Media-crity

Dear Hartford,

WTF, mate? What are you thinking? As a former Hartford resident, my wallet still cries at the thought of how much I paid in taxes AND in insurance. No, really. When I moved just over the line to the suburbs, my car insurance dropped by hundreds of dollars.

You say you’ll never approach an individual, Mayor Perez? Does it occur to you the premium increases on top of premium increases that these individuals you’re not approaching will endure?

On top of that, there’s the real moral issue of people possibly thinking twice before calling for emergency services. That’s what really burns me up.

I’m all about honesty here, so I’ll be straight with you: I am an ungraceful, unsteady, unbalanced klutz. Seriously. I fall down. A lot. I walk into things. I trip over things like curbs and stairs and lines in the road. I’ve also had innumerable car problems in my short licensed life. I’m worried about what else you might try to charge for.

I’m thinking ahead here, going on a tangent, but I do not like the direction this is going in. I do not want a city, a state, or a world where someone who trips and hits their head on the sidewalk’s last thought before unconsciousness is “What level emergency is this and how much will it cost?”

Where will it end, dear city?

Yours truly,

A concerned citizen

I don’t need to be a supermodel. Y’see, I have this fiance with a fancy camera that he loves and he loves to take pictures of my every step and turn. I’m his guinea pig for lighting and testing flash angles and lenses. I walk into the park to meet him and all I have to do is listen for the sound of the shutter and there he is. Yup. This must be what Paris Hilton feels like …

I had this great post in my head about yuppies and how I feel like one sometimes, until I find myself in the presence of actual yuppies. We went to Peppercorns for dinner before we went to see David Sedaris. Just like, it seemed, the rest of young, hip Hartford. Now, I do not consider myself hip, so it was pretty cool to feel like I was for awhile. Anyway, dinner was amazing. I love gift certificates, cause then I can just order to my heart’s content and try different stuff. The people at the table next to us were textbook yuppies who were also going to the show, as well as a few people who walked in as the evening went on. So I had this whole post about that, and then came David Sedaris.

We got to the show and it was hilarious, as expected. The first story weirded me out a little, but mostly because it was about crows plucking out the eyes of newborn lambs. Ewww. I saw the humor in it, but it’s just not my thing. Then he told us about how he likes to take a little fact he learns and turn it into a story, and that was one of those stories. It was pretty cool how he took that little tidbit and made a whole story out of it. Anyway, it could only go up from there, and it did! So many funny stories. I loved the parts when even he was laughing at what he was saying. He’s so good with imagery, too.

After the show we got in line to have my book signed. It was a mess, people cutting, people getting pissed, yuck. Finally, finally, FINALLY we got up there and he was just so sweet and nice. Really. He asked what I did and I told him and he actually thanked me for getting all of those people there. It was amazing. That’s even how he signed my book. I feel like such a loser, but I’m seriously on cloud 9 now. I could spin in circles.

That’s how I want to be when I publish my book. Yes, that’s right, when I publish my book. That’s my top “before I die” goal. Not that I plan on dying anytime soon. In fact, I plan on publishing my book well before I’m even a candidate for death. Anyway. Yes, I want to be real and genuine and shake peoples hands and talk to them. I want to stop signing and look at them when I talk to them. I want to sit at a table until everyone walks away smiling and fulfilled. I want to ask them questions and learn a little bit about them. When I grow up, I want to be David Sedaris.

Text messaging is a hot topic in my “circle” these days. Who does it? Who doesn’t? Why or why not? Is age a factor?

So, dear readers, what do you think? Do you use text messaging a lot? A little? At all? Do your friends? What situations do you find yourself using text messaging in (ie: in a noisy place like a bar or a concert and you need to find a friend; sending a quick note to tell someone something you’d usually email them if you were at your computer; to have conversations; to say something like “I’ll be there in 5 minutes you’d better be outside!”)?

I used to use it a lot more than I do now. A large part of that, I think, is that I’m at my computer at work most of the day so I can just email people. I do use it to talk to one or two people a lot, but that’s about it. I think I’d use it a lot more if I felt that people I knew were open to using it. For instance, if I’m out and I see something funny that reminds me of a friend, I’m not going to call them and tell them (because I hate the phone), but I might send them a text if I thought they’d know what in the world to do with a text message once they got one.

In short, I love text messaging but I don’t think my little “world” is quite ready for it yet.

This topic has been on my mind since I had a bunch of friends over on Friday. Guys, contrary to popular belief, perpetuated by movies and TV, a group of girls getting together is sometimes just that: a group of girls getting together to hang out. With my friends, for instance, we talked about TV, music, celebrity gossip, etc. We did devote some time to talking about our “lists” (that’s the list of 5 celebrities you can have a no-strings-attached fling with), but that’s about as racy as it got. I think the Red Hats have racier conversations. Sorry to burst your bubbles.

Girls night was really a lot of fun. Personally, I’m much more likely to have guys as friends than girls. I connect to them better. I have so many surrogate “big brothers” and “little brothers.” Sometimes, though, it’s just nice to sit around with some girls and talk. The girls I had over on Friday have really changed my outlook on female friendships in general. Previously my experiences had largely been that girls will be nice to your face, only to twist the knife a little deeper when you leave. Part of it is having more “adult” friends, obviously. Part of it is that I’m just so lucky to have such awesome girls in my life.

Don’t worry though, guys, I’ll always need you, too.

I have an unusual name, this is no secret. Itwasn’t the most unusual name on the table for me in the months leading to my birth (Antigone, anyone?), but it’s unusual by most standards. Its uniqueness has resulted in some funny situations, mostly revolving around its gender ambiguity.

At least once a week I’ll receive a letter or an email addressed to Mr. Flannery O’Brien. My own insurance company fer crying out loud!

All this set up isn’t really leading to much, unfortunately, except that I was called “Sir” at the grocery store on Sunday. I looked at the woman and said “Sir!?” which is so unlike me cause I’m so passive and non-confrontational. Seriously people. Sir. I can overlook the confusion when you see the name in print, I’ll even grudgingly learn to live with it when you’ve spoken to me on the phone, but I will not be called “Sir” when I am standing right in front of you! I am most certainly not of ambiguous gender when you look right at me.

Sir. Ugh.

Welcome to the new Media-crity! I have no idea where this will go. Until I figure it out, thanks for coming along for the ride. Since I mentioned it already, here’s my latest mix CD. My mixes don’t follow any theme but “songs I want to listen to right now.”

1. Munich - Editors
2. All I Want - Toad the Wet Sprocket
3. As Lovers Go - Dashboard Confessional
4. Before I Go - Unwritten Law
5. Time of the Season - The Zombies
6. The Tide is High - Blondie
7. Pepper - Butthole Surfers
8. Lyin’ Eyes - The Eagles
9. Sweet Girl - Fleetwood Mac
10. Sweet Child of Mine - Guns N Roses
11. Ghost - Indigo Girls
12. Land of Canaan - Indigo Girls
13. Deep Red Bells - Neko Case
14. Given To Fly - Pearl Jam
15. Standing Outside a Broken Phonebooth … - Primitive Radio Gods
16. Ever the Same - Rob Thomas
17. Love Has Found Me - Centro-matic
18. Darkroom - Jess Klein
19. Woman - Maroon 5

Most of these songs are strongly nostalgic for me. The jumping-off point for this mix was when I found myself with “Pepper” in my head, even though I hadn’t heard it in a number of years. After that came the two Indigo Girls songs, which hold such power over me. I hear them and in an instant I’m a confused teenager again. “Given to Fly” is just part of the flashbacks the entire Yield album brings. After that, I just supplemented it with songs that are fun (I can’t hear “The Tide is High” and not smile) and some new (and just new-to-me, like Deep Red Bells) songs that I’m really enjoying.

I popped the mix in the car player today and just drove around West Hartford with the window down, singing.

Okay, so I’m not becoming a supermodel. Some of you have told me (not in comments, ahem ahem) that you laughed at the post, but the scary part is that any random 16-year-old in your town could have said it. Ah, the power of advertising, Seventeen Magazine, and MTV.

Anyway, yeah, April Fools. It did have some grain of truth, though. I’ve been kind of frustrated lately with being limited to the media literacy topic. It’s just not me. If you’ve ever spoken to me, you know my train of thought is long and twisted and probably would get shut down by the FTA. I love to talk and tell stories, whether the listener cares or not. Sometimes, I just get this urge to blog about the mix CD I just made, or ask what the general public thinks about a TV show and I can’t, because it’s not really on topic.

Did you know that 75% of my random websearch hits come from people searching for the song “LOVE” by Nat King Cole? You know, “L is for the way you look at me …”? They search for it all over the world and the end up here, because of this post I made on Valentine’s Day. Sometimes they stay and look around. Sometimes they don’t find what they’re looking for and they go back to Google or Yahoo or Dogpile.

I guess what I’m saying is that I’m at a crossroads here. Do I keep going with this, posting twice a month or so and start a new blog for all of my other random thoughts about other things? Do I merge the two? Does anyone care? Ground Control to Major Tom?

I’m leaving the world of media to pursue my lifelong dream of being a supermodel. I don’t have the spark or the passion for this anymore. All I think about nowadays are Miss Sixty, Steve Madden, BCBG, L.A.M.B. I see all the beautiful girls in the magazines and on TV, having so much fun, and I want to be like them. So what if I’m only 5′4″! MTV shows girls doing it all the time. So, dear readers, I thank you for your loyalty and I leave you with a song. Take care of yourselves, and each other.

Supermodel
Jill Sobule

I don’t care what my teachers say
I’m gonna be a supermodel
And everyone is gonna dress like me
Wait and see
When I’m a supermodel
and my hair will shine like the sea
And everyone will wanna look just like me
Meeeeee!

Cause I’m young and I’m hip and so beautiful
I’m gonna be a supermodel

I wish that I was like Tori Spelling
With a car like hers and dad like hers
And I, would show them how how it was done
That’d be fun, that’d be fun

And I wrote my school report,
On why I love my jeans, why I love my jeans.
And oh, oh my lockerdoor it’s the coolest thing
That you have ever seen.

Cause I’m young and I’m hip and so beautiful,
I’m gonna be a supermodel

I didn’t eat yesterday,
I’m not gonna eat today
I’m not gonna eat tomorrow
Cause I’m gonna be a supermodel!

So beautiful (Beautiful)
I’m gonna be a supermodel
Cause Im young and Im hip and so beautiful (Beautiful)
I’m gonna be a supermodel

I’m gonna be a supermodel!