Chopstork

…and I’m getting older too.*

I always thought I’d turn into my parents when I became a parent. But it turns out I’ve already turned into my parents. For the better part of the past year, I’ve chosen to eat lunch at my desk so I could read the Wall Street Journal on a regular basis (like my dad). I can’t watch TV unless I have a crossword puzzle on my lap, and I won’t buy anything at the grocery store that isn’t on sale (those I get from my mother). I still have yet to go to Las Vegas — where 20-somethings like to go wild and party all night — but I might go in 3 weeks. To visit my parents. They don’t live there, but they’ll be there at that time. So instead of breaking out my slut attire from college to dance the night away in trendy clubs, revved up on vodka-red bulls, I’ll be doing crossword puzzles by the pool with my mom, and discussing the stock market over gin and tonics with my dad. And I’m actually really looking forward to it.

Speaking of the stock market, I’m usually somewhat conservative with my choices, although I do go after trends (I recently made a few hundred bucks related to my love of White House | Black Market). But today I took my bit of caution and threw it to the wind when I bought $1,000 worth of stock in a company I know very little about (and couldn’t find much on). The reason? I’ve noticed a bunch of ridiculous vending machines popping up in stores and airports — selling anything from iPods to Proactiv solution. No coin return button on those babies — they work with credit cards only. And a few other companies that sell cheaper products in vending machines are looking at CC-friendly machines in the near future as well. So I found the company that makes a majority of those particular credit card readers, and bought stock. It’s an interesting idea, but it could cost me some bucks. Time will tell! I guess since I never go to Vegas, I’ve got to get my gambling kicks in somehow, right?

*nothing makes you feel older than quoting Fleetwood Mac. except maybe having a stroke.

Last week, against my better judgment, I bought a Motorola RAZR V3m.  While I loved how easily it fit into my purses — even wristlets — I did not love how the alarm function would only work when I set it for a PM time.  So today I took it back to the Verizon store on University Ave and got the parking spot right outside the door!  Good sign.  I walked over to the customer service counter, where I was immediately complimented on my outfit (not gonna lie, I looked cute today).  Another good sign.  The guy behind the counter asked what my issue was, so I explained my dismay about the alarm, which is a crucial feature for me.  He asked for my receipt and everything that came in the box, so I asked what my options were.  He said I would get a new phone.  The conversation that followed went something to the effect of:
“Are you getting me a new RAZR?”

“Yes.”

“Do I have to get that same phone?”

“No.”

“Good.  Because I’d like to play with the Chocolate.”

::awkward pause, as we both realize that this guy is black::

“Ha, yeah you can definitely do that.”

“Um…  that came out so totally wrong.  I, um, meant the new LG phone.  The Chocolate…”

“I wasn’t going to go there.”

Anyway, so he shows me the LG phone, and it looks purse-fittable.  I don’t care for all the bells and whistles (why are they trying to sell me an MP3 player in a cell phone store?), but it lights up brightly (excellent beacon), has several alarms (good for my neurologically impaired drowsy mornings), and can make and receive calls (I need a fuckin phone, after all).  While he was getting the new phone ready, I discreetly move the gold and diamond (ok fine, gold-plated and CZ) ring from my right hand to my left, in case he thought my poor word choice was hinting at activities I would currently like to engage in with Ty Barnett.  I am so lame.  After a long time and much small talk (they had problems transferring my phone book), he asked me out.  It caught me pretty off-guard, and I just wasn’t feeling it. So there will be no chocolate for Christine.  Just a new phone.

So, most of the girls/women I know — especially in this area — are pretty tough and practical. But every woman, no matter how smart or sporty, has some sort of trait that reaffirms her two X chromosomes. Take me, for example. I know a decent amount about football, and can even throw a spiral (somtimes). The first “bad boy” I ever fell for was Megatron, and I think I still know my way around the first and second quests of Zelda without a map. I have most of Spaceballs memorized. So what makes me such a girl? Not the ridiculous number of shoes I have, or the number of supplies in my office that are purple. Nope. It is my penchant for Made for Lifetime movies (not to be confused with the more ambiguous “made-for-TV” movies, although they do sometimes overlap, like in the classic Death of a Cheerleader). I don’t know if it is the sassy female protagonists, the too-suave-to-be-trusted male antagonists, the spoiled-brat-turned-jailbait-slut teenage daughters, or the fact that not every ending is happy, but I can’t get enough. Every once in a while I’ll turn on a Lifetime movie that doesn’t quite do it for me, but for the most part I sit patiently through the commercials, waiting for the estrogen to bring me justice. I’ve got a movie on right now, and even though I should go to bed, I can’t tear myself away. Guys (and some girls) have given me a lot of crap for this over the years, but I can’t change it. It’s irreversible… just like my raincoat.

I hate mail. I like email and gmail (pronounced “guh-male,” of course). The only unwanted things I get from them are the occasional offers to enlarge a piece of anatomy I do not possess. And I love how I can send a message to my best friend 2000 miles away, and she gets it near real-time. But nothing good ever seems to come out of USPS mail, nor does anything come in a timely fashion. Current case(s) in point:

1. My cowbell came today. A week later than it was supposed to. What the hell am I going to do with a coda percussion cowbell now?

2. I got a letter from Blue Cross, my HMO. They sent me a form that pretty much wants to know if my stroke happened as a result of “an accident in which another party may be responsible for payment.” Apparently, they want to get out of the near $300k they spent to save my (priceless) life. Too bad for them this was the wrath of mother nature and not an auto accident, workplace accident, medical malpractice, or “slip and fall” (one of the potential reasons they listed). I wish them luck when they try to sue God.

3. I got two letters from the San Francisco DPT. One for parking in front of my house for longer than 2 hours at a time, and one for street cleaning. F-ing street cleaning. Church Street still looks dirty to me. And how do they know how long I’ve been parked for? Is that douchebag in the makeshift golf cart stalking me?

I think I’m done ranting now. Time to watch “So You Think You Can Dance?” (fun useless trivia tidbit: last season’s winner was a guy from Sunnyvale. a friend of mine from work knows him. he’s hot, but his sexual orientation is rather ambiguous)

Oh, and does anyone ever see that Piper girl from B2B? I have her black hoodie (which is so obviously a woman’s garment). I don’t know who she is… my only encounter with her involved standing in an awkward pose while reinflating the back of her horse.

right now I’m supposed to be either:

a) sleeping

b) reading about fiber optics

Instead, I’m

a) playing around with Flikr

b) waiting for John Krasinski to come on Jay Leno

c) smirking at how dirty that last phrase sounds

The whole reason I got started on this thing is because I was going to tell the sordid (and embarrassing) tales of my hospital stay. I never got around to it, but lately I’ve been remembering things about those 10 days that I had previously forgotten, so maybe I should choke them out before they disappear… then again, nobody wants to read about me getting sponge baths from young nurses…

hey, how the hell do I put my Flikr photos on here? It’s about time the world saw Steven J in a tiara.  If you have Flikr, they are listed under the name “StrokeChristine.”  If you are AJ, please do it for me.

Courtney forwarded this “cool factoid” yesterday:

Did you know?

On Wednesday, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00
in the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.

That won’t ever happen again.

You may now return to work.

To which I replied-all, “Unless you’re in Europe and it happens again on May 4th.” I was happy in my smart assedness.

Until I saw that Courtney’s British roommate had already replied with the same tidbit and the conversation had been over 30 minutes ago. Let that be a lesson to me: read all email before replying to a group email.

To make up for my email foe paw, I contribute this random and barely related factoid:

In Japan they show the time in the corner of the T.V. screen, and they like to use military time (that was not the factoid). 1 PM is 13:00, 2 PM is 14:00, and so on, but at noon they call it 0:00. With a “beep, beep, Beeeeep,” I might add. Followed by 笑っていいとも (waratte iitomo, a TV show). For late night shows, they just keep on going; midnight is 24:00 (cuz they already used 0:00), then 24:30, 25:00… Wait, there are how many hours in a day now? Those crazy japs.

On Fox’s Unanimous, nine people are trapped in a bunker until they unanimously decide on one person to take home the 1.5 million dollar prize. The players are not allowed to vote for themselves. Um … so what they’re saying is, it’s not unanimous.

I’m pretty sure one of my cube neighbors is teaching another how to play Solitaire, right now, at work.  She’s walking him through a whole game, with tips and strategy and everything, very seriously.  Funny … teaching at work the quintessential bored-at-work game.  Of course, I’m no better since I’m writing this right now.  And who doesn’t know how to play Solitaire?!  …Oh yeah, I don’t.

Found out Virginia was in the NITs the day of the opening round against Stanford, at Stanford, so Jay, Laura, and I went. I was pretty psyched. Till we lost by 20 points. Sad. There was no love. We counted maybe twenty orange shirts in the stands. Eh, the school is 3000 miles away, but still … there are more UVA alums in the bay area than that. Worse, though, was Stanford—half the arena was empty. Things Courtney hates is right (#46). No school pride. We thought it was spring break or something at first, but it wasn’t. They just don’t care.

This post is really just a random post to see how trackbacks work. Hey, I’m new to real blogs.