She's No Anonymous Sec...

Mad Men is back soon. Here's Joanie in all her Bam!Pow! glory. She's a secretary, you know. Just like ME! More on that later. Maybe.

Never What You Think It Is

For about 18 months during half of my 7th and all of my 8th grade, I lived and went to school in NYC. It was the best year and a half of school. I was challenged with great classes like Latin and Medieval History. I had friends or at least people who meant something to me. Living with my grandmother and Aunt Marie, I wasn't surrounded by chaos and fights and alcohol and cruelty at home, only to have to play it off with my approximation of normalcy at school.

Those 18 months meant a lot to me.

I went back for this school's reunion this past weekend. Fairly few remembered me. Or if they did remember me, remembered that they didn't like me or really a less self-pitying point of view, remembered that I didn't matter to them in the same way they mattered to me.

That was hard. Harder still to ignore which I have been mightily trying to do for the past 48 hours. I'm good at denial and ignoring but I'm not having much success right now. I've cried during this time...not real tears because that would mean showing how I feel. I'm crying on the proverbial inside.

This is a constant in my life.

During the after party of her fifth grade classmates that they were kind enough to invite me, the unremembered one, I embarrassed my sister by being loud, demanding and obnoxious. Not of her but of the people around her. I apologized to her, but she didn't ask me why. She said "No worries," but didn't ask me why. If she had I would have told her that I was tired of people taking advantage of her. Long story, but she has been organizing and taking charge groups of uncooperative, privileged people and I saw that happening at this get together of her classmates. I spoke up loudly which I probably would not have done if I hadn't had that second half beer. **sigh** This is why I don't drink - it's cute when you're young and obnoxious when you're old. I'm old.

It wasn't because of whatever reason people who don't know me think. I suspect my sister has a reason why I was all obnoxious also. She, of course, has a bit more insight but I don't know. I don't know because she didn't ask and I didn't volunteer the info.

Nobody asks.

Nobody asks how the hysterectomy has affected me.

Nobody asks how afraid I am of dying alone.

Nobody asks how sitting next to an unaware bigot brings my life down.

Nobody asks how never being able to be excellent in my job depresses me.

Nobody asks how my self-loathing affects me.

Nobody asks why it's there.

Nobody asks why I don't cry.

I now have to take my uterusless self to a job I'm failing at while listening to the mildly bigoted ditz drone on next to me while I do the bidding of grown lawyers who think of me as the same ilk as a xerox machine.

Though I've ignored this space into internet oblivion, still too many people know this blog is here, so this is about all the pathetic blues crying that's barely appropriate.

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida...and the 64 Crayola Box

Speaking of advertising. I was directed to this from Andrew's. Man oh man. Heh. This ain't your grandpa's stoner trip. Big deal you scoff. Naw. CLICK THIS. Oooh. All the pretty colors.

“And Then There Was Salsa” from Frito Lay Dips on Vimeo.

The page takeover is what seals it. Here's another example for the Honda Insight. I don't watch broadcast much anymore getting pretty much all my content on the internet. I'm an advertiser's dream for this stuff. That page takeover. Wow.

Fun, huh? And speaking of colors. I am a big fan of OK Go's synchronized treadmill video. Here they play on kinetic motion to make something really interesting and fun. Trying to keep up with what's moving things forward is a challenge.

h/t Alyssa Rosenberg

The Catch? Old Spice...

Bunch of caveats to the enjoyment of this brilliant piece of advertisement. One? It's Old Spice. Not my favorite. Two? Don't have a man to compare him to. Sad, but no worries. I think I'll just incorporate THIS man into my daily ablutions. (Geddit? Geddit?) Three? It's OLD SPICE!!! Four? No man is this mack, not even this man who they cast. Frankly, all that perfection would get on my fucking nerves. Five? Perhaps my fussiness is why I don't have a man. (Yeah, and nobody who used to be my man better pipe up with "yathink?")

The dominoes do fall, don't they?

h/t postbourgie.

Resolutions: Broken.

I haven't quit smoking. I haven't written here twice a week. But I am getting out of the house. This weekend, I have a lunch date with silentbeep, a frequent commenter on my daily hangout blog, Ta-Nehisi Coates. I'm really looking forward to that. silentbeep (I'll have to ask her about that nom de blog) has a blog that I spent several hours on Saturday perusing.

Part of my problem with updating my blog frequently is that I write very slowly...and I'm a constant editor. I'll work a sentence 'til the comma cries. Also, a focus would be good. A focus other than politics, I think. And Pop culture is saturated with bloggers turning over its influence on life and I don't particularly have anything new and interesting to say about it.

I'm not given to writing about my job. First, I could get caught in a trick bag whining about the first year who threw me under the bus. Also, it's not fair to bag on folks who aren't able to defend themselves. But I do know my job and it might be interesting to talk about how I get it done. But then, when I come home from work, which is the only time I have to write, why would I want to rehash issues I leave behind.

I know music...but only most kinds. I have absolutely no affinity for hip-hop or rap. I don't understand a word that is said. Except for Tupac. I understand Tupac's every word. And The Roots. Some time ago, TNC posted a video of three rappers, Eminem being one and two other apparently famous and talented ones (see-what do I know) and the only words I understood were "Phyllis Hyman."

Television has been my constant companion since Playhouse 90 days. But I don't watch broadcast any more. And I don't go to theaters much. Everything can be gotten online - Hulu for tv and Netflix for movies. I'm a hell of a lot more selective than I used to be. Avatar, however, I've seen 6 times. Supernatural I download weekly. LOVE those boys. And Dean is mine so hands off.

So, anyone out there who knows me - do you think you might have some suggestions for a focus for me?

In the meantime, I post here the video to Sade's new single "Soldier of Love" that I have been playing nonstop since I downloaded it on Monday. Man, if there weren't ever truer words for me than "I've lost the use of my heart, but I am still alive" and "I'm at the borderline of my faith, I'm at the hinterland of my devotion" and "Still waiting for love to come, turn it all around" and "I am love's soldier." Those words give me such hope living in the absence of the ability to feel. Gah! Big ass gong going off inside me. Clang clang clang.

Note: for some reason links aren't working right now. Go forth and Google.