The intellectual equivalent of a ham sandwich.

Posts tagged ‘Weekly Wacko’

Weekly Wacko (53)

Parenthood/Parent Trap

Recently a relative (and friend) had a widdle, tiny, awww, baby. CONGRATULATIONS!

This reminded me of a rambling note I wrote to my parents a few years ago. Thankfully my mom has the note, because if she didn’t I would have to dig it up and then be disgusted at my rambling, emotionally-tinted nonsense.

I wrote the letter the night before my parents 29th? 30th? wedding anniversary. Of all things, it was inspired by the movie Parenthood. The movie has Steve Martin, so, naturally, I am a big fan of it. Beyond that, it is a cheese-fest which I nevertheless like quite a bit.

My take-away from the movie was this: holy CRAP! It’s impossible to be a parent without screwing up eight, nine, or even ten (million) ways to Sunday!

I grabbed a paper and pencil and began my emotional, rambling thank you letter to my parents. It was a pretty conceited thank you, because it cited my brother, sister and I as proof that my parents had done a good job. I said congrats for three main reasons.

My brother, sister and I have these traits:

1) We have good senses of humor. The important thing here being not that we can crack jokes, but that we can laugh at ourselves. (I’m clearly biased here, but I find us very funny.)

2) We like to learn.

3) We’re nice people.*

*I’m not one hundred percent on this, but I think this was reason number three.

These are very basic things to celebrate, but when you get down to it I think not nearly enough people have these things.

I’ll take this opportunity to again say thanks mom and pop for doing a pretty good job. And when you consider how life can really get in the way, you did a very good job. When you consider how the Nintendo and sitcoms are way more interesting than most everything, you … oh man the funniest thing just happened on The Office. What was I saying?

The OTHER purpose of this blog entry is to say good luck to the new parents – my sister’s buddy and my cousin. Good luck with your tiny, pooping, eating, information-input-sponge-ing creatures. And, again biased, if it counts for anything I think you’ll do fantastically.

This picture is one of my nephews when he was very young (and my hands). I’m the baby of the family and the oldest kid I babysat growing up was 2. I found his size to be, frankly, crazy. But I think it’s good that kids come out so tiny – because hopefully it’ll make you appreciate how fragile they are in every way.

Also, if anyone looks up the definition of sap, I hope this post comes up.

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Weekly Wacko (52)

Bottle + Emotions = Manliness

Obviously guys aren’t alone in this trend, but they tend to represent it.

Today I was doing some work when one of my boss’s walked up. He stood in the middle of the cube hallway and looked left and right, between myself and another guy. Then he said, “I’m trying to decide who to tell this story to, who would find it funny.”

I turned to give him my attention, so he started telling it.

Apparently every Thursday he does the same order from a pizza place for his daughters. He’ll call up, tell them the order, pay the same price, and wha-la. Last week he ordered and the delivery was really late, which prompted him to call and complain. The pizza place apologized and took five dollars off his order. No biggie. Wellll, the ‘funny’ part of the story is that he called today and again it was five dollars off. My boss figured they entered the five dollars off in a computer and it wasn’t entered as a one-time thing, but accidentally as a permanent thing. He was laughing at, I guess, people’s dependence on computers (an ironic thing for a computer programmer to laugh at I would think).

Anyhow. He was tickled while telling this story and then joking about it with us. I recommended he call and complain a few times, and eventually the delivery guy will arrive with two pizzas and twenty bucks to give him.

The story didn’t do much for me, but I really liked my boss because he did something I (and probably many people) do. He was very excited about something but didn’t necessarily want to talk about it or share those feelings, so instead he was unnecessarily giddy/happy about something that really didn’t warrant it.

His wife was/is in the Philippines and there was a scare for a while because he hadn’t heard from her (for my/whoever’s future reference – there was a hurricane that hit there). Today he got some great news, she’ll be back home tomorrow. Big sigh of relief.

My boss heard this and just kind of wandered around smiling and cracking jokes, trying to find some way to deal with, I would imagine, how relieved and happy he was feeling. I suppose he could’ve bear-hugged random people walking by, but he’s a pretty strong-looking dude and that may have killed some of our older co-workers.

Anyhow – I really enjoy that. I think it’s a common trait and it’s great to see.

Now, here are two little wrinkles to this story.

One, my boss at one point said to someone, “I’m not excited about the pizza, I’m relieved because my wife is coming home.” This ruins my whole being manly and projecting emotions into another story angle.

The other way it was ruined a bit was this hysterical/lame quote from my boss. After saying how relieved and happy he was to get to see his wife again and know she’s safe and it’s good for their daughters and this and that … “Also I get to play golf Saturday!”

Emotions, huh? So complex and golf-oriented.

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Weekly Wacko (51)

I’m A Jerk

Yes. It’s true. I’m a jerk. Sometimes deliberately, more often without knowing it (I am a very stereotypical boy/engineer/moron).

There was one time I was a jerk with a publishing effort though. It’s pretty bad.

When I was living in California I saw a book called In Me Own Words: The Autobiography of Bigfoot. I picked it up and glanced at it and it struck me as very quirky humor that I loved. Fantastic.

A book I read about trying to get published recommended that, when I see a book I like or that I find similar to my style (whatever that is), I should look at the publisher and try to find the author’s agent in the acknowledgements section.

I looked and this book was published by Manic D Press, which was, gasp!, in San Francisco! This, I thought, is a sign. Seriously, I really thought this was a good omen. It’s a good thing I don’t live outside New York City (where there are about 5 billion publishers and literary agents) because I’d constantly be getting my hopes dashed.

Anyhow. I looked up Manic D Press’s site and I noticed that the quirky/fun/humor books were in the minority of their publications. Nevertheless, I thought I had a good chance with a small publishing house. I could write a sincere query letter that would get me noticed and they’d invite me up for an interview and find my awkward, nervous, rambling self charming for God knows what reason and … wha-la. Dream accomplished.

Manic D recommended people to read some of their published works, and talk about them in their query letter. They wanted to make sure your work jives with their overall style. Can do, I thought. I was in downtown Mountain View and I noticed Fears of Your Life by Michael Bernard Loggins.

If you know about this book you can go ahead and cringe.

I picked up the book, glanced through it, and loved it. It was yet another quirky, charming, oddball bit of humor. The author had, in his own handwriting, written fears he had for just about everything. I identified with a few of them, and it cracked me up. I bought the book and was crafting the query letter to Manic D in my head.

A few weeks later I finally got around to writing and sending the query letter. I wrote to Manic D about my haiku collection. I am proud of the haiku set, and I have a few that are San Francisco-specific, which I thought would be neat. Again, daydreams flowed about readings in weird little book stores in San Francisco.

Months after that I was at some sort of outdoor art and book festival in San Francisco near the De Young Museum. One of the tables was for Manic D, and my friend urged me to go talk with them. I declined and pulled her aside, telling her about my query letter and my big gaffe.

A month or so after I sent the query letter I was still waiting for a response. I was wondering if I’d made some obvious mistake on my query letter, so I re-read it. It seemed ok to me. I pulled out the books to make sure they were both from Manic D Press. For the first time I looked at the back of Fears of Your Life.

On the back of the book, in plain sight (whoops), is this: “Michael Bernard Loggins, an adult with developmental disabilities, battles his fears by listing more than one hundred of them.”

I change my mind, I’m promoting myself to an ass-hole.

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