There's a lot to be learned from The Bachelor. The gutsy 25 ladies who risk their social and professional futures teach many lessons to us viewers. As we lead into episode 2 this evening, these are just a few gems gleaned as the ladies stepped and stumbled their way through episode 1:
DON'T:
1. Say you're from Chicago if you're from places like, say, Blue Island or Morton, Illinois.
2. Make how much your hometown (cough cough! Stockton!) sucks your greeting talking point. ("I'm from Stockton! It's not a nice place! See you later!")
3a. Add to the white noise. For example, don't scream when Jason walks in the room. Similarly, don't talk about how great kids are or how much you REALLY REALLY REALLY want to have kids.
3b. Make sweeping generalizations about who's ready to be a mom if you're spilling your champagne and slurring your words.
4. Be a stalker, then say you're not a stalker--truly! you're not!, but really, you actually are a stalker.
5. Say creepy thing about the potential bachelor's son like how you know his favorite color, the name of his teddy bear, where he sleeps at night, etc. etc.
6. Giggle your way through every single word. ("Tee hee hee! My name is-tee!-Dominique!!! Tee hee hee hee!")
7. Make salsa your "thing" when there's a BRAZILIAN GIRL in the competition. Really.
8. Quit your job to go do The Bachelor.
DO:
1. Stand up straight.
2. Make your name memorable! (Kari from Kansas!)
3. Wear a dress you can walk in.
4. Pretend to know what crazy hot dog girl is talking about and just agree with everything she says. Yeah, I too always go for the mustard guy. I definitely want to settle down with the mustard guy.
5. Look vaguely like a celebrity like Sandra Bullock or Eva Mendez.
6. Lay off the fake tanner.
And finally, a note to ABC: Try to spend just a few extra post-production dollars on the quality of Chris Harrison's V/Os. For example, when he suddenly sounded like he was in a bubble while telling the girls about the trick rose. Just a few extra bucks will do just the trick to take Chris out of that bubble.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Things The Bachelorettes Teach Us So We Don't Have to Learn Them Ourselves
Monday, January 5, 2009
Thinkin' on Lincoln
As I stood in line, one of the young guys working behind the counter struck up a conversation with me.
"Whatchyou reading there?" he asked me, motioning at the book I'd tucked under my arm. I held it up for him. "What's it say? Land... of..."
"Lincoln," I finished the title.
"So it's about Lincoln?" he asked.
"Well, kind of. It's about how the idea of Lincoln kind of lives with us today," I said, feeling extremely self-conscious and nerdy since a few of the other workers had now started staring at my book and I had really hoped just to go through this whole reading-alone-in-a-sandwich-shop-on-a-Friday-night thing unnoticed. "You know," I continued awkwardly, "cause everybody has an idea about Lincoln...at least what they learned in school or something."
"Not me," he said flatly.
I was floored. "You never think about Lincoln?" I asked him, my jaw probably hitting the counter because Lincoln is about all I've thought about for the last few months.
"No, not really," he said, shrugging.
Another girl working there interrupted him, giving me my total so I could pay quickly and seeming about as interested in our conversation about Lincoln as she was in having to work a Friday night shift.
I handed her my card and turned back to the guy. "So you seriously don't think about Lincoln? Not even like, just about him being president?"
"Nah," he said and then paused. "He was gay, right?"
Ah, yes. The Lincoln Was Gay, Right? theory was a pretty hot topic a few years ago with some historians--like C.A. Tripp who published The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln--to assert that Lincoln had some homoerotic goings-ons with friends like Joshua Speed, with whom he shared a bed for a few years while they both worked. Other historians and sensitive Lincolnphiles are quick to point out that sharing a bed was a common thing in those days and that Lincoln clearly didn't have any sort of "streaks of lavender" in him, as Carl Sandburg once wrote. Of course, this theory picked up enough speed for kicker packages on the nightly news and has ingrained itself as a staple of the modern perception of Lincoln's life.
I considered the delicacies of modern constructions of history, whether the nightly news does more harm than good sometimes, the context of the gay world in both contemporary and antiquated worlds, and how easily (and quickly) one moment in time can become contorted before we no longer know whether Washington ever chopped down a cherry tree or if Dubya approached Guantanamo with the same noble thoughts of the republic as Lincoln did when he suspended habeas corpus.
But I skipped all that. "Uh, I think he was probably not gay, but I guess we don't know."
I sat down with my sandwich and opened my book back up when the starkest irony of the situation struck me: The young guy had just told me he never thinks about Abraham Lincoln wasn't just a kid working in a neighborhood named after Lincoln: He was a black kid working in a neighborhood named after Lincoln.
It just so happened that the next section of my chapter on Lincoln and Chicago dealt with a Thai immigrant who lives one neighborhood west of Lincoln Square. He and his wife moved to the U.S. in 1973 and opened the third Thai restaurant in Chicago. After seeing Lincoln's image and name repeated endlessly, they investigated the president and discovered that he was a pretty important guy. In their opinion, he is THE most important guy. Their family began annual pilgrimages to visit Lincoln's tomb and have created a small shrine to a Lincoln statue in their restaurant where they offer the mini-Abe a full meal each day.
He's just that important to them--Lincoln made it possible for them to come to this country and to live among their friends and peers equally. In other words, Lincoln gave everybody a chance, whether you want to serve sandwiches or Pad Thai or read your book on a Friday night alone. So maybe it's not so much that we don't ever think about Lincoln (or whatever other great figures past have formed our lives today), it's simply that we sometimes take him for granted. It might just take a huge bronze statue in the Square named after him, a small figurine in a Thai restaurant, or even that nerdy girl who ordered the salami and turkey sandwich on Friday night to remind you of it.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
The Holidays Keep Me Busy
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Just another day in Chicago
Where snow and ice immobilize the city, da mayor sings rather than salts or plows, our governor is about to be impeached, rats and rodents make the top of the page, and children are allowed to lick fire hydrants in the suburbs. Yup. Seems about right.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Another Year
So today is my 24th birthday. (There, I dated myself. I may be younger or older than you thought, who knows.)
What I realized is especially great about your 24th birthday is that there are 24 hours in the day to celebrate turning 24. Of course, I realized this at 12:55 AM last night, so I had kind of a late start and didn't really have any concrete ideas of what to do with my discovery. John and I briefly toyed with the idea that I should take a picture of myself every hour of my 24th birthday, but I wanted to sleep well, so that idea was scrapped.
Instead, I've been thinking each hour about when I turned the age of the hour's number and what stands out most to me about that year in my life. Like at 9 AM I remembered how at age 9, I had my Niner Diner Birthday Party, sock hop and all. At 1 PM, (13:00 military time) I recalled the irony of being in a car accident on my 13th birthday, almost to the exact moment I was born (7:26 CDT, if you're keeping score at home.). I'm about to hit the 4 o'clock hour, which would be age 16. Immediately jumping to mind is the watercolor painting I was given in a park for my birthday, the mono I caught that year and then recovered from (only to be bogged down by scarlet fever a few days later), and the end of an era as 9/11 and other events changed my life forever.
Anyway, it's been an interesting experiment so far--a kind of This is Your Life, Brought to You By Yourself. And hopefully by the end of the night tonight, I'll have a fresh story for the start of age 24. :)
PICTURED: Post-birthday party, age 4, picking up boys and being awesome.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
I'm Dreaming of a Long-Haired, Head-Banging, Synth-Fueled Christmas
I searched in vain for an embeddable version of the opening scene where a runaway finds refuge in some theatre and some guy who apparently is a ghost makes the Trans-Siberian Orchestra come to life, but alas and alack, I can only link to it. I highly recommend you watch.
Please note: Just because I am linking to the TSO does not mean they have surpassed my deep, undying love for Mannheim Steamroller. See: A Very Merry Fresh Aire Christmas, for proof.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Keeping in Mind
You know how some memories from your childhood live so vividly in your mind, but with absolutely no context? Like you’re looking through a kaleidoscope with bright shapes, colors and memories bouncing about, surrounded by blackness? Fortunately, we can peer back in whenever we like and relive this moment again and again.
One of the stronger moments I have like that (again, with absolutely no context of year or age, I was maybe six or so) is of running around in my backyard. It was summer, the light fading into sherbet-colored pastels and I was jumping over my mom’s lavender hedge waiting for the fireflies to come out and play.
I had asked someone (my parents, maybe) to come run and chase me. Whoever it was said they would in a minute, but they were a little bit tired. We had just eaten dinner, too. There was time needed, as adults say, to let their dinners settle and relax.
I could not, for the life of me, understand this. The night was especially warm and there was running that absolutely, positively needed to be done. Didn’t they know how important this running was, how fun it was, or how great it felt? I satisfied myself with tearing around the lavender hedge again, totally content. And then I realized that one day I’d grow up too, and I’d be sitting at the table with a cup of coffee in my hand and tell someone like me, “In a minute. I’m a little bit tired. I’ve just eaten dinner. I just need to let my food settle and relax.”
It seems a little contrived and ridiculous that I’d have this revelation while in mid-jump over flowers on a summer evening of my childhood, but that’s how it happened. And I filed the moment away in my memory, somewhere between Bittersweet Moments and Unadulterated Joy.
It’s tough when you’re an adult to have these moments of Unadulterated Joy. You might even argue that the word “UN-ADULTerated” strictly forbids you from them. We’re all too much aware of the world around us to really sink into the bliss of the moment and bask in it. So when they do come along, and we truly enjoy them, they’re even more precious.
Like when over Thanksgiving leftovers, you accidentally teach your 2 ½-year old cousin that hippos make the sound “RAWR,” and she spends a good part of fifteen minutes pressing a tiny plastic hippo against your nose and rawring her little heart out.
Or when for no good reason other exhaustion, the thought of vomiting in front of a quaint Nordic pie shop in Wisconsin makes you giggle so hard that your eyes water from trying to keep from bursting at the seams.
Or even when while rinsing with mouthwash alone in your bathroom, your “vigorous swishing” gets a little too vigorous and you inadvertently squirt peppermint mouthwash out of the corner of your mouth, dowsing your mirror and wall with a hefty portion of the blue liquid and leaving you struggling to control your amusement until you give up and spit the rest out in a blast of side-splitting laughs.
I’ve been lucky to have quite a few of these total joy moments in the last few weeks. They may or may not survive in my memory in a context, and they very well may end up in that bright kaleidoscope where I think, "Remember that time..." But they’re little blessings—unplanned, unexpected and, most of all, unadulterated.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I'm off to the northern reaches of Minnesota to visit the family. It's been nearly four years (!) since I was last there, so I'm excited to go back. In celebration, I'm posting some of my favorite pictures from the last time I visited in September 2004. Most of these are from our drives north of Duluth along the shore of Superior. I am guessing it will be way too freezing cold for that to happen and most of our time will be centered around the casino (!) we're staying in, but still. :)Have a great Thanksgiving and avoid the turkey sleepiness.
Writing on the rocks of Sugarloaf Cove, this awesome abandoned log mill site. You can't tell from this picture, but the rocks there are crazy--unlike any of the other rocks along the shore. They're big, smooth, boulder-like and made from seemingly all different natural backgrounds. It's almost like a glacier dumped them there and the cove protected them from getting broken up over the years.
Rock-pickin'! :)
This was the view from my grandparents' cabin up on the Gunflint Trail. Basically, I had this love-hate relationship with that water. I loved it, but in really small doses and without the fish and not while in the canoe either... :)
Monday, November 17, 2008
Quel imagination!
Oh, my, god. Seriously. I need to find myself a French child somewhere.
Once upon a time... from Capucha on Vimeo.
Now you know
I am currently writing a blog post for my “real job” that includes a product from Hammacher Schlemmer. So I’m here just posting to say I never really paid attention to the second of those two German surnames. In my mind, it was always Hammacher Schmeh-mumble-mumble. I guess we grow up in all sorts of ways. Posted for your consideration, their Marshmallow Shooter.