For a week, I have been afraid that somehow something would happen and I would miss seeing Barry Gibb tonight on American Idol. I even thought about taking Tuesday and Wednesday off work. What if there was some hostage situation at work, and the hostage-taker wouldn't let me leave? What if there was some terrible traffic jam? Now, I know this is ridiculous. I get out of work at 4:30. American Idol starts at 8:00.
Nevertheless, I warned work. Do not do that thing to me where you give me something at 4:20 and need it done before I leave. I am LEAVING AT 4:30 ON THE DOT TODAY!! AM I MAKING MYSELF CLEAR?!
By 4:34 I was in my car, which is pretty good.
I was making good time on the way, then I got to my exit. You are not going to believe this. My EXIT was BLOCKED off because the PARK near my house was ON FIRE! WHY!? WHYYYYYYYYYYY????
I tried to stay calm. I'll just go to the next exit, whatever that is, I thought. So I exited, and the intelligent highway department lead me RIGHT INTO THE FIRE! Seriously! I drove right into it! Ash filled my car! A piece actually BURNED me! I honestly found it a little hard to breathe! And, also, I was COMPLETELY LOST!
At this point I started to panic. Not about the fire, about Barry Gibb. And by the way, it was the hottest day so far this year, and old Johnny Cash over here decided to wear a long-sleeved black shirt today. My back started sticking to my car seat. I tried to head toward the hills that I know are near my house, when suddenly the lane I was in became a TURN-ONLY LANE HEADING BACK TO ANOTHER FREEWAY!
Okay, anyway. I got home, an hour and 20 minutes later. Coincidentally, I read a fascinating article in The New Yorker today about how commutes ruin people's lives. There have been all sorts of studies done. There was no mention of how parTICularly ruined one's life would be if one missed Barry Gibb on American Idol.
Seeing as I still have two hours before Barry time, I did promise dcrmom that I would do the meme she sent me. Neither dcrmom nor I know what "meme" means, but it is kind of like a chain thing between bloggers. So, someone tagged her to tell seven random facts about herself, and then she tagged me, and I get to tag someone else. ...Oh. I guess I am supposed to tag seven people. I do not think I know seven bloggers yet. I will worry about that later.
SEVEN FACTS ABOUT JUNE CUTOFF CASH
1. I do not have a spleen. When I was 12, I fell off a balcony at my aunt's house (thereby ruining her birthday -- sorry again, Aunt Kathy) and I broke both wrists, had lots of internal damage, and had to have my spleen removed. You do not really need your spleen -- the rest of your organs kind of take over. Just flew in from the balcony and boy are my organs tired.
2. Marvin Gardens and I own photo albums of people we do not know. We have three photo albums of this couple from the '40s, Norma and Vern Weinstein, and from there we started collecting many pictures of complete strangers. Someone is making a documentary about this odd hobby and we were interviewed twice.
3. I detest the theater. I hate musicals and plays and I hate hate hate hate hate those theater photos. You know, where the background is always pitch black and someone is in the foreground with a dramatic look on their face? You wanna torture me? Take me to the dang theater.4. There is no better smell, if you ask me, than Vick's Vapo-Rub. I feel similarly attached to Dippity-Do.
5. I simply cannot let you take a drink from my glass. If you do so, you might as well take the whole thing, because even if I were lying prone in an endless desert, I would not drink from something someone else drank from. This rule applies to relatives, Marvin Gardens, anyone.
6. There is nothing more depressing to me than National Public Radio. Particularly that All Things Considered theme song. Ugh! It plummets me into depression. Those soooothing voices and those loooooong pauses. Oh, I am getting the heebie jeebies just describing it. My parents always had that thing on before dinner, but I do not know why that makes me so depressed. It's not like they bound my limbs with electric tape and propped my eyes open with toothpicks during dinner or anything.
7. (finally) I adore the sound of a train in the middle of the night. And old coffee percolators. And thunderstorms. And crickets. Was that 10 things, then?
18 comments:
#5!! Me too!!!
I'm not sure why I need to post this here, now, but I was traveling up I-75 (I think), near Ocala, which is NOWHERE NEAR Michigan, and there was a billboard advertising Frankenmuth and its Christmas wares. Ok, that is one of the longest run-on sentences.
I thought of you.
DCR tagged me, too. I'm still working on my list (trying to whittle down all 9,305 random facts about my weird self to just seven). Loved yours though.
Darn it, stie. You were one of my potential tagees.
I hope you enjoyed Barry Gibb. I used to have the Bee Gees and Andy Gibb's posters on my walls when I was a teen.
Please add me to your email list so I can be included in your mad self-indulgence: catstepdad@hotmail.com
The word that first came to my mind when thinking of you is "tool."
I'd really like it if you stayed away from those California fires.
We always thought you were hot.
If you had taken the apartment in HANCOCK PARK, you would not have had this awful commute!
I am also trying to forgive you for not loving all things Broadway. Tell me - have you seen anything decent with which to form your opinion?
Yes, stie. One of my oldest friends was big into the theater all during high school and college, unfortunately for me. Also, I lived in London for a summer, and I got free theater tickets constantly, so I went a lot. Still hated it. I am sorry. Theater things make my hair stand on end.
I bet you liked "Saturday Night Fever" and that was a damn musical made for the big screen!
I have decided to really like you and will continue lurking on your site.
What traffic director directs you right into a fire?!!? seriously.
And hating the theater? Yes! I feel this strange kinship towards you knowing this. Golf claps all around.
Jamie
Okay, who is going to steal use of the phrase "golf claps"? Tee!
I do not mean to offend, I am seeking education on this matter, and as the largest Gibb fan (large is attributed to the size of your adoration, not the size of you)why his speech is akin to a 12th grade boy trying to talk while gagging on his retainer?
I suppose by the look of his over white-horse sized-chicklets across the front of his mouth, that he had a fence of falsies going there.. which begs the qustion of WHY, OH WHY is he missing his front teeth? An over zealous fan chasing him, and in his haste of looking back to gage the distance between himself and his would-be attacker ran into a pole? A meth habbit out of control? Poor dental care? Help a sistah out with some answers to these questions.. cause that slushy slur made watching american idol this week near impossible for me.
I must say I have been innundated with why-does-Barry-Gibb-look-like-that questions, and as someone who has followed his aging process, I can assure you that those are his real teeth. He has always kind of had too many teeth, but as he ages, I think it gets more obvious or something. Poor Barry Gibb. Oh, and he has always talked like that, too. Maybe it's part of his accent? Sean Connery does that kind of lisping thing too. I do not know where Sean Connery comes from, other than the Land of Hot, Sexist Older Man.
I'm totally down with #7. When I lived in western North Dakota, there was nothing as calming as the midnight breeze and hearing the whistle of the trains in, as my dad put it, the poetic distance.
Oh, and, um, could you please not lump all NPR into one basket? Please?
Because This American Life and Neil Conan's Science Fridays, just two name two shows, are worlds apart from the treacly BJ Leiderman theme song you so rightly scathe.
Thanks!
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