the slack daily

Careful Where You Point That Thing.

In spin class today, the instructor stepped out for literally 30 seconds. During this time, the guy sitting in front of me picked up his cell phone and SNAPPED A PHOTO IN THE MIRROR. He stashed the phone away as soon as the instructor came back inside.

I work out at the YMCA, which is not only a community center and a gym but also a family shelter. There are 329842349 different signs that read NO CELL PHONES. It's not a stretch by any means to think that people do not want to be photographed while they're working out.

As class wound down, the guy hopped off his bike and left before the stretch. I unclipped from my bike and ran after him.

Hey, did you take a photo in class? I asked.

Uh, yeah.

Am I in it?

I'm pretty sure you're not, he said. He turned to go. 

I stepped in front of him. Show me.

Not knowing what to do with the sweaty woman in the lime green tank top who was blocking his way, he fished out his Blackberry and opened the photo. Sure enough, I was there, as was the woman next to me and the (pregnant) woman next to him. Our faces were blurry, so you couldn't identitfy any of us. 

See, you can't see you, he said, and turned to leave again.

It's not cool to snap pictures of people without their permission, I told him. If you want a picture riding the bike, I'm sure the instructor would be cool with you doing it after class.

I moved out of the way. Have a great day!

...

I tweet. I Facebook. I check in using Foursquare. I'm as connected as you get. But have some fucking manners, people. Jesus.

 

 

Twenty Years Later.

I never did write about my high school reunion.

Sure, I mentioned it. There was an anecdote. I posted some photos here and there.

People always ask me how I have such a good memory when it comes to middle school and high school. More than half of my professional career has been dedicated to writing - and rewriting - those years, that it's never been all that far from my mind.

Tug at one small silvery filament of memory and the whole thing is bound to unravel.

At my ten year high school reunion, I was looking forward to connecting with my high school friends (Facebook was but a gleam in young Zuckerberg's eye?) and coming back a Capital-S Success. I found that people still kept to themselves, for the most part. Groups clung together with the same magnetic force that they did in high school.

But then came Facebook.

And suddenly I was planning our 20-year reunion.

There was the joke that i heard not once, not twice, but over and over - are you friends with the popular people? (To be fair, I may have been the first one who made it.)

While everyone went on and grew up and Did Things Adults Did, I work in a business that's been caled "High School With Money." I'm writing pilots about high school wrongs, about rumors, about first kisses, about who your friends really are.

Planning the reunion, I pored over yearbooks and tried to match names and photos with email addresses and friend requests. I dug up old journals and looked through everyone else's friends' list remembering boys that I liked and girls who were mean to me.

I talked to new friends - people I knew in high school, but wasn't friends with - about the whole process.

I mean, I'm not an idiot. I know that high school is rife with reverse narcissism - that belief that it's all about you, and it's all bad. I had braces. I had glasses. I had a bad perm (is there such a thing as a good perm? Not in the 80s.) I was chubby and dark in a school filled with skinny blonde girls. I was smart and I was funny and I could be prone to fits of bravado to mask the fact that I was painfully shy and totally self-conscious.

(I definitely didn't date.)

All of this, swirling in my head while I decided that I was going to confront the girl(s) who were mean to me. I had one in my sights, specifically. I wasn't going to be cruel (erm, that would defeat the purpose,) but I just wanted to say you did this and that wasn't cool.

Except that I didn't get a chance to, because when I ran into her it didn't really matter.

Because she wasn't the person I thought she was, either.

When I write characters I try not to make them one-dimensional.

Yet I had painted all the "villains" in my life in precisely that way. 

There was no grand moment. I just realized that I didn't know them and they didn't know me. That was it.

But I was no longer shy. I was no longer self-conscious. I was no longer worried about what people thought.

And that's why my high school reunion was a hell of a lot of fun. 

(And I'm looking forward to someone else planning the next one.)

 

How (Not) to Make It In Hollywood

I received this email yesterday:

I responded:

He replied:

The point:                    ------------------>

Him:                               x

I realized I had written about this a few years back. With a quick re-read, it all still pretty much rings true.

I bring you from the 2005 archives of theslack.com: So You Wanna Be in Showbiz?

A Gap $50 Gift Card for Your Most Embarrassing Clothing Story...

The following statement can now be found on my About Page:

Full Disclosure: As of July 2009, I am a Gap Brand Enthusiast. This is different than a Gap Band Enthusiast, as I am a fan of the Gap Brand an not the Gap Band. No disrespect to Gap Band fans.As a Gap Brand Enthusiast, I am not paid nor required to blog about Gap merchandise or functions. However, on occasion I do receive free merchandise for my own personal use as well as to give out on my blog. These blog posts will always have the hashtag #gapborntofit and will be categorized as such.

I have been wearing clothes from the Gap since the 70's. The only disclosure statement I have about that is that their jeans make my ass look good, and I will always say that for free.

On Thursday night, I had the pleasure of assembling women for all blogs of life together for a Gap Born to Fit Party at the Gap 1969 Pop-Up Store on Robertson Blvd. It was a night of sangria and laughing and, as I told everyone who walked in the door I invited you to a party where you have to take off your pants. 

We were all different shapes and sizes, as women have a tendency to be, but the one thing we all had in common is that we all left with a pair of 1969 jeans that made us feel like rockstars.

I'll write more about that when the photos come in. Also, if I managed to figure out the technology correctly, I even have a livevlog from the dressing room. It's like BetheMarriage, except pantsless.

Actually, it's exactly like BetheMarriage (which is on tonight at 8pm PST, by the by...)

But thanks to the folks at Gap and Brand About Town, I have a $50 gift certificate to give away! (And there may be more where that comes from, so stay tuned.)

All I want is you Most Embarrassing Clothing Story.

You must post this story in the comments (or you can post it on your blog with the hashtag #gapborntofit) but you MUST return here and comment with the link to the blog. I will be using a random number generator to pick the winner from the comments. This contest closes on Wednesday, August 19 at 5pm PST.

You ARE allowed to post more than one story to enter more than once - you can enter TWICE but they must be separate stories in separate comments! (2x is the cap, though.)

I don't qualify, but here's my Most Embarrassing Clothing Story after the cut.

Post, Interrupted.

I discovered upon leaving the house to walk Daisy J. Dog  today that someone had parked in front of our driveway. Okay, that's a bit of a stretch. Parking in front of someone's driveway is an unforgivable offense, unless one's driveway is like the Black Fortress from Krull, disappearing and reappearing every 24 hours in a different location. Then perhaps the driveway wasn't there when you parked.

(But then it might be difficult to find your car.)

 

Not my driveway.

No, this person had parked so that half of their car was blocking our driveway. Perhaps they had peeked behind the house and discovered I drive a small car. Or maybe they saw the residents of our building and figured that the state wasn't issuing Hobo Drivers' Licenses. 

(Or maybe, they were just being a jerk.)

But it was the sort of parking job where you think maybe I can fit, I'll just try it and see and then you get out of your car and you pull up six inches and then you get back out and reassess and then you pull up a half an inch more. Then you start to curse the at the Universe for your fate of Being Born into a First World Country Where You Get to Own Your Very Own Silver Chevy Malibu And You Have To Find Parking On Street Cleaning Day.

(Clearly it would be easier if you were born without clean drinking water. Or feet.)

 

Bouncer was born into a world where dogs are disposable, so I have to eat his face off to ease the pain.

As I strolled through the neighborhood with Daisy J. Dog, I weighed my options.

I could do nothing. I didn't have to leave the house until 12:30pm for a meeting. I could probably sneak my car around the offender. I had noticed that there was a collapsed dog crate in the back of the car. Perhaps this person had stayed out late in a daring dog rescue, fighting off ninjas and zombies to break into the vivisectionist's's lab, and had returned home in the wee hours of the morning with their newly rescued canine companion, and simply hadn't seen my driveway right there.

But what it they were the evil vivisectionist, trolling the neighborhood for dogs to kidnap and the collapsed dog crate in the back of the car was a sign that they were on the lookout for their next victim? If I called Parking Enforcement to have them towed, the dog that I could save might be my very own.

I finally decided to take a picture of the offense and post it to the Internet to let you decide.

Except that when I turned the corner, the car was gone.

Thankfully, my dog was not.

(Sometimes I look for Happily Ever After wherever I can get it.)

Easily Annoyed.

Some people get annoyed by bad drivers or people on cell phones at the gym.  While such issues register on my radar, it's just as easy for me to tune them out.  However, there are some things I just absolutely, totally, one-hundred-freaking-percent can not get over.

Manners.

I'm not talking elbows off the table, using the right fork or the correct stemware (says the girl who drinks champagne out of a juice glass), but some common-sense basics.

Say thank you. I don't think that ever good deed demands a handwritten note inked in blood and sent via carrier pigeon, but I don't think it's too much to expect an email thanking the giver for their kindness. 

Bring something if you're asked. If the invitation requests that you BYOB, or a dish to pass, bring a what you're drinking or a dish to pass.  And while we're on the subject...

Bring something, part two.  If it's a gift occasion (wedding, birthday, etc.), unless you have been specifically told not to bring anything, bring something.  That doesn't mean big or expensive.  One of my favorite gifts from the wedding is a hand-written note a friend wrote us. 

RSVP.  Sooner than the day of the party, please.  In the age of Evite, I'm shocked at how many people don't RSVP at all.

People who use the "I'm just brutally honest"  as an excuse to be an asshole.  If you're trying to hurt someone's feelings, have the nuts to go for it.  But don't couch an insult or character assassination as "telling it like it is."  It's called tact. 

Everything is empowering.

Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of empowerment (although I hate the word.)  Shining a light on those who have remained in the dark, not only accepting but inviting those who have felt marginalized or ostracized truly is progress.   Knowing who you are and choosing what to do with your life and your body, and feeling good and strong about that is a wonderful thing.  But sometimes it feels like the 'empowering' choice is taken in lieu of actually examining the choices we make, or why we feel what we feel.

But now everything is automatically empowering, without looking for the reasoning behind it. Taking your clothes off for money is empowering.   No-strings-attached fucking is empowering.  You-Go-Girl (and Boy) bravado - nothing's wrong with me, they're clearly the ones who are screwed up - is empowering. 

While I don't believe in constantly blaming yourself for everything that goes wrong, the fact is that we are formed by our choices.  And we don't always make the rights ones. But the Empowerment Pendulum seems to have swung so far that instead of taking some responsibility when we make the bad choice, we  celebrate as Not My Fault.  A friendship break up?  They're mental.  The boy likes her and not you?  She's a whore.  You go on a date and it doesn't work out? They're messed up! 

Sometimes things aren't empowering.  They just are.

Naturally, I'm positive that I have been guilty of all of these at one point or another.  In fact, I am about to write a letter of apology to one couple who is still gracious and kind enough to extend me their friendship even though I haven't been the best friend back.  I'd prefer to be perfect, but for right now I'll have to settle for being a self-aware shitheel. I'm working on it.  But before I do that, I have to go brush my teeth.  My teeth which could lead an Army, they're so damned empowered.