Why I’ve Been Neglecting You (a.k.a. Onward, Ho!)

dear readers,

i am tired. i am lazy. i am not someone who possesses the best qualities for keeping up with a blog on a regular basis. aside from my hope to write as often as possible and my desire to be snarky or help you all prepare for the zombie apocalypse, i’m just not great at blogging. i want to do better, truly, i do. i have post-its all over my desk with notes about blog topics. but i haven’t been able to sit down and write. and here’s why:

you have been waiting (actually, those of you who read this probably already know) for this news i’ve been withholding but have hinted at in other posts. and now the cat is out of the bag.

i have left my job. after 3 1/2 years, i am no longer a Describer at The Media Access Group at WGBH. instead, i am now a founder, partner, vice president, describer, editor, post production supervisor, marketer, operations manager, possible narrator, and many other things, in a brand new company called, “Hollywood Access Services.”

3 of my colleagues from MAG invited me to join them in a business venture. when our powers combined, the 4 of us became the founders of HAS, which was officially made an LLC on February, 1st, 2012. today was our first day at our new company.

i’d like to write more about this adventure, and i can now finally try to post things i’ve learned while trying to start a small business, but for now, i just wanted to tell you all that i am moving onward. hopefully upward as well.

if you’re curious, you can visit our temporary webpage here. we’ve been trying to get other things done, so we haven’t managed to get our web content in order yet. so for now, you just get one page with no tabs to click. basic information, nothing fancy.

on the topic of trying to get other things done, this is why i have been neglecting my blog. this is why i’ve been sloppy about the things i have managed to post. i’m not even sure why i decided to start a blog in the midst of trying to start a small business. i believe it’s because i am an all-star procrastinator. and because i really did want you to be prepared for the zombie apocolypse.

in any case, i shall end this post so that i can try to get some sleep for my second day of work at my brand new job. today was one of the fastest work days i’ve ever had. i wanted to write that it was the busiest, but having worked as an EMT, i can say that it was not. so there’s that.

i hope to write more frequently, but i hope you will understand if i can’t.

happy March, everyone!

Mark These Words, Time and Date/The Double-edged Sword of Trying to Be Clever

titles. i struggle with them. i always want titles to be something really profound in relation to the story, or else something clever with regard to how it uses words. i will, in fact, settle for clever-ish. you know, like, “Good Will Hunting.” yeah, yeah, we get it. it means two things. it’s his name! AND he’s hunting for good will! it works both ways! you know what? i’m okay with that. i don’t think you have to try any harder than “Good Will Hunting,” lest it be way too obvious or annoying, but i’m a sucker for those sorts of things. like, for example, i’m really upset that i can no longer call my screenplay (about a teenage boy going to New Orleans to work with Habitat) “Rebuilding Ben.” don’t you see, guys? he’s going to New Orleans to help rebuild! in the process he’s going to rebuild himself! i can get on board with these types of things. equally, movies or books that have titles based on a line or a lyric. i sometimes scour my scripts for something to use as a title when i can’t think of anything else. what’s the one line that brings it together thematically? yeah, i like that. what of it?

and so the thing is that if you can’t come up with a title that is catchy or clever or thematic or whatever, i think you should stick with something simple. “Harry Potter and…” that makes sense, right? this book is about Harry Potter. in it, he’s going to learn about the Philosopher’s Stone. in the next one, it’ll be Harry Potter again. only this time, The Chamber of Secrets. pretty straightforward, right? and this doesn’t mean you’re not clever or witty or profound. it just means that you’ve chosen to let the story be the story. i’m totally fine with that. it’s better than trying to hard for something that’s just not going to happen with this one thing you’ve written. there will be plenty of other times to get that title that really hooks you. (plenty of other times in your own writing, i don’t necessarily mean you’ll have plenty of published/produced works to get it right.)

so now let’s move on to why i’m writing this post. last year, i read a book called, “Divergent.” i enjoyed it quite a lot. it was exciting, it was interesting, it was pretty much a rip-off of “The Hunger Games,” but who cares? if you liked “The Hunger Games,” i actually do recommend that you read it. similar themes, similar characters in many ways, exciting… you get it. and so i’ve been waiting with bated breath (not really) for the second installment in the trilogy to drop (May). sometime late last year, the cover for the new book was put on a blog, and while the picture itself looks pretty cool, the title of the second book is…

 

wait for it…

 

“Insurgent.”

this stopped me dead in my tracks. now, i’m not saying this is necessarily a bad title. i’m just saying, i have no idea what the author was thinking. here’s the double-edged sword of trying to have a cute/clever/gimmicky set of titles for your trilogy. THEY DAMN WELL BETTER MAKE SENSE AND ALSO BE GOOD. firstly, “Divergent” and “Insurgent” as a pair are already a little too gimmicky for me. and they’re also a little too cutesy for these types of books. i mean, i’m SURE it makes sense. in the first book, we learned what it means to be divergent. it’s pretty much set up that there will be some king of insurgence in the second book. but now here’s where we come across a problem… what in the world is the third book going to be called? Viv and i threw around a lot of different ideas, mostly using words that, when you added “ent” to them didn’t make sense. there aren’t a lot of real words to choose from. at least, not that i can think of. and please, please, please, if you come up with some, leave a comment. i really want to know what choices there are for book number three. it’s URGENT.

there you just saw one of the real choices. among the non-real choices were: Purgent, Mergent, Vergent (or Virgent), Splurgent, Surgent, Perturb-gent… you get the point.

and among these, my mouth uttered the only one word that made any sense as the third book’s title: Convergent.

if this actually is the title, then it’s WAY too easy. come on, Veronica Roth! prove me wrong! and here’s the corner you’ve backed yourself into:

if you don’t use an “ent” word for your third book, then why did you bother naming the second one “Insurgent”? because i’m pretty sure we agreed that it should be called, “Amity.” and when i say, “we,” i mean, ”Viv and i.” if you don’t call it an “ent” word, i think you just blew it. you set yourself up for this theme called “words ending in ‘e-n-t’” and then you didn’t follow through. what a waste.

but on the other hand, if you do use an “ent” word as your third title, it’s just WAY too gimmicky and cutesy. it’s silly for novels that are really so intense. and what word ARE you going to use? could it be “convergent?” (second choice, “urgent,” obviously.) as mentioned, too easy. so gimmicky. so unnecessary.

i feel like Veronica Roth has really put herself in a bad position with these two choices. like i said, if the books are really amazing, i will forgive these titles. and like i also said, titles are damn hard. i often find them harder to figure out than actually writing the entire story. so i’m not saying it’s easy. i’m not saying i’m good at it. but i think we can agree that there isn’t much of a winning scenario in this case. and again, when i say, “we,” i mean “Viv and i.” maybe not the rest of you. but i think you should agree.

i don’t really want to rag on Veronica Roth. she wrote a great book. i hope the next two are awesome. i look forward to them. i think i’ll just go ahead, though, and call the second book “Amity” in my brain.

and so even though i did sort of rag on Veronica Roth whilst saying that’s not my intention, the whole point of this post was to mark the time and date right here and now, when i am predicting that the third installment in the “Divergent Trilogy” or whatever they’ll decide to call it, will be titled, “Convergent.” i sure hope to be proven wrong.

Gift Card Living (A Tribute to My Friends and Family/This Is How I Spend My Free Time Now)

as you are aware from one of my very first posts, i have been scrimping and saving for upcoming months of zero-salary living. TBA in one week.

with many thanks to my kind friends and family, my life has been made much less terrible via gift cards. and this weekend, after finally having some free time after weekend upon weekend of meetings and work deadlines, i spent the entire time enjoying the fruits of other people’s labor that then went into buying me gift cards.

here’s something you should know, btw, and a gripe that i have:  if you send someone a Target gift certificate via email, the ONLY ways it can be redeemed are online or by downloading the gift card onto your smart phone. i do not have a smart phone. i printed out my email with all of the information on it (card #, access #) but was told at the store that there was no barcode to scan and i couldn’t use it. now, i have to say that quite possibly the cashier was being lazy/stupid about it. maybe you can use your gift certificate with the aforementioned information. but beware the cashier who doesn’t want to problem-solve this. luckily, i had ANOTHER Target gift card, in form of an actual card, and could use that to buy my shampoo and other necessities. and the plus was that since i was “forced” to use my other gift certificate online, i ended up buying a DVD, because i’m not going to order toilet paper or something from the Target online store. i also bought a water bottle with a filter, since i recently read that LA was ranked 84th in clean water, and that there are all sorts of great things in it that i probably shouldn’t be drinking. of course, i’ve been drinking it for the past 3 years. i look forward to the day when someone tries to poison me with arsenic and i can laugh in his/her face and say, “i will not die! i have grown a tolerance to arsenic by drinking it via Los Angeles tap water!”

in any case, i write this post as i wait for my tiny vacuum’s battery to charge so that i can finish vacuuming my tiny apartment. the shower has been de-molded, and things are in general order.  (by “order,” i mean that everything is in tidy piles in places that are not my floor. ok, some stuff is still piled on my floor, but around the edges, at least.) essentially, this explanation is for you to understand why this post is random and also not terribly interesting. i have violated the promise of my blog, which was that i wouldn’t just post stupid crap, but given that i haven’t blogged in ages, it seemed like i should at least get some stuff up here before i disappear again.

SO. back to the gift cards. it is only through these wonderful gift cards that i have essentially been able to enjoy my life. Subway every Friday makes me immensely happy. not spending money on groceries so that i can have dinner with Claire at Umami Burger is a wonderful treat. an AmEx gift card helped pay off my cavity fillings, a Whole Foods card is keeping me stocked with a strange, herbal serum that is keeping me from having the worst adult acne ever, and at some point i will cash in on this Olive Garden gift card from Cam & Viv. i haven’t ever eaten at Olive Garden, so it’s a double-whammy of awesomeness. i recognize that Olive Garden maybe isn’t the awesomest place to eat (but i don’t know for sure; i’ve never been!), but i also recognize that it’s better than peanut butter and jelly, plus it’s a new place i haven’t been, plus it’s FREE. and to top it all off, i have enjoyed 2 McDonald’s breakfasts, which if you know me well, you know that McDonald’s breakfast is my all-time favorite breakfast. if they served it 24 hours, i would be the fattest person you’ve ever met. or i’d be dead from Coronary Artery Disease.

in conclusion, friends, this is how i spend my free time now. using gift cards and trying to manage the neglected parts of my everyday life (a.k.a. cleaning things). this weekend, with many thanks to not having to go into work and not having a lot of non-day-job work, my bathroom is clean. my living/dining/bedroom/home office/recording studio will be vacuumed once this damn vacuum charges. (i do hope to one day live in an apartment big enough to store an upright vacuum.) my dishes are washed. and tonight i shall dine on a glorious Subway sandwich. in the meantime, being that i have no money to spend on entertainment activities, i am learning how to play a song on the keyboard. once my life stops being something where i sit at a computer for 15 hours a day, i hope to eventually finish my last draft of Rebuilding Ben, rewrite When It All Comes Down, and continue with a new script that i started in August and haven’t touched since. i’m also 500 pages into War and Peace, but i’ll be honest: it’s pretty hard to get through. i’m not fooling myself, here. i’m not sure i’m that into it.

so happy long weekend, readers. stay tuned for my news announcement either this Friday or next Monday. until then, doubtful there will be much activity on this blog. for now, please enjoy this picture of my mom’s cat, Lucy (formerly PK, our college kitty for 2 months) sitting on my brother’s old featherbed.

PK will not let you take this featherbed just because you're moving.

Travel the World! Meet New People! (with the CIA?)

here’s what i know about the CIA, based on movies and television, which we all know are incredibly accurate:

if you are really, super duper smart, speak multiple languages, have incredible spacial reasoning and problem solving skills, and are pretty physically fit, you will one day find yourself being recruited for the CIA. most of the time, i should mention, you are also above-average attractive. this recruitment process will go as follows:

1) you will be at a coffee shop, or at school, or at your job that is a place where anyone can walk in and approach you. you will be handed a newspaper with something circled on it. or a strange business card. or a note. whether it’s a message or something you have to decode, it will somehow lead you to understand that you must meet someone at a specified place at a specified time. and you must tell no one.

2) most likely, when going to this meeting, you will have certain steps that you have to follow. you give a homeless man a quarter and then the nearby public phone will ring. you have to enter a code. you’ll be given some sort of special information. you will then use that information to access some kind of covert meeting spot.

3) you will then have to pass a series of tests. one will definitely be some high-tech version of a polygraph, which in real life we all know is not a perfect lie detector, but the CIA has special ways to make it infallible (since you’re not yet part of the CIA, you do not know how to fool this kind of device, but you will learn. oh, yes you will).

once you’ve been deemed a good recruit, you will then go to training at The Farm. eventually, you’ll be a CIA spy. you’ll know how to fire guns, disarm bombs, kick ass using all sorts of martial arts, speak multiple languages perfectly, crack codes, and all sorts of other really awesome and useful things. you will tell your friends and family that you have some sort of job that requires a lot of travel. most likely for a bank (Alias) or the Smithsonian (Covert Affairs).

as a CIA spy, the following things will happen to you:

1) you will at some point be caught.

2) you will at some point be tortured.

3) you will at some point be kidnapped.

4) you will at some point be given “truth serum,” which we all know from TV is also something that works incredibly well and additionally can cause paralysis in something like one out of six people.

5) someone in your family will probably get killed.

6) one of your friends will probably get killed.

7) you will learn things about your friends/family that you never wanted to know. one of them might actually also work for the CIA or some enemy intelligence agency.

8) at some point, you will be suspected of being a mole.

9) at some point, you will actually have to be a mole or a double agent.

10) you might meet your future husband/wife at your job.

11) even if you don’t, you will definitely meet some other attractive people during your ops, and you’ll get to sleep with (or at least make out with) a number of them.

and, of course, there is the possibility that you will not be deemed fit for the CIA, but secretly you are, and you’ll be asked by someone to act as an “off the books” spy. you should be careful of this, because most likely that person telling you that you’ll be “off the books” is a bad person, and you’re just working for him/her and not the real CIA. also, beware of any kind of “black ops” department, because that’s also likely not affiliated with the real CIA, but something evil.

so, now that we’ve established what working for the CIA is obviously like, let’s now establish the fact that i’m not an idiot and i realize that television and movies are not an accurate portrayal of real life. i mean, i know (i think) that they’re not out there hunting down Rambaldi artifacts.

BUT.

this past Monday, i heard an ad for the CIA on the radio. and i don’t mean i heard it on KCRW, our local NPR affiliate. i mean that i heard it on a general radio station that plays anything from “House of the Rising Sun” to “Sexyback.” in this ad, a male voice asked if you wanted a job where you got to travel the world, meet new people, and do exciting things. then a woman came on, claiming to have this job, and said that she got to see all sorts of cool, new places, learn about new cultures, and do exciting things. “i can’t tell my friends or family what i do, but i love my job. i don’t just watch the news, i help make the news.” and then the male voice returned and encouraged you to apply for the National Clandestine Services in the CIA.

WHAT????

look, i know that people actually apply to the CIA, and there isn’t this cloak-and-dagger recruitment process. i know that they have desk jobs. i know that not everyone there looks like Jennifer Garner or Piper Perabo. but i’m also pretty sure you have to be a smart person to work for the CIA. don’t you? is there a reason why the CIA is now recruiting from the general population via radio ad? are times that desperate? and couldn’t they at least go to a college fair or something? i mean, there was absolutely nothing mentioned about what sorts of qualifications you had to have for employment at the CIA. apparently, your only qualification is that you have to listen to the radio and then feel interested enough to apply for a job. and what happens in this job? you travel to exciting places, get to help make the news, and learn about new cultures. THAT’S the sales pitch? this seems almost as misleading as believing that working for the CIA is like being on Alias.

now, before we move on to “desperate times” information number two, here’s what i know about MI-6:

in England, spies are called “spooks.” these folks work for a place called MI-6. they are not all as attractive as the people who work for the CIA. and like in the CIA, all of the aforementioned bad things will happen to you, but in addition to that, you will be unable to maintain any sort of normal relationship. and if you don’t get killed, you will probably be forced into hiding because you’ve been suspected of being a mole or something equally disreputable. the plus is that you might actually get to tell your loved ones that you work for MI-6. the negative is that at some point, that loved on will be put in danger and either die or dump you because of it. working for MI-6 still requires you to have the same impressive skills as the CIA does, but without, as previously mentioned, the need for you to be really hot. on top of all that, your job will often be hindered because of politics — something which rarely happens in the CIA (although maybe it happens on 24. i’ve never seen that show, so i’m not sure). if it’s not your own Prime Minister wanting you to not go forward with something that is obviously the right thing to do and clearly presents a moral/ethical issue if you do not, then it’s probably that damn CIA getting in your way. your “sister agency.” and let’s be clear: Russians are always bad news. this is also true if you have that CIA job.

and so, given that once again, real life is not like the TV show Spooks/MI-6, we can make certain assumptions and take away certain misconceptions. but once again, it seems like stumbling upon an ad telling you to apply for MI-6 does not make sense. but at least it was a print ad. and at least it gave you a slight idea that you have to be a qualified person. here’s what this “advert” tells you is required if you want to apply to MI-6:

1) you have patience and determination. the ad is long, and they mention many times that if you’re willing to read that far, you’re ahead of many people.

2) you pay attention to detail

3) you have had a successful career thus far (careers mentioned are — finance, academia, the public sector, commerce) but want something more rewarding

4) your peers see you as dynamic; your bosses have earmarked you for promotion

5) you are a team player who can work with complete autonomy

6) you have a consuming political curiosity

7) you are culturally sensitive and able to integrate seamlessly into the day-to-day life of another society.

8) you are a British national

9) you have the ability to make decisions for yourself and keep your damn mouth shut, because “You may feel like talking to friends or family about this. That’s perfectly natural, and will end your application process before it’s even started. So if you want to discuss applying, discuss it with us and no one else.”

wow. so these are a fair amount of things that would definitely make your average person say, “I am not qualified for this.” versus the CIA ad, which basically would make your average person say, “Cool! A job at the CIA! Where I get to travel to exciting places and do cool things! I don’t even need a college degree!”

i should also mention that the CIA ad played right before an ad telling guys to get their girlfriends The Twilight Saga for Valentine’s Day because it will essentially get them laid. let’s consider the demographic of people that this ad is for. now let’s consider that those people are also being told they should apply to the CIA. the Central Intelligence Agency. and ok, it’s a blanket statement to say that if you were listening to that radio station, you’re an idiot, or that if your girlfriend likes Twilight, you’re an idiot. not true. although, if you buy your girlfriend Twilight for Valentine’s Day, specifically so that you can get laid, and you got the idea from a commercial on the radio, i have to say that in most cases, you are probably an idiot. so yeah, some of the people listening might be qualified to work at the CIA. personally, i doubt i’m qualified to work at the CIA. maybe i’m wrong, because i don’t know anyone who works for the CIA (they can’t tell you that!), so i don’t know how intelligent i really have to be. based on television and movies, i am definitely not intelligent enough. but fiction aside, it just seems to me that the general population is not the right place to look for CIA employees. and if it’s come down to us begging the general population to apply for a CIA job (by telling them that you get to travel the world and do cool things) because we can’t get anyone else to do it, then our country might be in serious trouble.

 

All You Need Is Love (or Anger, or Resentment, or Sadness, or…)

a few days late to be blogging on this topic, but considering this will recur year after year, i will consider that though the season has passed, this is really a timeless issue. so here we go.

Valentine’s Day.

in case you were wondering, according to the most reliable source on the internet, Wikipedia, Valentine’s Day is in honor of two saints named Valentine (and possibly a third) with no direct relation to anything romantic whatsoever. the first record of Saint Valentine’s Day being linked with romantic love is in a Chaucer poem written in honor of the first anniversary of the engagement of Richard II. and technically, this Valentine’s Day to which Chaucer refers most likely was not on February 14th. so there’s a little background for you. Valentine’s Day: randomly created in the 15th-ish century to celebrate romantic love on an arbitrary day during the year.

now let’s get to the point. when i say “celebrate” romantic love, i think it’s worth we consider how much celebrating is actually done these days. centuries of “tradition” dictate that we use February 14th to observe this still-go-to-work “holiday” by showing our significant others how much we love them, via some kind of gift or declaration (but preferably a gift, am i right?).  given the tone of this post, you might think that i am a Valentine’s Day hater. i am not. i have never once had a boyfriend on Valentine’s Day, so i think i’m the appropriate person to confront this day of forced love declarations with annoyance or even some bitterness. and yeah, you know what, sometimes a Valentine’s Day goes by where i see people getting flowers or going out to a nice dinner and think, “oh, that might be sort of nice. i wish i had someone to do that with.” so while every once in a while, i am bitten by that “Valentine’s Day makes me a little bit lonely” feeling, it’s relatively rare. and the only anger that would come along with it — i think most single people would agree — is that while a single person is actually single EVERY day, Valentine’s Day is this arbitrary date that specifically points out the fact that you have no traditional partner with whom to celebrate. and by “traditional” i mean romantic, not heterosexual.

this leads me to the real point of this post: what i actually find so perturbing about Valentine’s Day is that it’s really the one “holiday” that, while it is supposed to represent love, actually presents with a loose cannon of emotions. it’s a volatile, unpredictable day when you take into consideration the vast range of reactions people have to it. unlike birthdays or Christmas or New Year’s Eve, which people are certainly free to dislike, when you wish someone a happy Valentine’s Day, there’s really no stopping someone who hates it from saying, “Fuck Valentine’s Day. It’s a stupid holiday made up by Hallmark” or whatever. with as much vehemence as that person can muster. if you said that after someone wished you a happy birthday, i think the birthday wisher would have full right to say, “Wow, buddy. That’s a really intense reaction. I was just trying to be nice.” but the Valentine’s Day wisher must consider, understand, and accept whatever it is that’s causing someone to hate Valentine’s Day so much. and i’m not saying you can’t hate Valentine’s  Day. go ahead and hate it if you want. is there a special day that celebrates single people? where single friends get each other presents and go out to dinner or something? no. does Valentine’s Day essentially rub salt in the wounds of all single people whose life missions are to NOT be single? yes. additionally, if you’re not single and your significant other has an aversion to Valentine’s Day, that’s also not fun. or maybe your significant other sucks at romance. or at life. or whatever. maybe then you would also hate Valentine’s Day. maybe you’re going through a tough time in your relationship and being “forced” to recognize your love and celebrate it is not your top priority because actually you’d rather get divorced. or maybe you hate the pressure of celebrating Valentine’s Day. the sudden need to do something overly romantic to prove to your significant other that you really do love him/her. in planning a work meeting, we had to shift from Tuesday to Monday specifically for Valentine’s Day, because two people had to be with their significant others. one person (who shall remain nameless) actually called it a burden, and then said, “please don’t tell —- i called it a burden.” i don’t know how each of my friends/family members/acquaintances/colleagues  feels about Valentine’s Day. none of us necessarily do. and see, that’s the thing. you can accidentally wish a Jewish person a merry Christmas. mostly, you’re just trying to wish someone well. i would be surprised if that person was hugely offended because you didn’t know he/she does not celebrate Christmas. but when it comes to wishing someone a happy Valentine’s Day, you’ve really gotta be careful.

let’s take this year for example. i like to talk to my long-distance friends when i get home from work, being that right after work is the only time when those people are still up on the east coast. on Valentine’s Day, i had to consider that most people i knew who were one part of a couple were probably busy. and the ones that weren’t busy could potentially be resentful that they were just sitting around having a regular day on Valentine’s Day — the day where if you don’t specifically do something to differentiate it from every other day and every other romantic moment, it probably means you don’t love your partner at all. that’s what it means, right? so anyway. all people in relationships were taken off my call list. then i had to think about which of my single friends would not want to talk on Valentine’s Day because they were busy being angry and/or depressed about being single. or which of those people were fine to talk to so long as you didn’t mention the V-holiday word. in the end, i took a few risks, made a few calls, didn’t get any answers, and felt a little bit relieved. relieved? is this how i should have felt about it? by the time i went to bed, i had spoken to the following people: my parents, because i wanted to wish them a happy Valentine’s Day and i love them. Viv, because we had planned to talk on Tuesday night and her boyfriend is long distance. Claire, to check in on something for later in the week. all of these phone calls were stress-free, because these people were not volatile Valentine’s Day people.

now here’s what’s nice about Valentine’s Day:

1) you and your significant other really love doing stuff like this. it’s a nice chance to get out of the house and do something a little different. when your days are usually filled with going to work and everyday life stuff, it’s a great reason to take a moment and enjoy each other’s company. you probably try to do this at other times separate from Valentine’s Day, but this is the one day where you specifically get to say, “You know what? We’re doing something special. Today we’re allowed to be here just for each other.”

2) your significant other is really terrible at romantic gestures. and all you want is one damn romantic gesture per year. so on this day, even though it’s a “forced” moment of romance, you finally get those flowers or chocolates or a nice dinner out. if i were you, i would reconsider whether or not you want to date someone who needs a made-up “holiday” to force him/her to do something special for you and show how much he/she loves you, because both of you should really take the time to celebrate your love on more than one occasion. but hey, if one occasion is all you need to get through the rest of the year, i’m glad Chaucer wrote that poem and now, centuries later, society is forcing romance for you.

3) you and your single friends go out together and enjoy each other’s company. in college, we used to go to Friendly’s for dinner. and while perhaps this Friendly’s dinner was a little bit of defiance against the coupling around us, it was a nice chance for us to get together off-campus and enjoy a delicious Happy Ending sundae. and i think we did recognize the point, which was that we were a bunch of friends together, taking a moment to celebrate and enjoy our relationships with each other.

4) your family celebrates Valentine’s Day together. kids get candy at school. Moms get cards and flowers from their kids (Dads should, too, but i don’t recall ever giving my Dad a card or anything. i just remember him helping us do stuff for my Mom).

so there are some nice, sweet aspects of Valentine’s Day. but it’s the pressure and the obligation of it all that really ruins everything. it’s the fact that if you don’t have a significant other and you really wish that you did, that all of a sudden you don’t have a “Valentine” for this one day. this ONE day of the whole year. maybe you do spend every other day of the year feeling equally depressed about being single. but my guess is, if you feel depressed about being single every day, then Valentine’s Day just makes you more depressed. and then for those single folks who don’t spend the other days feeling bad about it, suddenly they do. Valentine’s Day is supposed to be about love. yes, once upon a time, it was fictionalized that Valentine’s Day is about couples. it’s about romance. it’s about flowers and chocolates and teddy bears. but people, let’s have some progress here. after all, women (i hope) make Valentine’s Day gestures as well. it’s not just about old-fashioned man-wooing-woman stuff anymore. maybe guys don’t care as much about Valentine’s Day (because society doesn’t make them?), but i mean, if your boyfriend is going to give you a gift, don’t you think it would be nice to return the gesture? so now that we’ve moved on from this whole idea of courting and everything, and there are places where you can buy your male partner bacon roses or a bouquet of beer, let’s maybe take another step forward and say that Valentine’s Day isn’t just about your significant other. Valentine’s Day is a holiday about love. it’s about celebrating your love. it’s about telling people you love them. i mean, that’s what has been happening, right? you tell your boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife that you love him/her. so tell your parents. tell your friends. celebrate love however you want. with whomever you want.

my aunt told me that one year, when she worked at this gift shop in Cambridge, she wanted to make a Valentine’s Day window that said, “Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime,” and have pictures of all sorts of loving relationships. parents. kids. pets. aunts. cousins. whatever. a bunny and a bear. i don’t know. but it’s true. we all love someone  (i hope) in our lives. so maybe you’re single. but don’t you love your friends? or your sister? or your aunt? or your dog? if everyone’s going to be forced to recognize this “holiday,” let’s at least make it so they can all celebrate. in case you’re wondering, her window idea was shot down.

there might be some people in relationships who for some reason think this idea of recognizing all sorts of love is silly, because really it’s just about your significant other. and you know what i have to say to that? don’t be a smug asshole. i am absolutely certain there are people who love Valentine’s Day specifically because it shows that they are a part of a couple and all those single suckers out there are not as happy as they are. well, guess what, you just totally missed the point of Valentine’s Day. and anyway, the point is that this new Valentine’s Day would give you the freedom to share and celebrate it however you want. so if you choose to recognize the day as a time when you get to make all your single friends feel bad about themselves because you have a wonderful boyfriend who buys you flowers, then fine.

in conclusion, friends, i have nothing against people who love Valentine’s Day. i have nothing against people who hate it, either. i generally feel kind of indifferent to it myself, given that it’s basically just another day, except you wish people a happy Valentine’s Day. i mean, we still go to work, so i see little benefit in it as a holiday. i think it’s nice to celebrate, recognize, and appreciate love. i’m happy for my non-single friends who do nice things on Valentine’s Day. i just think maybe we could find a way to make it a little less hostile for the general populus. it might seem like all-inclusive love broadens the topic a little, but in the end, i think it at least helps keep everyone focused on what the topic actually is: love. and also then i can stop being afraid to call people on February 14th.

Emergency Preparedness: Zombie Apocalypse

friends, listen up (or rather, read carefully) — as is the case with any sort of emergency, we should all be prepared just in case. i know what you’re thinking: “i’m so over zombies and vampires and werewolves. i don’t want to think about the zombie apocalypse.” but i’m telling you, there are things you need to know! skills you need to acquire should you hope to survive that moment in the unforeseen future when zombies will TAKE OVER THE WORLD! well, hopefully not the whole world, because in that case, much like the “end of the world” in 2012, you’re basically going to be screwed. but if the zombie apocalypse is anything like i’ve seen on TV and in the movies (and we all know that life is pretty much exactly like both of those things), then a ragtag group of lucky people will somehow find a way to survive the onslaught of the walking dead.

firstly, consider this: do you want to survive the zombie apocalypse? as can be seen in the aforementioned extremely realistic television programs and films about zombies, being a survivor is hard. and existing in a post-apocalyptic world ain’t no walk in the park. i also learned this from watching Battlestar Galactica. so you need to think about what role you’d play in a time where only handfuls of humans exist in different parts of world and your survival (along with the survival of your motley crew of useful strangers) is the key keeping the human race from becoming extinct. i, for one, am all about surviving, as long as i’m not later required to have babies with some random dude just so that we can make more humans. i realize this might put me out of the running for “we have a special ship that will take us away from the zombies,” but i’m willing to find other ways to be useful if i can get a spot on the special zombie-proof sub (much like the submarines in the movie 2012 that helped people survive “the end of the world,” which is apparently just a slew of natural disasters all over the globe [except Africa] and not the Earth imploding or exploding — this leads me to wonder what anyone means when they say, “end of the world”). if you’re answer is, “no, i don’t want to make it through the zombie apocalypse now that you’ve made me understand what a difficult world i’ll have to live in afterwards,” then you can stop reading.

so now that you’ve decided you want to survive the zombie apocalypse, it’s time you start preparing yourself. Vivienne and i, because we watch The Walking Dead and talk about it on a regular basis, decided that we should probably get ourselves ready, because who knows when this will happen, and we’d like to be prepared. if the Boy Scouts are true to their motto, they’re way ahead of the game (and we should be ashamed, because these are little boys we’re talking about here). and even if the ZOMBIE apocalypse doesn’t happen, if you’re already prepared for it, i’m pretty sure you’ll be ready for any sort of emergency that could come about. and maybe, just like how i got lots of cavities when i didn’t have dental insurance but none when i did, the simple act of you being ready means that it won’t happen. in order to save you some trouble, i’ve written this post as your go-to guide for Preparation For The Zombie Apocalypse. on top of having the necessary supplies for any emergency, along with weapons for fighting off zombies, there are a number of useful skills you should acquire, as well as important people you should either befriend or keep track of for later, and some research that should be done so that you have all the relevant and important knowledge to help you get through the craziness of the zombie “virus” spreading throughout the world.

while i’m sure you’re chomping at the bit to find out what sorts of things you need to have and know in order to be ready, let’s touch upon something that you’ll inevitably have to deal with and that might be a first priority for you when emergencies do occur: loved ones. now, loved ones are wonderful. that’s why we love them. but you should make sure your loved ones are just as prepared for the zombie apocalypse as you are, otherwise, the truth is that your loved ones will probably just weigh you down. look, i’d like to find all of my friends if zombies take over, but i’m pretty sure that not only is it not feasible, but it’s also not a great idea. think about the people you really need to have with you. i will accept that whether or not they are “useful,” immediate family is important. your baby cannot fight zombies. in fact, your baby might end up getting you killed as you try to save it from zombies. and then it will turn into a zombie because you failed to save it. but my heart isn’t made of stone; i recognize that you’re not going to abandon your baby when a horde of zombies shows up (or are you?). i also recognize that you can’t train your infant in survival skills, and therefore your baby will be relying solely on yours (and those of other loved ones with you) to stay alive. take the baby. just maybe be extra prepared because you’ll be pulling double duty. and if you have a slow (physically) and stupid boyfriend that you for some reason haven’t dumped yet and actually do love, i guess find him and bring him with you, too. though you should really consider why you haven’t dumped him yet if he’s stupid. and please don’t bring him with you if you’re joining my ragtag group of random survivors, because i’d rather not deal with someone stupid on top of everything else.

but now here’s the hard part: think about your friends. yes, we all want to find our friends and join up with them. i say, fine. if your friends are savvy enough to survive, go ahead and find them. in fact, pick a meeting place now, so that you don’t have to travel all over the country wondering if they’re dead or alive. for example, Viv and i are going to meet at Mount Rushmore. it’s essentially halfway between the two of us, and we won’t have to travel through heavily populated areas (where there will be the most zombies) to get there. and while it may be important for you to find your friends in the local area, i would suggest that you first find the useful friends and then go after the ones who are probably dead anyway. i know it sounds callous, but this is the zombie apocalypse, people. like they say, you can’t help anyone if you can’t help yourself, so figure that one out first. and while we’re talking about things “they” say, there’s a phrase for writing — “kill your darlings” — and i would say that while you don’t have to actually kill your darlings, you might have to cut your losses and leave some behind. think of those people as beautiful lines of prose or jokes that you just loved so much but have to let go of. maybe one day they’ll pop up again, but for now, you’re going to cut them out. and you know what? you might end up literally killing some darlings at some point, but we don’t need to discuss that in this post. you’ll have to figure that one out for yourself. after all, we all have darlings that we can’t let go of, and so that’s between you and your [insert choice of omnipotent idol here].

now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s get down to the nitty gritty. as Jesse Eisenberg emphasized in Zombieland, the first rule of surviving zombieland is Cardio. i fully agree with Mr. Eisenberg, because even if you can’t fight, you can still run. and zombies can’t run. that’s why they’re called the “walking dead,” duh, but you also have to remember that zombies don’t get tired. so being able to run a record-breaking 100 meter dash isn’t going to get you very far. the best chance you have is if you can run six miles at a moderate pace. and i do mean moderate. just get some distance between yourself and those walkers, and then you can give yourself some recovery time while they lumber closer. i’d say at the fastest, a zombie can cover a mile in eleven minutes. am i wrong? i’ve never met a zombie, so i’m not sure, but they don’t look like they can cover much ground in a short period of time. so let’s say it’s ten or eleven minutes. and now you do the math on how much space you’d like to have before you stop for a break. i’d say cardio is the first and foremost thing anyone wanting to survive should work on. sometimes roads are blocked. sometimes cars break. in the end, all you have to rely on are your own two feet. and if you don’t have two feet, stock a wheelchair nearby and make sure you know someone who can push a wheelchair six miles (and who won’t later resent you for having to do this). and, as i mentioned before, if you’ve got that baby with you, i’d suggest you add a couple extra miles for good measure. or practice running with your baby/small child.

while you’re training to run six miles at a moderate pace, i suggest you spend some time thinking about the people who would best help you once you’ve made it away from a zombie horde. since this is an emergency, emergency personnel are always helpful. EMTs (ahem) and paramedics will be essential if you plan on staying alive through this thing. doctors, too, obviously. cops or military folk will have weapons and weapon know-how, so find some non-crazy, gun-wielding friends. it’s best to avoid hand-to-hand combat or any kind of close-range fighting with zombies, but since you never know what could happen, some skilled fighters might be helpful. remember, though, that zombies won’t fight according to rules. from what i’ve witnessed via accurate depiction on film/television, zombies mostly grab and claw and bite. i don’t know if it’s useful to have a solid right cross or know how to wax on and wax off (it’s always useful to be able to do that crane move, though), but it’s worth knowing someone who can hold her/his own if you get into a scrap. people who know a lot about nature and surviving in the outdoors will also be beneficial. bring a farmer if you can find one, because one day you might find a zombie-free area where you can live off the land, and it would be too bad if those cops and doctors didn’t have green thumbs.

when it comes to compiling a list of people you should gather, it’s worth figuring out which of these people’s skills you can learn yourself. it’s helpful to have someone who knows what you can eat in nature, but it would be better if you knew that yourself. that way you don’t have to find someone with that information, and also if you do find that person and he/she dies, you’ll still be okay. but of course, we can’t all learn how to shoot guns, so someone who can do that, and who can also teach you is still someone worth finding.

useful skills you should acquire include: gun usage, HAM radio operations, first aid, electrical setup/maintenance, multiple vehicle operation (helicopters, planes, boats, manual-shift cars, and spaceships [just kidding]), auto repair/hot-wiring, horseback riding, and hunting. if you know how to do all of these things, consider yourself lucky. then call me, because i don’t know how to do a lot of them, so i’d like to find you in an emergency.

having these skills will probably be more essential than having the knowledge i’m about to list, but in case you have the time, which i’m sure you do, you should probably research the following: locations of military bases, how long cell towers will operate once people are factored out of the equation, how long electricity will last, edible wild plants.

since we’re talking about preparedness, there are clearly a number of supplies that you should have on hand. for an easy way to get these things (if you have the money), you can Google “emergency kit” and find ones with pretty much anything you’d need immediately for about a hundred bucks. but if you’re like me and you have no money (which also means you probably can’t get a lot of these supplies yet), you can start cobbling your kit together piece by piece. once the zombie apocalypse starts and you are able to raid stores, there are other things you should try to get your hands on. those will be listed later.

so. write this down. you should have: water, non-perishable food (i’d suggest Power Bars, which don’t really go stale because they taste stale already), flashlights, batteries, a multi-use tool such as a Leatherman, a lock-picking kit (learn how to pick locks while you’re at it), iodine tablets, a wind-up charger, sleeping bag suits (provides more mobility than a sleeping bag), and basic first aid supplies (bandages, antibiotic ointment, tape, splints, baby aspirin [for pain and heart problems], ice packs, heat packs, antihistamine). for those of you looking to get a little more complicated with your medical supplies, some things you could maybe stock up on are: antibiotics, serious pain killers (Vicodin, Percocet, Oxycodone), IV start kits and saline bags, suture kits, Epi-pens, albuterol inhalers.

once the chaos begins and everything is essentially open to the public, i suggest you get yourself to the nearest Walmart-type place. somewhere that you can find almost every supply needed, from camping equipment to weapons to medical supplies. now that you’re already in danger and not abiding any laws, you can finally fill a duffel bag with all those guns you’ve been interested in firing. note: guns make a lot of noise, so learn a lesson from Darrel on The Walking Dead and grab a crossbow and some arrows. basically, any kind of weapon that can kill a zombie while keeping you out of reach will be helpful. an axe will be better than a knife, but why not get both? a long sword might be a little unwieldy, but probably just as unwieldy as an axe, and you can slice a zombie’s head off, which will definitely be good. i don’t know if they sell samurai swords at Walmart, but maybe find a Walmart with a dojo nearby or something. and after you’ve got those supplies, if you have extra time, ransack a hospital. now you can break out the big guns. morphine, adrenaline, all the big drugs you couldn’t otherwise get, plus maybe some extra supplies. a Bag-Valve-Mask might be nice. it’s not necessary, but having someone puke in your mouth while you do CPR is gross.

and, because we’re no longer following any rules, steal yourself a motorcycle. actually, find a plane that will hold a motorcycle and take off in it with the other on board. i have yet to see zombies swim on TV, so sailing off on a boat might be a good idea, but i’d suggest getting your ragtag group together first. then you can glide away into the sunset.

well, my fellow future survivors, that is all. if you have anything to add, please do so in a comment, so that we all might write it down. in fact, i’d suggest you bookmark this page, either in your bookmarks bar or in a folder marked “VERY VERY IMPORTANT.” or both. in fact, maybe this should be your homepage. anyway. i hope that should the zombie apocalypse occur, this post has helped you all, and that we will one day meet up at Mount Rushmore and start a fresh life together. i will rest assured in knowing that if this information helped you stay alive, the future post-apocalyptic world will be a good place, because you, dear readers, are wonderful. and so our colony of survivors will be full of useful, geeky people that i love (look! i think i just solved my own “loved ones” problem).

here’s hoping this information is never needed, but since the internet is forever and all, even if you don’t use it, maybe it will one day help your children’s children’s children. who knows.

Age Ain’t Nothin’ But A Number, a.k.a. How “Wet Hot American Summer” Makes Me Feel Old

i’ve now reached an age where birthdays are not always considered fun and cool anymore, but just the day that marks you as “getting older” in what is mostly seen as a negative thing. i’m not sure when anyone decided that 30 was old, but i think we should readjust this idea given that people don’t die at 40 anymore. i understand that our bodies are changing, and i certainly can’t bounce back physically the way that i could in my 20s. but with my 20s out the door and my 30s now stepping in, i also feel like good things are on the horizon. your 20s are a wacky, weird time, where you have a lot of stuff going on and need to figure your life out. you graduate from college, you get a job, maybe you get a lot of jobs, you don’t know what you want to do when you grow up, you party, you date, you just sort of learn how to live in the “real” world. and once you’re 30, maybe you still don’t have everything figured out. maybe you don’t have your dream job, or your dream significant other, or really any of your “dreams” yet. but you at least know, for the most part, how to live in the “real” world. you know how rent works, how to write a resume, how to clean your own living space without it seeming like your mom telling you to clean your room. i think by now most regular people know the value of a hard day’s work and the value of a paycheck from that. so there are still things that you want, but it doesn’t feel like floundering as much. i like the idea that in my 30s, i’ve got my act together just a little bit more. enough that i can focus on what i really want. or for those  who haven’t figured out what that is yet, maybe now you can.

but the whole point here is that turning 30 didn’t feel like the impending doom people say it is. your birthday is, after all, just another day. and it’s marked because you’re celebrating being born, not getting old. in the end, i really do think that you’re only as old as you feel. for some people, i think this should be extended to “you’re only as old as you act,” if you’re one of those people who is still totally immature. i mean, i know plenty of 30 year old guys who act like they’re 21, and i think that’s sort of unacceptable. and i don’t mean it’s unacceptable that they want to go out and drink and party and whatever, i mean that it’s unacceptable that they still don’t want to take responsibility for their actions or their lives. i know some girls (women, i guess) who ALSO behave this way, but let’s be serious: there are significantly less of them. and when it’s “only as old as you act,” this shouldn’t be seen as a good thing. so let’s not go around acting 20 because we can’t handle being 40. although i assume that’s why a lot of people act that way.

in general, i realize that with each birthday, i’m getting older. but i don’t feel all that old. i have back pain and apparently my teeth are falling out, i can’t recover from a hangover the same way that i used to, and i certainly have a slightly boring and routine life that would mark me as “sort of old.” other than that, though, i feel the same. and in the ways i feel different, i actually think it’s better. as mentioned before, i feel like i have a better grip on my life. so if getting older just means more things make sense and i have a better state of mental health, then bring it on!

with that said, there is one thing that actually makes me feel like i’m getting older. to me, it marks the changes that have come with the passage of time in the same way that watching your friend’s child might. that’s a pretty ridiculous comparison, because what i’m talking about is the movie “Wet Hot American Summer.”

way back in 2001, off the recommendation of my dear friend Kate Fletcher, i watched “Wet Hot American Summer” alone in my parents’ house (it is not a porn) and laughed my ass off. it is by far one of my favorite comedies of all time. and so but when i first watched it, i was excited about the following cast members (in order of importance):

Jeanine Garofalo, Paul Rudd (who at that point was “the cute guy from Clueless who was also in some stupid movie with Jennifer Aniston”), David Hyde Pierce, the guys from The State (Michael Showalter & Michael Ian Black), that girl from The Mighty Ducks (Marguerite Moreau), Molly Shannon.

since 2001, there has been a complete shift in the “household” names from the WHAS cast, and basically, a handful of people who were to me “those people from Wet Hot American Summer” are now well-known celebrities. and the people who excited me when i first watched the movie have now taken a back seat in pop culture recognition and relevance.

when i first saw Alias, which i did after it had already aired 3 seasons, i said, “hey! it’s that gay guy from Wet Hot American Summer!” after watching Alias, he became “Will Tippin,” even though he has a real name, and in case you’re wondering, it’s BRADLEY COOPER.

then there was that blonde woman who played Susie, the high-strung character with the line a number of us often said to our campers in jest during my days at Sports PLUS (“Take a break! Think about what you’ve done!”). she was on SNL. her name is AMY POEHLER.

and let’s not forget Barbecue Girl (that’s really what her character was called), who has now been on one of my favorite TV shows (30 Rock) and is going to be in an amazing upcoming movie (i don’t really know that it’s going to be amazing, i’m just really hoping) that you may or may not have heard of — The Hunger Games. Barbecue Girl’s real name is ELIZABETH BANKS.

and let’s not forget that Paul Rudd has since skyrocketed back into the world essentially ever since his appearance in The 40-Year Old Virgin.

lastly, there’s Ken Marino, whose name i still forget most of the time, but i’d be remiss if i didn’t mention that he was in Veronica Mars (i always just call him Vinnie Van Lowe) and Party Down, and is now on Children’s Hospital. he’s not a name you can take to the bank necessarily, but he’s certainly out there more than he was before. because when i saw him in WHAS i thought, “i think i saw that guy on Dawson’s Creek.”

so the A.V. Club, my favorite place to read snarky entertainment writing, is of course as obsessed with WHAS as i am. and as rumors have circulated of a WHAS sequel, the question that now comes up is “How much will it cost to pay these actors?” those people who were just “those guys from Wet Hot American Summer” are now being paid millions of dollars.

and for some reason, this makes me feel like a substantial amount of time has really passed. i don’t usually notice it passing, or look back and think, “God! time has really flown, how did i get to be so old?” so  i find it relatively random that this is the one thing that makes me feel this way, because things are changing around us all of the time, and i am constantly reminded by plenty of people as birthday time rolls around that i’m getting older. but it’s just this one little movie that really hits it home. i think part of it is because unlike the music we listened to in 8th grade, or other movies we loved (like Clueless), the cast of WHAS still has relevant actors. the big names are different, but there are still big names. i mean, what did happen to Alicia Silverstone and Stacy Dash? Clueless, while an amazing movie from my formative years, has sort of dropped away. and while still not a lot of people know about WHAS, they know who Bradley Cooper, Amy Poehler, Paul Rudd and Elizabeth Banks are. and they might not know who David Hyde Pierce is. and questionable as to whether or not someone who watches WHAS just because Bradley Cooper’s in it would even know who Jeanine Garofalo is. so the movie’s still relevant, it’s just changed.

and i know this can’t be completely attributed to a changing pop culture making me feel old.  my lack of knowledge with what’s popular is certainly increasing, but my inability to keep up with it doesn’t make me feel much of anything. sometimes i do think, “what’s this terrible music kids are listening to these days?” but it still doesn’t make me feel like i’m old, even though this is a stereotypical thought for an old person. you know, those kids with their rock ‘n’ roll. only, my not knowing or liking Justin Bieber’s music doesn’t make me feel out of touch, it makes me feel smarter. what it is, i think, is having an actual platform within which to watch pop culture changing. in this one movie, at one point, THESE people were a big deal. but now, THESE people are a big deal. totally different people. same movie.

i guess maybe it is like watching a kid grow up. because, you know, your kids don’t become less relevant (i hope). just different parts of them become important.

Triage of Life*/Toothless By Thirty-Five**

it goes without saying, but i’ll say it anyway: life is full of decisions and choices. in my adult life, i’ve tried to make good choices, even when i want to throw caution to the wind, and i think i’ve done alright. ask me again in six months if i still feel that way.

in any case, i’ve found that right now in my life, my decisions really just have to do with the basics of living, and not much more. for example, i don’t have to choose between which two shirts i will buy at the store, because shopping isn’t considered a “basic” of living until i literally have no more clothes to wear. additionally, i don’t have to decide where to go out to eat, because once again (and as mentioned in the previous post), if you have peanut butter and jelly to eat at home and also need to save money, you’re certainly not going out to eat. and if you don’t have any peanut butter and jelly at home, well you damn well better get some, because you’re still not going out to eat. the basics of living, not like you couldn’t figure it out, but i think some people’s “basics” are different than others, include:

transportation, shelter, food, health.

i’ve  listed these in order of importance, which might seem to you like the wrong order, but i shall explain.

firstly, as a former EMT with now unused basic medical knowledge, the first word that comes to mind when prioritizing my basic life needs is “triage.” the reason i think this word fits so well (as opposed to just “prioritizing”) is because it really gets the full meaning of what i’m doing. i’m looking at all of the things i need or want to do in my life and figuring out which of them need to be done so that i literally don’t die, and in what order, plus which of those things need to be done so that i don’t go crazy, and in what order. and this is what triaging at a Mass Casualty Incident is sort of like. you have to assess which people need immediate care in order to not die, which ones can wait a little while, and which ones you’re basically going to say, “yeah, we’ll get to you eventually, but you might just want to get your own ride to the hospital. or, you know, maybe just go home.”

another reason why i think the idea of medical triage fits so well into my prioritizing of basic life needs is because sometimes the order of things don’t appear to make sense at first glance. i mean, “health” should have maybe been first on that list, right? and, well, if i had a medical emergency, it would be, but general life health takes a backseat to most everything else. i should add “sanity” onto the list, but i’d say that the things i need to keep my sanity don’t need to be prioritized as much because most of them are free. and in case you’re wondering, those things include: sleeping (especially sleeping in), watching DVDs, sleeping, writing, sleeping, surfing, and sleeping. i also like seeing my friends, but since i’m becoming a recluse, i can go a fair while without completely losing my sanity. on the other hand, if i don’t get to sleep in at least once a week, you’ll be facing one cranky Beans. and i’ve found that watching a favorite episode of a favorite TV show (right now on the docket, in case you were wondering — Avatar: The Last Airbender, Veronica Mars, Firefly) can exponentially alleviate my stress.

a note about medical triage: there are 4 different color-coded tags that a patient can be given at an MCI. Red (immediate transport), Yellow (urgent but can delay up to 1 hour), Green (non-urgent, a.k.a. “walking wounded”), and Black (deceased/mortally wounded). now, the one thing that at first flummoxed me when learning about giving someone a Black tag is that it isn’t a situation where you say, “that person was decapitated, so is obviously dead — Black tag!” it’s a situation where you say, “that person isn’t breathing, and i could do some CPR or attach an AED or something, but i don’t have the time. technically, that person is dead. Black tag!” and, you know, what you REALLY want to do is say, “didn’t you see them do that non-protocol precordial thump on Grey’s Anatomy? and on Lost? LET’S DO IT!!!!!!!”

so anyway, back to the Triage of Life. right now, i am trying to save six months work of wages. when i first realized i had to do this, i was about $1,500 shy of the mark, which would have been hit come birthday/Christmas time plus tax refund time. i get a lot back in taxes because i make so little but pay A LOT in taxes. we can discuss that whole thing some other time. unfortunately, my car needed work done, and so now i’ve found myself $3,200 shy of the mark, with no way to actually hit it by the time i’ll need the money. and so super-saving mode, which probably won’t get me there but will help me along, requires a serious look at my life expenses. the kind of look i’ve never taken before but probably should have. you know, young people make mistakes, and i’m trying to be more responsible in my thirties. this means not racking up tons of credit card debt, but instead trying to cut down on costs.

now, the way that i look at everything is sort of in the same way that i would look at patients in an MCI. which of these things needs to be done so that i can keep on living? my car, for example, gets me to work. going to work is how i get paid. if i don’t have a car, i have no way of getting to work, no way of getting paid, and then everything fails. so that comes in first. and while the car seems like it should be less important than my health, i sort of see it as the Broken Femur of life triaging. a regular person might not think a broken femur is a big deal. your femur is just your leg, after all. but if you take a moment to think about it, or if you already have the medical know-how, you’ll realize that your femoral artery is in your femur, and your femoral artery is a major artery in your body. so a patient with a broken femur could bleed out and therefore trumps a non-breathing patient who could be saved by CPR. one of these patients has a life-threatening injury, and the other we’re just going to call Dead. sorry.

i also just found out in the past week that i have been clenching/grinding my teeth so frequently that they are becoming loose in their sockets. this problem has been added onto a list of health-related things that need triaging. i need new glasses. i have two cavities. i’m still having an annoying battle with adult acne, but i guess we can consider that “beauty” and not health. i’m not going to die from adult acne, unless it’s of embarrassment, but i’m grounded enough to not let that happen. teeth trump glasses because i can still see. and i can see without putting myself in danger. i just know that i need a new prescription. it’s not an emergency. but i do need to keep my teeth in working condition. as in, in my mouth. because if i don’t have any teeth, i can’t eat, and then i’ll die. that would be sort of unfortunate. i guess maybe i could get really into baby food and smoothies, and then i’d be okay. but still, buying a mouth guard is expensive, and if it can wait 6 months, then great. but if it’s teetering on the line of “emergent,” wherein “health” on the list trumps everything else even though it’s normally last, because like i said, i don’t need new glasses, then fine. emergency health issues will get the Red tag when need be, because i can’t get to work no matter how my car’s running if i’m dead. but new glasses or a Sonic Care toothbrush or birth control or products that help fight adult acne are all things that can wait. last priority. (also, birthday and Christmas presents for friends. sorry, friends. that doesn’t even have a category. right now, that’s under “luxury,” along with going out to eat, buying new music/movies, driving places not directly related to upkeep of the basic life needs, and moving to a new apartment.)  basically, i understand that i need to literally be alive in order to benefit from transportation, shelter and food, but i also see it as “if i’m alive but i don’t have those other things, i’m basically dead anyway.” non-emergent health is the Black tag. or, well, let’s say green, because i do plan on getting new glasses sometime.

in any case, this need to triage my life has really caused me to take a good look at what things are really  necessary. and also caused me to feel pain for the people who make even less than i do, because it already seems a little bit unreasonable that anyone should have to decide if it’s more important to get a mouth guard to protect your teeth from falling out or glasses to help you see. i mean, i’m not trying to decide if i want to buy a second house in Maui or a second house in Florida; i’m deciding which of my body parts are more important.

now, i’m not saying that people who are trying to decide where to purchase their second homes should feel bad. i don’t begrudge you your ability to go out to eat whenever you want, as long as you’re not flaunting it in my face. i would love to be doing those sorts of things. i would love to say, “hey, should i get a new surfboard or should i get a new guitar? screw it, i’ll get both!” i hope some day i can. and i hope that when i can, i’ll still remember that i also once had to decide that if i went out to dinner i would have to eat peanut butter and jelly for three weeks to make up for it.

—

* this title would not have been possible 6 months ago, but due to the release of “Tree of Life,” it came to my brain. i’m not saying it’s clever or anything, i’m just saying that i probably wouldn’t have thought of this title otherwise. damn you, Terrence Malick!

** hyperbole

Peanut Butter Jelly Time! Peanut Butter Jelly Time!

singing this song (that’s all i know if it, is there more?) is about the most excitement i get out of thinking about peanut butter and jelly. ever since my AmeriCorps years, i have had an aversion to sandwiches with less than four ingredients. this does not include condiments. not that i was ever a huge fan of peanut butter and jelly, but it never made me depressed. now it sort of does, and in my effort to save money (and my laziness about cooking), i have found myself facing months of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (not all the time, but a few times a week is depressing enough for me).

more about the change in my money-spending habits at a different time, but the short version is, i’m working on a secret side project that requires me to save money. i can’t tell you what this project is, though, because it’s a SECRET! but if you want to know in private, then maybe, just maybe, i can tell you. if you ask nicely. so. i am trying to live on a $20/week grocery budget. if possible, i’d like to spend less, but sometimes i want to buy some bananas, damn it, and i refuse to be deprived much-needed potassium!

as a reference and also a little bit of history as to why simple sandwiches make me cringe:

when i was a corps member in AmeriCorps (Class X/Blue 5 represent!), our team functioned on a $3 per person per day food budget. this works a lot better than one would think because everyone’s money is combined for weekly shopping, and when you bulk shop and have resigned to eating a ton of carbs, you can kind-of-not-starve. plus, corps members get paid $12/day as a living stipend, so you can spend your hard-earned money on extra food, if need be. or if you want to be like some teammates, you can just eat someone else’s food, but that’s not cool.

after our food POC (Point of Contact) went shopping on Sunday, a list would go up on the fridge detailing what was essentially each person’s food quota. it would look something like this:

10 slices of bread, 4 pieces of fruit, 3 slices of cheese, 7 slices of lunch meat, any amount of PB&J, 5 granola bars… you get the point.

usually, lunch was one sandwich that was either PB&J or 1-2 slices of lunch meat plus a piece of cheese if you hadn’t eaten all of your cheese yet.

i saved no money in AmeriCorps because here’s what i spent my extra money on: food & beer.

as a team leader 3 years later (Class XIII/Red 5 represent!), our food budget was upped to $4.50 per person per day. the plus (i hate to call it this, given the circumstances, but it’s all relative so give me a break) was that most of our projects were for post-Katrina recovery, so we stayed in a lot of volunteer housing that provided dinner, if not lunch and dinner. i don’t think we ever went hungry, but i’m pretty sure we were deprived our essential nutrients for most of the 10 months (re: feeding lots of people while trying to save money equals carbs only). and when we lived at Camp Hope in St. Bernard Parish, our lunches consisted of this:

1 bag expired chips, 1 expired protein bar (not yet approved by the FDA), 2 pieces of bread w/ some kind of condiment plus a slice of ham that had dots of cheese literally embedded in it. think of it as an olive loaf or whatever those are called, but it was a ham loaf. with cheese in it.

the good thing was, team leaders made a whopping $24 dollars a day, so i could eat a few more decent meals than i did as a corps member. and so here’s what i spent my entire extra money on: food, beer, and things for my corps members that i’m pretty sure they never wanted, or at least acted like they didn’t want.

now, because i’m Asian and i’m a math whiz (see previous post), let’s work some numbers. try to stay with me here:

corps member year: 7 days in a week x $3 per day = $21 per week. add in the stipend, and we have 7 x $12 = $84, plus $21 = $105!!! now that i actually look at that weekly total, i can safely say that i probably spent most of that money on beer.

team leader year: 7 days in a week x $4.50 per day = $31.50. add in the stipend — 7 x $24 = $168, plus $31.50 = $199.50!!!! and since my TL year was way more stressful than my corps member year, i probably spent 75% of my stipend on alcohol.

now, let’s review: right now, i am trying to spend $20 per week on ALL groceries. yes, i am still trying to eat vegetables. yes, sometimes i eat rice and beans instead of peanut butter and jelly. what am i trying to tell you in this post?

1) i’m spending less money than i did in AmeriCorps?!?!?!?! wow. i had originally thought bringing up AmeriCorps would put things into perspective in terms of my food budget, but it did not. i do, however, know from my AmeriCorps experience that i can eat on my planned budget without dying. or getting scurvy.

2) every time i make a PB&J sandwich, i think of the song from this post’s title. it makes the sandwich-making process fun. then there’s the sandwich-eating part, which is hugely less exciting. if i didn’t have the song in my head, would i just accept the lack of excitement that comes with eating the sandwich?

3) friends that bake: starting in March, i will be begging you to send me baked goods. i am fully prepared and willing to eat cookies for dinner. also, once the tables are turned and i no longer eat on a food budget smaller than people on welfare (i don’t really know if that’s true; i shouldn’t have said that), i’ll return the favor. they won’t be homemade baked goods, because that would be no favor to you, but i’ll send you something. for reals.

and i guess that’s the end of this post. someone tell me if that song has more lyrics!

An Open Letter Rejected By McSweeney’s

friends are so wonderful because some of them believe in you no matter what. they’re like moms. or some people’s moms. they are the people who are responsible for those crazy contestants on American Idol that make it to the audition, sound terrible, and then throw fits in front of the judges because they don’t believe how terrible they truly are. because their friends say they sound great. do me a favor, friends, if it comes to something like that, please do me the service of telling me (in a nice way) that i’m terrible. of course, i’m not hoping to go humiliate myself on national television (as a performer), so for now, let’s all let me rest in a comfortable cloud of delusion. in any case, at the request of my dear friend Sloan (i’d link to her blog, but she hasn’t updated since July, 2005) who is one of those loving friends (i’m pretty sure she’d stop me from doing something horribly embarrassing though, like auditioning for American Idol), i am posting a letter that i submitted to McSweeney’s last year. ’twas rejected, but Sloan seemed to enjoy it and asked me to post it on my blog (which she probably doesn’t read because i doubt she has the free time in her life to do such things… Sloan! get of Pinterest and read this blog!).

anyhow, in case you don’t know, McSweeney’s is a wonderful literary publication that you can receive quarterly each year in the mail, or check out online (though the content is different). the actual mailed issues have different themes and might come in the form of a giant newspaper, a set of books, or a creepy box that looks like a head with goodies inside. it might seem a little elitist or highfalutin to some people (like that guy who thinks Friday Night Lights is highfalutin), because sometimes it has March Madness brackets that you have to fill out before they even pick the teams, which is infuriating but makes you feel really smart if you figure it out. yeah, sometimes it’s a little pretentious.

anyway. its online content includes a section called, “Open Letters to People or Entities Who Are Unlikely to Respond.” it’s pretty hilarious (and, FYI, usually mean), and i recommend you check it out. these letters are written to all sorts of people/entities, from “An Open Letter to My Dying Ficus” to “An Open Letter to Madeleine L’Engle” to “An Open Letter to My Self Respect.” one of my favorites, i’m sure you know why, is “An Open Letter to Anna Louise Jordan, Author of What Does An EMT Do?” it is in many ways true, also quite funny, a little bit sad, and might make you afraid to call 911, so just a heads up.

but enough about McSweeney’s, more about me! after this long, unnecessary introduction, i give you my rejected open letter. if you read the ones on the McSweeney’s site, i think you’ll know why it was rejected. but if you’ve ever had the sort of experiences referenced in my letter, i think you’ll appreciate it. if you’ve been with me while i’ve had these sorts of experiences, i think you’ll appreciate it. and if you’re like Sloan, and you think i’m awesome no matter what, you’ll also appreciate it. happy reading!

An Open Letter to Those Who Want Me to Change My Last Name to Accommodate Their Stupidity

Dear Strangers Confused By My Last Name,

Thank you for asking, yes, I was born in Asia. To be more specific, because you asked if I’m Chinese, I was born in Korea. And since you’ll ask me anyway, I’ll just tell you straight out that I’m from the “good” part, so I didn’t bring my commie values over with me. Even though I was only in the “good” part for three months of my life. At that point, I was quite a long way from wiping my own ass, not to mention reading or understanding language completely, but it was plenty of time to indoctrinate me and turn me into a sleeper agent or some sort of North Korean spy. And you’re right: what’s not important are the thirty years of my entire life (minus those integral three months) that I have lived here in the good ol’ U S of A, but that quarter of a year that I spent in the hands of non-American influences.

And since we just met, and by “met” I mean that you didn’t introduce yourself, asked if I’m Chinese, and then told me that my last name doesn’t make sense (because you saw it on a credit card, a delivery slip, or a receipt), let’s talk about how I got here. I’m happy to share that information with a complete stranger. It’s not even remotely personal. And I certainly want to ease your confusion when you see an Italian last name identifying an Asian person. After all, I’m clearly not American. If I’m to make any sense to you, if you’re to comprehend my existence in any way, my last name must be “Lee,” or “Ho,” or “Wong.” Or, as one of you promptly assigned, “Fujiyama” (which is the English misreading of “Mount Fuji,” by the way). I’m glad you took the time to say, “No, no, no, that CAN’T be your last name,” because you’re right. There’s absolutely no way. It makes no sense whatsoever. It is completely impossible for anyone, especially anyone who lives in America, to have a last name that seems to not fit what he or she looks like. Rest assured, it doesn’t feel racist or anything that you’re just looking at me and telling me what last name my appearance determines. It’s not offensive that you’re arguing with me about my last name. Since you are the official word on how last names work, and who gets what, you must be absolutely correct. You certainly have the right to refute the surname I just wrote down. After thirty years — I mean, twenty-nine and nine months — that I’ve had that last name, you must be right, and I must be wrong.

So thanks for taking the time out of your day, and mine, to clear these things up. It’s much appreciated, and I’m sure my adoptive parents will be glad to hear that they really screwed the pooch on that one. If only they’d given me an “Asian” last name, so that I could truly understand what kind of person I am or should be. So that people wouldn’t accidentally think I’m Italian. So that I could really feel like a part of their family. I’ll remind them that they’re assholes when I talk to them tonight. Even though I never ask, your obviously intelligent input is clearly always desired, so thank you.

Sincerely,

Anna Capezzera

P.S. For future reference, consider being less of a dick when you inevitably have this conversation with another “Your Last Name Makes No Sense” Asian. Chances are, he or she is considering the option of karate chopping your head off