In this week’s episode, I complain about the heat. It tends to bring to bring out my inner grouch.  It’s not pretty. You wouldn’t like me when I’m sweaty.

At Least it’s a Dry Heat

I am done with summer. Yes, I know that “technically” it hasn’t started yet, but technically isn’t doing anything to keep my eyeballs from sweating.

I am not fond of warm weather.  And by ‘warm” I mean anything over 75 degrees.

Ok, I lied. I mean anything over 70.

You’re making fun of me, aren’t you? I sense terms like “pansy” being tossed about. You can do better than that.

However, you’re going to feel bad when I tell you this all stems from a significant medical condition that means that anytime the bus goes over 75 miles per hour, I explode and everyone dies.

That might be something else.

The truth is I’m allergic to hot.

No, that’s a lie.

The truth is that I have a different thermal tolerance from normal people because of my undisclosed, but very amazing, super powers. Or, I just grew up in a place where 75 was hot, and that’s where my internal thermometer is calibrated, and so, I get whinier about the heat at lower temperatures than most people.

And, I do realize that whining just makes me feel hotter, so, I’ll just try and say something cool.

Wow! I wish you could’ve heard that. It was awesome, and I do think I am feeling a bit cooler. You should try it!

Yeah, it wears off pretty fast, and in the heat of the computer’s glow, I’m having trouble thinking of more cool things to say.

You don’t have to agree with me so quickly. You try being funny when it’s fifty billion degrees outside, and there are bits of bus shrapnel still smoldering only a few feet from where you are sitting!

I’m sorry. That whole heat-induced tirade was unworthy of me, and probably raised my internal temperature four degrees.  Let’s be friends.

I have heard a theory that if you move more slowly, you don’t notice the heat quite so much. It’s why everyone moves and talks more slowly in the South. They’re really trying to let the hot air just go right on by them. I’m starting to suspect their efforts simply redirect it straight at me.

When it’s hot in Colorado, everyone will console each other with the oft repeated phrase, “well, at least it’s a dry heat.” Sure, I prefer a dry heat, too, but, it doesn’t make feel any cooler. It makes me want to invite the speaker to sit in my oven for a few hours, where I can annoy them with the same phrase. “I know that 200 degrees seems really hot, but, at least it’s a dry heat…”

I can follow the phrase with an insincere little laugh, and a broad grin while I shut the oven door to keep the heat from escaping and making my house unbearably hot. For the record? I would never put anyone in my oven. It’s far too small for that.

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It’s Memorial Day Weekend, and I am away from my home, but, thinking of all those who gave of themselves to protect our nation.

A word of warning, there is much reference made to TV this week. Extensive Googling might be needed. Send me an e-mail and I’ll provide footnotes.

How To Become Quirky Enough for TV

I’m claiming credit for the current trend of single-gal comedies that every TV network has decided is the “must-have” show type. Because, I am single.  And, I am funny.

I am funny, right?

I had expected that, after launching this new writing project that I’d instantly be chosen to be the standard-barer for the single women who don’t spend their entire lives shopping or having lunch at the trendiest restaurants.  I would be riding my new-found popularity straight into TV deals, untold riches, and, possibly, sainthood.

But while the era of the “quirky, single-lady” has clearly arrived, not one of them is me. I mean, I’m not just quirky, I’ve got the ability to tell it’s raining outside without having to ask my Siri. This implies a basic “look out the window right behind you” logic that “The New Girl” apparently lacks.

Though, maybe it’s not that she’s lacking logic. Maybe her “quirkiness” is actually some sort of mental illness, and I’m being insensitive to her and all the mentally ill, and advocates for the mentally ill are now going to be sending me angry e-mails.  I’m sorry I didn’t know she was mentally ill.

While I ponder her mental illness, I realize that I’m *actually* wondering if I’m jealous because I don’t have a documented mental illness.  Maybe a touch more mental instability will make me “pleasantly off-kilter” enough to become famous and have a TV show.
It gets worse. Now I’m wondering if being jealous of a probably imagined mental illness gives me that little extra push into primetime.

Unfortunately, now I’m not only “quirky,” I’m mean, because I made fun of the mentally ill. I’ve now become the untrustworthy  “B in Apt. 23.” At first this thought horrified me, because I don’t want to be a shameless, swindling con artist without morals. But, she also knows James Van Der Beek, so, maybe she’s not all bad.

I think I need to ignore the shows of this season and look to next season, where the “single-funny-female” offerings include “The Mindy Project,” and Mindy’s a doctor.

Great. Now I’m just feeling inadequate.  I was willing to overlook the glaringly obvious fact that the single women in all of these shows happen to also be,  well, “persons who fit Hollywood’s current standards of beauty,” much more closely than I do. I had just figured that when the time came for me to have my own TV show, we’d hire someone like Lisa Simpson to play me, and I’d just hang out in the writer’s room with incredibly witty people, and not have to appear in front of the camera.  I think of this as a “win-win,” proposition, and I’m very comfortable with being yellow.

Wait a minute. Maybe an inferiority complex is *exactly* what I need. That little touch of crazy, without being mean, might be my golden ticket.  I think I’ll take tomorrow off, and wait for the phone to start ringing.

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This week, I look into the prodigeous marketing might of the Cafe Du Monde. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. You might check for a mug in your employee break room.

I’m starting vacation this week, so, I’m sending you one of the stories I had available as a sample column, which, I’m certain, most people didn’t read. Until today, it had not been sent to the list, so, it’s new for most of you.

The co-worker mentioned in the story died a few months ago, shortly after he retired. In real life, he was firstly, a he, and secondly, he’d been there long before me. He was a true gentleman, in every sense of the term; a kind and gracious soul, who always went above and beyond to make sure the job was done right. The world is a pooer place without him.

When Does a Marketing Campaign Turn into a Case of Stalking?

Café Du Monde.

I’ve never been to this signature establishment of the wondrous city of New Orleans. In fact, I’ve never even been to the city of New Orleans. Or, if we’re really being hyper-technical, have I ever been to the state of Louisiana.

But, in over half of the seemingly millions of workplaces I have contributed the fruits of my wage slavery, the communal kitchen had a mug emblazoned with the Café’s prodigious marketing might.

Before I’d ever seen a mug, I had heard of the place, and knew it was famous for its beignets. I have never eaten a beignet.  I think I read about the place in some book that wasn’t an Anne Rice vampire novel.

The first mug I saw, had nothing more than the Café name and the address.  It tickled my memory of possibly having seen the name somewhere that wasn’t an Anne Rice novel, and for many days, I tried to dredge up what I knew about the Café Du Monde.

Eventually, I remembered.

I wondered why someone had put their cherished keepsake of a trip to the city that is not the capital of Louisiana casually in the kitchen *AT WORK?*  Maybe she secretly worked for the Café Du Monde, and her job was to place mugs in unsuspecting kitchens to entice people to plan their vacations to see this mug-place? If so, wouldn’t you put more than your name on the mug?

I wondered if this mysterious cup owner even still worked there.  Maybe she never realized her beloved mug was excluded from the single box of possessions she took with her when she was unceremoniously canned. Probably for drinking too much coffee.

The second mug was a vast improvement over the first, but just as random. It had not only the famous name, but, a café scene, with patrons relaxing on a nice patio. It reminded me of similar spots in Europe, or even like those along the 16^th street mall. It was a sparsely drawn piece, with very basic lines and some trendy colors. Those few lines effectively evoked “café” to me, and I thought again of going to sit there and eat beignets, simply watching the world go by. In daylight, of course. I understand there’s something of a vampire infestation in the city, and suspect it’s worse at night.

I became fond of using this mug, and like before, wondered why it had been banished to this fate.  One day, while cleaning it, one of my colleagues (who was new, and therefore was not the owner of the mug) noticed it, and, with a dreamy far-away look, sighed “Ah. The Café Du Monde. “ I nodded knowingly, and said, simply, “Beignets?”  She replied, “But, of course! And so good. And coffee brewed with chicory.”  I again nodded, relishing the sights and sounds of a place I’ve never been but whose mugs haunt me from job to job.

I am starting to suspect that this Café can’t possibly live up to the image I’ve built in my head, and when I do find myself in New Orleans, I should stay away from the Café Du Monde lest I ruin it. Then again, I could use a new coffee mug. I think I’ll keep it at home.

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Happy Mother’s Day! It comes but once a year, to remind us that we’re darn lucky to have mothers in our lives. With any luck, we remember to tell them this on a regular basis. Thanks, moms!

How Humor Complicates Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day is hard on comedy writers.

No one likes to hear a joke that could, potentially, be about their mother. It’s a very thin line between “funny” and “enraged mob.”  I have too strong self-preservation gene (thanks, mom) for me to enjoy being on the business end of “enraged mob.”

Understanding that a mob triggered to ferocious anger by misfiring-mother-related humor is akin to wearing brain earrings while exposing my own pretty brain cleavage in front of a hoard of starving zombies, I’ve been losing sleep for weeks trying to figure out what to say on this day.

There was one horrible dream where the ghost of Erma Bombeck, looks at me over the rims of her glasses, shakes her head, and waggles her finger at me like I just tracked mud into her newly cleaned kitchen, and looking over my shoulder, yup, there’s the mud.  Wordlessly, I go to find the mop and bucket, where I end up just making it worse, spreading the prints into a muddy paint all over the white floor.  Things didn’t improve from there.

Another night, I dreamed that I sent out a lovely, sentimental essay, lauding the ideals of motherhood, and saying beautiful things with the best prose I’ve ever written. It was, however, seriously unfunny, and all my readers, in a fit of confusion, hastily unsubscribed, and I was now facing the proposition of continuing without an audience. Not at all cheery.

Clearly, whatever I came up with needed to do mothers proud.

After all, some of my favorite people are moms.  Having an angry, blood-craving mob at my door is worse when some of those in attendance actually know my address. Without Googling.

The rage so easily generated by a well-placed “motherly” insult is the key to understanding the power of the entire line of “Your mamma” jokes. It’s easy to see why they’re so effective as taunts by various sorts of ruffians and no-good-nicks, who prove the depths of their evil by taking pot shots at the one person their enemy loves most. Their mamma.

And, despite popular belief that comedians arrive on this planet in giant fibrous shells carried by space pterodactyls, or grown in cabbage patches sprinkled with rainbow jimmies, most of us actually do have mothers.

I know, it’s disappointing to learn that. I feel a bit bad for revealing it to you, but, as it’s less likely to get me lynched than a joke about you-know-who, well, I’m willing to make that call.

Nope, I think I’m safer avoiding that altogether.  I’m going to steer clear of the clichéd jokes made about mothers and motherhood, and I’m not going to make jokes about anyone’s mamma.

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I am earwormed by words.

I have my suspicions that this is a common affliction of writers, but, I also admit that I have never asked my writer friends if they carry phrases or entire speeches in their heads. I know that “Hearing voices no one else can hear isn’t a good sign, even in the wizarding world.” While that line of dialog came immediately to mind, I will point out that I’m not actually hearing anything, I’m not that far gone.

This form of the disease is worse than just being infected by some annoying song. It means that *in addition* to occasionally having songs stuck in your head for hours on end, I get phrases and words stuck in my head. When I hear just one bit of that phrase, my brain is forced to complete it.

If someone offers me a cup of tea? My brain hears Giles¹ answering “Tea is soothing. I wish to be tense,” even if I would like a cup of tea.

Poetry, scripted dialog, books; any and all of it gets trapped in my brain where it does its best to make me even crazier than I already am.  I hear the word “hole” and my brain goes straight to “In a hole, in the ground, there lived a Hobbit,” and it will not stop until the dwarves have proven they know more about the inside of Bilbo’s larder than he does himself, and will then offer selections from “Fellowship of the Ring.”

And, this affliction doesn’t stop with English. I have bits of “Wenn nur die Menschen Hiefische Waere²” that surface from time to time, and bits of “Rumpelstilzchen.³”  Latin makes its appearance on occasion, as does  Swahili, which is really odd, as I have never even heard Swahili.

Let’s say that someone utters the phrase “dead as a doornail.”  My brain turns into some weird form of Google, and pulls up everything I’ve ever known about that phrase. It starts by reciting “Marley was dead: to begin with…” and wanders off for paragraphs about how certain Scrooge and all the rest of us ought to be that Jacob Marley was pushing up daises and not pinning for the Fjords⁴.

See? I typed about pushing up daisies and there appear the Fjords.

It also means that I get whole phrases of the current writing project, whatever that might be, stuck in my head. Entire pieces will be inspired by one stray thought or phrase that caught my fancy. I’ll hold that phrase hostage for weeks until I’ve worried it to death with trying it in slightly different arrangements, or putting  other phrases and oddments onto it. By the time I actually sit down to turn it into something presentable, it all sounds like mush.

This one, of course, started simply with the opening sentence, and all of this has been hammered out, bit by bit for weeks until I finally surrendered and wrote it down, and now it can stick in someone else’s brain.

1. Rupert Giles,  Librarian, Watcher and Magic Shop owner from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He’s British, and they’re supposed to always want tea, so, when questioned about his choice of coffee, he replied with the aforementioned phrase. My brain does the whole scene.
2. “If only men were sharks,” It’s a satirical piece by Bertold Brecht.
3. You probably know this as “Rumpelstiltskin,” by the Brother Grimm.
4. That’s right. My brain starts with Dickens and ends in Monty Python.

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The first time I tried to adapt a story into a script, I was about 10 years old, and I had read this ghost story that took place during the summer at a beach resort. I remember the names of the living characters, but not the ghost, and not much about the plot. I can, however, remember that I could see the characters as people I knew in my neighborhood, and how I would translate the scenes into a live-action performance, and I knew it *had* to be done.

That’s right.  I was *that* kid.

The kid who got all the kids in the neighborhood together to do a play, and made props, and gave people parts, and got mad when they didn’t do it the way I’d imagined it should be done.  If I’d known that overly dramatic types referred to their productions as “their vision,” I’d have been all over yelling at those lousy kids who were ruining mine. I knew that there was lots of dialog for this show, so, I broke it all up with commercials I wrote myself, all of which I remember better than the play.

I have to say that the neighbor kids were awful. None of them could be bothered to memorize my scintillating dialog, and always tried to make me re-write things to give them fewer lines. Preferably so that all they had to say was “yes” or “I’m scared” or “I’m bored and you can do this stupid play without me. “

All this tells you exactly how committed they were to their art. Not one of them was remotely concerned with how crappy a ghost story would look if the ghost just decided to leave halfway through and not come back.

I probably should’ve suspected something when NONE of the neighbor kids brought their parents to opening night, which, due to the lack of a ghost, turned out to also be closing night. The reviews were not good, the best ones being highly guarded ones from my own parents who, with three kids in the production could not say more than “it was interesting,” and “we are very proud of you,” and “is it over yet?” Certainly, our parents knew better to use comments much worse than that. After all, we knew where they lived and one of us could easily express our “frustrated, artistic” souls on their sleeping forms.

I was never again able to mount any sort of production in that neighborhood.  The kids didn’t come over much after that, and my siblings fled anytime I started a sentence with the phrase “I read this cool…”

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There was a time when I thought personalized license plates were pretty awesome things. I liked puzzling out the message, and feeling like I was clever and being inducted into the elite crowd of people who had solved the passing riddle.  I imagined there was a secret handshake and meetings, and we’d all get together and pat ourselves on the back for our amazing skills, and share knowing glances at each other in the super market.

I was disappointed when they turned our secret club initiation into a game show, and then everyone fancied themselves good at figuring out the arcane messages flashed on car rear-ends.

Worse, that show ushered out the golden age of license plate puzzling. What had once been fun was now downright annoying.

Owners of personalize plates failed to make their personal statements clever or entertaining. They started to be nothing more than, well, “vanity” plates.

I feel certain that they owe us the courtesy of making their plates interesting and accessible. Frankly, if you’re going to pay the extra bucks to announce something to the car driving public, you should take some responsibility for that message, and make it worth our time. It should be a message that is first and foremost, comprehensible. Second, it should bring pleasure or inspiration to those that see it. Is this truly asking too much?

I would love to put an end to plates which have absolutely no meaning to anyone but the car owner.  What the heck does H1OK4ME mean? Are they fans of hydrogen? Sure, ok, I can come down on the side of hydrogen. Everyone loves hydrogen. I just want to know who spends good money to give hydrogen a half-hearted recommendation on the back of their car? If they truly loved hydrogen, why not IHEARTH1? Okay, so, maybe that just looks like IH EARTH1, or I HEARTH 1 which, let’s face it, is not any clearer.  The iHearth sounds like some new iProduct.

I suppose the owners of H1OK4ME could be virologists, and H1N1 is their favorite flu critter. Or, maybe they are from Oklahoma, and their town is called H-1. No, I don’t have any idea what town founder would name a town “H-1.”

I have a sneaking suspicion that all of these meanings are far superior to the real thing. Frankly, I don’t really want to know the true meaning because I’ll just be disappointed. I’ll also be grouchy that I thought about it as long as I did.

That smug plate owner is doing nothing more than mocking me with his or her private joke, causing me to burn a few brain cells sucking in car exhaust while trying to force their cryptic car code to make one iota of sense.

There was that one drive, when I was trying to stay awake late, when I could’ve sworn all the plates had hidden meanings.  948-VPO? Clearly, this a coded message to C3PO’s silver cousin, VPO, indicating they should meet at docking bay 94 at 8:00 AM.  Yeah. I’m onto them. I could join the Rebel Alliance, and find my very own scruffy-looking Nerf Herder.

Or maybe it’s just better for everyone if I stop looking at license plates.

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Happy Easter!  I’ve had a busy weekend, and I’m getting this out later than I’d like, but, still, mission accomplished. Hope you all got to spend some time with people you love, and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

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What Really Happens the Night Before the Office Potluck

When you are a single female, office potlucks are met with a mix of anticipation and dread.

The dread part comes first. It’s the moment you realize that you must go to the store, buy a week’s worth of groceries, and make a dish for your closest coworkers, knowing you’ll only get a spoonful.

Did you just think I should’ve just bought some prepared potato salad at the deli, slapped a spoon in it, and called it good? Yeah, I heard you. I have my ways. I can only waggle my finger at you, and, in my best stern voice say “Shame! That’s cheating!”

Because, for us single females, despite the cost which blows our monthly budget out of the water, potlucks are *really* about showing off.

Our Betty Crocker genes don’t get out much. With no regular “audience,” we have no one to impress with our culinary acumen. We tend to go home, shove our deli meat into some maybe,  possibly,  good bread and call it dinner.

This is where the anticipation comes in.

See, as much as there is dread and anxiety over the cost, there is the excited planning that goes into high gear.  It’s not enough to bring a dish people will like. It’s time to impress them with exotic ingredients or techniques. They can’t be too exotic or no one will touch them, and no one is impressed with having the only untouched dish at the party.

The ideal potluck dish has got to look excellent, taste fantastic, and be sufficiently complicated or mysterious (how’d she do that??) to become the chief topic of conversation for the meal.

“Gosh, I haven’t used my melon baller in years, maybe I could use it to scoop out servings of salmon mousse, serve it on tiny homemade crackers with a touch of that caviar and serve it with some sparkling wine I made from last year’s grape harvest. I’ll just whip up the crackers from the hand-milled flower right after I put away the deli meat. ”

When you start sounding like a contestant on Iron Chef explaining their sea bass three ways, with truffle oil foam and poached quail eggs, or twice killed pork rendered planks of maple and cedar, it might be time to dial the whole thing back to eleven.

The minute you decide to make a more reasonable dish, you start to panic and imagine that one of the single guys at the office could taste your masterpiece, fall madly in love with it, and want to be married within the month. It’s worth the hours spent hand-milling flour if it catches a man.

I wake to the smell of a burning batch of crackers, and wipe the drool from my face, and the dream has faded. Maybe store-bought crackers aren’t cheating after all.

Kate Barnes – award-winning writer, blogger and thinker of thoughts – lives in Denver. By day she works for the Colorado Community College System, and by dark she sits in the glow of the computer screen creating websites, words, and grand schemes.  She welcomes your comments and can be reached at flyingsolo@k8space.com, you can visit her website at http://www.k8space.com.

 

I’m changing strategies some, as I’ve been doing this column for 17 weeks, and not a single newspaper has jumped on board. SO, I’m posting these here, to increase their visibility, and to build my audience. It’s easier for people to share this content from here, and easier to have this as the archive.

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How to Excavate in the Valley of the Appliances

It’s almost time to plan my next excavation.

Of course, it’s not quite what you might think.  Unless you think it’s time to clean out the fridge, which I call an “excavation” because it sounds more fun.

As with any excavation, you start by putting down a grid, so that you can record where each and every artifact removed from the site was originally located.   For reference sake, I also append a depth chart to accurately record which layer in each grid has yielded the objects in question.

At this point, there can be no more procrastination. Sending in a canary to detect noxious emissions is unwise, they never come back, and let’s face it, we all know this is an expensive way to find out what we already knew, and you’ll now have a dead canary to excavate.  Just put the money toward a gas mask. Two to three pairs of latex gloves worn simultaneously would also be a wise plan. In fact, if you can afford it, a full hazmat suit would not be entirely ridiculous.

Now that you can’t smell the site, the work begins. It’s best to think of this as the remains of an ancient civilization, where every remnant is a vital clue to understanding history.  As you carefully sift the debris, place any decaying organic matter into a black waste matter disposal unit.

Items which cannot be sifted are what I call “artifacts.” These should be taken back to camp for proper cleaning, identification and cataloging. I usually just put them by the kitchen sink.

There was a very confusing moment, when I uncovered elements which were clearly dated to the bronze age, in the middle of a level of stone age debris.  How could I explain the contradictions in my analysis?

A further search and careful digging uncovered the key evidence:  the jar of ketchup, which I remembered falling a few weeks ago. In its collapse, it probably drug some of the upper layer bronze age material with it into the stone age.  Hopefully, the bottle didn’t cause too much damage to the fragile artifacts in the bottom layers.  Fortunately, the jar itself was still intact.

The mysteries reveal themselves bit by bit.  The soft, green coloring near the back wall, looked like it could be part of an exquisite painting of Osiris, and I started to suspect that this could be a tomb for more than canaries!  Or, it might just be that bell pepper I bought six months ago for a batch of lentil soup.  I wondered where it had ended up.

My hopes of finding the lost tomb of Tetisheri disappeared with that realization. Also, I discovered the seal on the gas mask had slipped, and I was probably hallucinating. I closed down the dig for the day.

A few more hours, and the site would be cleared to bedrock. It was another thrilling excavation, and would be months before I’d start planning the next one, and for that, everyone was grateful. Especially, the canaries.