Wednesday, June 30, 2004

Coincidence or craziness?

I stopped at Target for a minute today and parked in front of this pretty little bright blue car, and the license plate read M*A*G. Then at the holiday inn I watched Yu-gi-oh while wiping down tables and setting up for third shirt. Then, then on the drive home I heard Run DMC’s tricky tricky on the radio. All I need now is to run into a young girl wearing shoes that read “ZoĆ«” on one foot and “Wash” on the other. Well… and after that I’d like to lounge in the waffle house with a half dozen other road weary travelers and have a chance to walk across the counter looking all menacing.

My computer is kinda broken. Where the power cord plugs into my computer, that thingy, the female end, is broken, so my computer won’t hold a charge and keeps turning off. So now that I’ve finally gotten some time, no mIRC for me. Bah and boo hoo.

P.s. I’ve been offered a promotion at work. I’ll get to be sales manager and have meetings and conference calls and paid travel time. All I really want is really funky looking business cards.

Tuesday, June 29, 2004

And I shall call my disposable friend "Dippy"

Memoirs of a Geisha.

Great book, not extraordinary as I expected, but then again, I still have about thirty pages left. Through reading this book and working in a business oriented hotel I find myself thinking that I have a little Geisha in myself. But even as I think it I frown because it sounds pretty much laughable that a little Ohioan gal working the front desk of a hotel wants to think of herself as a little bit Geisha. But I don’t mean it in the kind of stereotypical way we (and very much myself) thinks of Geisha. I don’t mean to say that I think I’d look good in white face paint and a kimono, nor do I think I have any type of a delicate walk or serene attitude. To explain what I do mean I gotta summarize a bit from the book. Sorry for any of you that haven’t yet read it.

The main character, Sayuri, is about 13 years old at this point and is apprenticing to be a geisha. Her ‘older sister’, the geisha who is teaching her asks for her to pour tea as though she was a male customer. Sayuri grabs the pot and pours the tea. Her teacher then stops her and tells her how pretty the underside of her arm is and that to tease her customers she should try to subtly show it as she pours the tea. Sayuri tries again. This time she is too obvious. Again she tries until her teacher decides that she is able to subtly about to show just a hint of the pale underside of her arm as she pour tea. Just enough to make the men sweat.

This is where I think I have a little in common with this idea of geisha. Or maybe it’s nothing as elegant sounding as geisha but it’s just simply being an entertaining tease.

Today I noticed myself doing it and couldn’t help but think of this book. I was talking to a man at the holiday inn. He had just come in from work and was dead tired but he stopped in the meeting room anyway to say hello and out of kindness I made small talk with him for a few minutes. He told me about work and what he’d done that day and that because of a clerical mistake he had been sent to Ohio a whole day earlier. I tried to make things positive, “well at least it gives you a day to get things together, give you time to rest before work tomorrow.” He told me that yes, it did give him time to rest, at least time to rest his feet. When I asked about his feet and why they were such a concern he told me about a day, a few months ago when a young man accidentally turned on a machine he shouldn’t have and it caught his shoes and sucked him into a piece of machinery that crushed the bones in his feet and pulled all the muscles and tendons from one side of his foot to the other. Of course I frowned and gasped and stuck out my lower lip sadly as I listened to him retell the tale.

And ta da, this is where the subtle little thing started happening. As he was talking I kept noticing his eyes darting down to my lower lip. After a few moments he lightly slipped into the conversation the fact that he wasn’t married. His eyes dropped down to my lips again. I stuck out my bottom lip just a tiny bit more in a pout. He started asking about my work schedule. I crossed my arms and his eyes went to my chest. He asked me again when he’d see me again, what hours I worked, would I be there in the morning?

I could have laughed out loud. This isn’t unusual, I do it pretty much every time someone comes into the holiday Inn. It’s just another word for customer service. You smile, they wink. You ask if they need anything, they ask what you’re willing to give. You tell them goodnight, they offer room keys. The men fidget and ask about the rings on my fingers and all you do is give them vague answers, jokes then point them in the direction of their room. Seeing so many people from all walks of life come in and out all day long really makes you pay attention to the way people act, their expressions, the sound of their voice as the tone changes. Or maybe it’s just me and how I get after being stuck in the act of “friendly young woman who would love to talk and help you out” for eight hours. I do nothing but converse and people-watch for at least five hours of that time.

And my allotted computer time is up. With work, school, and some sleep I’ve figured that I have about an hour a day of ‘free’ time, where I get to eat, dress, and check my e-mail. If I stay on-line any longer I’ll be cutting into my scheduled sleep time.

Bah.

And here's to hoping I can come up with something a little more meaty for my next blue-moon update.

And just 'cause... well... it's so annoying and so right!
http://www.moviecliches.com/

And (yes, I know it's my third one) because I'm adding "Disposable Friend" to my Christmas list.
http://www.disposablefriends.com/main.html

Thursday, June 24, 2004

00?

Yesterday was a fun day at work. We had the governor come in to the hotel to meet with bunch of executives from another country. It’s was all quite hush-hush. I got to put my little spy hat and take the oath swearing that when the media calls or comes in I know ‘nothing’. I even got a walky-talky. And there were all these men in suits with those phone thingies in their ears and guarding all the doors and saying things like “the plane just touched down, he’ll be here in 15”. To this I leaned over to my boss and whispered in his ear, “I don’t think the governor of Ohio has been to Ohio before because shouldn’t he know that it takes at least an hour to get to the Columbus Airport?” To this I got an elbow in the ribs and the stupid little girl look and a little explanation of how he was flying right into our small little town. Oh… d’oh. All in all it was amusing because everyone who knew was paranoid and tapping their feet nervously and all the other guests in the hotel were totally oblivious and running around to the pool barefoot and munching on cheese snacks.

Tuesday, June 22, 2004

My poor innards.

This morning’s breakfast was like one of those commercials.

Open on a small group of unhappy women…

Woman1: “I ate nacho crumbs and three spoonfuls of vanilla frosting for breakfast.”

Woman2: “I had salad dressing on a stale hotdog bun.”

Well, I ate a whole pie crust for breakfast. Heheh, yum. This is what happens when my brother invites five of his high school guy friends over and they eat all the food in the house. Next I plan on creating some wonderful lunch from leftover peas, a cheese square, and half a can of cream.

Sunday, June 20, 2004

Boo's

Oh, I got to visit a porno shop! Really it was simply called “Adult” but I’m not really hip enough with my porn to know if that’s a porno shop or not. It did have a blue virgin vibrating virgin, a twenty four inch long dildo and rows and rows of sex tapes ranging from anime tentacle lovin’ to “hot mama’s 60 years and plus”. I don’t think the old men liked seeing little teenagers like Geoff and I walking around the shop and pointing fingers and trying to act like we knew stuff.

He’s in Singapore right now. Boo. Well, not boo for him because he’s on his tropical little utopian paradise… the big dork. But boo for me because I’m stuck here working.

And double boo for me because I can’t write more right now.

Lastly, as a p.s., has anyone read Memories of a Geisha yet? I've just started it.

Tuesday, June 1, 2004

My dinky little town rocks for the most inane reasons.



And my dog, Zane, died after surgery a few days ago. It really sucks because he was sweet and loving and he licked cats and was always my pillow and his big belly made for a really nice drum.