the sloppy copy

To get to my Grandma’s grave, make a left after the weeping angel.

At least, that’s how I think you get there. It’s a very large cemetery and I’ve only been once, that I can remember.

My mom went to see her today, and I stayed back. I don’t know if I feel guilty about this. Should I feel guilty about this? I never met her. She died years and years before I was born. I enjoy hearing stories about her; she seemed like she was a pretty neat lady. But to go visit her grave seems strange to me. Maybe I’d prefer to remember her as she is in my imagination, not reduced to an inscription in concrete; I don’t know.

Some songs are best listened to with eyes closed and mind wide, wide open:
“Hold you in my arms” (Ray LaMontagne)

“The Funeral” (Band of Horses)

The Genius function in iTunes really lives up to its name sometimes. I wanted to hear “Hold you in my arms” (see above) and here’s the resulting playlist it built for me:

behold the glory!

I have a confession to make: Sometimes I watch movies not because I have any interest in the plot, but because according to IMDB.com, an actor on whom I currently have a crush has some sort of role in it. I’ve watched a lot of crappy movies because of this, because I generally end up having crushes on obscure actors with very thin IMDB.com pages.

I doubt I’m the only one who does this. At least, I hope I’m not the only one who does this.

Anyway, this little peccadillo is what lead me to insta-Netflix Suburban Girl this evening, and ya know what? It wasn’t half bad! I was weirdly surprised: it generally revolves around a relationship between Sarah Michelle Gellar and… are you ready for this? Alec Baldwin. Yeah, dude, that Alec Baldwin.

But it worked! The gaping age difference between them wasn’t nearly as contrived as Jack Nicholson and Amanda Peet in Something’s Gotta Give (a movie that I reluctantly paid money to see in theatres). It was actually sweet. And – yeah, I’m gonna say it – oddly hot.

So, as I posted to some friends earlier: you should watch it! Maybe not go out of your way to, because I don’t know how well it’s done on DVD release, but yeah! If you’ve got nothing better to do and a copy of the DVD falls out of the sky into your living room, pop it into the ol’ DVD player and give it a spin!** (And though I speak with little-to-no authority on the subject, I think that it might appeal to the gentlemen as well. I mean, c’mon – Sarah Michelle Gellar is haaaaaaaawt. And did I mention she wears leather pants?).

*Quote from the film
**Ooooh! Unintentional pun! Triple word score!

So I guess now Les Paul can literally roll over in his grave whenever someone picks up a Guitar Hero controller and pretends like they actually have musical skill, eh?

This “he’s the real ‘guitar hero'” stuff I’m reading sure has my panties in a wad.

Please, media, refrain from referencing this inane video game. It doesn’t illustrate his impact on popular culture, it only trivializes it.

The view sure is nice from up here on my high horse.

Author’s note: Post originally written Monday, July 2, 2007

I read an article in the Post-Dispatch today about two “suburban moms” taking their daughters through security at Lambert. They were in a hurry, but were stopped through security for a more extended search, causing the daughters to miss their flight. One of the women claims the extra search was a purposeful delay, because she had made two sarcastic comments to TSA agents. Of course, the TSA spokesperson says that all passengers are subject to search at any time, regardless of circumstances.

Here’s my question: what does making smart-aleck comments to the TSA folks accomplish? Okay, so you’re in a hurry and running out of patience. To me, this doesn’t give you a license to be rude to people doing their job. This is one thing that I had a lot of time to think about this weekend (see previous entry).* If I had a dollar for every person I heard being rude to airline employees, I could have hired a private jet to fly me back to St. Louis. Here is a sampling of the things I heard:

“The weather is not that bad! They can fly!” 
(I’m fairly certain that the airline does not cancel and delay flights for shits and giggles. I’m also fairly certain that cancelling and delaying flights costs the airline $$$$, and would probably be avoided if at all possible. I am also also fairly certain that the person making this statement was not a member of the American Meteorlogical Association, or even a aircraft pilot. Let’s leave those calls to the experts, k? Better delayed than dead, right?)

“I am never flying this airline again!”
(Statistically, the chances of this sort of massive delay happening to you again is probably small. If the chances were high, the airline in question would probably not be operational).

“Look at this line! This is riduculous!”
(When the ratio of agent:irritated customer is 1:40, yes, the line will go slowly. Particularly when every single irritated customer demands that the agent investigate every single possible solution to their problem right there and give them answers right this second).

Going back to the P-D article, I just don’t see the point in being rude. How would you like having the job of the ticket agent? NO THANK YOU. Dealing with a zillion angry, almost hysterical people, asking you the same questions over and over and over again, and yelling at you as if you personally cancelled and delayed their flights–just for your own sadistic pleasure? Does this make sense?

I’m not saying that people shouldn’t be angry, or frustrated, or upset, or whatever. I’m just saying that being mad doesn’t give one an excuse to forgo thinking before speaking

Today’s Addendum:
A friend recently had one of those terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad Airline Experiences, and to him I say this: That sucks, dude. It really does. But the more you travel, the more this is going to happen. That doesn’t make the situation any better, I know, but for now: go home, take a nice hot shower and get a good night’s sleep in your own bed. Maybe even throw in a little prayer for good measure: “Thank God I don’t work for an airline or am required to travel every single week. Amen.”

I’ll end with one of the best things I’ve ever read:

“In three words, I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: It goes on.” (Robert Frost).

*I had had a Bad Airline Experience (BAE) the previous week. More on that later, maybe.

Having been raised Catholic, I never really had a good handle on the Bible like my Protestant counterparts. It’s just not really our “thing.”

But here’s something that I find particularly interesting, and that my more Bible-knowledgeable pals probably already know:

(Quoted from another online journal that I follow):
Matthew 6:25-34 says: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important that food, and the body more important that clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown in to the fire will he not much more clothe you , O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying ‘what shall we eat?’ or ‘what shall we drink?’ or ‘what shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day had enough trouble of its own.”

I’m going to think about this for awhile, and get back to y’all. In the meantime, feel free to leave your thoughts.

I gotta confess, one of the perks of having lived in other states is being able to “impress” people with my “knowledge” of baseball.

At home in St. Louis, my repertoire of statistics and color commentary runs around the average-to-low end of the spectrum. I get with my friends and family and am soon out-statistic’ed, out-observation’ed, out-fan’ed.

I don’t have a very good frame of reference, because I’ve never lived in another MLB town, but I think this phenomenon is at least somewhat unique to the StL-Metro area. Hearing some of the out-of-towner commentary of this year’s All Star Game festivities confirmed this suspicion: We are an informed, baseball-loving people.

Out of our home element, we seem to be superhumanly obsessed with our Cardinals and with the game itself. Put together, though, our collective knowledge just runs together – much like our created Sea of Red that flows into and around Busch Stadium on game days.

A cute story that I tell to non-St. Louisans involves my incessant cheering of “Ozz-ie! Ozz-ie!” as a diaper-clad, barely-talking child at Cardinals games. This might seem endearing and quirky to those who did not grow up around here; to natives, it’s just another in a long, long list of Tales from Cardinal Nation.

I don’t claim that this phenomenon is unique. I lived in Indiana for about five-ish years and damn do those people love their Colts. And don’t get me started on Oklahoma. I’ve never lived (or even came close to, really) the east coast of this country, but if my stereotypes based on watching Fever Pitch are correct, Red Sox fans are a rabid bunch, too.

Even if I pick up and move to, say, Houston this very minute and live there until I die of natural causes at age 102, the Astros (or the Texans or the Rockets) will never, ever be my team. I was born a Cardinals fan and will die a Cardinals fan (a happy one, I might add, after seeing the end of the 2006 season).

Just another reason why I love this town.

Side note: Do yourself a favor and spend some time here. This dude is incredible and hilarious.