ms. malaprop – Page 14 – Wrekehavoc.com

Category: ms. malaprop

big me

Posted on February 19, 2008 by wrekehavoc

today, i am going to be mortified. i’ve got a piece prepared about me as a high school egomaniac, and i’m going to share it with a sold-out bunch of people i probably have never met (and who probably will never want to meet me after this.)

in short, i am afraid.

but i’m sure it will work out. mortified, you see, is a fun program where people who have actually held on to their terrible, awful, nasty writings from pre-age-21 share them in a humorous setting. humorous for some; mortifying for the reader, i suspect. i’m sure i will upset someone out there (family?) after reading my piece. but this was me, snarky, moody teen girl writing. not me, snarky, moody grownup.

there is a difference. i think.

and ok, on the curb: you wanted a picture of me from my childhood. this is high school me. see if you can figure out precisely what is so dorky about this picture… it may not be quite easy to see, like the gypsy moth treatment on the tree.

california

Posted on February 16, 2008 by wrekehavoc

while chomping on my almonds today, i noticed something hilarious on the package (translation below the poorly-taken photo):

Almonds were first cultivated in California in the 18th century. Today, the state is known for producing some of the highest grade nuts available.

i didn’t even make that up.

::ducking before my CA friends smack me down::

😉

girlfriend

Posted on February 14, 2008 by wrekehavoc

dearest BS,

i’m probably going to be hooked up to an IV while you’re reading this, doing my best to stay awake during my 5-6 hour monthly marathon of IVIG goodness for my CVID. not exactly a romantic way to spend the bulk of valentine’s day, but on the other hand, it’s my best present i can give to you: more time with me. see, i know i’m just the perfect wife.

my cooking skills are impeccable.

my plumbing and laundering skills are astonishing.

and what’s more, i’m just the best. mother. ever.

how did you ever get so damn lucky? now if only i could actually purchase, er, i mean, if only santa was a mind-reader and could get you the presents you wanted, we’d be all set. hey — give santa a break and a clue next year, k?

in the meantime, i’m doing my best to be healthy so that i can be the bane of your existence for as long as i can be.

please do the same.

love,

your girlfriend

p.s. the comic book guy lets the girl drive the car to safety. just pointing it out. he’s in the car; she’s driving. what an idea!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgo6dFWY6sE&rel=1

guilty pleasure monday: the wall (kansas)

Posted on February 11, 2008 by wrekehavoc

the grammys (tagline: we only reward artists after they’re dead, irrelevant, or past their best work) have inspired me. i’m thinking it is time for a theme, at least until i get bored with the idea 😉

so welcome to the inaugural post of guilty pleasure monday, where i’ll talk about a song i love, a song i listen to at times when i think no one is around, a song i might sing at the top of my lungs except for the fact that BS will look at me with that face that says you know, i thought you were cool once, but you’re just one giant sap.

so today’s gem: the wall by that prog rock band kansas. you know, the ones who gave us point of know return and carry on wayward son? oh, and the one my mother refers to as the all-time, #1 depressing song, dust in the wind?

and yes, i did sing this at the top of my lungs at one time in my life. i absolutely identified with the idea that there was a wall that i had to overcome; a wall of being who i wanted to be and not who everyone else thought i should be. yes, the stuff that 19 year olds everywhere feel; only instead of going punk like every other self-respecting person of my era, i dug deeper into prog rock. (i don’t think punk ever made it to miami.)

anyway, back to the top-of-my-lungs-singing bit. fortunately, when i was doing it, i was enclosed in a soundproof booth at the university of miami (motto: the harvard of the south), witnessed only by my best mate murph, a person who still admits publicly that she’s my friend in spite of the fact that i’m a dork and made her listen to me sing and play piano back in the day. so, back in that noisy day, i attended UM for two years. you should know that while it has earned its rep as suntan u, UM truly has an amazing music school, which boasts a zillion great musicians — pat metheny, for one. and it reserved its pi-anos, housed in little glass soundproof closets, for said music school kids.

of which i was not.

i did find a very nice guy in the music school, a man who i have since googled and have found that he plays professionally in a jazz duo with his significant other. and this adorable man, who at age 20 looked like an older version of christopher robin, let me borrow his university photo ID every time i wanted to play. it’s a credit to the people at the front desk that never did they ponder why i didn’t have short, light brown hair, or wasn’t a boy, for that matter. they just let me go.

and one of the first things i would sing and play at the VERY TIPPY TOP OF MY LUNGS was the wall. not the we don’t need no education wall. the dark and silent barrier between all i am and all i ever hope to be wall.

i still love this song, even though i probably have since written graffiti, removed chunks, and finally leaped over that wall. metaphorically speaking, of course. all things that would probably disturb the song’s author, who has since become a born-again christian. but i digress.

(did i mention that murph is still my friend some 25 years later? in spite of my dorkiness?)

strange brew

Posted on February 8, 2008 by wrekehavoc

my musically-inclined friend philfree tagged me with a meme: six random habits or quirks about me. i tend to be quirky by definition, so its just sooooo hard to pick six without someone attempting to have me commited. but i’ll try.

1) i am right handed. i bat lefty. this is due to some tomfoolery, courtesy of my two older brothers. (thanks a lot, guys.)
2) i like to wear black. a lot. BC always asks me to break out of my fashion rut. but i say, hey, it’s easy to match when all you wear is black. it’s slimming, it’s fashionable in that bored new yorker sort of way. and it’s what i do. when you see me wearing pink and white, it’s probably best to head for the hills. i’m having a breakdown.
3) i watched I Love the 80s while in labor with jools. it just seemed like the thing to do at the time. i made it all the way up to the 1987 episode before the dude decided to appear. i still have yet to watch 1988 and 1989. not that those years mattered much.

4) during 8th grade, i served as the disk jockey for the disco club at school. yes, kids, while i quietly seethed because i would have preferred listening to the police (a band none of my friends had heard of in 1979), i spun classics like we are family, le freak and of course, everything from saturday night fever that i could hardly stomach. (in other words, more bee gees than human beings ought to be allowed to experience in one year.) yep. all that while having to watch my intermediate school french teacher waddle around on calves the size of wisconsin, teaching kids how to do the hustle. yep. good. times.

5) i love chocolate and consider it an important part of my training table. i love dark chocolate best, especially the 85% cocoa or the type with cacao nibs. it may be too bitter for other people, but i eat it. i like to pretend i am eating it for the flavenoids. chocolate = health food! (a girl can dream.)

6) sometimes, when i am driving by the perfectly-coiffed, perfectly-perfect moms at my daughter’s school, i will dig up some ramones or black flag or dead kennedys, roll down the window, and blast it.

i. am. that. juvenile.

Tagging:

mamma mia

pillowbook

and

everyoneisdoinit

rehab

Posted on February 7, 2008 by wrekehavoc

well, we all need someone we can lean on. but if you’re addicted to meth or booze or something else equally enticing, stay the hell away from me.

the other night, while BS was out of town and the kiddies were in bed, i was attempting to sleep. only, too bad for me. i never sleep when i’m the sole responsible parent in the house. so i started channel surfing, something i don’t do all that often, thanks to my friend mr TIVO. and i ended up riveted, in a macabre sort of way, to a TV show called intervention. i watched as a former track star named john cavorted (in that junkie slo-mo way of cavorting) around the screen. all through his life, his parents apparently made him the shining star, ignoring his brother and sister while supporting his athletic dreams. sadly, an injury dashed them all. after that sort of buildup, where do you go in life?

apparently, to ‘shrooms, booze, and other fun hallucinogens. john, so enveloped by his fantasy life, believes he’s a famous DJ named Dr. Doom (only no one will hire him because he’s a bit of a violent sort). he agrees to this interview, like the others, because he is told he is taking part in a documentary about addiction. they use this excuse apparently with all the addicts — that they are participating in a documentary about addiction — and i wondered at first whether people would start to catch on. hey, they’d think, i know its not a documentary — it’s intervention! but then, when i look at people like this, i realize that they don’t really have the wherewithall to know. in fact, i suspect they’re too busy scoring or using to watch TV. not that TV is so wonderful, of course — it’s a different kind of addiction.

but i digress.

after watching the addict basically humiliate himself on TV, with the dream nonlife and the parasitic hangers-on (are their parents watching? hellooo?), the intervention guy and the tearful family join together to get the addict to commit to rehab. hopefully, he doesn’t say no, no, no like amy winehouse. and then you find out that the person is hopefully not dead.

now, i like reality TV like the next person, and this is compelling drama. but i feel incredibly uneasy watching someone in the throes of an illness. yes, they’re out of their heads. let’s film it. it’s great TV. i wonder at times whether producers have gone too far. when people choose to humiliate themselves, it’s one thing. but addicts are not really in a position to make any decisions beyond do i wake up today, and even that’s a toughie.

yes, i was fascinated. but am i entitled to watch someone else’s private hell?

things that make you go "hmmm"

Posted on February 2, 2008 by wrekehavoc

the four of us made our way through macy’s cosmetics area last night on our way to dinner at Ted’s. my third grade reader grrl, BC, looked at a bottle she passed.

mama, what’s better than buttocks?

WHAT? i replied, wondering where the hell that came from. (is it a trick question?)

that bottle. it says better than buttocks.

i took a look. and giggled. uh, no, honey. that would be better than botox.

reading is fundamental.

jeopardy! and you may ask yourself, where does that highway go?

Posted on January 31, 2008October 16, 2014 by wrekehavoc

i know, i know. i’ve been negligent in the whole jeopardy! department. life happened, y’hear?

remember i mentioned that BS gave me a world almanac? i never cracked that baby open in all the months i had it, which were a few, considering the taping didn’t happen until the end of august/beginning of september (to be aired in early december, no less.) i was working, i was exhausted, and i was not interested. pity i couldn’t have changed places with BS. he would have made a smarter contestant than i did.

anyway, BS and i made it out to sunny CA and realized merv griffin (and that clip is a must-see) had heaquartered his show in a sh**hole. hollywood is not exactly the garden spot of america. (at one point, when i was eating lunch with the crew, BS went for a walk outside. he heard gunshots. he came back inside. but i’m getting ahead of the story here…) we stayed elsewhere (north hollywood? who remembers) and crossed over on mulholland drive to get to the studio, which was then located in the middle of downtown hollywood. then, we separated. due to stringent studio rules, we were not allowed to see or talk to each other. off he went, and off i went.

i spent some time with the contestant coordinators and the other contestants, talking about how the day would go. they taped five games per day, two days per week. contestants would be picked at random. if i made it past the third game of the day, i would be fed at the canteen with the rest of the staff. and no one, not a soul, would see or talk to the great and powerful wizard of oz alex trebek until they were playing the game. we had a chance to try out our buzzers and write our names. we even played a few questions just to test out the buzzer. i was heartened by the fact that i was fastest on the buzzer. (yippee. i excel at something for once.)

we practiced our entrances, and i was then slightly disheartened to learn that i had to walk in on the slipperyshiny floor in my hells heels and step up onto a box! all contestants had to be at approximately the same level, and i come up short in the height department. crap. i’m a klutz, and this required concentration and coordination. i went from fear me, fastest buzzer girl to fear me, i may take you out when i try to enter the studio in these shoes in about 2 minutes. flat.

so i settled in to a nervous day. fortunately, i found a nice lady (unlike some of the nervous freaks who just made me sick to my stomach) to sit and chat with named linda, and we settled in in our little, dark, segregated corner of the audience and waited for our names to be called. they weren’t. not for game one. not for game two. not for game three. we ended up eating in the canteen, which i swear was outside, but memory fades and i’m probably delusional on that. i don’t even remember what i ate.

i lost my buddy linda to show four, when she became champion. and then, show five. i was called.

showtime…

sistahs are doin' it for themselves

Posted on January 29, 2008 by wrekehavoc

i often enjoy radicalmother’s posts, and this one has me inspired.

in a related vein, i once got into a horrifically-awful shoutfest in grad school. i took a feminist theory class. there were two men in the class, two of the most thoughtful and wonderful people i’ve ever known. two men i knew then to definitely be feminist. the prof asked whether men could truly be feminists. a chunk of the women in the room were screeching that men could not, in fact, ever be feminists because they could never experience oppression like women do.

i am a staunch feminist (though i do not play one on TV), but i had a very difficult time stomaching that idea. a) i found it divisive — a movement needs all the members it can get, imho; and b) men *can* get oppressed. generally, the oppression comes from other men; but due to racism, class-ism, and sexual preference, men can be oppressed. (ask some of the recently-emigrated guys from african or asian nations how they are treated here.) therefore, in my mind, they, too can be feminists.

the womyn in my class went on to tell me that i could not be a true feminist because i’m a heterosexual woman, and i can’t really know what it’s like to be a lesbian. well, that last bit is true — i don’t know what it’s like to be a lesbian. but i do know how it feels to be beaten up over my religion. and like lots of other women, i also have experienced my fair share of oppression. not being allowed to join the little league because girls did not do that back in my day. having the identical qualifications as BS and having to take a typing test when he did not for a job. losing a promotion because i looked so tired when i brought my six-week-old to visit at work so we didn’t think you’d come back from maternity leave. i can keep going, but i don’t want everyone feeling sorry for me. i don’t.

i guess where i’m rambling is this: there are so, so many doofuses (doofi?) out there who will denegrate what they fear. there are men out there who can and want to participate in a real dialogue about sexism. there are women who want to refine the definition of feminism to the enth degree until it’s a very limited club. it’s tough sailing when you’re negotiating these waters with your kids in the boat. so i just try to teach my kids the golden rule: do unto others as you’d have them do to unto you. i hope that somehow translates into just doing what’s right. in the end, that, to me, is what being a feminist is all about: treating women and men, boys and girls, fairly in all arenas of life.

i just wish i could call it humanism.

jeopardy!: and you may ask yourself…well… how did i get here?

Posted on January 22, 2008December 9, 2014 by wrekehavoc

in the beginning, i never wanted to be on jeopardy. i know, that sounds really disingenuous. but it’s true. i mean, i was a huge fan of the show — i’d been watching it ever since i would toddle home from preschool and watch the stellar art fleming read the answers. (i know, i know. i was a very strange preschooler. but it was better than watching dark shadows, which was also on in the afternoon and which scared the bejeebers out of me.)

maybe i was destined to be on the show. my mom tells me that she was selected to be on the show in the early 1960s. but, as my hero junie b would say, too bad for her. she was preggers with my middle brother larry, and she really couldn’t risk going into labor on national television. (just proving my childhood contention: larry always does ruin everything. first jeopardy. then, we had to get rid of the cat because of his asthma. buzzkill!! hehehehe, seriously, just kidding there, lar. really. i love you even if you’re politically on the wrong side of many issues.) so maybe subconsciously, i was doing this for my mother.

the truth is, newlywed me was homesick. i missed my family, i missed new jersey (okay, you can stop laughing now) (really), and i did not yet consider the DC metro area home just yet. (that wouldn’t happen until last year. maybe.) but i also knew my BS was not really interested in schlepping up I-95 for yet another weekend of family fun.

but then, the epiphany: they were holding a massive cattle call at merv griffin’s old casino in atlantic city at the same time as easter AND passover. BINGO! BS was a jeopardy fan — couldn’t we go, try out, and then drive up the coast to see our respective families? of course we could. so we drove up, took the ten question test, passed it, received the date to return for a longer test, and went on our merry way to visit our families.

only, too bad for BS. he had to go on travel on the return date. so he never got to try out further. now me, on the other hand, i did. and, weirdly enough, i was able to try out at the same time as my dad, who also passed the 10 question test. so augie doggie and doggie daddy drove off to AC together, swearing they would pretend not to know each other so that no one would ever think we were cheating. which we didn’t. and couldn’t. we stayed far away from each other as we entered the big testing hall and took the test.

both of us passed.

they then made us go elsewhere so that they could observe our personalities and how quickly we could think on our feet. as we waited in the hall, we still did not speak to each other (i’m neurotic). that was, until, i tried to make small talk with one of the other potential contestants.

me: hi, i’m wreke. and you are?

personality-deficient freak: did you know that burma is now called myanmar?

after a few of these perverse little exchanges, i walked over to my dad, thrust out my hand, and introduced myself. daddy, i said sotto voce, these people are scaring me. can you please just stand near me and pretend we are making small talk? and because my dad is the best dad on the whole entire planet, we pretended to meet for the first time until they called us into the room.

we had to stand up and play a pretend game of jeopardy. we had to talk about what we’d do with the money if we won. (i believe i told them i’d send BS to phillies camp. still waiting, right honey?) and then we had our pictures taken and were told that we’d be called within the year if they wanted us on the show.

the end. or so i thought. see, a year passed, and i didn’t hear from them. not until one day, when a woman with whom i had worked the year before came running down the hallway. hey, she said, out of breath, you’d better call geraldine and find out what the hell is going on. i overheard her talking to someone about you and jeopardy and i heard her tell them you didn’t work here anymore.

geraldine was the very sweet but not exceptionally bright receptionist in my old office. i had moved to a different office during the year; but unfortunately, jeopardy still had my old number. i booked up the stairs to geraldine. gerry, i said, panting, did someone call for me?

oh yes, she answered in her drawl. i told them you don’t work here any more, but i took their number. she handed the scrap to me. i found a payphone (government building; can’t call on your taxpayer’s dime, you know), called back, and they told me to show up the end of august. bring 5 changes of clothing. and it’s all on my dime.

honey, i screamed to BS on the phone later. guess where we’re vacationing this year? hollywood!

the next day, that romantic guy bought me a world almanac.