no matches found, suckah
On Valentine's Day weekend, while everyone else was out on the town, I was in the bookstore reading as many books as I could for free. One disturbing find was a book entitled Are You My Husband? : I Can Find Him All by Myself, in which all the characters were cartoon birds. Clearly a parody on the children's book Are you My Mother?, this was far from kids' reading material. In it, Little Chick (I am not making this up) wakes up one morning to discover that she's 30 and still single. She sets out on a mission to find a man, without success, and at the end of the story (because I of course was not going to pay for the book, so I read the whole thing in the store) goes to bed alone, somehow content with the fact that she is single. Thank goodness I didn't buy it. What a load of propaganda. If the author isn't a housewife somewhere in the midwest, I'd be surprised.
I spent 45 minutes of my life filling out some kind of matchmaking test at eharmony.com. After clicking "Find my matches all over the world," the system sputtered for about five seconds before informing me that it had no matches for me and I was doomed to a life of spinsterhood and cat husbandry. Its top alternative suggestions were "join a cult," "join a nunnery," or "take much more than the dose your doctor recommended." K says I shouldn't heed romantic advice from a database, but it's not like my well-meaning friends have any more insight than the computer. They just happen to be less binary with their suggestions.
On the plus side, I got tickets to the Sharks game Sunday, and they're kicking ass. I wouldn't mind a one-nighter with an NHL player. Just not Ricci. B says everyone is too picky. Maybe that's my problem.
visual noise
The long awaited (well, at least I've been long awaiting them) photos from my shoot with Visual Noise in San Francisco are now up. Sorry I can't disclose the location, it's a trade secret. Those of you who know me also know I can only take mainstream in small doses, so thanks to the Bear for appeasing that oppressed punk side of me. He and his crew are amazing photographers. Makes me again wonder how I'm sitting at this desk job in Banana Republic trousers, but hey, for you more conservative stalkers, I guarantee there are more BR photos to come.
sunday never hesitates
I like Sunday but Sunday hates me. And so my cycle of failed relationships continues, even with the weekends. This morning I went to Polars practice and had successfully completed nearly 50 minutes of skating drills, even backwards crossovers, with no mishap. Then, during a rapid backwards/forwards change of direction drill, I caught an edge and went sailing onto my rear end, jamming my right thumb in the process, as I had apparently stuck it out to break my fall (probably a poorly developed reflex). After practice, some of the girls on the team went to a cafe in Redwood City, where Peanut, who has been playing hockey for all of three years and yet is somehow 100x better than me, discussed how she had played in two games the night before, subbing for the beginner league in the second game when they were short players. I, in fact, had done the same exact thing, and had subbed for the same team as her, on a different line. "It was so easy," she said, "I didn't even get tired, I just kept passing to the one beginner that was on our line. I wasn't even trying." Geez, I was trying as hard as I could, I thought, and I was exhausted and still didn't score a goal. I left lunch depressed. That afternoon I drove to OSH, or at least to where I thought OSH was, and ended up getting stuck in the Costco parking lot wedged in the middle of an entourage of BMWs out on their Sunday drive. After two laps around the parking lot, I finally realized OSH was on the other block. I spent twenty minutes at the hardware store looking for a wooden clothes drying rack that a friend claimed he had purchased there. I finally broke down and asked a salesperson, who said dryly, "We're out of stock of those. They'll be in next week." I banished all fantasies of unpacking the rest of my condo, went home, threw a bunch of clothes and sunblock in my car, and drove to the barn. An hour later I was galloping across a green field, the little chestnut quarter horse beneath me behaving politely, the sun shining, birds chirping, the wind in my hair, and then, a bug flew into my eye. I hauled Stormy to a disheveling halt, cursing and rubbing my eye with the back of my glove. Why do you hate me? I thought, looking up at the sky. I returned home and promptly sat down at my computer, overheated and irritated. An acquaintance messaged me, somehow insinuating that people were tired of hearing me pine away for some person they never met. I typed something rude, and logged off. Ten minutes later I thought I'd open up my desktop machine to fix the problem with the unrecognized CD-ROM drive, and when I pushed the power button to turn it back on, it emitted a long series of beeps and refused to boot. I gave up. Sunday hates me and I can't make it love me. And that, evidently, is the theme of the year.
shutup about hockey already
As soon as you look at the latest update on the images page. Then I'll start talking about horses and you'll wish you never asked. Aside from the need to stop snowplowing and being hunchy all the time, I also need to "cut my stick way dAWN," says our resident Canadian coach. "Get rid of that big knob too," he instructed, pointing at my stick. I was horrified. "No!" I said. "Why do you need that?" he asked. One of my teammates backed me up. "It helps to keep me from losing my stick," she said, demonstrating how she could push her hand up against the knob. "It's just going to get in the way," he said. I clutched my sticks next to my chest, as if he was going to steal them and saw the ends off on the spot while I beat him on the back with my fists. He proceeded to give me about twenty-five other pointers addressing problems with my position before hopping into his SUV with his woman (who also plays on our team) and driving off. I threw my (too long) sticks into my car and drove back to the hotel alone. Everyone on my team has their own personal Canadian these days. No wonder I need help. What happened to mine?
the icehounds
There are days when I think I'm never going to get any better at this sport. The Icehounds' first D league game of the new season was less than stellar at Yerba Buena tonight. We kept passing to our invisible friends and I don't think I could get the puck off the boards if my life depended on it. I need to start a vigorous athletic program so I'm not melting two minutes into first period. Needless to say, we lost, and to top it off I got stabbed in the kidney after doing a header over some guy's stick with 25 seconds left in third period. Hey, at least it was my good kidney.
Hattrick did the right thing by dragging my complaining ass to the bar afterwards (she drove, I was stuck), because I was a lot more cheery after the first round our team captain bought. Even my kidney pain went away, wow. Halfway through my drink, our captain said, "Don't I know you from somewhere?" "Yes," I said, "yes you do," although I wasn't even sure. "Where have you worked?" I asked. "Apple," he said, pausing. I shook my head. "Ariba." "Ariba?!" I responded, my eyes growing round. "You were a VP in software development, weren't you?" "I was a manager," he said. "No wonder I thought I recognized your name on the roster," he added. In another bizarre episode of "It's a Small Valley," I've managed to join a random co-ed hockey team in San Francisco led by a guy who interviewed me for a tech writing job three years ago. Just another reason why you should never flip anyone off on the highway.
Do you ever get the feeling you're being watched? How about stalked? That photographer that shot us at my women's tourney showed up again at this game. So here are a couple photos of me in a way too big 2XL jersey that hasn't been washed since the turn of the century. We're not even sponsored by that bar anymore (Utah) and they're still getting free advertising. As you can see, I haven't yet learned anything about how to properly wear my hockey socks.
Hattrick did the right thing by dragging my complaining ass to the bar afterwards (she drove, I was stuck), because I was a lot more cheery after the first round our team captain bought. Even my kidney pain went away, wow. Halfway through my drink, our captain said, "Don't I know you from somewhere?" "Yes," I said, "yes you do," although I wasn't even sure. "Where have you worked?" I asked. "Apple," he said, pausing. I shook my head. "Ariba." "Ariba?!" I responded, my eyes growing round. "You were a VP in software development, weren't you?" "I was a manager," he said. "No wonder I thought I recognized your name on the roster," he added. In another bizarre episode of "It's a Small Valley," I've managed to join a random co-ed hockey team in San Francisco led by a guy who interviewed me for a tech writing job three years ago. Just another reason why you should never flip anyone off on the highway.
Do you ever get the feeling you're being watched? How about stalked? That photographer that shot us at my women's tourney showed up again at this game. So here are a couple photos of me in a way too big 2XL jersey that hasn't been washed since the turn of the century. We're not even sponsored by that bar anymore (Utah) and they're still getting free advertising. As you can see, I haven't yet learned anything about how to properly wear my hockey socks.
don't drink and IM
J-Man: HI
Jess: hi
J-Man: do you know how rrely i drink?
J-Man: rarelyh
J-Man: rarely
Jess: no
J-Man: very
Jess: i hardly drink. i border on not drinking at all
J-Man: same here.. i just crossed that border
J-Man: bleh
Jess: why did you go out and get trashed
J-Man: no i staye in and had lots of rum
J-Man: and coke
J-Man: 151 catches fire eaily
J-Man: sasily'
J-Man: but opnly when its siluted by a paper towle. the shopglass cont burn
J-Man: wontn
J-Man: wont
J-Man: dammit. keyboard
Jess: drinking alone is the first sign of alcoholism
J-Man: uh oh
J-Man: stuff
J-Man: probably, its qbou tiem
J-Man: about tiem
Jess: so can i post this conversation to my blog tomorrow?
J-Man: note likely
J-Man: why wold youp do that?
Jess: for the fans
J-Man: you have a fan club?/
J-Man: hows come yhou have a fan club?
J-Man: i dot have a fan club
J-Man: sont
J-Man: dont
J-Man: bleh
J-Man: im going to sleep
Jess: hi
J-Man: do you know how rrely i drink?
J-Man: rarelyh
J-Man: rarely
Jess: no
J-Man: very
Jess: i hardly drink. i border on not drinking at all
J-Man: same here.. i just crossed that border
J-Man: bleh
Jess: why did you go out and get trashed
J-Man: no i staye in and had lots of rum
J-Man: and coke
J-Man: 151 catches fire eaily
J-Man: sasily'
J-Man: but opnly when its siluted by a paper towle. the shopglass cont burn
J-Man: wontn
J-Man: wont
J-Man: dammit. keyboard
Jess: drinking alone is the first sign of alcoholism
J-Man: uh oh
J-Man: stuff
J-Man: probably, its qbou tiem
J-Man: about tiem
Jess: so can i post this conversation to my blog tomorrow?
J-Man: note likely
J-Man: why wold youp do that?
Jess: for the fans
J-Man: you have a fan club?/
J-Man: hows come yhou have a fan club?
J-Man: i dot have a fan club
J-Man: sont
J-Man: dont
J-Man: bleh
J-Man: im going to sleep
the sun gives you skin cancer
I knew this would happen. That I would come home to California and have nothing to write about because my life is so mundane. As supporting evidence, I cite the fact that none of my California friends keep blogs, because absolutely nothing ever happens out here and there is nothing to say (with the exception of J-man, who also writes about less than humorous topics). For example, the only good thing people ever have to say about this place is the weather. Yes, it's 85 degrees in March, I don't deny that. But these are the same people who all have desk jobs and cubes without windows and who pontificate endlessly about the merits of the sunshine and the warm breeze and the trees, and who typically go directly from work to home at around 7:00 p.m. because they all went into work at 10 a.m. By this time, the sun has gone down and the chirping birds have stopped and it's gotten pretty cold out because that's what it does at night in the desert.
Krispy Kreme and In N Out Burger are completely disgusting, and the furniture at Ikea is crappy. There, I said it, and for once I don't care what you think. If 30,000 people have so much money and time that they can go out protesting in the middle of San Francisco on a weekday, then I need to get myself a new job because I must be missing out.
If I have to stay inside all day, give me a fireplace and a bearskin rug and a huge snowstorm anytime over the misery of being cooped up in an arctically temperature controlled highrise office during a California spring day. There's gotta be a reason why all the natives left. People poke me in the shoulder when I tell them I grew up in the bay area, I suppose to see if I'm real. What am I still doing here?
Krispy Kreme and In N Out Burger are completely disgusting, and the furniture at Ikea is crappy. There, I said it, and for once I don't care what you think. If 30,000 people have so much money and time that they can go out protesting in the middle of San Francisco on a weekday, then I need to get myself a new job because I must be missing out.
If I have to stay inside all day, give me a fireplace and a bearskin rug and a huge snowstorm anytime over the misery of being cooped up in an arctically temperature controlled highrise office during a California spring day. There's gotta be a reason why all the natives left. People poke me in the shoulder when I tell them I grew up in the bay area, I suppose to see if I'm real. What am I still doing here?
clarity
By the time I recognize this moment
This moment will be gone
But I will bend the lie, pretending
That it somehow lingered on
- John Mayer, Clarity
This moment will be gone
But I will bend the lie, pretending
That it somehow lingered on
- John Mayer, Clarity
vacaville tourney
I returned from the weekend tournament medaled and tattooed. Well, when I get bored of the tat, I'll scrape it off and stick on a new one. We won our first game and lost the second two, but we played a whole lotta hockey and I'm not even particularly sore. I guess when you're on the ice four times a week your body gives up and adapts. The Vacaville Valentines were a tough team to play on Sunday. Aside from the hot pink jerseys blinding us everywhere we went, they had a couple of women clearly out of their level who could have been the entire team and still won. Still, I was pleased with my playing the second two games and even got to play center once. It's still difficult getting to know my teammates and what exactly they're going to do or want me to do. I sometimes get conflicting instructions which makes me thankful for the detailed positioning drills we did back in Pittsburgh. Saturday we played the ladies from Lake Tahoe and the Squirrels, who are a team of friends out of the bay area. The Polars have started a tradition whereby everyone puts a dollar in the "pot," and the first person to score a goal wins the entire pot (or, if the goalie gets a shutout, the scoring player splits the pot with the goalie). I think it would have been a lot more motivational if they had put a coupon in the pot for "an evening with a hot male hockey player," 
but then, just because it motivates me doesn't mean it has the same appeal for everyone else. I'm working on getting this tradition updated. In the meantime, during an ice cream break between games, I was forced to "tell everyone something they don't know about me," apparently in the hope of discovering some fact about me that they could make fun of for the rest of the season. I guess I didn't give them very good ammunition, so they proceeded to taunt me for wearing my hockey socks like a figure skater the entire weekend. Hey, that's fine with me as long as it keeps them at bay for a while. If they find out why I really can't run for public office, I'll never hear the end of it.
hockey regrets
Watch the people entering the rink in large droves. Sit down by yourself in the bleachers, chilled to the bone. Get colder as they start late. Wonder for a fleeting minute if he stayed at work, then wave to him when he comes out. Feel surprised but don't act it. Watch as he scores half his team's points for the whole game. Think you've just witnessed grace under fire. Wish for a moment you had that kind of resilience.
See him pull his helmet off and wave to you as he heads off the ice. Leap up excitedly but pretend to be nonchalant. Lean over the chain link fence and smile with incredible sincerity when you see him beaming up at you, his hair matted five different ways and his forehead shiny. Superstar. Tell him that. Watch him shyly try to shake it off. Be remarkably proud.
- J. Mignone, How to Have a Hockey Player
See him pull his helmet off and wave to you as he heads off the ice. Leap up excitedly but pretend to be nonchalant. Lean over the chain link fence and smile with incredible sincerity when you see him beaming up at you, his hair matted five different ways and his forehead shiny. Superstar. Tell him that. Watch him shyly try to shake it off. Be remarkably proud.
- J. Mignone, How to Have a Hockey Player
Guess who got the best number ever? Now if only I could manage to score a goal within my brief hockey existence, my life would be complete. Well, not quite, but it would be vastly improved. We are playing other bay area women's tournament teams this weekend in the tumbleweed and outlet store town of Vacaville, about an hour and a half from the bay, and thirty minutes from the little college town where I spent all my undergrad years. I hear Davis has turned into quite the metropolis these days, but if I ever go back it will only be to buy a frame for that diploma that's still sitting in some filing cabinet I never open. I have other imaginings for why I might go back
there, but with so little willpower after leaving CMU, I am afraid they will remain vivid fantasies for now. (Speaking academically, I sort of withheld the fact that I scored disturbingly well on the practice LSAT administered by Kaplan, with a close to perfect score on reading comprehension. Two more points and I'd have a good shot at U of Chicago and such schools. Does this make me feel better? Not really. In fact, it's only served to confuse me further. I have, oddly, tucked the results away in some big pile of paper, running from it the way my former landlady's cat ran from its puke on the living room carpet. It's hard to explain.) I bet you thought this entry would be about hockey, but it's not. I'm as surprised as you.
Happy St. Paddy's Day! People wanted to see pics of my new place, but until I can get some furniture in here I'm just going to post a pic of me in my favorite color. Also as part of this entry is a photo of my new shower, complete with granite walls and whirlpool tub. I will be charging admission for the tub, extra if you're interested in sitting in it with me. Also, if you haven't discovered that most of my blog pics are clickable, there might be an "Intro to the World Wide Web" class you can take at the senior center. I'm an interaction designer, not an Internet 101 teacher. And no, I won't fix your computer.
You are still a whisper on my lips
A feeling at my fingertips
That's pulling at my skin
You leave me when I'm at my worst
Feeling as if I've been cursed
Bitter cold within
Days go by and still I think of you
Days when I couldn't live my life without you
Without you
- Dirty Vegas, Days Go By
A feeling at my fingertips
That's pulling at my skin
You leave me when I'm at my worst
Feeling as if I've been cursed
Bitter cold within
Days go by and still I think of you
Days when I couldn't live my life without you
Without you
- Dirty Vegas, Days Go By
We won the keg! Thank you everyone for showing up to my game. It was most unexpected and I certainly would have skated harder if I knew you were all up there scrutinizing my play. I have to say, six players and a goalie does not a hockey team make, but we held our ground and I burned off any shred of evidence that I ate half a box of Girl Scout cookies that morning. To those of you who didn't show up, well you missed the free beer and dinner so nyah nyah to you.
Sorry the photo is out of focus, but I didn't take it, Shrek the hockey ogre did. Shrek is assistant big cheese over at Ice Oasis and likes to taunt people with his extremely bad but frustratingly lucky goaltending when we are short goalies. My first goal ever was somehow indirectly thwarted by him last week when the refs called no goal for my being in the crease. Or so they say. I returned to the locker room that evening to hear him singing from behind the shower curtain "Ah Jessica, would have scored on me, but you were in the crease!" I would have decked him, but the last thing I wanted to see was Shrek nude in the shower. So alas, there you have it, us and the blurry keg.
I've moved stuff around again. You're never done uploading till it's 2 a.m. I'm killing the art link for a while until I can get my scanner hooked up at my new place. In the meantime, the photoshoots now have their own page and I've added pictures from my second shoot with dmk26 here, in the spirit of those old Calvin Klein ads from the 80s. He of course has the photos he likes best at his site.
When Korky got the hat trick last night, my favorite Sharks fan leaped from her seat shouting "He got it!" and shook her fists like a Roman watching the gladiators fight lions at the Coliseum. Fans littered the ice with baseball caps and other headwear that was kicked around by players and eventually picked up by the refs. If only the Sharks could have played as well as they did the first five and last five minutes of the game. Nabby received some award at the start of the game and promptly decided to suck afterwards -- this is why you don't eat dessert before dinner. The guy in the row behind us, who hadn't showed most of the season, appeared halfway through second period with his head shaved and rife with rude commentary. "The difference between their goalie and ours is that theirs is stopping pucks," he said, causing us to turn around with a snort (see photo).
I still can't help but take pictures of hockey events and paraphernalia. Below are some photos from the game, including the Sharks Zamboni. My favorite Sharks fan asked me in between periods how many teams I was playing for now. "Oh, three," I said. "I'm now on the ice four times a week." I just joined a co-ed D league in San Francisco in addition to my two women's teams, one of which (The Blades) has made it to the finals this Saturday! We are playing for the "Stanley Keg," so I suggest you all come by if we win because I'm certainly not going to drink all that beer. Ice Oasis, Redwood City, 5:00 p.m.
I've also managed to convince four, yes FOUR total newbies to learn to skate and play at the skills clinic on Saturday afternoon, right before my league game. Oddly, I went for the first time a few weeks ago to see some ex-Oracle employees (and one current employee) lose their semi-final playoffs to the SF Earthquakes at Yerba Buena rink. Upon discovering that I played, they asked me to join and I said "sure," without giving it a second thought. Apparently this startled some of their regular fans (who I happen to work with in the Usability group) into giving it a try. So I'm excited to announce that there is a chance someone will skate worse than me at clinic this weekend. Is that possible? Stay tuned.
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I struggled in the wee hours of the morning a few days ago to reconstruct my old and extravagantly heavy Ikea desk in the room I'm setting up as an office/art studio. After some creative stacking on cardboard boxes, I was able to flip the desk over on my own and hurl my 19" CRT monitor on top. One hour of sweating and cursing later, I booted up my geriatric desktop machine and listened to the hard drive and fan whir questionably under the table. 5:30 a.m., read Windows when the machine finally started. I quickly looked at my watch in a panic. 2:30 a.m. I realized then that I hadn't turned this computer on since I left Pittsburgh three months ago.
There were a zillion things on the desktop. All files I had placed there "temporarily" or in a haste, thinking I would later clean them up instead of once again throwing them into the folder marked "desktopmess." I started clicking on them one by one, as if I had found a chest of old love letters in the basement and wanted to sniff each one to see if the musky scent of cologne remained. I discovered photos that made me snicker (you will unfortunately never know what that picture looks like uncropped) and IM conversations that made me cringe with the insensitivity of my words. I also found this excerpt from an e-mail I sent, which caused me to stare blankly for a while, disturbed by my exposure of heart:
"There is a disquieting magnitude to the idea of staying here, and it perturbs me because I have never been one to let someone else change my plans. That the idea lingers there in my subconscious makes me think that maybe it knows something I don't, and I try not to listen to it like it's the devil that sits on Tom's shoulder and tells him to do wicked things."
A Tom & Jerry reference in an e-mail of full seriousness. How typically oxymoronic of me. I sometimes think I should collect all the beautiful things I wrote for people who don't care about such things, and make a little book out of them, just in case this hard drive that is making all number of strange noises should crash tomorrow.
I apologize for the teaser photo. If I can ever find time to work on the site before 2 a.m., I will post some other photos to make up for it.
There were a zillion things on the desktop. All files I had placed there "temporarily" or in a haste, thinking I would later clean them up instead of once again throwing them into the folder marked "desktopmess." I started clicking on them one by one, as if I had found a chest of old love letters in the basement and wanted to sniff each one to see if the musky scent of cologne remained. I discovered photos that made me snicker (you will unfortunately never know what that picture looks like uncropped) and IM conversations that made me cringe with the insensitivity of my words. I also found this excerpt from an e-mail I sent, which caused me to stare blankly for a while, disturbed by my exposure of heart:
"There is a disquieting magnitude to the idea of staying here, and it perturbs me because I have never been one to let someone else change my plans. That the idea lingers there in my subconscious makes me think that maybe it knows something I don't, and I try not to listen to it like it's the devil that sits on Tom's shoulder and tells him to do wicked things."
A Tom & Jerry reference in an e-mail of full seriousness. How typically oxymoronic of me. I sometimes think I should collect all the beautiful things I wrote for people who don't care about such things, and make a little book out of them, just in case this hard drive that is making all number of strange noises should crash tomorrow.
I apologize for the teaser photo. If I can ever find time to work on the site before 2 a.m., I will post some other photos to make up for it.
And so The Case of the Horse Whisker Bandit continues. There has been an outpouring of support mixed with stifled giggling at the barn ever since the San Mateo County Sheriff's Department called me on Monday regarding the "missing whiskers." That's right, after a brief but unpleasant verbal exchange with one of the more disturbed people at the barn, I've been accused of hiding out late Saturday night in order to stealthily creep into the wronged party's stall and clip his horse's whiskers off.
There are a lot of crazy people in the horse industry, as you have just learned, even if you knew nothing about horses prior to this entry. While I'm no exception, I'm certainly not crazy enough to show clip someone's horse as a revenge tactic. That's sort of like having a Beverly Hills hairdresser sneaking into your room late at night and giving you a really fabulous haircut for free while you were asleep. I'm not sure if you'd wake up and call the cops or wake up and say "Hey, I think I'll take up modeling today!"
My lengthy phone conversation with the deputy went something like this:
Deputy: Hi Jessica, this is Deputy __________ with the San Mateo County Sheriff's Department. Do you know an individual by the name of __________?
Me: Yes I do.
Deputy: Is there some kind of bad blood between you two?
Me: Ha, well, we got into an argument recently.
Deputy: I don't know how to say this, but uh, [clearing throat, muffled snigger] this individual explained to me that someone cut his horse's whiskers off and he believes it was you.
Me: [holding phone away from face, taking deep breath so as not to burst out with offended profanities] No sir, I've never gone near his animal.
Deputy: Were you at __barn name__ Saturday night?
Me: Yes I was.
Deputy: I know this sounds crazy, but he was really riled up about it and very much wanted me to believe that this was a crime. He thinks it happened Saturday night. I don't know much about horses even though my girlfriend rides horses and shows and all that, and I don't know if their whiskers are like cats and they need them and stuff, but I have heard that cutting them is a common practice for shows?
Me: Yes, [regaining composure] we routinely clip show horses at the barn. Their whiskers are not like cats, but they do use them to feel around in the dark, although it's not as crucial for a horse that lives in a stall to have whiskers as it is for a horse that lives outside in a dark paddock. However, it's not cruel, and all of our show horses have their faces clipped.
Deputy: Ok, well I just had to get both sides of the story, I had his side now I have to get yours.
Me: [Losing composure] I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh, but this is rather ludicrous. It's quite possible one of the trainers asked their groom to go clip "that brown horse" and the groom got confused because all the horses are brown, and mistakenly clipped his horse.
Deputy: Oh, so you think that's a possibility? [Writing] Is it hard to tell them apart? I have to write up this case. You know I seem to get all the crazy cases, I'm a magnet for it, if something crazy happens my partner always says it's because I'm around.
Me: You should write a book.
Deputy: [Gets excited] Believe me, I've thought about it, there's a cop down south that wrote a book about his cases and it sold a bunch of copies.
[insert long list of recommended true crime books here]
After supplying him with my contact information, that's how my phone conversation with the San Mateo County Sheriff's Department ended. If you're interested, the books that Deputy __________ recommended are:
- What Cops Know by Connie Fletcher
- Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon
- Brooklyn Bounce: The True-Life Adventures of a Good Cop in a Bad Precinct by Joe Poss
- Cop: A True Story by Michael L. Middleton
"...what exactly could they charge someone with anyhow? Aggravated non-invasive scissors wielding on private property?"
Yesterday afternoon my favorite Sharks fan offered me one of her club seat tickets to next Tuesday's game against Minnesota, and in her e-mail wrote:
"I wasn't sure if I should invite you because I don't want Ricci to lose his hair..."
Yesterday evening I went to the barn to ride, and upon entering the arena, my trainer said "You have a new nickname." "Oh God what," I said. "Whiskers."
"How about Scissorhands," my favorite Sharks fan said, sitting atop her horse. But of course, everyone knows you have to earn a nickname; after all, I didn't hit that girl in the head with my hockey stick during the Piranhas game for nothing. So of course, since I haven't done a thing to deserve these new nicknames, let's just hope they don't stick. I know I'm not helping my cause with the cartoon, but it was irresistible.
NewG: i didn't say you completely get over them. you just get over them.
NewG: you always take a little of them with you.
NewG: you always take a little of them with you.
