Oct
10
October 10, 2007
I use Photoshop several times a week but I only know how to do maybe ten specific functions. I operate my camera nearly every day but I almost always leave it on “Auto”, so all I really do is aim and push a button. I watch a lot of movies but I don’t typically know anything about the directors, I don’t have any profound thoughts regarding cinematography or narrative arch, I’m mostly just passively entertained (or not). I like food but I can’t identify specific ingredients unless they are unmistakably present. I listen to music every day but I often don’t know who the band members are or how their music has progressed from past albums or what unusual instruments they might be playing. I wear clothes, but I don’t know shit about fashion. I enjoy the outdoors, but what I know about botany/geology/biology could be rolled into a ball and rammed up a flea’s ass. I write a lot, but I have a tenuous-at-best grasp of basic English language rules with regards to grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure (perhaps this one is obvious).
I’ve been a parent for over two years, but the vast majority of the time I feel like I’m trying to take care of some sort of insanely complicated piece of unpredictable machinery with no user manual in sight. In other words, I definitely don’t know what the fuck I’m doing there.
I’m not an expert on anything! How did I get to be 33 years old and not be an expert on anything? I mean, there are things I can do, there are even things I’m sort of good at, but there’s not one thing I can claim as being my area of expertise.
I feel like I need to address this and make it a Life Goal, to become an expert on at least one subject. Even if it’s something totally weird and useless, like being able to name every movie in the last ten years that featured zombies. Although I’d prefer it if I could think of something at least marginally relevant to the world we live in, so that I have the potential to be a handy reference. Man, I would love to be a handy reference someday. “Linda,” people would say, “can you weigh in on this? After all, you know so much about the subject which we are discussing. Your opinion would be exceedingly useful and would in fact provide a meaningful service!”
Plus, I could maybe have special business cards printed up. That would RULE.
While I’m pondering my future status as Industry Expert (Actual Industry TBD), tell me, are you an expert in anything? Tell me all about it, please.
Oct
9
October 9, 2007
Last night I tried to wheedle JB into going to the store for me. “Mmmph,” he said discouragingly. “What do you want?”
“Some swiss cheese, the super-thinly deli sliced kind because if it’s really thin then swiss cheese is tangy and awesome but if it’s thick-cut it smells like feet, you know? I also want some dill pickles but they have to be spears, not the full pickles or the half-cut pickles or those godawful poker-chip-sized slices, spears. Oh and a frozen carrot cake. A Mrs. Smith brand carrot cake,” I answered.
He just shook his head. “No,” he said, then in anticipation of what I was going to say: “Not even if you Google Image those things, no.”
Who are these husbands running to the store at all hours to get their wives whatever their craving belly desires? Must only happen with first pregnancies.
:::
JB, by the way, is the sort of person who will randomly decide that what you need in your house is a video intercom for the front door, because that way you can see who is knocking at your door before you choose to answer it.
He is also the type of person who, during the installation process of said intercom, will ask you to test the screen from the inside, and when you press the button to activate the video, you will be confronted with a disturbing, grainy closeup view of his personal genitals.
“No thanks,” you’ll say into the speaker. “Not interested. Maybe if you’d bought me my goddamned carrot cake.”
:::
The other day a coworker of mine said (out of the blue), “I see you’re still wearing heels.”
“Yes,” I said, then feeling that my response had been inadequate, followed up with, “I’m not too uncomfortable yet, so they don’t bother me.”
“Hmmm,” he said. “I wouldn’t think you’d have to be very uncomfortable to give up heels.”
I’m still wondering who acted weirder in that conversation. Me, for randomly blurting something about pregnancy discomfort or whatever it was, or him for vaguely criticizing my shoe choice?
:::
Two days until our Tofino vacation! If you don’t hear from me for a little while, it is because I am off living the child-free lifestyle, all wild and crazy and sleeping in until 7:45.
-
My product review site:
[