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Catching Up to Spooky Middle American Trends

General Rant 31.10.2008 No Comments

Since I live in a city and don’t have any children, I sometimes don’t follow some of the big trends that start among the younger set, and when they do invade my radar, it takes quite a while to understand just what the rest of America has been up to. Just the other day I had to explain the “High School Musical” phenomenon to the Boy, since he just started noticing it (three movies and a stage show in). I remember hearing about it maybe a little before the second movie came out and spending a fair amount of time scratching my head and trying to figure out what the heck it was.

I was talking to my friend Piano Man recently. He’s in Oklahoma City for a gig, and he was trying to visit a friend who lived outside of Kansas City. Problem was, the day he wanted to visit, she had to take some kids trick-or-trunking.

“Trick-or-trunk?” I asked. “What’s that?”

“Um, I don’t really know,” he replied. “I think you take your cars and park them in a lot, and kids go around and trick-or-treat at all the cars, and they like decorate the trunks of the cars or something.”

“You mean, like a diorama?” I asked.

Groaning and speculation ensued. “What would you do about an SUV?” we pondered. “It doesn’t have a trunk!”

“Yeah, but it’s got a back. I guess you just lift up the hatchback.”
“This is so sad!” we urban city folk thought.

Of course I had to look into it, and it turns out that there is a lot of trick-or-trunking going on in America. Mainly at churches, which I thought was really odd, seeing as how at my Christian school, we did nothing for Halloween because it was considered a bit too secular. What people do at this event is get some candy, dress up the kids, and decorate the back end of the car/truck. The kids go round and round the cars for trick-or-treating, and it’s seen as a “safe” environment for kids.

Isn’t that part of Halloween though? Going around to houses that seemed a little bit scary? Where you didn’t know what would be behind the door (because it might not be that nice grandma-type lady tonight!)? I suppose it’s nice to take your candy begging to a central location so that people who don’t have kids are expected to buy candy, but at the same time if you don’t have kids, handing out candy on Halloween is a way to keep in touch with the people who live around you.

And it’s sad that people don’t feel they live in safe towns or neighborhoods. True, there are bad places and people everywhere, but it feels like we’ve bought into this notion that no place in America is safe, when really, Middle America might be one of the safest places around.

Catalog Reality

Not a Rant 30.10.2008 2 Comments

Although I’m not a huge fan of mail-order catalogs (simply because of the volume we get….and those that I do like, well, they send way too many, as if I need to order something from them every other day), I do like them at this time of year because we get some weird catalogs.

For example, the Boy looked over my shoulder at a catalog and said, “What did you order that you got on this mailing list?”

“Are you referring to the large print caller ID?” I asked.

He looked at and shuddered. I can’t help it that many a marketing list thinks I’m 50 or older and have a large house that needs a lot of accessories like “gutter creatures.”

Even though I shouldn’t waste the time looking at these things, I still do. It’s like looking at how the other half lives. I’m not talking about the other half who makes a ton of money. I mean the half who owns homes with yards and fireplaces, who have dogs that need staircases to get up on the bed, who might think that a heron wall sculpture would be just the thing to tie the room together. It’s a world I don’t understand, that I may never understand. But I like looking at it and trying to decipher it, and mostly trying to figure out if it’s an actual reality.

How to Donate to a Book Drive (Pt. 2)

General Rant 29.10.2008 No Comments

OK. Now that you’ve decided to donate some of your old books to a worthy cause, and you’ve gone through them to make sure they’re really worth selling, there’s one other thing to do: Remove the sticky tabs from the pages and maybe take out all the notes.

Sticky tabs are great inventions. You can find the pages you need instantly. But they’re highly annoying to a new owner of the book. What if I don’t think those tabs are useful? What if I don’t like books with tabbed pages at all? Plus, I can’t imagine it helps the resale value of a book, and really, you want to help the non-profit group maximize all the revenue they can.
Also, if you’re buying a used book, and you find a note in it, it’s AWESOME, isn’t it? That little connection to another person or idea that someone else had while they were reading that book. The historical pieces of paper they wrote on. But some of these may be identifying or embarrassing, and do you really want that out in the world? Just look at a few things I found while I sorted books at the Open Books Great American Book Drive:

To chick lit lover Julianne Hartzell: How were your trips to Philly and Shannon? Which did you prefer, American Airlines or United Airlines? Boarding pass stubs are convenient book markers, aren’t they?
I did find this funny, and I’m sorry I didn’t note which book I found this in (but I’m guessing it’s pretty old): A leaflet entitled “Recent changes in social security” from 1978. It’s great because, “The new law provides more income to assure the financial stability of the system well into the next century.” Also, “If you have Medicare medical insurance, your monthly premium will increase from the current $7.70 to $8.20 for the 12-month period starting July 1, 1978.” Those were the days, no? Social Security sticking around well into the 21st century AND cheap health insurance (relatively speaking) for seniors. Someone wrote a recipe on this leaflet, and it took me a few takes to realize it said, “Cook meat,” instead of “Coon meat.”
A note written on an Illinois Eye Institute Dispensing Department patient glasses sheet that says (and I quote–with all abbreviations left intact): “As you have been previously informed and verbally warned, your employment @WMG continues to be probationary. Most recently, u hv rec’d several verbal warngs & reminders re: your constant disregard for the standards of conduct that you said u understood following yo’ 6 mos in our ofc as an Earnfare employee. [paragraph] Nevertheless, today u:

arrived late on a day u were spec. asked to arr. early
offered a loud, unprofessional & false representation of your arrival time

These & other unaccept. behaviors are on the heels of yo’ being given addtn’l wk hrs & assmts to encourage u to grow w/in our orgn”

Personally, what I like best about this note, is the use of the contraction “yo’.” Unfortunately, I can’t remember what book I found this in either.

As we sorted, I know we left in copies of letters to people who were sent books as promotional hopes. You know what I’m talking about. The author sends a copy to “The Oprah Winfrey Show” that says, “It’s my birthday, but I’m sending you a gift!” in hopes that it will get Oprah’s blessing and sell millions of copies. That letter might add value to the book. The note to yourself on how to reprimand an employee? No, it won’t. [And yes, we did get boxes of books from Harpo--one title had multiple copies that had obviously been meant to pass out to the audience, and the show must've gotten way too many copies of the book. I even recognized the author as a former guest on the show before she wrote the book (which--because I know you're curious--was an incredibly obese woman who lost a ton of weight. By the way, did you know they have specially printed "The Oprah Winfrey Show" cardboard storage boxes?]

One girl I sorted with bemoaned all the tabs, saying that she always removed them AND erased anything she’d written before she donated a book. Although I don’t think erasing penciled-in notes are exceptionally necessary unless they publicly identify you/someone else, it’s a nice gesture that allows a new person to own a not-quite-so-used-book.

How to Donate to a Book Drive (Pt. 1)

General Rant 28.10.2008 2 Comments

For my birthday, I decided to volunteer some time to Open Books, a local literacy organization. They held a book drive yesterday, so I worked for a few hours in the morning sorting donated items into “sell it” or “recycle it” piles. I’m guessing 98-99% of what was donated could be resold, and if you’re so inclined, you can buy the books on Better World Books (if Open Hands doesn’t pop up on the right side as the benefactor, you can put /openbooks at the end of the URL address).

Yes, I did say recycle. As in trash the book. Get rid of it.

Some of you may be shocked to think that anyone (especially me, a writer, of all things) would deign to throwing away a precious book, but let’s be honest: Sometimes a book is not valuable anymore. A lot of these books are printed on cheap paper because even the publisher knows this. A Writer’s Market from 1994. A “how to write research papers” from the 1970s that includes instructions on how to use a library card catalog. Old encyclopedias and atlases that include the Soviet Union and Persia. Software books that have (a) the computer you’re using taking up an entire room, (b) a personal computer that’s attached to a dot matrix printer, (c) the software program comes with a 5 1/2″ floppy disk–or even the 3 1/2″ floppy disk. Not many computers can take those anymore.

Books like these are obsolete, and even though they still exist in your house and they’re in good condition, no one else can use them.

Granted, I got into it early and often with the Better World Books rep over what should be tossed, because he kept telling me that even though the book might have outdated information, “You never know who’s going to buy it. You should see what people in the Third World buy!” At which point, I continually willed the people of the Third World to have better standards, to not buy the bodice ripper set at Christmastime where the heroine and the man she loved start getting it on while she’s making a batch of cookies. The batter goes all over the place–can’t you see that on the cover? Of course, you can purchase that delightful title, if you’re so inclined (sorry, I can’t remember what it is), along with other books of fine quality and questionable quality (and on quality levels, sometimes I think certain books should be recycled simply because they’re so poorly written, they shouldn’t have been published in the first place).
Luckily, once books started coming in, more got recycled, and once that started happening, it was easier to sneak out the obsolete titles. That Physician’s Desk Reference from the mid-90s that could have old (and potentially dangerous if medicine had changed enough) information about drugs. Those programming books on C++.

It’s funny though that the Better World site has a tracker about how many books they’ve saved from landfills. Um, isn’t that a bit of a stretch? These books weren’t going to be thrown away…you just saved them from people’s basements and closets.
Actually, the Better World Books rep was adamant about tossing a few items: Reader’s Digest Condensed Books, book club editions, encyclopedias that weren’t from two random years in the early 1900s, books that were missing the front covers or pages or falling apart, books with water or mold damage.

Which brings me to my last point. If the book you want to donate has massive damage and is falling apart, just put it out of its misery and recycle it. If nobody can read it because there are missing pages, it should be tossed. If it’s moldy, nobody wants to bring mold into their house. If it’s water damage, pages may be stuck together…and that’s just gross.
Don’t fool yourself into thinking your book has value if it really doesn’t. A lot of books aren’t made to last forever, and that’s OK. Sometimes it’s just time to recycle them. Doing that will actually make book drives around the country much easier for volunteers and time-strapped organizations.

Making a Wish

Not a Rant 27.10.2008 Comments Off

Yesterday was my birthday. I’m getting old, or as the Boy likes to tell me, “You’re getting OLD!” Ah, the joys of being with a younger man!
Don’t get on his case too much though. He did make me a cake (from scratch) and took me out to the Chicago Chop House for a steak dinner that I’m still digesting. Dish delish!

We didn’t do the candles on the cake though…I’m not sure we would’ve been able to get all of them on the cake, to be quite honest, so I still have to make a wish. Hmmmmmm…..let me think……got it! But do I tell you? Won’t that negate it?

So I’ll just keep it to myself for now. And keep my fingers crossed that it comes true.

Against my Better Judgment

Not a Rant 24.10.2008 Comments Off

This blog has been getting spammed a lot lately. The spammers mostly target the same few posts, so I don’t really know what I wrote in those to trigger the attacks, but they’re pretty relentless.

Some days, fewer spam messages come in, so I feel like I’m turning a corner in my fight to prevent spammed comments from getting onto this blog. That makes me think it might be stupid to write this, but it’s making me giggle, and I just had to share it.

Many of these comments are random words strung together with links to porn, and one came through the other day that said, “free gay lazy porn.” What’s lazy porn? And who would watch it? You’d have to be mighty lazy to watch lazy porn, wouldn’t you? Do porn actors get paid less if they’re known as being experts in lazy porn?
Just a little something to think about this weekend. For obvious reasons, I’m turning the comments off on this one, but if you have anything to say on this issue, drop me a line (pa2jilljaracz AT yahoo), and I’ll post it manually.

[If you think you've read this one before, maybe you did....I didn't adjust the time stamp accordingly.]

Thoughts About Getting Involved

General Rant, Politiblog 23.10.2008 No Comments

Continuing on about this community meeting the Boy and I went to. We like to get involved–well, I mainly like knowing what’s going on in my little neighborhood, which I think is a good step toward being involved as a citizen.

The Boy and I were talking about how this meeting went, and we both agreed that going to these made us feel better and we wanted to become more involved. But in Chicago, how involved can you be? How much can you really change? Are we just too jaded, or are we being realistic? Would it be better to pick up and move to a smaller place where we could be more involved, even if we were late to the party?
Seriously, sometimes people don’t get involved because they feel they their voice just isn’t heard–or will never be heard. Chicago’s got a Machine image. Granted, in most places you probably have to work your way up through the party, but somehow it feels worse here in this city and in Illinois in general. Feeling that you’re powerless–or maybe it’s knowing that you’re powerless–doesn’t increase one’s willingness to get involved in the process and make this country better.

At that debate, one of the speakers was from the League of Women Voters, and I thought for a minute it might be nice to get involved with that group. However, I spent so much time involved in groups as a kid that I’m now needing my civic time to develop the skills I need for my writing. I feel like I have to be more selfish with the time I have because I feel way behind on my career.

I’m sure there are other people like me who just want their time for themselves or are working a lot, yet want to do something to make a positive change that doesn’t involve just donating or raising money. But can you get involved without the involved taking over your life?

Do (Or Don’t Do) the Con-Con

Politiblog 22.10.2008 4 Comments

All politics is local, right? So even though I don’t like blogging about politics all that much, nor do I think my readers are much into discussing the issues (you may be, you may not be…Hasina’s just sayin’, that’s all), I’m going to bring up a little political issue that will be on the ballot in the state of Illinois come this Election Day: Do we call a Constitutional Convention?

A little background: Illinois’ last constitution mandates that every 20 years, voters are given the right to call a constitutional convention. If the voters say yes, we want the state constitution to be changed, then we’ll go through an election process for constitutional convention delegates. These people will attempt to rewrite the constitution, and when they’re done, we’ll vote on whether or not to accept it. If it passes, new constitution. If it doesn’t, old constitution.

I’ll admit that I haven’t read the Illinois constitution yet. I will before I vote. I do know that this issue will be on the ballot and that there are pros and cons to it, but I don’t know a whole lot more. That was the big reason the Boy and I went to a neighborhood meeting last night where two women debated on whether or not you should vote for this constitutional convention.

Unfortunately, the debate didn’t help me make up my mind–at least on many levels. On the pro side, changing the constitution could instigate many badly-needed reforms in this state. Things like educational funding, term limits, election processes (recalls, publicly funded elections), and even more. It’s also supposed to give voters more of a say–instead of incumbents running for these delegate positions, we’ll have a clean slate (supposedly), and a lot of progressively-minded people may be able to become delegates.
On the con side, it will cost a lot of money. This is debatable, but the 1970 cost $14 million. In our spend-heavy state, can you imagine what this would cost in today’s dollars? The pro side claimed it could be done for about the same cost, thanks to technology and teleconferencing, but I’m not buying that. These costs come directly from the tax payers, who don’t like paying for anything. Also on the con side is that you spend the money, but there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to change the constitution when it’s all said and done. Plus, who’s to say that special interests and politicians won’t be able to stack the deck of delegates to bend their way?

So the debate didn’t help much. Although I think it might might actually change certain things about our state government for the better (and heck, it’ll get people thinking and talking about the constitution), it doesn’t seem like a whole lot could really be worded in the constitution that wouldn’t already be in the legal code. I mean, the are the details of educational funding spelled out in our current state constitution? I don’t believe so.

What I worry about mostly–and it’s not the sheer cost of the process, though I don’t think we can afford it right now–is that this could be an event for special interests and the moral police to rewrite our constitution so that we’re stuck with it. It’s not going to be about education reform and property taxes. It’s going to be about gun control, abortion, and gay marriage. That’s what I think would end up happening. And even though everyone supposedly has a fair shot at being a delegate, I’m sure there will be plenty of money behind certain candidates to help get their names out there so that people simply recognize him. I mean, in a lot of elections, money wins (though surprisingly, a local guy has run for alderman and water reclamation district and has thrown plenty of money out for advertising, and he hasn’t been able to get through the primaries on either race). I just don’t trust our corrupt system to work, even if it’s for a process that’s supposedly uncorruptable.

The other thing that’s making me lean toward the anti- side is the nickname: Con-con. Like someone can’t pronounce a lousy dance. I heard it more than enough times in this 90 minute debate to make me cringe. I don’t really know if I could live through two years of “con-con” this and, “Down at the con-con…” I realize some people (and those people might be named Hasina) might think that’s a really superficial reason to base your vote on, but hell, this is America, and America is full of superficial people who’d think that that was a really good reason to vote a certain way.

Another Missed Holiday

General Rant, Not a Rant 21.10.2008 4 Comments

Oh, yeah. It was Sweetest Day here in the US this past weekend. I only know this because some Facebook friends were talking about it, and the Jewel kept advertising it. What better way to celebrate Sweetest Day than with something from the grocery store?

Sweetest Day is one of my least favorite “holidays.” I try not to even classify it as a holiday (and really, what’s the definition of “holiday” anyway? What makes an official holiday?), because it’s really meant as a day where you MUST buy something (expensive, preferred) for someone. It’s a day intended to make those who don’t have a partner feel like shit. It’s a day that just reeks of desperation–something that insecure people use to measure their relationships, so if you don’t step up, well, something’s wrong with you.

Though I suppose that “wrong” person would be me because the Boy happened to see what I was writing about. “It was sweetest day, and you didn’t get me anything?” he said. “You evil, evil woman. It was Sweetest Day, and you didn’t get me anything. Our marriage is on the rocks now!

Here’s my Sweetest Day present for you: I’m taking out the garbage!”

Seriously? That’s the sweetest present I’ve ever received.

Go Ahead, Let Yourself Go!

General Rant 20.10.2008 1 Comment

Dear Selma Blair,

I saw your photo the short blurb about you in the October Vanity Fair. Congratulations on the photo–you’re looking a lot healthier now that you’ve gained a few pounds in conjunction with your role on the new sitcom Kath & Kim. You were really starting to look like a lollipop for a while, and let’s face it, what girl wants to look like a Dum-Dum?

But something you said in the article really bothered me. The author posed the question, “But what if (the show) is huge, and Blair finds herself stuck in the role forever?” You responded:

Um, I would be thrilled, I guess. I’m just thinking, I’m always eating on this show. My character has let herself go, so that’s one aspect I might have to look into–because I don’t know how many cupcakes a girl can eat.

Having done a cupcake crawl, I can tell you how many cupcakes a girl can eat. You’d be surprised! But you continue on, when the article delves into the fact that you’re very fashionable and even made the International Best-Dressed List in 2006:

Now that I play Kim, that part of my life is over, because I don’t fit into the best dresses anymore, which is just a sad fact. I don’t think I’ll be making any of those lists now, because I’ll be wearing elastic waistbands. Yeah, it’s a whole new me.

Is Hollywood that bad that you have a mindset that causes you to say things like this? Do they not make designer dresses in a size 2 (or 0…I wouldn’t be surprised if you were less than a size 0)? Or are you (gasp!) up to a size 6 or 8 now? Even if that’s the case, honey, you’re far from wearing elastic pants. You obviously haven’t seen what manufacturers can do to clothes to make them not-so-heinous for the hefty set.

I hope you’re feeling better now that you’re eating a little more and not wasting so much money on designer clothes that are really made for boy shapes anyhow. Plus, what good is a plunging neckline, if you have no boobs to plunge to? Heck, even if you’re off the best-dressed list, you may get onto all those “sexiest women” lists, and personally, that’s probably more gratifying anyway.

I’ll even eat a cupcake in your honor if that happens.

Your pal,

Jill

Catching Up to Spooky Middle American Trends

Catalog Reality

How to Donate to a Book Drive (Pt. 2)

How to Donate to a Book Drive (Pt. 1)

Making a Wish

Against my Better Judgment

Thoughts About Getting Involved

Do (Or Don’t Do) the Con-Con

Another Missed Holiday

Go Ahead, Let Yourself Go!

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