Caustically Optimistic

Forgive me, Vicki, for I have sinned…

It’s been four months since my last trip to IKEA.  I needed something to reorganize my closet and my shoes.  I subscribe to the idea that one shouldn’t have to move more than one thing to get to another and my current living situation made things a little ridiculous.  Its two hours up and two hours back (at least) to go to IKEA from here so I decided – wrongly – that going to any furniture outlet that would give me some organization for less than one-hundred dollars would do.  Going to IKEA in Cincinnati also means going to Jungle Jim’s and becomes an all day event, leaving me needing another day to put the furniture together and reorganize my corner of the world.  Buying locally would give me four hours less driving and would avoid a superfluous grocery trip. 

 If I had a nickel for every time I was wrong I’d have my down payment saved for my own house already. 

I picked something from Bed, Bath, and Beyond completely by chance.  I was at BB&B picking up a tie organizer that has worked well – but I have too many ties for one and needed another.  While I was in that part of the fifth ring of Hell I noticed the shelving I ended up with, a customizable nine-section shelf that would work and fit in the closet in my bedroom.  I realized that I hadn’t brought a coupon and felt that it might not be the best approach but decided that the small amount I’d save wouldn’t be worth driving home and back for a coupon.  Had I driven home I’d have started on my book review of the The Martian instead of engaging in this fool’s errand. 

I was pretty excited when I got home.  I did everything before building that you ought to do.  I read the instructions.  I checked to make sure I had the correct tools and all of the pieces.  I cleared an area to build.  I was confident, over-confident, and that’s when I should have stopped and just lit a pile of money on fire in the garage.  I had checked all the pieces but I hadn’t organized them into when I’d use them assembling the shelves and immediately screwed up.  The first pieces I put together I put together incorrectly.  To add insult to injury I took a step I normally skip: gluing the anchors in.  I used the small anchors instead of the larger anchors, and since I glued them in I couldn’t get them out.  

Dad tried to help me by drilling out the anchors but that only made the particleboard disintegrate, which also didn’t stop up from trying on the other piece I screwed up on.   I looked at my watch and realized that this is my only day to do this so I went back to Bed, Bath, and Beyond – this time with a coupon – and bought another shelving unit.  I realize that there was a more rational approach to this but I am in the self-destruct mode of my depression and spending more money seemed like the best way to go.  I have a top-shelf education and am successful in my line of work so surely I can conquer this shelving unit. 

Oh, it eventually went together and the Lord’s name wasn’t used in vain but it wasn’t easy or fun. 

I think the only words I said during my second attempt at this shelving unit was, “You aren’t Daniel, idiot.”  I re-read the instructions, my first article of faith is that I can do anything because I can read, and I can tell you this: these instructions are incomplete.  I had a resolution in 2011 that I would view every adversity in my life as a result of my own poor choices because if I was the one who was the problem I was also the solution.  I would like to take you back to 2010 and blame the person who wrote the instructions.  If pieces could go in an the shelving unit a number of ways ostensibly hold together but still be ‘wrong’ then one ought to include that information in the instructions.  

My number two goal for 2015 and beyond is to make enough money to never again have to assemble my own furniture.  I am not Daniel; I am an idiot.

God sends us this furniture to keep us humble.  That guy created the universe and everything in it and we think we can put together simple shelves to arrange our graven images because we have tools, education, and reason.  We also have ‘fire’ and this is what I should have done with the pieces that constituted the shelves. 

The instructions called for me to make an enormous hash symbol.  This was God laughing at me.  I think your use of the hash symbol, or tag, is overdone and you should seek help for your problems.  When I saw that it was the fifth sign it should stop.  I then had to attach sides and then top and bottom to the hash symbol.  This was the most backwards approach I’ve taken to furniture.  I also should have realized that I needed to turn the hash symbol one rotation so the holes drilled in the interior would hold secondary shelves (which I had bought because customizable furniture wasn’t a red flag in the first place).  

I realized at that point I could just detach the hash symbol from the sides, top, and bottom and simply turn it once and reattach everything.  When I thought the word, “simply,” it was the sixth sign.  I hadn’t glued the pieces of the hash symbol together – relying on the anchors because they’ll hold it all together once I Allen-wrenched in the top and bottom.  Two pieces broke off whilst turning the hash tag and then while I fixing that I broke a third.  If I had gone to IKEA I would have been snacking on a post-game frozen yogurt at that moment in time.  Luckily, I’m an idiot who had two shelving units in pieces so another half-hour later and I had cobbled together shelving. 

My seventh article of faith is that a meal shouldn’t take longer to clean up than it takes to cook, a project shouldn’t take longer to clean up than it does to accomplish.  The sixth, if you’re wondering, is that you have to stop what you’re doing and listen to “Don’t Stop Believing” whenever it comes on and not change the station nor hit skip on Pandora which is why I totally lost my train of thought.  It had something to do with, “cleaning the mess up took longer than assembling the shelves and I still don’t have enough room to put away all my shoes.” 

I could feel Vicki and Enzo looking down from their photograph, Harry Potter style, with disapproving looks.  Vicki and I love IKEA.  I have been to IKEA more times that I have been to a Walmart.  This is all well documented.  Vicki’s hometown has two IKEAs just to ensure she is served properly.  I should have stuck with what I knew.  I felt as if this could be my karma for all the times we embarrassed Enzo in IKEA and if it was then I surely deserve it.  We should fear, love, and trust in Enzo and not shame him in IKEA.  If this was indeed my karma for my crimes then my slate is clean and I can do it again.   

Bulk trash pick up is on Tuesday.  I’m tempted to tape the remnants of the other shelving unit together with the instructions in a zip-lock and watch to see who takes it but I don’t need that karma.  I sincerely hope that I like this new organization system because it can never, never be moved.  It’s the Ark of the Covenant or Jimmy Hoffa, the shelves are staying where they are and we aren’t going to talk about it. 

I bet that you look good on the dance floor

Ryan told me last weekend that I couldn’t live my life just to write about it. She’s right, in and out of context. Perhaps I should start living more, right? I decided to do something this weekend that I would not write about but here I am about to write about it.

Friday was Casey’s birthday party. I was not feeling one hundred percent but as Casey is that friend who would do anything for anyone I felt compelled to celebrate the fact that she had gone three hundred sixty five days without falling off the planet. Her party was a huge affair in a tiny house and she had enough food to feed everyone in Phoenix and enough beer to drown their sorrows.

I usually feel awkward at these parties because while I can spin a yarn on paper I cannot tell one in person. I am a dreadful conversationalist. Worse yet, this party was going to be populated with other teachers and that makes my conversation worse because most teachers do not appreciate stories about the foibles of my students – which my repertoire for conversation is. Most teachers want to talk about clever folder games they have made up or hear from people who wonderful they are for being in our (cough) noble profession.

Thankfully, this was not the case. One of my coworkers rolls her own cigarettes and I assumed it was marijuana. I figured if she was lighting up a joint no one was going to judge me if I told a story about one of my students feigning retardation. At least I think he’s feigning. Apparently, she is just part Amish and they roll their own cigarettes. I’m not sure, but she gave me my opening to be recalcitrant and offensive.

Let it never be said that I claimed my student’s quirks and eccentricities were somehow sacrosanct or otherwise immune from mockery. The people who are not teachers at the party were surprised that teachers would tell these stories about their students and laugh at them behind their backs. Casey and I, to our credit, laugh at them then and there as well talking about them later. The stories were all well received and soon all the teachers were adding to the hilarity, each story better than the last.

Apparently, the myth that teachers leave school to spend their evenings in fervent prayer in a monastery somewhere persists. I am here to tell you that this is not the case. No one lets loose like teachers. There is only so long we can hold it all in before we burst, and people were certainly bursting that evening.

After Casey’s party we went to what her cousin calls the Vampire Bar. It is a Goth Club in Phoenix. I went along because it was Casey’s birthday and I am a reliable designated driver. I had no intention of dancing. I am trained to dance in formal situations but I cannot dance informally very well. It looks like I am constipated and having a seizure. I did not want to make a fool of myself so I tend to just hang back.

Casey had other ideas and I went out on the floor with my friends. Gothic music is nearly impossible for me to dance to. I could not discern a beat and the dancing of others was so erratic that I could not emulate it. I asked Kirsten what she was doing and she said, “I am just running in place, I can’t dance to this.” Next time I am going to Fox Trot with myself or listen to my iPod and dance to that. Luckily, one of Casey’s friends who teaches Kindergarten had passed her limit and kept on going got on the floor and decided that dance where you butt bump people until they fall over was dancing. This gave me an out to leave the dance floor.

I had intended to just dance and enjoy it. It was going to be an evening instead of a vignette or morality tale. I was going to enjoy myself for the sake of it but what I learned out on the dance floor was not how to throw down like a vampire but instead that if I have a soul I have the soul of a writer and my purpose is to tell stories to entertain people. The moral of the story, then, is that I have no morals and while Ryan is right that I should not live my life just to write about it I cannot get away from the fact that I eventually will.

A Return to the Mother Ship

Today's Special - Spritopias - Half Off

My birthday is next weekend, and that means I need to find my mother and father a present. They view the anniversary of my birth as their anniversary of their parenthood; they also get their parents and grand-parents presents on this occasion because a titled all these people - I was the first out of the gate on both sides of the family. I view this as just another trip around the sun – all I have done is not die for 365 days – but it is important to them so I play along.

Chaos and I trundled on down to IKEA (our mother ship) to find something inexpensive and clever for my parents. At the end of the story the receive bendy straws and a gift certificate to Mc Donald’s – a curious fetish for us off-the-boat people. We did not find anything they would need or want but we did find a few things for ourselves.

The genius of IKEA is selling things no one needs at an incredible price – today’s steal was champagne flutes for twenty-five cents and Astroturf bathmats for ninety-nine cents. The champagne flutes are a ridiculous waste because I do not drink (I am enjoying Black Cherry Vanilla Diet Coke in one right now) and why you would want an Astroturf bathmat is beyond me (my kids will play marbles on them on rainy days).

I do not shop often, but I have been to IKEA more times than I have been to Wal Mart. While we were checking out the cashier said, “you have to bag your own items,” I asked, a leading question, “how many bags do I use?” She said, “use as many as you need.” She said the same thing about the butcher paper used to wrap the unnecessary champagne flutes in and pointed us to an unattended wrapping station. Chaos said, “I would take the whole package of paper if I could lift it.” When I questioned the amount of butcher paper being used to wrap the quarter champagne flutes she said, “I did not pay a quarter for these to break on the way home.”

Sometimes I feel like I am on a reality television show because Chaos is so ridiculous so often that I just assume that it has a point that I am missing.

I should not make fun of her – I took about forty of their bags because it is against my morals to buy trash bags or can liners. You are literally throwing money away. I try to keep my garbage in the plastic sacks you get at the grocery – and I feel cheated when they do not double bag my purchases.

I really do not feel as if I stole because the woman clearly invited me to take as many as I needed. I am sure I needed more – but I did not want to seem like a glutton.

Five New Facts About Me

One
If you substitute the letters on my license plate for numbers then my license plate and home phone number – both randomly chosen – are the same.

Two
When I was little I had a blanket that I had to sleep with that was made by my great grandmother – she made me a larger one when I was eight, when I was eighteen and ready for college she made me another one to fit the dorm bed. I still have to have this blanket to sleep. There are duplicates at my mother’s house and my godmother’s house in case I am there or there is a nuclear attack and one of the blankets is incapacitated. I am not ashamed of this.

All of my male cousins on that side of the family have a similar behavior, one of them is a professional athlete and travels with his blanket. It cannot be in the room when he has sex – which is none of my business to repeat to you. We have a superstition that she is watching us via the blanket, we will be safe if we have the blanket because somehow a ninety five year old woman is going to save us from a boogie man that a man between twenty and thirty cannot outdo himself

I am asleep, under said blanket in the above picture.
Three
My friend Peter and I were born on the same day and we forget the other one’s birthday every year. Well, I remember I just never get him anything.

Four
My mother’s family is from Long Island; we summered there for most of my childhood and visited our cousins in New Jersey often. This meant copious amounts of crossing the Hudson River and passing Liberty State Park. I first saw the Statue of Liberty when I was 15 on a day trip to Paris, France.

I have never been in the statue, who wants to look at Brooklyn?

Five
I met Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 when she was running for Vice-President, wearing the Reagan-Bush ’84 button that George HW Bush gave me I told her that I thought her “everybody’s kids smoke pot – mine just got caught” excuse was a crock of shit. I was not really the cutest six year old you ever met but I was the most honest.

The Diarists Step Out

Spritopias & Suburban Island:
Existential Detectives

Tuesday, I took the Metro North Commuter from Union Station in New Haven to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan so I could meet Marie, the Eminence of Suburban Island, for dinner as she was in the City for business.

Normally, my train trips are uneventful because I plug myself into the iPod, fall asleep, and wake up in New York ready to march around the City. A moving vehicle is a moving vehicle and as long as I am not operating it, I am sleeping in it. This trip the battery in my iPod petered out and I was woken by the Poltergeist of Public Transportation. You know of whom I speak, that loud white man pontificating in ignorant, crude language about something, about which he knows next to nothing. I looked twice to make sure I wasn't the one annoying the entire train, and realizing it wasn't me, I tried to read Dante’s Divine Comedy - which I keep in my overcoat pocket for such occasions – but even that ancient poetry could not drown out this ignoramus.

Upon arriving at Grand Central Terminal, I top-sided into Manhattan and in keeping with tradition, promptly got lost. Keep in mind that Marie’s hotel was on the same block as the Terminal and there was absolutely no reason why I should have walked around as I did. I know my way around Manhattan, I insist on getting lost for the comedy.

thirty-one flavors of "save ferris"

When I was visiting my friend Emily in Colorado, I noticed something interesting. I am expected to tip – not just waitresses but also at Baskin Robbins, Starbucks, and the Gap. I was under the impression that they were all paid the same low wages I am – and no one tips me for anything that I do.

I find tipping at Starbucks to be the most absurd thing in the world. First, making a coffee is not the art form they purport it to be. I can do those same things in my own kitchen – I just lack the ingredients. If I kept them on hand, I would be as big as a house. However, Starbucks employees are paid minimum wage and have the option of Health Insurance. What kind of socialist dream world is this where the common worker gets such luxuries at Health Insurance – which as a teacher I am set to lose this year – and then expect tips? The irony of this is that I knew a Barista who complained about not getting tipped but did not tip waitresses when we would go out to eat. This ended our friendship. I cannot abide people who abuse the other proletarians - especially since they actually work for tips.

You said, “I love you.” I love me, too.

The eternal light is out. I went into the church last night and it was no longer lit. I am not sure what that means but I am sure it is not a good thing. I can verify that the Virgin Mary uses it to light her cigarettes, so at the very least, that is going to be a problem. (Shh! Jesus doesn’t know she smokes)

One of the things that my parents and friends have that I do not is cable television. I missed out on all the terrible reality television shows that there are in the world but I have something that my friends and family do not: a trashy neighborhood. If I shut the air conditioner off and crack the windows I can have any number of trashy reality shows – simultaneously – and it is the best during the summer.