Today's Tongue Twister

An old friend of mine works at the library reference desk and answers their hotline. Currently, he tells us the most frequently asked question, though no official pole was taken, is how does one change the tense of the word "text." It seems that patrons want to make up their own forms, usually adding additional extraneous syllables, i.e. "texteded."

In their honor, Today's Tongue Twister:

Tall Tex of Texas texts exes correct tenses: text, texts, texting, texted. Tex's text tips exact excellent texting tenses.

I'm Just Like They!

In the last few years, a very strange thing has happened to me on several occasions. Similar events always lead to this occurrence - it takes place the second or third day after I've been in the sun on the Gulf Coast. A few sun-drenched days at the beach and I'll wake up one morning with a face that belongs on the cover of US Weekly - darkened to a nice deep shade of tan; occasionally, like this year, with unfortunate raccoon eyes left from my sunglasses.
But the highlight, the real money shot for the paparazzi, hearkening the caption, "has she had cosmetic surgery?" lies in the new shape of my lips. I look like I've been punched right in the kisser. Let's face it, I look like a bad actress who's gone to a cheap cosmetic surgeon for a lip injection. My bottom lip has blown up to triple it's natural size.
I've spent hours in the sun elsewhere, but this sunburn has only happened in the South. A little ice and time in the shade tends to relieve the symptom. Oh, but if I could bottle the cause, then I would really be just like they, in the best way, their bank accounts.

I heart the lawn boy

I'm back home visiting the family staying in the house where I grew up. My dad and I ran out to the store and as we passed the neighbor's house down the street, he noticed the box in their trash at the end of the driveway.
"Buckshot 190. Looks like somebody's got a new target."
"I wonder if the twins set that up in the backyard?" 'The twins' probably haven't lived in that house in nearly twenty years. I'm not even sure if their relatives still own it, but in my mind it will forever be 'the twins' house. The kids on my block were quite a bit older than I, probably 4 - 6 years, which in kid years is, like, entire lifetimes, so I never much hung out with them, but rather watched from afar.
"Did the twins live on the corner or the house next door?"
I can't even hide a slight dreamy tone when I answer, "Danny lived next door. He used to mow our lawn."
"Oh yeah?"
I told Dad about the impossible crush I had on Danny. I would go outside whenever he came over to mow the front yard. A flirt early on, I would find a way to be there before Danny even pulled the cord on the mower. I'd read my book (though I'm sure little reading would get done, as staring was my real occupation) usually posing on top of the old Mercedes in the driveway, as if that was where I did all my reading.
If I was lucky - and it was terribly hot and humid in Louisiana, so I often lucked out - Danny would take off his shirt. Sometimes he would say hi to me or exchange a few other words, but I seriously doubt if he had even the slightest clue how much I crushed on him. He was in high school and I was some silly early middle-schooler bookworm who thought the car hood was a good place to contemplate Encyclopedia Brown.

Rasta State Building

"Hey Chrysler Building, I got something that will make you light up colors! I have this guy, he delivers."

I took a boat cruise the other night, so my vantage of the NYC skyline was especially good. The first angle I caught on the Empire State Building, it looked Rastafarian.

But as we headed up river, the other sides came into view and there were blues and pinks too. I have never in all my 7 years in New York seen so many colors on the Empire State Building. It was lovely. It looked like a clown.

But it was in honor of the Olympics.

Modern Annoyances

I just got an automated telemarketer call on my cell phone telling me "this is the second notice that the factory warranty may be expired on my vehicle."

hmmm....I haven't had a vehicle in 7 years! And, I never received their first notice.

Perhaps they should work on their target group.

5 up! 5 down! That's all

My friend and I sat at a busy bar attempting to download a Magic 8Ball application on his iphone. We crammed ourselves into the backroom, sharing a table with three women in their early thirties. As we drank our beers, chatted and waited for the Magic 8Ball to appear and give predict our futures, I became slightly distracted listening to the conversation next to us.

From what I could gather, the three girls shared a friend, who was not currently at the bar. This friend is dating a much older man. The age difference is significant and they spend most of their night talking about how they view the ideal dating age range.

Girl A was adamant that you can't be sure where love is going to fall and that as long as you click with the person, they could be any age. "You can't know."
Girl B was not of the same mind at all. She keep repeating, "Five up! Five down! That's it."
Girl C fell somewhere in between, but still felt like there was surely a cut off age. "I still like to have preschool fun. Oh wait, that sounds provocative. I mean I'm a preschool teacher and I still like to have fun, like running on the slip-n-slide. And I can't picture any 40yr-olds doing that. There was this 40yr-old on my volleyball team who seemed young and like to have fun, but I still can't picture him wanting to slip-n-slide."
Girl A, "Maybe some 40yr-olds would."

Then Girl A cut straight to calling out ages and asking her friends if they would date them. "Would you date someone who was 27? Would you date someone who was 38? Would you date someone who was 48?"
Girl B kept repeating her mantra, but at some point must have gotten confused and answered yes.
Girl A, "So you would date someone who is 48."
Girl B, "48! Are you crazy?! Five up! Five down! That's it."

The Magic 8Ball downloaded. "Concentrate and ask again."

PBR- Presidential Blue Ribbon

Recently, on NPR, I think, I heard about the revival of the Presidential Fitness Test. Oh, how our P.E. classes would excite over those exams once a year. I remember in second or third grade beating out all the girls and all the boys for pull-ups. (Sadly, that's now a skill lost, although I have started getting quite good at push-ups, but I digress.) I received the Presidential Fitness award (signed I believe by Reagan) that year.

Now they have reinstated this great challenge and have an online test for adults: The President's Challenge. So, I'm all excited to see just how far I can touch past my toes in the flexibility test and how many sit ups I can do in a minute. But then there's the dreaded running test.

After the Black Keys show last night at McCarren Pool, I felt a spontaneous urge to practice right then. I coerced O to join me in a run around the McCarren track. I was in sandals (so cute, from Greece, but a flimsy, inappropriate running shoe really) but we did .75 of the track before O refused to go no further and collapsed into the grass. Sadly, I was just starting to get my groove.

Now this was exciting for me, because I firmly believe that you should not run unless playing kiss-chase or from bad guys, and since the former has not been revived since 3rd grade and the later is something we hope never happens, I tend to plain not run. But like I said, I was just starting to get my groove and I was really enjoying this after-a-few-beers-and-loud-70s-style-rock-music run around a bright stadium lit track. The music earlier at the pool had O and I talking about road trips, stops at dive bars with dingy pool tables and locals who liked to call themselves Machinegun Kelly, we'd be drinking some cheap beer and music just like this would be blaring out of the jukebox. Maybe all of that paired with the bright lights and lively trackwas just what my non-running spirit needed; I have to say it was quite awe-inspiring.

Once our run halted, we watched the motely crue that takes to the Greenpoint track at 10pm on a Thursday. There were the true runners keeping to the inside lane preparing for their next marathon; the cell-phone talkers in sweats and an occasional lite speed walk; the hasidic husbands walking and talking; the hispanic family led by teenage daughter to keep up the speed all seven of them; the bike riders were cheating obviously and it seemed inappropriate that they had found their way on the track (I scared one kid by asking if I could borrow his bike for a minute, then every time he passed us on the track he took to the inside lane); there was the flamboylantly gay man with swinging hips in cut of black jeans listening to his ipod and keeping to the outer lane should perhaps he make a play for a passer-by - he also quickly hussled to the runaway soccer ball to throw it (overhand with a wrist flick) back to the 'hot' latino football players; there were the competitive couples - mostly bf/gf or husband/wife - urging each other to push a little harder and further; there were plenty of walkers - groups of young girls or singles. It was a happening place to be until the rains came and the crowd dispersed in no time - even the former walkers only, turned into runners.

I had an umbrella, so we continued to watch the events unfold until the winds and rain became too much and it was time to have a Pabst Blue Ribbon - with a brief toast to the Presidential Fitness test and the award that would soon become mine!