Diet Coke-Part 3 (The Thrilling Conclusion)

Edit: So you know that scene in Happy Gilmore where Happy is begging for help from his old mentor? He says “You are smart, I am stupid. You are handsome, I am ugly. You are a good man, I am dirt,” etc etc. Something along those lines. I’m paraphrasing because I can’t find a clip.

Anyhoo, I would like to say that to Wieden+Kennedy. They are awesome, and I am dumb. I assumed and made an ass of myself. Not so much them. A comment from someone I didn’t know on this post prompted me to open the fridge box. Guess what? It’s a freakin’ DIET COKE MINI FRIDGE!

I can only apologize for not opening it earlier. My husband works with a bunch of college kids; they’re going back to school. We were going to give it to one of them. Didn’t occur to me to open the box when I thought someone would come to pick it up.

But this sucker is mine! WOOHOO! DIET COKE MINI FRIDGE!  I will post a pic shortly, once I can get my husband to help me move it.

What follows is my original post, in all its ignorant glory.

****
My faith in humanity has officially been restored.

It is not covered with my beloved Diet Coke logo. It is not overflowing with Diet Cokes. There were no cameras to record the delivery and my fake surprise.

But it’s a reasonable approximation, and for that I am grateful. They owed me nothing, but they hooked me up anyway. And let’s be honest, they had no real need to do it. 500+ twitter followers made for a grand total of 1 comment on the previous posts. A few people tweeted me, but not so many people tweeted them. They had no reason to think that anyone cared but me, but they came through anyway.

Bravo to Wieden+Kennedy for being staffed with decent human beings. My cynicism has abated slightly today, so thanks for that.

Diet Coke-Part 2

Well, I know that you’re all dying to know what the response has been to my Diet Coke woes #yeahright.  Well, I’ll tell you anyway. It’s been pretty flippin’ amazing, really.  I got an email from Wieden+Kennedy.  Here’s what it said:

Thanks for sharing and making us aware of this. I’m really sorry for the confusion and frustration.

Yep, that’s it.  Aside from the Dears and the Bests.  I emailed Diet Coke at their website, but you know those emails are probably going right to Wieden+Kennedy, too.  There’s no phone number there.

I’ve contacted a marketing not-really acquaintance in Portland. Maybe he’s tight with the W+K crew, but that’s probably wishful thinking.

In the interim, I reviewed them on Google Maps.  Did you know you could do that?  Anyone could.  Anyone at all.

Hmmmm.

If you might be so moved to show some support, you could go do this:

1) Go to www.google.com/maps (that will open in a new window so you can refer back here)
2) Search for Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, OR
3) Click on the big blue link to Wieden+Kennedy on the left.
4) Write a review.  Tell the truth, of course.  No lying necessary. Say they make mistakes, and they don’t correct them. Simple as that.

Or you could leave a comment below.  Or RT the tweet whereby you found this?  Many, many options that might make them take a little more notice.

Many thanks!

***

Edit: View the happy conclusion to this story here.

Diet Coke

I’m not impressed with Diet Coke at the moment, or the companies they choose to represent them.  In a nutshell, they told me that I was one of 29 winners chosen to receive a surprise.  Because of multiple mistakes on their part, I didn’t get this surprise.  When I alerted them to the error, they sent me an insult.

Here was the original surprise, given to hand-picked Diet Coke fans in honor of their 29th birthday: http://twitter.com/#!/DietCokeUS/status/96935516980781056  A Diet Coke mini-fridge filled with Diet Coke.  Plus a film crew to record the “surprised” people.

Despite contacting them multiple times via phone and email, I didn’t receive my surprise because “they didn’t hear from me.”  You see, [oh, let's protect the not-so-innocent, shall we?] at Wieden+Kennedy told me on the phone that she is “very bad with voicemail.”  And she suspects that she is unable to accept yahoo email, though she didn’t have a problem emailing me at my yahoo account and didn’t mention that in the email.  I explained to her what happened, sent screenshots and the original emails, and she sympathized and apologized.  She said she was sending another surprise.  I waited patiently, because hey, we all make mistakes.

Well, I got my surprise today.  http://twitter.com/#!/DietCokeGeekGal/status/101074616755298304

12 sodas.  Well, I sure was surprised.  Also incredibly unimpressed.  I used to work for a marketing company that handled sweepstakes, and I remember the employees scrambling to get in touch with people.  Due diligence, they called it.  It was important.  Apparently not to Wieden+Kennedy.

To be clear, I never asked for a reward.  I didn’t reach out to them, they reached out to me.

http://twitter.com/#!/DietCokeUS/status/91622326680043521

I DMed them right away, and received an email from them on July 15th.  I responded the same day, naturally.  I was ecstatic.

When Wieden+Kennedy didn’t hear back from me, they could have tweeted me again.  They could have DMed me.  They could have emailed me again, alerting me to the fact that they’d never heard a response to their first email.

No, I didn’t ask for a reward for 3 years of free advertising.  But I also didn’t ask for a slap in the face, and for some reason, that seems to be what I’ve gotten.

***

Edit: This story does have a happy ending.  Check it out here.

#MoreForMore

Today I concocted a scheme. It’s a bit of an evil scheme, but I think it’s clever all the same. It’s about Netflix and their recently announced rate hike. I like to think of it as a…disincentive. *insert evil laughter here*

Like many people, I was distraught when I received the email from Netflix about their plan to raise rates. I raged for a bit, contemplated keeping my 1 DVD plan, and then decided I’d downgrade to streaming only. After all, there are more convenient ways to get DVDs. Plus, I imagined that losing my $2 a month would really stick it to Netflix.

But of course it would save Netflix money, really. They’d have to pay less for postage. They probably WANT me to downgrade to streaming only. Realizing this, I was again filled with impotent rage. They want 60% more money, and they don’t even pretend to offer more value for it. It’s mildly insulting.

So today I got to thinking, what if I kept my 1 DVD plan, and I used it? I mean, REALLY used it. No more sitting on Watchmen for 4 months (I actually sent it back unwatched, somewhat ironically). What if I filled up my queue with the latest and greatest movies and faithfully returned them the same day they arrived? What if the cost of postage to send me DVDs exceeded $16/month?

Frankly, I’m not even sure it’s possible. I don’t know how much postage they pay, and I know they throttle usage after a point.

Still, they are asking for more money. I think it’s fair to ask for more value. Their value comes from their DVDs, so that means asking for more DVDs. #MoreForMore

However, if it’s just me doing this, it’s just petty, meaningless revenge. Even if I manage to cost them more than I’m paying them, it’s not going to hurt their gigantic profits, right?

Have you figured it out yet? This is the evil scheme bit. Because if I do it alone, it really won’t make any difference. It might give me a sort of malicious pleasure, but it wouldn’t be worth $8/month. But if I had a few people join me (OK, a whole lot of people join me), then all of a sudden Netflix’s costs actually might go up.

At this point (in my brain) (megalomania-wha?), my evil scheme has gathered enough attention that Netflix itself is aware of it. And they come to us, the social media blogo-twitterverse, and they say, “Listen, if we return to our old pricing plans and only raise the rates a reasonable amount to cover our rising costs, will you please stop getting so many DVDs?”

Because I’m on the side of good in my evil scheme, a crusader for justice like Norma Rae, I imagine the social media blogo-twitterverse replies, “Yes, of course we will, Netflix. See, we’re not so unreasonable.” And then we’ll all go back to not watching DVDs for months at a time. Because the status quo makes us all happier.

I don’t blame Netflix for charging more. Companies have every reason to act in their best interest. So let’s make it in their best interest to reverse this rate hike.

Tattoos, Titles, and Translations

I just finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I had high expectations for this novel, having seen it prominently featured for months on Amazon and other places. I erroneously assumed this meant it was ridiculously good. Silly Annie. It means the publisher has a great marketing department.

But hey, it was translated from Swedish, and I assume a book has to jump through some serious hoops before that happens, right?

37% into the book (my Kindle tells me my exact progress), I had an idea for a subtitle. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: The Exposition that Would Not Die (a horror novel). You keep thinking that it’s over, and then BAM! He hits you with another round of dry-as-dust prose. God help us.

I’ve since learned that the author was a journalist. YES. That makes sense. The story actually is interesting, but it’s not really my genre (Where are the elves and unicorns? Spaceships? Scary monsters from another dimension? Wait, why am I reading this again?). The lack of appealing content combined with the writing style made this a very long read for me.

I also cannot help but wonder what part the translator played in making it difficult to read (This link indicates the English editor is to blame). The prose is so matter-of-fact, you can’t help but feel that someone ran portions of it through Google Translate. Nuances were (I will assume, for the sake of honoring the author’s memory) lost in the process.

I learned after finishing the book that its title in Swedish is Men Who Hate Women. This is by far a more accurate description of the book’s contents. I certainly remember wondering when this tattooed girl was going to make an appearance. She’s not the main protagonist.

I’m not saying that the English title is bad or wrong, but I spent a significant chunk of reading this book waiting for The Girl and looking forward to learning more about The Girl than I would have (I think) had it retained its original title. Then again, I might not have wrestled with it long enough to get to The Girl had she not been in the title. Maybe that was the publisher’s trick. If so, bravo.

I don’t understand why titles should be so dramatically different from one country to another, though I vividly remember when I learned of this phenomenon.

I’m a huge Stephen King fan (scary monsters from another dimension, you’ll recall), and on a trip to Graz, Austria, I found his books in a store. I was struck by the titles of the Dark Tower books. For some reason they were all one word in their German incarnations. This was horribly confusing because the 2nd book is titled Three (shortened from The Drawing of the Three). For someone who just learned German numbers, this was a really nasty trick to play.

Even in English I think this title would be a strange choice, though.

Imagine, if you will, you’re going to buy the 2nd book in a series from Barnes and Nobles:

You: “I need the 2nd Dark Tower book, please.”
Clerk: “Let’s see…ah, here it is, Three.”
You: “No, I need the 2nd book.”
Clerk: “Yes, Three.”
You: “No, two.”
Clerk: “Three is two.
You: *head explodes*

Oh, you’re a robot in this scenario. Did I forget to mention that?

The title that really bothered me, though, was the first one. The Gunslinger had been changed to Black. If you’re a fan of the series, you’re aware that the first line of the book is “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” King talks about how much he loves that line, and it takes on even greater significance by the end of the series.

Given the importance of this first sentence, the choice to change the title from The Gunslinger to Black seems like a monumental shift to me. Two characters are introduced in the that sentence. The German reader will identify that the title refers to the “man in black,” who is the antagonist. An American reader will identify it with the protagonist. I can’t help but think that would affect your perception of a book.

Perhaps it’s a clever marketing ploy that reflects cultural currents that I didn’t pick up on in my 6 weeks in Austria. Perhaps Austrians want to read about the darker side, the Sturm und Drang, and Americans want to read about the hero cowboy. Of course the Gunslinger has plenty of Sturm und Drang to spare, but you can’t get that from the title. Unless you change the title to something more descriptive, like “The Antisocial Gunslinger with Mommy Issues.” But I don’t think anyone would buy that, no matter what language it’s written in.

Perhaps part of the reasoning was that “Gunslinger” in German becomes “Revolvermann.” That translates literally to “Revolver Man” in English. It’s not quite a sexy-sounding as “one who slings guns.” Still, I don’t think that justifies changing the titular character.

I wonder how much, if any, control an author has over the title and translation of his/her books. I considered writing to Mr. King and alerting him to this huge mistake in the translator’s judgment. Of course I didn’t, and perhaps it wasn’t a mistake at all. Maybe it’s that kind of translating, with cultural nuances in mind, that would have made The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo a tad more readable.

THIS IS TWITTER

The other day I got very drunk when I was very upset, and I decided early in my drunken-getting that I did not want to post my drunken miserable thoughts to all of twitter.  I’ve done it in the past, and people get all “what’s the matter?” and “are you ok?” and it’s frankly a bit of a buzz-kill.

At the same time, I didn’t want to let any of my drunken brilliance go to waste (being drunk, I felt I was being brilliant), so I created an OpenOffice document and at the top wrote THIS IS TWITTER.  That way I could write whatever I wanted, and I could look back later and share the good stuff with you.

Brilliant it is not, but it is pretty damn funny.  A little sad, but remember, I’m better now!

Here’s the back-story.  You may or may not know that recently I got turned down for a job that I was repeatedly assured by several people was “in the bag.”  My father-in-law (who is British, hence the first “tweet”) works as a higher-up at the company, and while I was pretty severely overqualified for the position, there seemed to be lots of good growth potential, so I was excited about it.

Anyway, I didn’t get the job, and I was very upset.   Now I’ve had time to reflect that it’s all for the best and all that crap, so I now feel comfortable sharing the following with you.

The following takes place between roughly 1:00 p.m., and, by the looks of it, 3.  Enjoy.

THIS IS TWITTER

Dear Mum-in-law: Glad that bastard left you. You can do BETTER! He’s a great tosser, pillock, etc [insert british insult here]

watching spongebob movie. That’s right. With merlot it’s even BETTER.

Fuck you, open office. I don’t have to capitalize merlot.

Not going to open twitter. NOT. HAVE ENOUGH SELF PRESERVATION.

“I never agreed” -plankton’s computer wife re: agreeing to marry spongebob

Was Spongebob the movie ever in theaters? I mean really.

OK, I’m going to open twitter but not respond. (Danger Will Robinson!) (I am a geek!) (I deserved that job, I did) (I’m overqualified. I can do BETTER)

I think I liked Spongebob movie sober, but I must say, drunk, it is still funny. Perhaps better.

“I’m a goofy goober yeah, you’re a goofy goober yeah, we’re all goofy goobers yeah, goofy goofy goofy goobers yeah yeah!”

Vomit vommit vommit puke future. Prediction. Ugh wine is evil.

I drank a whole bottle of merlot. Mais pourquois?

Alcohol is amazing. It’s like I never didn’t get the job.

Was the Spongebob movie in theaters? Ever? I’m not following it anymore. I’m not feeling well.

Shhhhhh…listen. Do you smell something?

I want ot have sex with Scarlett Johanssen. But not her mermaid counterpart in Spongebob movie.

Listen…do you smell something? Ghostbusters. The Guild. Oh yeah.

On a positive note, I still enjoy The IT Crowd. It’s probably for the best that I don’t have to say “Have you tried turning it off and on and again?”

I keep wondering when they’re going to call me and explain they have a better position lined up for me.

Giving up and sleeping at 3 seems like a sensible solution.

Can you tell I’m tweeting drunK?! Can you, motherfuckers?!?!

Car Carnage

I complained that I had insomnia the other day, and someone* postulated that it was the approaching full moon causing it.  I have no idea if the suggestion was serious, but I don’t discount the possibility that the moon could affect my sleeping pattern or general mood.  It affects the tides, why not me?  I’m littler than an ocean.

Anyway, I witnessed two rather significant and yet unrelated events on the road today less than 5 minutes apart.  One of them was so obviously emotionally motivated, I thought of the full moon again.

The first event occurred when I was driving down a fairly main road in Greenville, 123.  2 lanes each way without a median.  35 speed limit.  Lots of cars (well, lots for Greenville).  I was weaving in and out of slower traffic, people stopping to turn left or right, or just going slower than I.  I like to go about 5-10 over depending on my mood. Today I felt like going 10 over.  But I don’t force it, and I wasn’t feeling particularly cranky or anything.  I really wasn’t.  I’d tell you.  I was in my Civic.  Hard to be a hardass in a Civic (not that I haven’t tried).  There was an ambulance in the left lane, and I was in the right lane.  The ambulance did not have its sirens or lights on.  I’m convinced it was as much as surprise to him/her as it was to the rest of us.

We rounded a curve, and the first thing I noticed was the smoke.  On the opposite side of the road, a car had run squarely into a telephone pole and had subsequently caught on fire.  I didn’t notice the pole at first, though, I thought the car had just broken down.  I’ve seen cars smoking before.  Bad news.  Really sad for the owner, but not something worthy of slowing down for.  I wasn’t really focused on it.  I just wanted to drive.

Silly me.

We were slowing down.  We were stopping inexplicably.  Two cars ahead of me, a car had come to a full stop and had started questioning the people lining the street.  At this point I had time to notice the pole.  I also noticed the police car preventing cars from coming in the opposite direction.  We weren’t blocked, except by the person who wanted a first-hand account.  You know, just a few hundred feet from the fire.  And by now it was a fire.  I could see flames.  And I noticed that the flames were awfully close to the wooden pole.

The ambulance came to a stop in the left lane, effectively blocking all forward-going traffic.  I don’t blame him/her.  That’s what ambulances are for.  It was an emergency.  But we shouldn’t have been stopping.  Oh no.  Fire.  Close.  I mean, I enjoy seeing things destroyed as the next girl (well, apparently I don’t, because as I pulled away I saw people lining the street with their cell phones up, presumably videotaping the fun), but I didn’t really want to be so close to the FIRE.  Hello, FIRE.  Fire + wood + idiots…just didn’t seem like a good combo.  I had visions of needing to abandon my car while it burned.  That vision made me sad.  Not panicky, the fire wasn’t really close, but sad.  I had different, but equally upsetting visions, of needing to stay there a long, long time while they cleared up the wreck and maybe even questioned people.  Oh no, I didn’t want to be a part of this fun.

Very luckily, my visions didn’t take too long.  So I was able to safely turn left and execute a u-turn before the cars behind us started piling up.  And pile up they did, which was a bitch for the FIRE TRUCK that NEEDED TO GET THROUGH.  Fucking nitwits.  I’m not sure why I don’t enjoy watching destruction and misery as much as other people.  Maybe I’d enjoy life more if I did.

Anyway, I was safely away from the fire.  Yes, I missed getting to see a car possibly explode into pretty shrapnel bits, maybe beheading a firefighter or two (oh joy!), but I did manage to minimize my inconvenience.  Score.  So I was going home the long way when, honestly not 5 minutes later, I saw another car.  Two cars.  A white pick-up truck in front, and behind it a very nice looking Mustang.  I think it was a Mustang.  It was grey with black stripes, I think.  I like the look of muscle cars ever since Top Gear, and my husband taught me to drive a stick shift on an old Mustang.  But this was a pretty, new Mustang.

And the driver of this pretty, new Mustang was driving forward, repeatedly, and quite intentionally, hitting the back of the pick up truck.  Not hard.  More of a tap.  But still, making contact.  This was, understandably, angering the owner of the pick up truck.  Who was not sitting in his truck.  Oh no.  He was standing to the side of the point of impact.  He was yelling and gesturing angrily.  I mean, I didn’t hear any yelling, I wasn’t that close and my A/C was running like crazy, but it was clear in every muscle of his body.  This was an angry man.  At one point he turned to go back into his truck, and then the Mustang hit it AGAIN!  I imagined Mustang driver laughing maniacally as he taunted the pick-up driver.  And sure enough, the pick-up driver turned around and started yelling at the Mustang person again.

The strangest thing of all of this (well, part of the strangeness, perhaps not the strangest thing) was that the Mustang wasn’t even hitting the pick-up truck itself.  It was hitting the trailer hitch that extended well back behind the truck itself.  I’m familiar with this hitch because my Civic has a nasty indentation in the front.  I suspect it was caused by just such a hitch.  It appeared overnight in a cramped apartment parking lot.  No note, though I’m sure the driver noticed.  Ah well, such is life.  My Civic is still beautiful to me.

Anyway, so all the driver of the Mustang was doing was hurting his or her own car.  Over and over.  And with lots of cars around witnessing this event and the scratches to prove it, I’m sure the police will see what happened.  And the insurance company will understand what happened.

So all of this begs the question, what the hell was the Mustang driver thinking?  What events precipitated this action?  Was it something the pick-up driver did?  Was it something that had happened earlier that day?  That week?  That year?  What happened to prompt this repeated malicious assault on his or her own vehicle, which will almost certainly have financial and legal consequences?  And why was the driver of the pick up yelling at this obviously disturbed person?  Why was he not in the pick-up (for I don’t think the Mustang driver was trying to hurt him, but if he/she was, running toward one of the many nearby stores), calling 911?

As I drove away, again minimizing my inconvenience (I sound so cold, hmmm), I thought again of the moon, waxing its way toward fullness.  The Mustang driver was clearly possessed of some kind of blind rage.  The kind of rage that makes you say, “fuck it, I don’t care anymore.”  I can sympathize with that.  Come to think of it, the rage wasn’t that blind.  It could have been infinitely worse.  He could have driven over the pick-up driver, or done real damage to the pick-up itself.  But no, the driver was only hurting him or herself over and over, like the man holding a hot coal to throw at someone, resulting only in a nasty burn to himself (thank you, Buddha).

I’m always comforted in a small and bitter way by seeing behavior like that.  My thoughts are a mixture of “See, it could be worse,” and “There but for the grace of God go I.”  It’s not a very pleasant feeling, but it’s inevitably there.

So yeah.  Weird day.  I have to drive home now, and I’m going to do it very slowly and carefully.

Drive safe.  Happy thoughts.

*Addition after publication: That someone who suggested that I was sensitive to the moon was @EricaVanaver on Twitter.  She’s not weird.  Just open minded.  You should follow her and her cat, @QuentinTheCat, if you’re not already doing so.

Personifying Transportation

I’ve heard somewhere that women actually name their cars more than men, despite stereotypes to the contrary.  My experience has actually confirmed this.  I certainly enjoy naming my cars, and I put a lot of thought and effort into it.

In fact, I don’t just give my car a name.  My cars have entire personalities.  I don’t really know if that’s normal or implied in the name-giving ritual, but it’s what I do.  My first car was a Mercury Grand Marquis.  I got it from my parents for a very small sum.  It was quite old and had quite a few miles on it.  It had a million little quirks, like the way that the passenger side window’s motor constantly needed replacing (yeah right, we just shut it and kept it closed forever after the 2nd motor).  Also the way that you couldn’t put the A/C on halfway.  It was freezing cold blasting air or nothing.  Also the fact that it was huge, and I was constantly running over curbs (OK, that’s probably more my quirk than the car’s).

It burned oil.  I’d take it into a service shop for an alignment (my boyfriend called it the wiggle-mobile) and they’d call, panicked, saying it had no oil and the engine was likely to explode unless they performed a $300 repair.  I’d tell them to just perform the alignment, thanks, and I’d put a bottle of oil into it when I got there.  A week later, it would be empty again.  I pretty much never refilled the oil.  That would just make it burn oil, and that smelled and looked bad.

You may be surprised to learn that Sally’s engine did not explode from lack of lubrication.  No, because I didn’t tell you about her best quirk: the awful, awful creaking noise she made when you turned the wheel.  I can’t explain exactly what happened at the end.  Only that I turned the wheel all the way one way and all the way the other (something had happened, I knew something was wrong, and my boyfriend was diagnosing the problem by looking at the car while I was sitting in the car, turning the wheel), and the car simply fell down.  I was sitting in it, and everything that keeps the car suspended over the passenger side front wheel decided that it simply couldn’t go on anymore.  It fell down.  I fell down with it, bounced a bit with it, and then burst into tears.

Because Sally, for all her quirks, had taken me around quite faithfully for a couple years by this point.  I thought of her as a maternal figure.  She was old, and she was big (my boyfriend made boat horn noises every time I drove in reverse).  And maybe she wasn’t fancy or clever or pretty.  But who cares?  She took care of me.  And I would miss her.

Wow, I devoted a lot of space to Sally, may she rest in peace.  Next there was Pearl.  She’s a Civic.  I picked her name because it also sounded like a maternal figure.  And let’s face it, there’s nothing too wild and crazy about a Civic.  But Pearl’s not like Sally.  She’s a more hip mom, who knows how to text.  And not weird mom texts.  Normal person texts.  Pearl has given me absolutely no problems thusfar (knock on wood).

But I also have named my motorcycles.  My first, a 250, was named Ch. Black Horse and the Cherry Tree.  I was watching a lot of dog shows then, and I thought I was quite witty.  My latest, a Suzuki Boulevard M50 (~850 cc), is Horse with No Name.  Partially to continue the theme, but also because I didn’t name this one for a long time.  Plus I love that song.

The strangest thing I realized, though, is that Horse with No Name is a boy.  Around 19.  That might sound kinda sexual (and yes I realize we generally call cars and boats women’s names because it is, in fact, a little sexual, but it hasn’t been the case for me, as I think I’ve demonstrated).  Especially because of the way that motorcycles are ridden.  But 19 year old boys really don’t do it for me anymore.  No, I rather think it’s because he’s a little too large and a little too loud.  Plus he’s a little crazy.  Motorcycle riding is a little crazy, after all.

Anyway, I’m not sure what makes me want to bond with my vehicles, but I’ve certainly enjoyed it.

Dog Days of Summer

It’s hot here.  It’s hot everywhere right now.  I’d like to try to explain how hot days make me feel.  Not all the time, but today I felt it, and it was terrible.

I vividly remember being at summer camp in Texas.  I don’t remember what the camp was.  The theme, I mean.  Horse camp or swimming camp or YMCA camp or whatnot.  It wasn’t sea camp; that was in Mississippi, and the flashback I have on hot days involves no water at all.  I went to a lot of camps when I was a kid.  My parents had money then, and they could send me wherever I wanted.  I think it was in San Antonio.  It might have been Corinth (near Dallas) or Plano (also near Dallas).

Anyway, in my memory, it’s hot.  It’s so hot that you can see translucent waves baking the air over concrete.  There’s no concrete in my memory, but I can tell by how hot it is, it’s just one of those days.  I’m standing in a field.  The field is supposedly covered in grass, but what it’s really covered in is dirt.  There are little sprigs of brown grass living (more accurate standing dead) in the dirt, but the dirt is winning.  Dirt: 1 Grass: 0.  I’m 10.  Maybe younger.

They want me to play in the dirt with the other kids.  The game’s not important.  The memory doesn’t specify the game.  It could be water balloons, it could be dusty dodge ball.  They, the people in charge, don’t call it “dusty” dodge ball, but I know it will be.  Or, and I suspect that this is the case, there is no game.  No plan.  The counselors, at loose ends with the bratty children and the boiling temperature, simply set us free to roam and play.  There is one tree, and it’s not a giving tree.  Its shade is not cool and comforting.  The air in the shadow of the tree is just as steamy as the air directly exposed to the sun.  The sun is so bright, glaringly bright.  I’m sweating and scantily clad.  I’m 10, remember, don’t get excited.  I’m fat.  I don’t know if this is before or after I put on about 50 extra pounds at a young age, and it doesn’t matter.  I felt fat before I was fat, and so I was, am fat in this memory.  I’m fat, and being scantily clad only makes me feel more exposed.

I look at the other kids running around, creating clouds of dust in their wake, and I wonder how they can be so happy in the miserable heat.  The heat gnaws at me, makes me sluggish and irritable (which seems contradictory).  Even as a child I marvel at other people’s ease with one another, at their lack of inhibition.  I marvel at it, and I envy it.  Which is just another way of saying I think about it, the way that I think about everything.  I’m so cerebral, and even 10-year-old me knows it without knowing the word.

I feel alone, I feel weird, I feel alien, and I feel fat.  And on glare-y hot days (sometimes, not always), it comes back to me full force.  It’s sort of miraculous, the little vignettes from childhood that come back so strongly.  And telling, I’m sure, about the person I am today.

No dogs in this memory.  Sorry for the misleading title.

4 days

My boss kept saying “4 days” to me today whenever he passed me.  4 days until the wedding.  He told me getting married was a bad idea.  Jokingly.  Allegedly jokingly.  For some reason, I think a lot of men feel like they have to have that attitude.  At least it seems popular in this location.  Not sure if it’s universal.  It was odd, I thought.  Not upsetting, though.  I’m not experiencing cold feet yet, though people keep asking me about it.

The worst part so far seems to be laying awake at night listing the things I still need to accomplish.  I should just make a real list, and that way I won’t feel compelled to do it mentally at 2 a.m.

Talked to my sister today.  I made my sister my maid of honor, my only bridesmaid, and I still never talk to her.  Or, I should say, she never talks to me.  Ah well.  I know she cares.  It’s just that she’s bad at staying in touch.  I can’t blame her.  I’m bad at it myself.  I probably taught her everything she knows about being crazy.  My parents sure didn’t.

Tomorrow’s my last day of work.  I have a feeling it’s going to be a loooooong one.