking the credit card company to eliminate the charge for the service that was not delivered. I look forward to seeing what delaying tactic the card company uses with us next.

And by "look forward," I mean "sublimate my irritation by writing cranky consumer letters." In the past month I have:

-- Heavily edited a letter Phil sent to the San Francisco Giants front office after he had a thoroughly unpleasant experience with some peanut-throwing gibbons in the Oracle suites.

-- Sent an email to Martha Stewart Omnimedia after a peel-down Swiffer ad kept me from clicking a hyperlink five times in a row. I'm okay with ads on websites. I am not okay with the ad completely biffing the entire user experience. It is not a good thing.

-- Sent an email to Dairy Queen denouncing this commercial as sexist and revolting.

-- Sent an email to my representative on the EBMUD board of directors pointing out that an across-the-board 19% reduction in water use effectively punishes people who were already conserving and only provides incentive to whoop it up in the fat times so that the next round of cutbacks doesn't hurt.

With the exception of the last letter, I've received quite nice replies. (As I should, since I wrote quite polite letters.) And someday, Phil will tell you how the Giants made everything okay. But here is the weird and guilty thing: I freakin' love writing these letters. It is better than yoga for reducing the tension in my back.

So now, I have only two things to worry about. First, that I really am on the road to becoming one of those cranks who writes everyone about everything. And second, that I'm never getting my money back from the credit card company. Because if that's the case, I'm going to need to do a lot of letter-writing to get the tension out of my back.

Lessons from my mother

Molly had a great idea for a Mother's Day post, so I have shamelessly copied it here. Thanks, Mom, for the following:

-- Make your bed every day before you leave the house.

-- Get a plant. You can't kill a sansevieria, so start with that. And keep an aloe in the kitchen.

-- If you burn your finger in the kitchen, pinch your earlobe with that finger. The heat will transfer and it  won't smart as much.

-- Find out what your date is ordering first so you have an idea what price range you're working with.

-- Always bring money for an emergency phone call or a cab ride home.

-- It takes less time to do something right the first time.

-- Use the common sense God gave a chicken.

-- Bring your lunch.

-- Marry someone who makes you laugh every day.

-- The SPCA is a wonderful place to find the newest addition to your household.

-- Good manners are another way of treating others as you'd like to be treated.

-- Read. Find out what's going on in the world.

-- For God's sake, there are germs on everything. Keep your counters clean!

-- Count your blessings every day.

-- Think about how the other person feels. Put yourself in their shoes.

-- Keep good records.

-- Remember, you need to slow down and relax.

-- Write the thank-you note the same day you open the present or go to the party.

-- Keep a good pair of scissors in your kitchen drawer.

-- Never call anyone names. You can't ever take that back.

-- Learn to live independently.

-- You don't need a man to change your car tires or do your home improvement projects. Do it yourself!

-- Make a list so you don't have to try and remember everything.

-- Bring your own chocolate bars into the movies.

-- Don't worry about what everyone else is wearing. Your own personal style will suit you much better.

-- If you don't do your best, you're only shortchanging yourself.

-- Before you buy anything, figure out how many hours' work you had to do to pay for it. Is it worth it?

-- Everything happens for a reason.

-- Don't expect the reason to be immediately evident.

-- And you don't have to like the reason.

-- Turn off the lights when you leave the room.

-- Don't ever say or do anything you wouldn't want on the front page of a newspaper.

-- When you're wrapping presents, fold down the corners of the paper with hospital-bed creases and you'll have a tidy package when you tape the flaps down.

-- People will tell you "no"; it's how you respond that matters.

-- Think about how your actions affect other people.

-- Don't bring anything into the house that you don't want to take care of every day or clean every week.

-- You have to live with the person you see in the mirror every day.

-- You don't have to be perfect. Your friends and family will love you anyway.

Wish list archaeology

I got some robot-generated email from Amazon.com today telling me there's no shipping address associated with my wish list. So I rectified that little error and decided to revisit exactly what was on my list. It's sort of a record of my interests over seven years, and as I clicked through page after page, I occasionally saw something and muttered, "Why did I put that on there?"

However, it was more interesting to me to see what interests flare up, which wane and which burn steadily.  I went through and edited out some of the older items, so my flash-in-the-pan manias are no longer in evidence, save the one that hit last Tuesday when I decided I wanted to revisit my girlhood habit of doing counted cross-stitch. (I figure we'll leave that there until the urge to do needlepoint passes.) But seven pages of items gives one a decent idea of where their interests really are. Apparently, I like comics and consumer culture and the fantasy that someday, someone will buy me the entire Star Blazers: Quest for Iscandar series on DVD.

Insofar as accidental historical ephemera goes, it was a fun experience. So I'm throwing it open to you all. Have you looked at your wish lists lately? Do you have anything on there where you're like, "Oh, thank goodness nobody actually bought that for me?" Anything remind you that oh, yeah, you really are the kind of person who'd like to know more about Civil War re-enactors or stained glass art?

I've got a burning case of spring fever

It is a gorgeous, gorgeous day and I am having a great deal of difficulty trying to work like a responsible adult. Let me infect you with my spring fever:

Go find the Ben & Jerry's scoop shop where you'll be picking up your free cone tomorrow.

Did you know Pavarotti loves elephants? He does. And loudly.

All this futzing around on the World Wide Web is because I'm just grappling with a cognitive surplus. Clay Shirky says so.

Now go forth and blow your afternoon. Just stay away from the Chain Factor, whatever you do.

Friday fish tales

So a little over a week ago, there was a PVP comic about The Deadliest Catch, and then yesterday on the Bryant Park Project, Jonathan and Andy Hillstrand swung by to chat about why they love the ocean but hate the water. Watch the interview for sure, but I'd also encourage you to check out the slideshow by Corey Arnold, a commercial fisherman who also fit in an art school stint between catches.

The photos perfectly illustrate the distinction the Hillstrand brothers made. They also inspire awe and amazement -- awe at ocean waves that look like brilliant blue frosted glass, at the ice-encrusted bow of a fishing boat, at the voluptuous curves of Norwegian cod, at the people who skim the surface of this watery world.

After listening to the interview and the audio slide show, I felt like I had been given a glimpse into a whole other planet. How mind-boggling to realize it's this one!

(P.S. You can check out more of Corey Arnold's work here. I cannot wait until he's selling prints via his website.)

That I may serve

Last month, when I was on Virginia Tech's campus, several professors in the comm department were kind enough to give me and my friends an extended tour of the new facilities the department has. We were walking out of the video-editing bays that now occupy one-third of Schultz dining hall ("I used to get chicken here! Every day!" I blurted out) and we passed a memorial to Corps of Cadet member Matthew  LaPorte. A professor said softly, "We're fielding media requests for four-sixteen."

"Is that what you're calling it? Four-sixteen?" I asked.

A lot of students come from northern Virginia (or NoVa, as we used to put it on the ride boards), and I thought about what it will be like to have both a four-sixteen and a nine-eleven in every year for the rest of their lives.

Attention, any Blacksburg-based readers

I have no idea if Virginia Tech is cool with people wandering around its campus anymore, but I'll be there on Friday afternoon along with two pals of mine. We'll be part of the alumni speakers series, and we'll be addressing "Challenges, Opportunities, and Risk Taking: Building A Communication Career."

Interested? Our panel's at TORG 2150 from 2:30-3:45 p.m.

And just in case I wasn't feeling old enough ... I read the location and was like, "Torgerson? You mean like the president who stepped in when I was a college senior?" And then I saw where it was and felt even older, because an entire building was put into an area that I used to cut across as I raced from the CT to class.

So, yes -- please swing by on Friday to view a living fossil. Introduce yourself afterward too!