Approaching Entropy

Walmart ... again

2009-09-12T12:37:00.000-07:00

I read an article recently about how Walmart is, in the current economy, trying to squeeze the last bit of life out of all of its competitors/potential competitors. It is doing this by revamping its apparel offerings, listening to customers' complaints about floor layout, etc.

One of the changes the article pointed out is that the aisles are wider and that shoppers can now see multiple areas of the store from certain points for optimal navigation. As I walked into my newly renovated local Walmart, I got to experience the results of this "new look."

There is definitely more breathing room. For example, when you first walk into the store, you have a direct line of sight all the way from the far right to the far left end of the store. This fact comes into play because, as you walk inside, directly to your right is the sanitary napkin/douche/condom aisle. First of all, these items never used to all be in one aisle. Secondly, WTF? It's as if Walmart corporate was like: "Hmm, maybe we should put all the embarassing products in one aisle. And then, wouldn't it be great if we positioned that aisle strategically so that as many people as possible could see the customers in that aisle?"

I think Walmart had better be prepared for their condom/tampon market to take a hit.

Who moved my bread?

2009-08-17T21:44:00.000-07:00

It's standard protocol for Walmart to update its look every three years. Or at least that's the explanation a Walmart associate gave for the overnight relocation of the pharmacy into a newly-constructed gray wooden box-room ... and for the fact that the bread has moved from the second aisle to a corner at the back of the store.

You heard me right. They moved the bread. This has caused major disgruntlement among Walmart clientele. I overheard one customer ask an associate whether the bread could be re-relocated because, and I quote, "Everyone is complaining about this."

As if a Walmart peon has control over the store's layout. Ha.

My dad works as a consultant for Target, and he says that store layouts are decided on by analyzing massive amounts of customer traffic data.

"Why do you think milk is at the back of grocery stores?" he asked.

"Because that's where it's supposed to be," I answered, confused.

"No," he explained. "There was a time when milk was at the front of the store, so that customers who just wanted to run in to buy milk could. But then stores realized that it was better for business if customers were forced to walk through the entire store."

So, if you go into the Conley Road Walmart in Columbia, Mo., and wander around looking for bread only to discover it after you've picked up five other items, now you'll know why Walmart corporate put the bread in the corner.

An experiment

2009-06-19T12:13:00.000-07:00

I just waxed my legs for the first time, and I'm feeling a little Bridget Jones-esque: brilliant idea spirals into frustrating -- yet slightly humorous -- catastrophe. Think blue soup.

So, there's wax everywhere. In my microwave. On my sink. On my bathroom floor. Somehow on my arms.

The newspaper I put down to protect the floor is sticking to my feet as I traipse back and forth, back and forth to the kitchen to remicrowave the wax.

The only redeeming fact is that it seems the amount of hair on my legs is indirectly proportional to the amount of wax lurking unsuspectingly on everything I touch.

Which president would you date?

2009-04-23T20:47:00.000-07:00

My roommate and I have been watching The Presidents, a History Channel DVD set we got from the library that provides a 15-minute biography on each of the presidents. Droll, you say? Not if you play the Which-president-would-I-date? game. So far, my judgment has been very poor on this subject.

When Andrew Jackson started making appearances during the first few presidents' biographies, I was a little starstruck. He was the Defender of New Orleans against the French, he fought off the Indians and the Brits in Florida and claimed her for the United States against the Spaniards...and he had awesome hair (How did he get such big hair in an age before hair products?). I announced my crush to my history-buff friend David, who immediately cried "Folly." David said that I had not chosen wisely--Andrew Jackson was practically guilty of genocide. Thousands of Indians died when Jackson had them uprooted and sent on The Trail of Tears.

David was right. The next night I watched Andrew Jackson's biography. He was a crazy man. He let the U.S. Bank--the bank that prints U.S. currency--die just because its supporters were his enemies. He courted and wed a married woman. He disagreed with a Supreme Court ruling--the ruling that allowed the Cherokee Indians in Georgia to stay on their land--so he ignored it and sent the Indians packing anyway.

This was an unwisely placed crush.

You might notice a crush theme in my postings. All I can say is that the crushes are getting progressively less realistic: first my neighbor, then famous writers, then a dead guy.

Naomi's Field Guide to Coffeehouse First Dates

2009-04-18T15:15:00.000-07:00

Signs that you are witnessing a first-date-in-progress at your local coffeehouse:

1. It's late on a Saturday afternoon, and the two arrive separately. Scratch that. If it's a guy and a girl at a coffeehouse late on a Saturday afternoon, it's probably a first date.

2. When the two in question meet, they hug. Briefly.

3. The couple sits far from the other patrons.

4. The two appear similar in age, style, socioeconomic status and attractiveness.

5. The guy doesn't drink straight black coffee. He drinks a slightly girlier drink, like a cappuccino.

6. The snippets of conversation you catch include sound bytes like, "I lived for two years in Dallas..."

7. Animated conversation seems to be followed by brief, intense pauses that are broken with comments about the weather or the drinks they're each drinking.

**If you identify two or more of the above signs, you are most likely witnessing a first date.

Hunter gatherers, angst and the economic crisis

2009-04-16T16:14:00.000-07:00

This economic crisis has explained a great mystery to me: why our hunter-gatherer forefathers had so little angst.

If you were worried about putting food on your table (literally), probably you didn't have time to worry about what the people in the next hut were saying about you or why your buddy from many moons ago de-friended you at your favorite prehistoric social-networking site.

(Actually, who am I kidding? I'm sure gossip was alive and strong among the hunter gatherers...assuming they were linguistically advanced enough to talk.)

You see, I've found that worrying about putting food on my table (or realistically, paying medical bills and funding my imminent post-graduate-and-unemployed lifestyle) is very freeing. I spend less time psychoanalyzing myself. And I think we can all agree that the less psychoanalyzing going on in the world, the better.

Marital Advice for a Complete Stranger

2009-03-18T20:46:00.000-07:00

Today I told a guy I barely know that I don't think he should get married.

Cheeky, I know. But someone has to be the female voice, telling him that we women don't want his type.

(Due to my hesitancy at being chosen to utter this truth (think Moses), the words did not flow out smoothly; he initially thought I was pre-emptively rejecting any marriage proposals from him.)

This guy's in my journalism class, and we were having a class discussion about journalists' roles in reporting international affairs. When violence breaks out in a foreign nation, the journalists there often send their families away to safety. Sometimes the journalists themselves also leave. This male acquaintance of mine claimed that it would be selfish for a journalist to evacuate with his family and abandon his post--his calling--as a journalist.

All I'm sayin' is: Don't marry and procreate if you plan on abandoning your family and putting yourself in danger for the "higher calling" of journalism. How about the higher calling of being around 'til your son graduates from high school?

House-hunting Tip for Guys

2009-03-13T13:29:00.000-07:00

Recently, I went house-hunting with one of my guy friends. My job was to give the female perspective--what does a woman think about when looking at houses? I gave him the obvious female input: We women want lots of counter space in the kitchen, and it matters whether or not there's a linen closet in the bedroom hallway.

One more thing: You want to make sure that the layout of the bathroom was well thought-out. In my current house, the cabinet is above the toilet; the toilet has become an abyss for many cosmetic/personal care items. I once fished a small perfume vial out of the toilet with a pair of chopsticks. Then there was the time I knocked my roommate's Vaseline jar into the toilet. Though I considered salvaging it, the thought of toilet water seeping its way past the lid and into the oily gooze was just too much.

A couple days ago, I woke up and went into the bathroom to find this note from my roommate taped to the mirror, "Naomi, I'm afraid your toothbrush fell into the toilet this morning :{ Sorry!"

My mind when into problem-solving mode: Do I have another toothbrush lying around? No. Could I chew gum all day and avoid breathing in people's faces? Dangerous and disgusting. Could I go pick one up at the store? Got up too late, not enough time. Could I use my roommate's toothbrush? Yes...

So, I boiled my roommate's toothbrush and called her later that day to tell her to increase the toothbrush order to two. Her note had promised me a new toothbrush by the evening. But now I wasn't the only one who needed a new toothbrush.

So, all you guys who want to take advantage of the buyer's housing market: Bring a girl with you. You'll never guess what they find important.

As the World Turns: A Summary of Recent World Events

2009-03-06T08:42:00.000-08:00

Dear President Obama,

Socialism? Really?! Are you out of your freakin' mind? Look at what that did to my country. Nothing good can come from it.

Look at the Chinese. They're sending their people over to your country in boatloads to buy your foreclosed houses. Why can't you be more capitalistic like them?

Sincerely,
Vladimir Putin

Sales Tax OR A Discussion of the Government's Profit Margin

2009-02-28T20:32:00.000-08:00

Think about: Yesterday I went into McDonald's and bought items exclusively off the Dollar Menu. Now, I can't possibly believe the Dollar Menu is a loss leader, because half the items people purchase are off the Dollar Menu. However, the profit margin can't be very high. I have no training in economics, but suppose the net profit margin on Dollar Menu items is 5 percent. So, I went into McDonald's, bought two items off the Dollar Menu and McDonald's made 10 cents. How much tax did I pay on the bill? 15 cents. And that's all net profit for the government. So essentially, the government has a net profit margin of 7.5 percent on the McDonald's Dollar Menu, compared to McDonald's own 5 percent.

Who's really winning this game?

Day 4: Wall Street and Some Thoughts on Purchasing Power in New York

2009-01-19T20:38:00.000-08:00

Wall Street is not much of a street. I imagined hundreds of bustling men-in-suits, running across the street with their hand in the air, hailing taxis. In fact, the part of Wall Street I went to--the part next to the New York Stock Exchange--is cut off to traffic and mostly all I saw was tourists in various stages of taking photos.

One thing I find interesting about New York is the prices. On-the-sidewalk vendors sell $1.75 hotdogs; 80-cent, eight-ounce cups of coffee are all over Chinatown. But, seeing $9.99-per-1/2 hour parking seemed pretty standard throughout Manhattan. I'm thinking I could survive financially in New York as long as I could subsist on hot dogs and little cups of coffee and didn't bring my car.

Day 2: In the Movies

2009-01-19T20:24:00.000-08:00

Central Park in the winter holds not the glory of summer in Central Park. Nonetheless, I still felt that perhaps I was the girl from Enchanted, or I was watching a young chess prodigy from Searching for Bobby Fischer. Later we went to the Museum of Natural History, and I got to pretend I was in Night at the Museum, Sagawea and Teddy Roosevelt and all.

Most memorable perhaps was the model of the giant squid suctioned to a giant sperm whale. Did you know that no one has ever observed giant squid in their native habitat? No one knows for sure where they eat or where they live. Dead ones just wash up on shore, get caught in fishing nets or are discovered in the bellies of sperm whales; that's the only way we know that giant squid exist. Crazy, huh?

Day 3: Ellis Island

2009-01-19T20:09:00.000-08:00

Somehow, its museum made immigration through Ellis Island seem a rather glamorous--if painful--affair. And, according to the tour guide, 40 percent of Americans can trace their ancestry through this island. So you can imagine my disappointment to find, upon calling my mom from the museum, that my ancestors emigrated from Germany around the 1860s, long before Ellis Island's doors opened in 1892. Although, when you think about it, being around since the 1860s makes my family good, solid American stock--I'm practically a Daughter of the American Revolution.

New York City, Day 1 OR The Importance of Wise Choices in Footwear When Traveling

2009-01-19T14:17:00.000-08:00

I recently spent a few days in New York City. The three of us who went together jokingly referred to ourselves as the three villagers come to gawk at the big city.

Now, the thing I don't like about being a tourist is looking like a tourist. The essentials to appearing like a "native" are to dress like the natives, act unaffected by everything and not go around holding a map and saying things like, "That museum was interesting, but what I'm really looking forward to is going to the Empire State Building tomorrow."

Unfortunately, my traveling companions were not as concerned about looking like tourists; I gave up trying to look like a native when I realized that the Lonely Planet guide to NYC that never left my friend's hands implicated all three of us, not just him.

A corollary to the "Be careful how much you care about looking the native" is "Be careful what you value when making footwear decisions while traveling." I chose--incorrectly--to value fashion (you have to look fashionable if you want to look like a native in NYC, right?) over function. I brought my fashionable, not-so-waterproof boots. And, in deference to my traveling ideal of packing lightly, I only brought this one pair of shoes.

The boots--whose native habitat is dry, cold climates--were ill-prepared for the slushy fallout of a New York snow. The wool socks, who usually cooperate well with the boots to keep me warm, provided no insulation once they too were slush-soaked.

I have at least three pairs of shoes that would have done a better job of keeping my feet warm and dry, but I didn't think they were fashionable enough for New York City. I think I might need to readjust my values.

This episode reminded me of a day I spent traveling to Nanjing when I decided--because it was so hot--to wear my (apparently tractionless) flip-flops. It rained that day, and I spent the entire day trying not to fall on my butt on the slick, smooth granite tiles of the Nanjing walkways.

The lesson in both instances is the same: Consider carefully all possible complications that a particular pair of shoes could pose when traveling.

What I really spent the semester doing OR I'm not actually obsessed with my neighbor

2008-12-18T01:59:00.000-08:00

Ok, so you know the title's not actually true, because denials are--without loss of generality--never true.

That said, here's what I spent the semester doing:

1. Reading articles...and more articles
2. Writing papers...and more papers
3. Practicing for a real job by showing up for my 8 a.m. class at 8ish.
4. Pushing the limits of my ride's carrying capacity (AKA stuffing as much crap as possible into the milk crate bungied to the back of my bike).
5. Thinking about how cold my feet are (activity is not unique to this semester, but rather is a constant activity that gives my life consistency)
6. Pondering the imminent doom of the journalism-as-we-know-it industry
7. Wondering why people never warn me about things (namely, why people didn't tell me about #6 before I started studying journalism and why people never warned me that #1 and #2 are all you ever do in grad school)
8. Defending liberals to my conservative friends and conservatives to my liberal friends...and struggling with my personal love/hate relationship with both.
9. Trying to become the kind of person who isn't ashamed to admit that she likes drinking box wine.
10. Becoming a defender of Communism. Not because of its merits, but rather because I get tired of people immediately writing it off as being merit-less and...dangerous.
11. Being glad that we don't actually live in a Communist nation. That would mean food rationing, and I certainly needed more than my fair ration of frozen food to survive this semester.

Is he just toying with my heart every time he drives down the street toward my house?

2008-12-18T01:29:00.000-08:00

Different women are wooed in different ways. If a man ever asked how best to woo me, I think I would have to say, "Move into the house across the street from me, walk your dog around the neighborhood every day, put up an Obama sign in your front yard and NEVER TALK TO ME."

I only say this because that's what my SWM neighbor has done, and it's been pretty effective. And by effective I mean all he has to do is ask and my dance card is his. Problem is, he is completely clueless. He has no idea that I'm secretly in love with him.

In case you aren't creeped out enough, here's one more thing: I just talked to him for the first time a couple weeks ago. On my birthday. It was pretty much my best birthday present this year. I will transcribe the conversation for you exactly as it happened:

Me (Riding my bike out of my driveway on the coldest day yet of winter): "It's way too cold to be biking."

Him (Also riding his bike down the driveway, directly across from me such that he is socially required to respond): *smile*

So yeah, I think there's definitely something there.

A Burning Question

2008-07-15T12:17:00.000-07:00

So, today in my journalism class, the lecturer was presenting various examples of using graphics to make newspaper articles more interesting and more readable. That was the point of the lecture.

But what caught my attention was the "Chick Flicks: the Ultimate Guide to this Misunderstood Genre" graphic.

Now, it didn't grab my attention because it was "the ultimate guide"; rather, I was concerned that "the ultimate guide" might actually be wrong. Especially since the person who wrote the article was a guy. Now, let's not be sexist, but shouldn't chicks be the ones writing about chick flicks?

The writer was working from the idea that movies like Fried Green Tomatoes and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood are stereotypical chick flicks. My contention is that this type of film is its own genre, namely the "Fried Green Tomatoes" genre. And the real chick flicks are movies like While You Were Sleeping and You've Got Mail.

But, I might be wrong. Perhaps Fried Green Tomatoes is a chick flick, and You've Got Mail should be considered a romantic comedy. Maybe that's how the movie genre lines should be drawn.

(For those of you who don't understand the difference, Fried Green Tomatoes appeals to women because it deals with close, female relationships and how relationships triumph through hardship. You've Got Mail appeals to females because it deals with a man and a woman falling in love.)

Ok, so here's where you, my die-hard blog fans come in: Where do you think the movie genre lines in this issue should be drawn? Is You've Got Mail a chick flick or a romantic comedy? What about Fried Green Tomatoes? A chick flick or the representative of its own genre?

My Autobiography

2008-06-17T15:58:00.001-07:00

If I ever write an autobiography, I'm going to title it, "I Thought I Had Cancer, But Then It Peeled Off".

That pretty much sums up my life.

Elevator-Induced Epiphanies

2008-04-13T23:23:00.000-07:00

"I hate Missouri weather." It came as an epiphany, even as I spoke the words. I was taking the elevator up to my office. The only other person aboard was a coworker, but I knew him too well to ignore him as I do with most elevator passengers. It had been unseasonably rainy and cold for a while: clearly the weather was our best topic."I've lived in Missouri my whole life," I continued, "And yet I'm just now coming to this conclusion." In an attempt to assure my new confidante that this decision was not just an emotional response to biking to work against 30 mi/hr winds, I added, "I've waffled back and forth on the matter for a while."

All these eco-friendly, save-the-earth people advocate biking. And so do I. The problem is that I liked Missouri weather a lot more before I started biking in below-freezing temperatures, above-melting temperatures, and Aprils winds and snow.

What's the best kind of candy?

2008-02-22T22:57:00.000-08:00

If we're talking about the non-chocolate genre, then hands down Shock Tarts is the best candy around. Closely followed by Sour-Patch Kids. At least, that's what I thought until tonight.

I grew up with a candy-aholic for a mother, so it's in the genes. Rides home from school customarily began with the offer of a piece of Bubble Yum. Bags of Jolly Ranchers could always be found in my mom's not-so-secret hiding places. And for Christmas, my mom's stocking is always filled with a variety of movie theatre box candies--Dots, Mike & Ikes, Good & Plenties, etc.

Halloween and Valentine's Day are the best holidays--candywise. What could beat Candy Corns and those little chalky hearts that say "I love you"...or "IM me"? You think I'm being ironic, but I'm not.

Tonight I discovered Nerds Rope, self-described as "Soft Gummy Rope Covered With Tiny Tangy Crunchy Nerds Candy." Why has no one ever thought of this before? Probably because it didn't make it among mainstream candy eaters, as evidenced by the fact that boxes of them can be found at the Food Pantry. Yes, that's right, my friend who feeds her foster kids Food Pantry fare picked up a whole box of Nerds Rope on her last visit. Because what the Food Pantry needs to be providing foster kids is Nerds Rope.

Right now, as I'm writing this, I'm on my third rope in two hours. I just can't get enough of this stuff.

Thoughts on a Lunar Eclipse

2008-02-20T21:55:00.000-08:00

So apparently a lunar eclipse occurs when the earth gets directly in between the moon and the sun; the earth's shadow falls directly on the moon, obscuring the moon.

This got me to thinking about eclipses. What about a solar eclipse? Well, that's when the moon gets directly in between the earth and the sun, obscuring the sun.

So how come no one ever talks about stellar eclipses? Think about how many times the moon gets directly in between the earth and some star, and we no longer see the star. Does anyone ever notice? No. They don't.

What about equality of celestial bodies?

Today's Discoveries

2008-02-12T15:45:00.000-08:00

I discovered two things today:

1. The booming voice lecturing in the classroom next to me belongs to one of the greatest philosophy professors of all time...I, a lowly TA, lecture next to a philosophy great.

2. When I was sixteen, I was the babysitter for one of my current students. Apparently we both look rather unlike we did ten years ago, because it's taken us three weeks to figure this out.

My Great American Novel

2008-02-11T20:35:00.000-08:00

A friend has challenged me to write a great American novel, something to be found in the company of, say, Moby Dick or Huckleberry Finn. When I enquired as to the requisite features of said genre, I was told that it must encapsulate the yearnings, the desires, the angst of the typical modern American. So, I've decided my first step will be to learn a current American English dialect. I will standardize its spelling and grammar to provide my readers a bit of assistance in following the vast passages of incoherent dialog in my novel. My next step will be to befriend a particularly ornery child who speaks this dialect. I will then catalog his various schemes and mishaps as he travels down the river in search of his nemesis, a very large, very white fish--a fish about the size of Jonah's...fish. I think that should do it.

The Week of China...of Politics...of Poop...of C.S. Lewis

2008-02-09T23:18:00.001-08:00

I've done nothing but talk to people. This entire week. As you can see from this post's title, this will be a four point essay on the Hot Topics of the week.

1. China--I attended a couple Chinese New Year celebrations this past week. I also discovered Sexy Beijing, a series on YouTube where a young American woman takes to the streets of Beijing to ask street vendors, students, and housewives questions such as, "I want to marry a Chinese man. Which is better? A northern man from Beijing or a southern man from Hong Kong?" Also, as my new officemate is obsessed with China, I've spent quite a bit of time this week discussing topics such as, "Who is your favorite Chinese political figure?" I've also learned that Confucius's teachings say nothing and yet they say everything. I still have no idea what that means.

2. Politics--Do you really think Barack could handle the presidency? How exactly does universal healthcare work again? Do you think Chelsea is cute?--was she maybe just in her Awkward Phase during Bill's presidency? Did you vote? Could our country really swallow having a president with a name like Huckabee?

3. Poop--This has been the topic of choice for dinnertime conversation at my dinner/Bible study for the past few weeks. When we're not sharing intimate BM stories, we're discussing items that people have been known to swallow--goldfish, Barbie heads, large quantities of hair. Some people look forward to Wednesday nights because they know they're going to get Miss Naomi's Famous Brownies, but I've started to go for the poop stories.

4. C.S. Lewis--I've been talking to one of the guys in my office a lot lately about religion and morality. I gave him Mere Christianity to read the other day. So far he's impressed with Lewis's explanation that all people, regardless of culture, have some sense of right and wrong. He concluded that must mean Lewis thinks we have morality and that's enough--no need for religion. I told him "Just wait."

A Trick I Learned from a Movie Prostitute

2008-01-31T21:16:00.000-08:00

You know that part at the beginning of Pretty Woman where Julia Robert's character is fixing herself up--applying her face and donning some semblance of clothing--before she goes out to work her corner? After she zips up her thigh-high synthetic leather boots, she applies a permanent black marker to the scuff marks to make herself look a little less cheap than she is.

I have a pair of cheap boots. They have some scuff marks. And I have a permanent black marker. Who says watching movies like Pretty Woman is a waste of time?

Ballet

2008-01-24T23:16:00.000-08:00

I work at a tutoring center. It's on the bottom level. On the floor above, there is a dance studio. Sometimes they grand jete across the floor and land with a thud on our ceiling. In time. At least, that's what I imagine they're doing.

While I was teaching in China, there were massive construction projects constantly in progress on my campus. For a period of time noisy, sputtering trucks passed by my classroom building, progressively drowning out my voice. I would raise my voice until it could be raised no more, and I would finally shut up.

Sometimes I think there is a conspiracy to prevent learning. All the noisiest activities and creatures conspire together to locate themselves next to those who want to learn.

The man who lectures one classroom over from me this semester has a loud, low-pitched voice. If I stop talking, the rumbling of his voice distracts me.

Sometimes we don't stop talking for fear of hearing the rumbling.

Pardon the stream of consciousness writing. I've been reading Annie Dillard. She writes like this, and she won a Pulitzer.

Computer Programmers are from Mars, Baristas are from Venus: Why Espresso-pullers aren't meant to be Troubleshooters

2008-01-15T18:27:00.000-08:00

A coffeehouse without music is awkwardly silent. Like a movie without a soundtrack.

A coffeehouse without a functioning cash register is constipated. Like a pregnant woman.

Yesterday at the coffeehouse my principle role was not as barista. It was as troubleshooter. An hour into my shift, one of the speakers started making a thumping noise that caused patrons to start glancing around in concern. After disconnecting the offending speaker and calling all the techies on the employee phone list, I eventually had music running through the soundboard we use for live music.

A bit later, as I was about to take my break, the cash register locked up. Our sole owner-manager was absent and not responding to phone calls, so I broke out the reset manual myself. Twenty minutes later, the register was still locked up, but I had successfully reset its entire memory. When my boss arrived an hour later and announced that she would have to pull an all-nighter to rectify the damage done, my frazzled state delayed the realization that this was actually, to some degree, my fault.

The blessed redemption of the day was that I only had to do about three loads of dishes, a paltry amount for us barista-cum-dishwashers.

Au Revoir, Bridesmaids

2008-01-05T21:23:00.000-08:00

The day of my friend's wedding, our hotel housekeeper arrived to the aftermath of wedding bustle and flurry and proceeded to tidy our room. When I left for the wedding, the floor was covered in a disordered scattering of various clothing, toiletries, Christmas gifts, and wedding paraphernelia. When I returned, I had no idea where anything was.

When the housekeeper saw us, she announced that everything in our room was "very easy to find." She had put everything in the closet or bathroom...or in random drawers around the room and other people's suitcases as we came to find out later. When I had trouble finding my purse, she assured me that everything was still in my room, to which I responded, "Oh, don't worry. I don't think you stole anything." Instantly, I was painfully aware that she was a hotel maid and I was the one wearing the Pretty Princess bridesmaid dress. My mind began screaming, "This is not what it seems. I believe in egalitarianism. I only wear dresses like this on wedding days." Unfortunately she did not hear my non-verbal protests. As I cringed in the closet where I was still trying to locate my purse, I heard, "I am a world traveler. I can speak three languages." And with an "Au revoir," the housekeeper breezed out of the room. Confused by this non sequitur, I eventually realized that this was her response to my stealing comment.

Epilogue: I eventually found my purse. There are quirky people out there, but that doesn't mean we need to accuse them of stealing.

A Couple Onions, Neighbor?

2008-01-04T21:50:00.000-08:00

I was trying to cook Chinese food a couple nights ago, and I realized that I needed onions. Naturally, the best resources when lacking a necessary cooking ingredient are a little brother and a bag of homemade caramel popcorn. My brother left the house--caramel corn in hand--and minutes later returned with two small onions. He had bargained with the neighbors and, frankly, I think the neighbors got the better end of the deal. But I got my onions. Everyone's a winner!

Umami

2007-12-13T19:24:00.000-08:00

Umami--have you heard of it? According to my Yahoo! newsfeed, umami--Japanese for "savory" or "meaty"--is the fifth taste. You know how you were always told that there are 4 tastes--sweet, salty, bitter, sour? Well, now there's a fifth. And by the way, if you haven't heard by now, there are 8, not 9, planets. You know how you were always told that your genes came solely from your two parents? Well, that's been debunked as well.

Just kidding. But I can just imagine the headlines, "Recent scientific studies suggest that offspring receive their genetic makeup from not two, but three, DNA contributors." I know this sounds ludicrous, but I feel like every time science teachers drilled numbers into our heads (5 kingdoms of living species, 3 states of matter, etc.) they were just begging to be disproved.

The Old Days (A Tribute to Stolen Internet)

2007-12-08T21:42:00.001-08:00

I'm sayin' goodbye to nights of cruising my neighborhood, laptop in lap, in search of stolen internet. Sayin' goodbye to wandering around my front yard, cocking my laptop, now to the right, now to the left, hoping to catch that elusive wireless signal. Yes, that's right--Fyfer Place has officially purchased its very own internet connection.

In Support of More Martial Arts Analogies

2007-11-30T13:45:00.000-08:00

"I balanced a salad bowl on my thumb," my coffeehouse coworker, Jessie, announced to me the other day.

Obviously, her feat rendered me speechless. However, once I recovered from my shock, I informed her that this is the black belt test of barista-hood.

Jackpot! I believe I've just discovered a veritable motherload of analogy possibilities. Martial arts has a whole rainbow of belt colors. And there are different levels of black belts.

On Monday I announced to my students that we were in the home stretch--the 4th quarter, the bottom of the 9th--of the semester. Unfortunately--despite the motherload of possibilities--martial arts gets very little love in the sports analogy arena. Maybe I should start calling their final exam the Test for the Black Belt in College Algebra.

All I Ever Needed to Know, I Learned from Mao

2007-11-26T21:52:00.000-08:00

With two weeks left in the semester, I was just informed that I must give eleven more quizzes to my students by the end of the semester. Eleven. This translates into more than one quiz per day. This also translates into grading approximately 650 quizzes in next two weeks. Hence, my days will be spent hunched over sometimes incoherent, often incorrect scribblings with a red-ink pen.

In my initial frustration over my boss’s impossible expectations, I was sorely tempted to create a few quiz scores ex nihilo. But I was quickly dissuaded from this tactic by a) ethics, b) the knowledge that successfully forging relatively accurate, imaginary grades would be difficult, and c) Chinese history.

The first two reasons are rather transparent, but the third might take some explaining. In the late 1950’s, Chairman Mao Zedong of China began an ill-fated initiative called the Great Leap Forward. He formed citizens into agricultural collectives that reported to the government. The goal was to use the government’s monopoly on agriculture to finance nationwide industrialization. Unfortunately, the production quotas for the collectives were impossibly high. However, to save face each cadre would lie to his superior, stating that production quotas had not only been met, but exceeded. Such “success” led to increased production quotas and, predictably, the same lies. As a result of this lying epidemic, China reported phenomenal harvests for a while, only to have millions die of starvation a couple years later when people couldn’t subsist on imaginary grain.

Lesson learned: Forging numbers = starvation. Not exactly, but it could if I lost my job.

IMAgiNiff

2007-11-24T15:41:00.000-08:00

On Thanksgiving, I played a board game called Imaginiff with my family. The game gives you a hypothetical situation and asks you to guess—among six options--what a person’s most likely response to the situation would be. So, you spend the game wondering whether your father would really confess to accidentally running over the neighbor’s cat; or whether he would rather, as you suspect, place the smashed cat on the cul-de-sac and say nothing. You also start to ask yourself questions you’ve never asked yourself before—questions like, “If I were a condiment, what kind of condiment would I most likely be?”

As I was puttering about my house today, circumstances inspired me to design my own Imaginiff card:

IMAgiNiff… (Naomi)___

Had Mormons come to the front door. What would he/she most likely do?

1. Welcome them in and offer them tea

2. Explain to them that he/she had a Mormon roommate in college and already knows a lot about Mormonism

3. Take this as an opportunity to discuss the possibility of acquiring some holy underwear

4. Show them his/her collection of Mormon Tabernacle Choir CDs

5. Convert

6. Hide

The Melting Pot

2007-11-20T10:21:00.000-08:00

The US is the Melting Pot of the World. I maintain that my neighborhood is the Melting Pot of the US--at least demographically. My next-door neighbors, Bob and Wanda, are homebound octogenarians; on the other side, are guys I fondly refer to as "the college frat boys," whose hobbies include leaving their red gym shorts hanging on the front porch banister and practicing their frat boy band music loud enough to rattle the walls of my house.

Behind me are the Villa Capri apartments, their whimsical name belying their utilitarian function. They are home mostly to Chinese and Taiwanese, who gladly live in cinder block if it means cheap rent.

Then there are the Mexicans (I think they really are Mexican, not just generic Latin American). They live down the street, and I only notice them when I hear the music blaring during their weekly Sunday gatherings, presumably the only day they have off.

Me? I'm a white, middle-class working female. I am what everyone is melting into.

Saturday Night at Fyfer Place, Episode 1

2007-11-12T19:24:00.000-08:00

On Saturday night my roommate, Ingrid, and I were watching Planet Earth, a BBC documentary series on the “last frontiers of nature.” As we view footage of Iguassu Falls, a massive waterfall in Brazil, Ingrid blurts out, “If I could be anything, I would be a water molecule.”

I look at her quizzically.

She continues, “You could have all the sensations…the sensation of falling, of flying…”

“Ingrid,” I say, somewhat pedantically, “Water molecules aren’t sentient.”

“Then I want to be a sentient water molecule.”

Later, as the camera pans out over an ice-covered lake in Siberia containing one-third of the earth’s freshwater, Ingrid retracts her desire to be a sentient water molecule.

As a sidenote, what I learned from watching Planet Earth was that I have a vast store of latent scientific knowledge. How did I know that the Amazon river dolphin is blind before the man with the British accent told me? I also knew that the giant salamander has poor eyesight…maybe I have a thing for blind animals.

Who do you crush on?

2007-11-06T12:09:00.001-08:00

So, yesterday I found out some bad news. Apparently, my favorite single male author is now married and living in Colorado. The plan was for him to marry me and for us to grow old together in China, but apparently he didn't get the memo.

In the past couple years, I've developed crushes on three single male writers, two of whom are now married and one who has been deemed too dangerous to get involved with. He has issues with women, which he repeatedly brings up in his writings. So, I don't think it's going to work out with any of them.

Some girls crush on famous guys with cute butts; I crush on famous guys who write well.

"Hello. You've reached emergency services. Please hold while we repair our vehicle."

2007-11-04T15:30:00.000-08:00

A couple days ago, I saw an ambulance being pulled by a tow truck.

Think about it.

The Awkward Phase Conversation

2007-10-31T13:49:00.000-07:00

When I was eight, I had a tooth pulled. Sitting in the school lobby, waiting for my mom to pick me up to go to the dentist, my little second grade mind couldn’t see past that day. Getting my tooth pulled was pretty much the worst thing imaginable. I didn’t think I’d survive.

When I have kids, I intend to sit them down when they’re twelve or so and have the Awkward Phase conversation with them. There will be a male and female version, but they’re pretty similar; I’m still working on the male one. The female version goes like this, “You’re awkward right now, and you’re going to continue to be that way for the next few years. Don’t worry. All your peers are awkward just like you. Even the pretty girls—the skinny blonde girls with the trendy clothes--are awkward. It may seem like they escaped, but their dye jobs and thick make-up are a thin veneer for their stumbling speech and body image problems.

“It may not seem like things will ever change, but trust me, they will. I too was once awkward. So was your dad. So was every person who ever survived to adulthood.

“And it’s okay that you feel unattractive. Your legs are gangly, your mouth full of metal, and your face covered in acne. That’s good reason to be self-conscious. But one day, you’ll wake up and make it the whole day without tripping over your own feet, or getting apple stuck in your braces, or using acne medication. You won’t notice at first. But gradually, you’ll have more self-confidence. You’ll stop saying “like” and “uh” every other word and saying everything like it’s a question? A boy might even ask you out. Then another one. Slowly you’ll realize you’re out of the Awkward Phase. That’s all it is. It’s just a phase.”

I survived the tooth extraction, and I survived adolescence. But things would have been so much easier if someone had mapped things out beforehand. There is life after the dentist office and there is life after the Awkward Phase.

The Consummation of Friendship

2007-10-15T17:56:00.000-07:00

Would that we had always been friends and didn't have to go through the awkward "get to know you" phase requisite in all relationships. So ran the sentiments of a friend of mine. They resonated in my mind, as previously unarticulated truths are wont to do.

These sentiments brought clarity in an unusual arena. I have avoidance issues with going to the hair salon. I only go when my roots scream, "Everyone is looking at us!" I hate making small talk, and I have nothing in common with hair stylists except that we both live in the same town and we both hope my dye job turns out. But now I think it's more than that.

A few weeks ago, I arrived for what I knew would be a torturously long dye session. After 3 hours comparing (or rather, contrasting) post-high school lives with my hair stylist, her giving me a chronology of her tattoeings and me confessing awkwardly that I'm a math teacher, we were ready to consummate our "get to know you" conversation by becoming friends. Instead, I left. I left with red hair and a renewed appreciation for my college degree, but with no new friends.

Maybe my aversion for the hair salon boils down to my disappointment with these pseudo-relationships I develop with each new hair stylist? Many people always go to the same stylist, thereby involving themselves in a long-term relationship. I think my problem might be my one-night stand habit with hair stylists.

Job Possibility

2007-10-14T19:52:00.000-07:00

A week ago, a friend introduced me to the Martingale betting strategy, and I think it might just be the solution to my malingering career conundrum.

Here's how the strategy works: Let's say we're playing roulette. The first bet I place is $1. If I win, I quit; if I lose, the next time I bet $2. Then if I win, I quit, and my net gain is $1. If I lose, the next time I bet $4. Then if I win, I quit, and my net gain is $1; if I lose, the next time I bet $8. Each time I bet, I bet $1 above my cumulative losses.

Think about it. Given infinite money (and if I'm betting in $1 increments, $2000 is effectively infinite money), regardless of the odds that I'm working with, I'm guaranteed to win $1 eventually.

And that's just each iteration! So, given $2000 and infinite time (and thus infinite iterations of $1 wins), I could win an infinite amount of money. Thus nullifying my need to find a career.

But as my friend wisely pointed out, many things are possible given $2000 and infinite time.