Welcome to “Downtime with Danita.”
Please feel free to read this in any accent of your choosing. At present, my exuberance at “hosting” is a cross between Oprah circa 1988 and Barbara Walters at mid-head tilt.
At approximately 2:30 p.m. today I hit the proverbial wall.
It’s the same wall as Pink Floyd’s I think, as in all in all this day, this whole work thing (insert the index and middle fingers do the quote sign here), it’s all just another brick in the wall.
I was temporarily redeemed when I heard Steve Perry shout out to me from my Pandora box – “You shoulda been gone!”
Boy was he tellin’ it.
Shoulda been gone indeed … outside enjoying this fantastic 78 degree weather.
But now, like Steve and Sherrie’s love, I’m still sitting here holdin’ on.
I realized that it’s been a long while since I made any observations – not that they’re exactly necessary – but I got tired of clicking on the page expecting someone to have written something.
About Famous Amos Cookies:
I think I would like to be famous sometimes, but not for Paris Hilton or Pink’s “Stupid Girl” reasons, but you know so that in the event that I wanted to chuck it all and head to St. Tropez, I could do so.
In the meantime of my not being famous, I’ve taken to developing various infatuations with fame:
I’m a Capricorn. George Clooney is a Taurus. We are compatible. Don’t ask me what is taking him so long to figure this out. It’s in the stars for God’s sake.
When those typical people on your job – you all have them – but when they get within 10 feet of you or in your periphery you know how you tighten your lips, you take a long, deep breath in, you hold it as you feel your back align itself into the most erect position as you turn to face them … and somewhere inside you, you feel the heat of the lights center in on your mark and then you hear the director’s voice say, “Aaaaand action!” … and thus begins what in 10 seconds (or however long they preen in your presence) amounts to your Oscar-winning performance. You’re doing so well that as the person talks at you, you affirm it to yourself: “This is Oscar right here. I’m going to go ‘head and draft my speech. I’d like firstly to thank the Academy…” Somewhere between the 80th “mmm hmmm” and the eye rolls you wake up and realize that they have asked something of you or blithely passed something off upon you and you have claimed responsibility for it … unwittingly, as you thought the batting of your eyes was for the paparazzi.
At any rate, by far the most successful of these has been my partnership with Famous Amos. I’m not sure for what it is that he’s famous, but I live vicariously through his fame, experiencing the instant gratification that comes with such a companion. It’s successful because the vicarious living thing is mutual.
(Someone just burned some popcorn, so if this suddenly reads like I’ve lost my absolute mind, please know that I have. Please also know that it’s not very professional looking to have your face tucked into your shirt as you try not to inhale the disgusting burnt popcorn smell.)
But Famous Amos loves me, too. Never before has his life reached such great potential, manifesting the sheer breadth of his reach through me – my ever-expanding hips, thighs and gut.
Sadly, like the ways and woes of all relationships tainted by fame, we cannot last. We do not last. My elliptical machine is a jealous … I was going to type lover, but who would believe that that could be love. I bloody hate that thing.
However, elliptical and myself take two steps forward, and two steps back. We come together, I guess, ‘cause opposites attract.
Do you think that ACRONYM is in fact an acronym?
I have often wondered this, because whenever I see this word or an actual acronym, I wonder whose idea this was.
Anyhow, a couple of weeks ago I took an Excel training course because I felt it couldn’t hurt to get a true overview of the fundamentals. Excel for me was never one of those things where I had a class that required me to use it outside of making the simplest pie chart ever, so I figured I could benefit from some tutelage.
Of course, this was a beginner’s course. But within the first half hour I, and a few other classmates, quickly learned that beginner didn’t just apply to Excel, but to the computer itself. We had one person in there, bless her heart, who followed the mouse along the screen with the pointer finger from her left hand. I felt this was the equivalent of those Nintendo players who would jump with Mario and would yank my controllers in the most unsatisfactory of manners. But she made the day long, asking how to cut and paste, how to click and drag, how to save, how to create a new folder, where to find it, etc.
It’s times like that where I thanked the Lord that I’d had the advantages that I have had and do have, you know? It also helped me not to cuss my computer at home out so quickly when it took a little longer to do something … it could be worse. It could be, as my dear, terse 7th grade math teacher Mrs. I-wear-my-OSU-buckeye-vest-with-pride Neal would say, “Operator troubles.”
(I hated it when she said that, whenever my calculator wasn’t functioning properly. She had one of those ol’ smarmy Nellie Oleson voices, and when you’d raise your hand and say, “Mine came out negative instead of positive,” she’d reply all full of smarm, “Oh, I dunno Dineeta. Must be operrater troubles.” And she’d make that face that I now realize is really the Dick Cheney “I AM smiling” face.)
Anyway, speaking of Mrs. Neal, I’m in the Excel class following along and checking my email when the instructor writes the following on the board and asks us for the answer:
2+3x4 = __
Everyone shouts out twenty; everyone takes turns affirming with yeps, yups, gotta bes. The beginner, whose voice was very much like Seymour’s girlfriend’s in Little Shop of Horrors, chimes that it’s definitely 20 because, “Two plus three is five and then five times four is (pause) twenty!”
The instructor just stands there and I’m like. People.
“Fourteen,” I say flatly from the back of the classroom. Everyone turns around to stare at me as if I’m retarded. One man goes, “How in the hell can that be fourteen?” and looks at me like, you obviously aren’t smart.
“Correct. Very good,” chimes the instructor. “It seems Danita is the only person who knows the rules of PEMDAS.”
“PEMDAS?” everyone echoes around the room.
Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally. I remember when Mrs. Neal first said that I looked at her like, of course you’d have an Aunt Sally that would need to be excused, especially if she owns as much starched polyester as you appear to possess.
But that was maybe the first time – that I’d noticed at least – when something I learned in math class (whew!) 13 years ago (?!) was actually applicable. It pleased me more than I realized it would, but that was probably because I’d forgotten the euphoria that comes with being one of, if not the, smartest kid in the class.
Oh, and just so you know, Rachel is one of my acronym agents. Ttyl, Ttyt, brb and a host of others that I’m like, eh? (I do have loti, but I really do spend a great deal of time laughing on the inside.) But often I find myself typing acronyms with her just so I can feel like I’m a part of her world (totally struggling to get The Little Mermaid out of my system!). So the other week I came up with, wy_s.
The _ is left open for whatever word you pick, but wy and s are for, “with your _ self.”
So, wybs would be “with your bad self” for instance. Or you can also sub in h for the y to have, whbs (with his bad self). It’s a great add-on at the end of comments that are about somebody else (hence the self). This is a nicer way of saying, “this his how you double diss someone after you already done said something crazy about their behind.”
For example: Snotty gets on somebody’s nerves, so you note that Snotty is stupid, short and has halitosis. And for extra measure, you toss in a li’l whss … with his stank self.
My sister Kim could medal in this event, as she is always adding on her own with-selves (as we shall call it). My favorites come when she sees some chick on TV that’s lauded for being all that. Kim can play the verbal hater like nobody else. Just let her see Beyonce or J. Lo or anybody really on TV.
“She ain’t all that. Need to do something about them (insert body part of choice here). Look at ‘er. Actin’ like she all this and that. Don’t nobody want her with her funky tail.”
whft.
It’s charming.
Because it’s been awhile since I’ve referenced it, and whenever it comes back to me it always feels like its right on time:
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
I just felt like saying that to y’all.
I feel like so many of my tellings come with sighs. Me, the old soul, who for the past week whenever seen out with my sister has been confused for being the elder of we two. I’m finally okay with it. I used to find it highly insulting. I mean hello? Nine years between us, but that’s what you get when you judge books by their covers. It is what it is.
*sigh*
Your nice, neatly wrapped, but not tied all together ending:
The new user pic - I call it:
Fly girl with a faux pearl earring
Young girl with old eyes
Gazing wearily wonders,
“Can work e’er be loved?”