 Four Things |
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Four jobs I've had:
1. Waitress in a pasta restaurant: In college. I smelled like marinara sauce for four years. I also had a manager who regularly made observations about the current size of my boobs, which I was too dumb to realize he was not allowed to do. The low point was when I tripped on a box of napkins some idiot had left where it was not supposed to be while carrying a plate of angel hair pasta with Italian sausage in red sauce, the contents of which were flung down the back of my hair, down my neck, and down my back. Other than that, it was fun in a very dysfunctional, melodramatic, and restauranty kind of way.
2. Bookstore clerk: The summer I lived in Colorado. I worked at the college bookstore because that's where my friend/roommate worked and she got me the job. I did a lot of shelving and displays. It was kind boring, but who can complain about working in a bookstore next-door to a bagel store and an ice cream shop? Not me.
3. EPCOT boat captain: I've talked about this before. It was the summer I did the Walt Disney World College Program. It was a very surreal experience fraught with sunburns and the kind of rampant alcoholism that can only occur when you take two thousand college kids from all over the world and isolate them in the same apartment complex for three months.
4. High school English teacher: There are no words, really. I loved it, I hated it, it was a joy, it was sheer misery. It was everything and terrifying and wonderful and I don't think I will ever do it again. Four movies I can watch over and over:
1. Waiting for Guffman. Because you're strong, Ron. You're strong. You're just a big brick. And because I don't think a day passes when Maryelizabeth and I remark that there ain't gonna be any swimmin' in our show.
2. When Harry Met Sally. I flipped to this the other day on Oxygen and was able to recite the entire Harry and Sally call their friends after sleeping together scene. Like, all four overlapping parts. I've said before that there is no modern romantic comedy that will ever top this, and I defy anyone to argue with me about it.
3. The Princess Bride. This movie never gets old to me. The fact that that the six-fingered man ended up being Corky St. Clair is like some kind of omen that I was destined to love both of the movies with all my heart.
4. The Sound of Music. I always notice something new. When people tell me they've never seen this movie, I scrunch up my eyes at them and am stunned into speechlessness while wondering how it is that they even walk around every day claiming to be alive. Four places I've lived:
1. Brevard, North Carolina. Summer. Camp counselor. Wonderful, magical, beautiful. I still miss it every summer of my life and probably always will.
2. Boulder, Colorado. The next summer. Lived near the foot of Chatauqua with about ten other college students. We drank a lot, smoked a lot of really good pot, watched Reality Bites and A League of Their Own almost every day, went rock climbing, went tubing, went hiking, went motorcycle riding, went camping in the snow, made burritos, walked the golden retriever who lived with us through the foothills, and pretty much had a great damn summer.
3. Orlando, Florida. The next summer. The Disney World experience. I had five roommates. Everyone smoked like a chimney. That summer I smoked Salem Slim Lites. I know. I embarrass myself. I thought they were so cool, refreshing, and minty. We wallpapered our walls with unfolded beer boxes and thumbtacks. It was just pretty much debauchery all around.
4. Pensacola, Florida. The year I taught high school. We'd always vacationed there when I was a kid, and I had a lot of good memories of it. I ended up living way more in the country than near the beach, but the people were great. A very solid and tight knit community. Many of the teachers and students' parents had all gone to the high school, and it was pretty much the center of everything. I loved that school and the people even though I still sometimes break out into hives when thinking about teaching. Four TV Shows I Love*: 1. Veronica Mars 2. Everwood 3. Grey's Anatomy 4. Related *Limiting this to shows currently on the air. Four places I've vacationed: 1. Italy & Austria when Eva and I went for Gena's wedding in Florence in 1998. 2. England, France, and Wales, summer of 2004 with my sister. 3. New York City, several times, mostly to visit Shelley. 4. Costa Rica, once with my sistah and once with my lovah. Four of my favorite dishes: 1. Any kind of Thai or Vietnamese dish with noodles or rice, brown broth, and vegetables with shrimp or chicken 2. Steamed pork gyoza 3. Crunchy rolls 4. Miso soup / wonton soup
Four sites I visit daily: 3. Oh No They Didn't -- (I'm not proud.) 4. TV Tattle
(This one I'm adding because I've been watching it lately thanks to Netflix:) Four dreadful things about season two of Party of Five:
1. The way Kirsten's horrible mother convinces her to leave Charlie after he freaks out and wants to postpone the wedding while clearly still loving her and not wanting to break up. I am still scarred by this episode and how it made me cry until nearly hyperventilating when I first saw it like ten years ago and haven't even watched it yet this time around and I am already filled with anxiety about how much hatred Kirsten mother will surely incite in me and how I will weep when Kirsten tells Charlie that she's walking away from him and the children she loves. This is such a good episode, and the DVD has commentary so I will be both squeeing and sobbing. 2. Julia's hair. 3. The way Julia cheats on Justin with and then dumps him for Griffin. This remains inexplicable to me to this day. I realize she was sixteen and therefore an idiot, but she was in LOVE with Justin, who was smart, kind, devoted, funny, and perfect in every way even if he did wear things like vests and jazz shoes sometimes, and along slums Griffin, a dumb, mute, mean, selfish, emotionally closed-off, not even remotely interesting skinny-armed creep and she picks him? She? Picks? Him? And ultimately ends up becoming his teen bride? No. But -- yes. And then all those years later after all of the imbecilic behavior we are subjected to as an audience by Julia, like marrying and divorcing Griffin while still being barely of age, dating Ned the girlfriend beater (whose other girlfriend on that show is now married in real life to Dawson Leery, good Lord), sleeping with her editor because of course Julia gets a book deal in college WHATEVER who was creepily played by Lieutenant Bayliss, and all of her other bullshit -- we are expected to believe that the magnificent Justin shows up again someday and just takes her back. Well, of course.
4. Because it stands to be repeated: Julia's hair. It's always sprayed up around her face in this unnatural helmet of strange sticky-uppy-ness, and I hate it, and it is an absolute scene-killer. I think mostly I just hate Julia. Yep. Always did and clearly still do. Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Sitting in a coffee shop playing Scrabble with my boyfriend and a caramel latte.
2. In a pretty park on a sunny day with my dogs and a good book.
3. After watching Rick Steves visiting them on PBS this week every morning while getting ready for work, the Alps. Austrian, Italian, French, Swiss, I'm not picky.
4. Sitting in a Broadway theater waiting for the overture to start and the curtain to rise.
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© Copyright 2006 elb |
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