YSaC, Vol. 479: It’s all fun and games until the medication kicks in.
2009 November 8
free boxes by the driveway
Well, that seem innocuous enough. What could possibly go wrong with a post like that?
i just put out some boxes of stuffe out by my driveway and i need all of them gone asap
there are cups dishes and other stuff please do not make a MESS out there CANT YOU PEOPLE READ I SAID DONT MAKE A MESS AND YOU PEOPLE DID
GEEZ HOW RUDE
[location repeated]WHO EVER LEFTED THOSE CAR SEAT YOU BETTER COME BACK AND GET THEM NOWWWWWWWWWWWW
…. oh.
Thanks for the link, trekkiebek!
I HAD A VERY DELICATE CONFIGURATION OF BOXES OUT THERE AND YOU PEOPLE WRECKED IT! DON’T YOU HAVE ANY APPRECIATION OF OTHER PEOPLES WORK!?!! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE LEAVING GARBAGE OUT WITH MY GARBAGE???? IT WAS A STATEMENT OF THE DISPOSABLE NATURE OF OUR LIVES IN AMERICA, AND YOU PEOPLE JUST COME ALONG AND THINK THAT YOU CAN LEAVE UNAPPROVED GARBAGE OUT WITH MY “STUFF”
Think Stephanie Tanner’s a little segregationist about her garbage???
Feng Shui garbage
It’s 8:30, where are you all? Guess other people have normal 9-5 jobs, and get to do something called “sleeping in” on a Sunday morning.
I’m pretty sure I might be the first person on this site every day, even before our lovely llama nun web boss. There have been times when I’ve made the rounds a few times before the new post is even up. What can I say…I get lonely here.
There are multiple time zones on this planet.
uhhhh…you make a valid point.
I was so confused… first I thought, morning? The new posts show up in the morning? Not at night? Oh, right, different continent. Then I thought, wait, Sunday? Why hasn’t drmk posted one for today yet? Oh, right, different continent.
I’m sick, ok? This is why I can’t think straight. My whole head is so full of mucus my brain must have been forced out of my ear in the night.
It does feel lonely if you visit a posting too early. I like to wait until there are plenty of hilarious comments to read through.
This site is part of my daily AM internet rounds, and I am routinely here before the new post is up. It has become a little game to see how long I can hold out before I check AGAIN. Drmk seldom disappoints, though … I always appreciate punctuality in my llama nun web bosses.
Two observations:
People really like this site and eagerly anticipate each new post.
None of them are FirsTrolls.
These are both good things.
I admit to being a little tempted a time or two…and then my inner self spoke up and threatened to slap me into next week if I ever post “First” on a site.
I thought about it for a picosecond the other day before realizing the fine line between making fun of morons and becoming one myself.
I have no qualms about making a first post, but I’m never going to make a “FIRST!!” post.
Have you ever read a comment thread on The Onion’s avclub? There are usually several Firsties.
That’s my problem with FirsTrolls, though- on any particularly popular subject, there are always about 80, who mistakenly think they’re first without refreshing. As a result, to read a status’ comments from a page I really like, I have to flip through about 75 “Insert number here-th!”s to read 5 comments.
Diss? Can I get an amen on ordinal post rule?
(Where when you see a firstroll you find something random on Wikipedia and copy/paste it as a reply, to prevent the more “attention challenged” second trolls scrolling down and joining in. Pretty effective, actually.)
Here you go Meredith. An avatar just for you. 🙂
I actually go shopping on Sunday mornings. I leave the computer off until I get back, which is usually just about… now.
I don’t have anyone to bring me breakfasts and lunches and laptop computers, so I have to go to the store myself.
*Edit – my avatar didn’t change yet… but it will!*
“I don’t have anyone to bring me breakfasts and lunches and laptop computers, so I have to go to the store myself.”
You buy laptop computers at the grocery store?
Igor confused today….
Ah Igor, you see, here in central Texas we have a “Fry’s Electronics”, which is a grocery store for computer geeks like me. So yes, I do go shopping for computers. 🙂
“Honey! Don’t forget to get me a box of new motherboards next week, dammit!”
In Soviet Russia, Internet site always writes “first” on you.
I think you missed that while you were sleeping Igor. Meredith mentioned a guy had brought her lunch and a laptop. Now if I could just find one to bring me lunch I’d be happy.
Just a donut once in a while would be cool.
Ahhh- No I saw that one 😉
It just didn’t come to mind.
I’m having groceries delivered later. I live on the fourth floor with no elevator and it’s worth the charge. That’s the nearest I get these days to a guy bringing me something I want (when I don’t order out for food, that is). Not a surprise, but I get exactly what I want.
-Throws a new laptop through Lola’s window-
-Throws a new window frame through the remains of Lola’s window-
A MacBook Air! Igor, you treasure! However did you know?!?
[censored]
*smokes cigarette while smiling and turning on computer, and calling 911 to take away ravished male*
Ahem. Thank you.
Lola, you animal! Don’t break the boy before we all get our turn♥
I had someone I wasn’t interested in bring me a dozen hot Krispy Kremes once, and a couple of men I work with bring me tasty coffee drinks every once and a while. That’s the closest I’ve come to having a man deliver me anything.
Saranjean,
It was the thoughful replacement of the window frame that did it for me. That, and it’s been a while (more than a year).
No one has bought me a Krispy Kreme, but there’s an attorney at my firm who, at Christmas, brings us the “devil dog” cupcakes from Buttercup Bakery. They are devil’s food chocolate cake with a meringue/marshmallow topping and VERY popular. He’s a short, fiftyish, married guy, but when he does that (to thank us for our work through the year) I he’s also a cute, short, fiftyish married guy. [Note: most of our attorneys don’t do anything at all for our department, so when he asks for things the rest of the year, I hop to it.]
Y’all do know that the one who brings the doughnuts usually turns out to be the serial killer, dontcha?
Ed –
*flips thru true crime books to see if Ted Bundy or Green River Killer brought doughnuts*
I don’t think the doughnut chapter made it past the rough draft, but there were doughnuts, I assure you. Bundy, Ridgway, Rader, Berkowitz, and of course Dexter Morgan…
Meh. I’m usually on until about 4am, then roll over and fall asleep.
I was on till 5.00am, that’s partly why today it was almost 2.00pm before I made it back, lol
“Meh. I’m usually on until about 4am, then roll over and fall asleep.”
If I didn’t know better, I’d think we’d dated.
*retrieves mind from gutter, sends it out to be cleaned and pressed*
I’m left coast, so it’s even later by the time I get up. Then I had to go out and set up my trash just so AND THEN THOSE INCONSIDERATE PEOPLE JUST LOOKED ALL THROUGH IT AND TOOK SOME ITEMS BUT NOT ALL OF IT AND LEFT MORE! HOW RUDE!
Love the “First Slap”. Kinda was working for that one when I said it. My plan worked!!!
Tuffy and I always try to please.
*Stumbles blearily in after Meredith*
I wanna know whether the stuff is Olde Englyshe, since at one point she spells it “stuffe.” E.g., “Cume gette our Olde Englyshe stuffe.” Just think of the impact of Chaucer if he’d had Liste of Craigge in hys daye!
As well, the car seats were lefted, and this situation needs to be righted.
PS: Awesomenesse!! My picture finally showed up (nearly 24 hrs. later); I’ll leave it up for a bit and then revert back to La Deneuve.
Do you know about Chaucer’s blog? He doesn’t update very often, but he ys a verray riotte of laughtere.
Bwah! Thanks for the link. In scrolling, my favorite headline so far (re Iranian elections): “Righteousli off y-pissed.” Heh! I’m definitely going back.
Yes, lit-geek here; BA and MA to prove it, as well. 😀
Lit-geek here as well, and oh God I’m dying.
Why not just advertise the free stuffe first, is what I was wondering. Then when it’s gone, advertise the boxes. Et voila. I guess it’s hard to be logical when all the voices in your head are all shouting for your attention and your OCD keeps flaring up at unpredictable intervals.
As Pratchett puts it, “the days before Spelling was invented.”
I do love older English, though- it feels much nicer than the way people today do it.
I’m happy to let go of Olde Englishe, but the spelling of certain words seems to have been dumbed-down in recent decades and I tend to insist on sticking with the old, fancy way.
Plough, not plow.
Draught, not draft.
Aesthetic, not asthetic.
Foetus, not fetus.
Etc.
I have a love-hate relationship with the living nature of language, I guess. I like that word meanings can change over time and that new words are added to our lexicon, yet I don’t want to see all the fancy bits of English vanish due to the human race dumbening and not wanting to type the extra letters.
I vote we always spell it armour, despite what firefox says!
I wear armour, dammit! It’s my favourite!
It has an incredible colour!
(Note: Igor will support virtually any back-to-old-English change in words, as long as it has extra vowels for him.)
Not long after I learnt to read I was given plenty of books by UK authours. Whilst spelling, I still occasionally have to repress “colour,” “to-night” (the books were old), favour, etc.
I’m a bit of an amateur etymologist, so I love old words but have finally accepted that languages change organically and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. I’m a huge fan of slang, expecially from other English-speaking countries, and love the way slang colours things and occasionally becomes acceptable and perfectly proper over time.
Meh. I’m ornery about things like slang that I think are stupid, like “LOL” and “OMG”, or “insert-various-racial slurs that people use as insults for anyone here”
I don’t feel that way about all slang – and your examples are good ones of the sort I don’t like.
As a professional pedant, I have to insist: the stuffe you guys are talking about it not Old English. It may be old, and it may be English, but Chaucer’s writing in Middle English, and most of the stuff you’re using as examples of “old” is just standard contemporary (or recent) UK spelling.
A “back-to-Old-English” movement would have us scrubbing out all of the changes in the language since AD 1066, and sounding like the original text of Beowulf or The Seafarer.
Isaac –
You are correct and I apologize for not clarifying. I’ve read Beowulf something like three times (prefer the Seamus Heaney version, personally, but then I like his work anyway and may be biased) and had to learn the intro to the Canterbury Tales, etc. If you need someone to discourse on the hortus conclusis, I’m your ladye.
Actually, as it turns out, I already have my lady for that sort of thing. I married a scholar of the Middle Ages.
Isaac –
Nice! And something (possibly the drinks I’ve had this evneing, maybe soemthing else) makes me think she’s a good match for your monkish avatar.
It could just be me, but there’s something Art Spiegelmanish about your style, if you drew that. I’m a big Spiegelman fan. Nobody else’s graphic novels or memoirs (and I’m a big Gaiman fan) can make me cry – most recently “In the Shadow of No Towers”).
You gotta get yourself some more good comics, then. There’s a lot of good stuff out there, tear-jerking or not. Let me recommend, for example, a two-volume French thing called (in translation) Ordinary Victories by Manu Larcenet. Also, for sure, the 18th issue of Acme Novelty Library by Chris Ware. That Ware book really can bring a tear. I also bet you’d really like Posy Simmonds’s Gemma Bovery, but only for tears of laughter.
I didn’t actually draw this little monk portrait; it was done up by my buddy (and cartooning collaborator) Mike Wenthe. One of my proper self-portraits can be seen in the first post in this search category on our blog.
The dumbing down continues — now, well respected web site writers replace “sight” with “site”, and it seems few understand the appropriate use of “Fewer” and “less”. I won’t even go into the rampant comma and apostrophe abuse I see. While flipping through a magazine yesterday, I very nearly wrote a letter to the editor about the insertion of unnecessary commas mid-sentence.
As for the boxes — geez loueeeze! When one advertises for other people to take away one’s garbage without offering to pay for said service, it does seem rather noxious to get PICKY about it.
*sigh* I have slush (wince) and proofing (tremble) to do. I am so far behind… One submission is entitled (in the query email subject) “Virgilante Cop”. I just haven’t had the nerve to open it yet. Either someone has written a detective story concerning the Aeneid, or I’m going to cry after the first three paragraphs.
Maybe that should be “and/or”. I think pain and tears are guaranteed.
My first thought on reading “Virgilante Cop” was – it’s a sequel to Dante’s Inferno, being the later adventures of a one-time guide to the Infernal Realm
Really? I was thinking hot-cop-loses virginity porn, midwest…
I’m with you about the spelling of aesthetic. I also prefer “theatre” to “theater.”
I was raised on books from across the pond and therefore have a tendency to favour British humour as I find it more colourful.
I’m the only one in my family who likes British humour, in film or book form, with the exception of the original Mr Bean show. I attempted to show my nearest and dearest ‘Dr. Strangelove’ and no one laughed. Not once. Not even at the fight in the War Room. How can they not like Peter Sellers?
Sarajean –
While I had NPR/PBS parents and a father with dry, dry humour, I grew up around people who didn’t get me, in the main (those who did? my friends to this day … and they had similar parents). It can be slightly frustrating. And we didn’t have the internet.
Here in UK we use “draught” for drinking e.g. a draught of ale whereas “draft” is trial attempts at articles, papers etc for printing.
*my keyboard has a CL infection and totally of its own free will keeps omitting letters – good job I check before submitting*
sarajean – Dr. Strangelove is Sahara-Desert-dry humor. I have owned it on DVD for years. I think Stanley was making fun of *everything* in that movie. He left no stone unturned. But it was hard-core dry humor, so people who are used to laughing at the gross-out humor of today’s “comedies” (and I apologize to those who like that low-brow “humor”) would rarely have the ability to understand Kubrick’s sense of humor. I mean, no one farts or throws up on anyone or has sex with pastries at all in that movie! How can it be funny?
They don’t? Oh well I wont bother with that one then.
Hi Meredeth OK so I did lie in then fought the shower (well, the shower screen which seems to have a mind of its own) then called a friend then breakfast then some boring emails … excuses, excuses. So on a grey wet Sunday afternoon I’m finding solace at my favourite site and getting reprimanded 🙂
If this poster’s name was Tracy Emmin she’d be paid $1.5m for her stuffe display. As it is its a mess.
tig,
This doesn’t have anything related to sex, death, or money in it, so probably not Tracey Emin. Other than that, I think you’re dead on!
It didn’t say exactly what all the “stuffe” was, there could have been mummified mice or condoms full of nickels or something similarly ‘profound’.
I hate when seats are lefted, much preferring when they are righted.
I see that Lola beat me to the righted joke.
Am I the only one who prefers seats centered, so I’m actually facing my food at the dinner table and don’t have to sprain my side to reach the keyboard at my desk?
I was using the term “righted” in reference to a chair that had previously been knocked over. (Or “previously over been knocked” as Winston Churchill might have quipped)
Making a mess in the garbage that someone left on the side of the street: rude.
Editing your Craigslist post about “free boxes” (apparently full of stuffe, which is not how I like my free boxes, but whatever) to add ALL CAPS complaints (first passive-aggressive, then aggressive) directed at people who presumably already read the post and won’t be consulting it again: the height of civility.
Isaac, I like that you use the word “presumably.” It’s statistically unlikely that the people who messed up her garbage have ever even heard of CL.
Ed’s right.
“Honey, I feel really guilty about yesterday. Just heaving that back seat from the El Camino into that pile of boxes we saw on the curb.”
“Me too. And what about all that Corningware we broke doing it? Oh, the shame.”
“I know! Let’s check that Craigslist website and see if we’ve been left any constructive feedback on our selfish behavior.”
Wait. You have an El Camino with a back seat? o-O
Er- oops. Don’t have back seats, do they?
I was distracted. Yeah, that’s it. Still thinking of tigprincess in the shower.
My theory is that it was the back seat of some other car, and he’d been toting it around in the bed of the El Camino with the intent of doing something with it. Then he decided to chuck it when the better stuffe presented itself to him.
Lost_Compass: Good answer. I was horrified at picturing a crew-cab El Camino.
This person must be supposing that everyone reads Craigslist on a daily basis. That would be a scary thought. Instead of the newspaper or [insert online news source here, damn you internet for killing things] everyone would be reading about neon couches, and boxes of trash.
I bet a nickel that he/she has also made a passive aggressive missed connections entry.
This is making me think of my aunts neighborhood. She lives in a well to do suburb in Maryland, and lot of diplomats and heavy hitters from D.C. commute from there. These people don’t seem to have the same grasp on reality that most do, and regularly throw things out that are barely used, and in some cases even new.
They actually have “Good Trash Day” to try and have some organization to the flow of people looking for “stuffe”.
I wonder if this person who “lefted” the chairs broke the sacred rules of Good Trash Day.
I know it’s late, but I’m here. I could give a heap of excuses for my tardiness, but I’ll stick with “duvet got me” lol
Re: Good Trash Day – my sister-in-law furnished her first apartment solely from stuff that people threw out. She said it was amazing – she’d find lamps that were in perfect condition and the only thing wrong was a burned-out bulb, or tables and chairs with a scratch on one leg. Once she found a completely-decorated christmas tree (which she took home and stripped off the lights, ornaments, and tree stand before returning it to where she’d found it)
My mom likes to tell the story of driving with my aunt, cousin, and I around some neighborhood when I was about 6. We passed a load of stuff someone was throwing out, and one of us, either my cousin or I, pointed at the pile and got very excited.
“LOOK MOM…GOOD TRASH!!! REALLY GOOD TRASH MOM, STOP!!!”
But it WAS. My aunt was walking out her door not long ago to go and buy a couch. Her next door neighbor was hauling a couch to the curb….that still had the PLASTIC on it!!! She apparently ordered one, then bought one she like better at the store. Instead of calling the company to come back and pick up the first sofa, she “just wanted it out of the house”…so she was throwing it away without even unpacking it! I tell you, these people are CRAZY!!!
I could do with some of that kind of crazy on my street, I need a new couch as it happens.
I keep praying for a 100 year old man to buy a computer, not understand it at all, and put it outside with a “free” sign.
Let it be the best possible specs, too.
I think you might have a long wait
Develish1, I may have just the couch for you! As good as new! No smoking or kids, only 10 love birds have played on it, and there might still be some seed in the cushions. Don’t get it wet unless you like sprouted millet. 8) Sorry, not sandpaper textured.
so no sandpaper, but it comes with added millet? You’re on! When I can I come by and pick it up? Oh hang on, it’s not pink or orange is it? That would clash so badly with the purple………
Well, it’s off-white (WAY off-white) with a few, irregular green spots. I think it would go well with purple throw pillows! I’ll leave it by the curb on Mediocre Trash Day.
ok, I’ll add it to my “to do” list. Although I may be busy on Mediocre Trash Day, you couldn’t leave it out on “Ew Just Take It Away Day” instead could you?
I adore Good Trash Day, I have gotten really good stuff that way. I did embarrass my 12year old nephew, who I was taking over to his friend’s house. I saw something (I think it was a carpet sweeper) on the curb on his side of the road and pulled over and asked him to jump out and get it He turned bright red and all the way to his friend’s how he went on and on about how embarrassing it was.
It’s not like it was the trash in front of his friend’s house.
This reminds me somehow of an episode of Seinfeld, and since I barely watched that show, I only have a vague memory of a huge bookcase or quagmire or something that needed to be moved by a team of big guys. Hilarity seemed to ensue.
I’ve gotten good stuff a few times – a few tables, an armchair, a 4×6 rug. I try to check the dumpsters the first week of every month; that gives the rental office folks time to clean up anything left by the latest batch of no-longer-renting-heres.
For what it’s worth, I have seen a few couches left behind, but they were too heavy for me to move by myself, and I don’t need another.
Windrose, I think it was a smelly mattress.
One of my neighbors built his garage extension entirely out of wood he salvaged from students from the local university dismantling their lofts on dorm move-out days.
One of my coworkers’ partners is the manager of an apartment complex. When people move out and leave furniture, it’s entirely possible that my friend will come home and fine entirely new furniture. Since his husband is the manager and knows the state of the apartments, he knows whether the furniture has been subjected to pets, children, whatever. My friend says it is pretty cool, but can be slightly disconcerting if there’s been no warning.
My pal and I used to “Alley Surf” in the days after Christmas. Lots of good stuff out then, furniture, toys, all kinds of things! We’d get coffee, and cruise late at night. She’d repaint and fix those things up, wow! We got some nice stuff!
Where I live now we don’t have alleys, but we all leave good stuff by the curb. My last donation was a vacuum. I got a nice new one, and put the older working one out with all the bags I had for it. I told hubby if it was still there the next day after the trashmen came by, I’d take it to Goodwill. It disappeared overnight! I’m glad someone took it, there’s a few miles on it still!
Have been tempted a few times when neighbors leave out nice tables and patio furniture….
Some British friends of mine in Germany were ignorant of Good Trash Day (or whatever it is in German) and he spent the morning mowing the grass on the front lawn. When he went back out to finish the task after a well-deserved cup of coffee ….. yes, someone had removed the mower. Since then my friend has kept wondering why they waited until her husband came indoors and didn’t take him as well.
Sorry, Meredith. Just woke up. Hungover and all that jazz.
Which brings me to my post- this sort of stuff only worsens the hangover headaches. Darn. I’m never going to stay away from the hair of the dog now.
I do believe that’s the same wolf I have on my background at…hmmm, possible shouldn’t mention another forum hosting place, right?
I think this person has confused craigslist with Twitter, in its real-time nature. Or maybe s/he thought s/he was texting someone?
Meh, I prefer my voices-in-the-head theory.
Also, I just noticed…the ‘NOWWWWWWWWWWWWW’ makes me imagine this person pounding away at the keyboard, all irked, and then out of nowhere a hand emerges from the screen to deliver a resounding GRAMMAR SLAP! So the sentence then becomes “….no-OWWWWWWWWWW!”
Of course, you have to suspend disbelief and imagine that said person would type out the yowl rather than just vocalizing it, but we’ve already seen that they’re prone to straight-out typing out their thoughts, so maybe it isn’t *that* much of a stretch.
My kids are grown and in college, so when I rummaged through her stuffe, I left the car seats for someone else. I didn’t realize that made me a bad person.
I realize things got a little out of hand when the full set of K-Mart “Van Down By The River” style dinner ware fell out of the bottom of the box when I picked it up.
The noise from that caused me to just start chucking everything into the back of my van, and I missed a few times, like with the Pug Dog lamps and the Billy Ray Cyrus velvet paintings. But most of it made into the back, I swear! Geez lady!
I might come get it LATERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
It’s like the “Need a Penny? Got a Penny?” jars at the store. Only this person was trading seats for “stuffe”.
I like to imagine an ever changing pile of “stuffe” outside this home. The next person who comes takes the seats, and leaves a pile of embroidered hand towels.
Person 4 takes the hand towels and leaves a light up sculpture of a flamingo.
Person 5 takes the flamingo, and leaves the complete run of Sliders on dvd.
so on and so on…I’m seeing a children’s book in my future.
Probably, however, each item traded would be a little worse than the previous item, with person 6 leaving Season ten of Hee-Haw on DVD, until you got to Person 59, who would leave his treasured pocket-lint collection.
and 60 would maybe be toenail clippings?
61 is pubic hair.
62? It’s pubic hair swept up from a Port Authority bathroom floor, entangled with an empty condom wrapper with obvious puncture hole, plus something that looks suspiciously like a used hypodermic needle.
63? It’s a scab and lice collection. Okay, now I must wash my brain clean of these images.
On a side note, I am glad that my grammar slap is being used.
The Grammar Slap is a thing of beauty and has been wholeheartedly and happily adopted. Thank you, kelli.
…and #64 would obviously be a collection of LOUSE scabs and pubes. And the scabs would be from the louse’s semi-healed herpes sores.
I’m reminded of the The Far Side frame with the scene at a butcher shop with a sign saying “have a chicken-leave a chicken, need a chicken-take a chicken,” as though chickens are the pennies of the meat world.
I miss Gary Larson. His way of looking at the world was unique but clearly struck common chords.
I agree. When I was growing up, my parents bought those Far Side collection books, and those were mine and my sisters coloring books.
Yeah, as kids we didn’t color Big Bird or My Little Pony’s….it was colored pencils to my dad’s Far Sides.
Wonder how we got such offbeat senses of humor???
He’s not dead… Just not drawing new stuff right now….
So that’s what’s wrong with us.
-looks over at the Larson collection in his bookshelf-
Gary Larson and I share the same alma mater. When I heard that, it explained rather a lot.
Ugh, I knew I should have had lunch later. I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.
Yes, kelli, thank you for presenting us with the Grammer Slap idea. Tuffy thanks you too. Let me know if you copyright it, and I will remove it from her picture. 😉
Lola, you’re a beautiful lady, but I think you have lived in New York too long. Yuk!
JcT,
I don’t know about too long, but living here definitely raises one’s threshhold for weird, gross, scary attire, nothing-you-ever-imagined, etc. When you ride the subway and see a frighteningly skinny girl with what you’re certain is a big ugly trackmark in the crook of her arm (I kept trying to tell myself that maybe she was just in the hospital and had had her blood drawn by an inept phlebotomist, it’s not impossible), or a guy all in white with real feather angel wings plus a spare pair, or the mulleted Earth Angel guy who only wants to rescue women under 29 and can’t make eye contact with men, and nobody seems to notice or comment, it takes just that much more to faze you the next time.
BTW, I didn’t make up any of those examples. Not a one.
PS: Sorry about the unintentional hurl-inducement.
I took the family to NYC on the Columbus Day following 9/11 -just something we needed to do- with the intention of standing at Ground Zero to pay our respects and also to spend as much money as we could possibly spare (tourism absolutely stopped in NYC on 9/11). Six weeks after 9/11 the city still had ash several inches deep on window sills and awnings, and parts of Ground Zero were still smouldering.
We came away with some very deep, never-to-be-forgotten memories, and a general feeling that NYC isn’t as bad as the movies and TV shows try to make it seem. Also, this Texan came away sure he would never want to live there. But I understand now why NYC people would never move. It’s an awesome city if you can stand the bad with the good and suffer fools gladly.
JcT,
I grew up in a small town (2,700) in the Pacific NW and while there’s a part of me that will always be from there, I love being a New Yorker. The day may come when I can’t take it any more and have to retreat, but the fact is, I love it, in all of its random, messy glory. I cannot explain it, but I was deeply satisfied after moving here, and after I started at the job at which I am currently, I became very content. Life can always be better, but to have your life finally fit you is amazing. I know my parents – who still live in that small town, think Lake Woebegon with a different regional accent – wish I were closer, and that they worry, but at this point I don’t think I’d be happy anywhere else. I have a friend who semi-apologized for still living in the town where we went to college. She’s happy and likes her job. That life fits her. That’s a gift and I wouldn’t dream of criticizing it.
NYers’ rudeness is definitely overrated. I have an English friend who was impressed with the helpfulness and friendliness he encountered here, and he’s not the only one. For my part it comes from knowing how overwhelming the place can be, and wanting to help. Are we a bit forthright, or quick? Yes, sometimes. But that’s not necessarily the same as rude (I’m a polite Washingtonian, and sometimes I have to fight being naturally laid back, when it comes to survival!).
I was living upstate when 9/11 happened. I, too, came down. I will never forget the smell of the burning weeks after, or the solemnity, or the overwhelming feelings at the site. People who lived and worked there are sick and getting sicker. A lot of the country has reduced the day to rhetoric, but people here (and in DC, and wherever people had relatives on the PA and Boston planes) still live with it every day. I really appreciate what you say. We’re supposedly due to be hit again. If ever I move, I doubt that will be why.
On a lighter note: Yeah, YANKEES!!!!
*ducks and grins*
Oh, Lola, now my desire to move to New York is becoming overwhelming. I live in a suburb of Baltimore, Maryland, so I have the two major cities less than an hour. For years I wanted to move to one of them. I admit to the usual prejudices against New York…no, against New Yorkers. The one’s I worked with or knew here had the stereotypical haughty attitude and rude demeanor that many of us outside think is indicative of…you guys.
On visiting several times, though, I was shocked by the personalities I met. Not only were the people as polite as those in any other city, but they have a boisterous energy that is sorely lacking in either Baltimore or D.C. People from D.C. are far too busy to pay any attention to those around them, and those from Baltimore are often trying to keep up their hipster persona’s.
I have no idea how I would do more than survive in such an expensive city, since my degree will not lead to any kind of marketable career, but I feel that familiar itch that so many artists and performers speak of. I think I may just have to go.
I hate when my W key sticks. (can’t believe no one said that yet)
I just put out comments on YSaC and I need them read asap. sometimes there’s jokes and innuendo please do not REPLY out there.
CANT YOU PEOPLE READ I SAID DONT REPLY AND THEN YOU PEOPLE DID GEEZ HOW RUDE
WHOEVER LEFTED THESE REPLY YOU BETTER REQUEST DELETION OR ELSEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
olde english stuffe might be a good name for a rock band…
“(possibly the drinks I’ve had this evneing, maybe soemthing else)”
Hey, everybody! Lola’s drukn potsing! Where’s Colleen (in MA) to join her??
You’ve heard of liquid lunch? Liquid dinner! Do’t recommend it as a general rule but was fun,.
OMG you’re type-slurring! This is hilarious.