Monthly Archives

December 2015

My New Years Resolution: Eradicating the Ebola of Words

Like, it’s an epidemic. And it must be stopped. It’s not even like a contagion, it is an actual contagion. It is inside all of our mouths, and it spews out like, every five seconds before words, after words and even like between words, so that like sentences don’t even like make sense. So rampant is its infestation that if you sit, anywhere in the English speaking world, and tune into the buzz of conversation around you it will be almost all you can hear. Well that, and me bitching about it.

“Like” has taken over, friends. And as is the case with any disease it does not discriminate. It first affected  “Clueless” teenage Valley Girls, but now it has taken hold of everyone from professional working adults, “So like, the client said he like hated it all,” to accountants, “Is your business like S-Corp or C-Corp”, to medical doctors at the ER, “Like, is it is your knee or your hip that hurts most?” Listening to you hurts, Doctor.

I believe it’s time we put “like” back into its correct grammatical box for once and for all, before its stronghold kills all other words. Or Earth explodes and other planets news headlines read, “Like, the end of the human race.”

This year we eradicated Ebola. In 2016 we can eradicate this Ebola of words. And we don’t even have to wear hazmat suits, which is great because outfits that don’t show the waist are generally unflattering. We can kill “like” like we merrily killed pigs for gammon this Christmas, drank wine and said, “I do rather like Christmas!” (Note: Similarity is one correct use of “like”. Enjoyment is the other correct grammatical use of “like” Easy!)

Of course, there are serious things that we could change in our lives for 2016. Reaching greater mindfulness, exercising more, donating to Ebola health carers, subscribing to the awesome new blog elephantinmyhead.com, but maybe its time to take on something different. Or maybe I’m just bored with all the other resolutions. My inbox is already as distended with emails from gyms, yoga centers and juice bars as my stomach is from eating too many pigs with wine. They are all offering a new me. And the old me knows none of it is truly sustainable. Plus, the one yoga place I like (again, correct usage) I once did a shoulder stand at and farted coming out of it, rather mortifyingly, so I can’t go back there anyway.

I figure ridding yourself of “like” is easy. Mainly because I looked at the Global Language Monitor (GLM) and there are currently 1,025,109.8 English words available for your use. Yes, even without “like” you get 1,025,108.8 words. There’s even an .8th of word if you just need a tiny one. Google’s algorithm counts just 1,022,000 words, but that is still a shitload. And yes “shitload” is one of the million odd words per Merriam Webster you can use.   Best of all, the GLM says there’s a new word created every 98 minutes, so if you’re at a real loss, wait for one coming freshly baked out of the English language oven. Or, make one up of your own. Web 2.0 became a word back in 2009, so the bar is decidedly low.

Who is with me? We’ve been throwing “like” around the same way we did “um” when we were teenagers lying about why the sherry bottle is empty. We are grown ups now who are capable of great things – algorithms for counting how many words we have, disease elimination, blogs called elephantinmyhead.com, creating S-Corps, knowing the difference between knees and hips, drinking with ham. We can do this. There’s even a wikihow if you need it. That’s how serious this is. On the same site you can learn how to save a small child from choking you can learn to lose the “like”.

I’m saying no to “like” in 2016. And I plan on taking down “cute” the stronger I get. But I’m taking it one day at a time, as with any resolution.

December 30, 2015

The real giving happens before Christmas

Their sacrifice is great. Once you start to see them, you will see them everywhere. They sit, defeated. Heads in hands, slumped over. Like survivors of a great tragedy, they try to comprehend how they got here, how this happened, why oh why in Dashers name this happened at all. Mocking and teasing, Jingle Bell Rock plays incongruous of their mood, unsympathetic to their plight, those sleighs bells ring-ringa-ringing relentlessly. These are broken men who could only really be cheered up by a sleigh ride out of here, and they know from experience that will not happen. They are here, and they will not be leaving here anytime soon.

I am of course talking about men in department stores, at Christmas time.

While women browse, and contemplate, and construct the perfect gifts, these men populate the seating areas of Bloomingdales and Nordstrom – name a store – their eyes glazed over like Christmas hams, so acute is the boredom that has taken hold of them while they wait. And wait. And wait.

Mostly they sit together. Perhaps a silent acknowledgment of a brotherhood facing hard times. Perhaps so they can just be closer to someone whose face says, “Dude I know, I know,” but whose mouth doesn’t have to. Or perhaps because in department stores the sofas are put together, originally intending to create a “relaxing area” but at this time of year really creating more of an impression of retail refugees whose boats just landed on floor 4 of Womenswear and Lingerie.

Some men do go it alone, sitting where they can, on window ledges, amongst the glittered, snowy displays turning them into scenes from A Nightmare before Christmas. Or sometimes bravely on chair height shelves, forgoing all shame that they are wedged between the Elle Macpherson panties and bras, because it’s a safe, quiet place.

Am I criticizing these men for not partaking in the buying of gifts? Not at all. Quite the opposite in fact. My soul intention of this post is to praise them.

Because these good men are minding their yuletide butts out the way instead of trailing behind their significant other, taking up good gift grabbing space, or nagging to go home with sentences that end in “Babe”. These men are preventing me from hating on the women who insist on dragging them to the store knowing full well how much they dislike it. They are not pretending to be interested, or offering dubious opinions (I’m not being mean gentlemen, I value your opinions mostly, I just think when a girl is picking decorative soaps you should get a free pass because it’s highly likely this is not your field of expertise.) And best of all these men are letting all us women buy stuff for ourselves that are not gifts but while you’re on the 3rd floor of Womenswear and Lingerie you might as well help Santa stuff your stocking with, um, some Elle Macpherson knickers. They work for her after all.

So, really what I’m saying is bless these men. You, if you’re one of them. Bless you for your patience. For your endurance. For your show of camaraderie in coming with to Christmas shop even though you hate it. Bless you for sighing into the silent night where your wives and girlfriends can’t see you. I see your sacrifice. And hopefully today as everyone shops for last minute gifts they will see you too. You are a reminder at this time of year to be good, and patient and kind to one another. You are giving before a single present changes hands. And as miserable as you look, I think that’s beautiful.

December 24, 2015

CALLING A SPADE A SPADE, OR A SCRUNCHIE A SCRUNCHIE AND A MASON JAR A MASON JAR.

A scrunchie by any other name is still a scrunchie. Even if it is made by Missoni and on sale this Christmas. I feel the urgent need to point this out. Because scrunchie eradication is as important now as it was when these fabric-covered elasticated assaults on the eyes first began strangling good taste and good ponytails in the late 1980s.

Yes dear friends I was just on NET-A-PORTER browsing the sale under the deluded notion that I could a) buy all my Christmas gifts there and b) afford to buy all my Christmas gifts there because, you know, Father Christmas dropped a bag of money down my chimney last year, I just need to go get it out. And that’s where I saw the scrunchie. On NET-A-PORTER is Missoni’s “elasticated crochet-knit hair tie.” As it says in the descriptor you can “wear this Italian-made piece to elevate a simple ponytail or slipknot” but you know this as well as I do, you’d still be elevating your ponytail with a scrunchie. A $63 one because they’ve just reduced it by 40%.  This is essentially their way of increasing smoke by 40% so when you look in the mirror you might not see a scrunchie, you might see an actual hair tie.  By the way that’s the first and last time the words “elevate” and “scrunchie” will be seen in the same sentence.

While I’m calling things out for what they are I’d also like to bring the mason jars masquerading as drinking glasses to your attention. Every on-trend, rustic designer bar, restaurant and décor store can serve drinking water out of them, or serve delicately crafted cocktail infusions in them, but a mason jar is still a mason jar. It is an item that was intended for the pickling of fruits and vegetables in the late 19th century. It is made with heavy, thick glass. It is made with threading at the top so a lid could be screwed on.  All of these things make the fact that this is a jar incredibly apparent.  But still we drink from them like we have suddenly been struck by a deeply debilitating drinking glass shortage here on earth – but don’t worry there’s still plenty of jasmine infused vodka available in this apocalypse. The worst part is because of the thick threading on the jar most of the vodka will just spill down your face, making your pickling less likely, which is highly annoying when that is your specific intention.

Just because a mason jar holds liquid doesn’t mean you should drink from it. Chamber pots that people urinated in at night before there were indoor toilets also hold liquid. In fact they hold liquid and they have a handle but we don’t drink from them do we? Or did I just start the next drinking trend?

Right, I just blogged about scrunchies and mason jars in the same post. I guess while I’m calling things what they are I should point out that a blog is really a glorified virtual soapbox on which anyone can stand and rant. Sometimes with a hair tie. Sometimes holding a proper damn glass. Thanks for listening.

December 21, 2015

The “Mail the Receipt” deceit

This post is for all the sales people I will encounter while I shop for gifts this Christmas.

No, you can’t have my email address so you can mail me my receipt.

I’m saying this here because I’m way too much of a fraidy-cat to actually say it in person. You can’t have it even if – and this is hard for me –you want to mail me massive discounts. Why? Because we both know the only thing that’s massive here is the deceit. You want to turn my electronic letterbox, into a virtual litter box. And you and your company will poop in it for the rest of time.

There. That’s done. Now while I live under the deeply misinformed (and comforting) presumption every sales person across America will read this post, let me explain: I’m useless at saying no to store sales people.

Firstly, and mainly, because they all look so damn good it’s intimidating. Even the ones in the décor stores look great. They have this glow about them that makes me certain I should have that mid century lounger and those cute bear coasters because then I’d look like that too.

Secondly, they are all so good at compliments. While they ring up your purchase they always do the “oh-my-god-when-these-came-in-store-I-died-best-gift-ever!” routine. You could be buying a pen just to write a Christmas gift list and they will make you think about calling Wallpaper so you can offer to write their “Best Gifts” column because you have such great taste. It’s true. On low self-esteem days go to Barney’s, they will drag up something they see that is “super cute on you”. Wear your H&M jammies and robe and they’ll tell you they loooove your layering. I swear.

But. This is all how they get to that moment, where you’re paying for the gift, and they look sympathetically at your wallet over-flowing with slips of paper and ask, “Should I just mail your receipt today?”

They deliver the line with such care they could be saying, “Should I just mail your $1000 today?” It’s always at that moment that I cave, and spell out my email like mac and dot com are words you’d get at the spelling bee finals. And for the rest of time that store fills my inbox with small, defecated discounts that will await me every time I open my email like perpetual electronic floaters.

Of course there are some sales people that will insinuate that emailing a receipt is an eco move. Like at the Apple store, you know, where they sell electronic goods that go into no doubt perfectly designed landfills and will still be there in 3016. I’ve even had a nice sales person at Paperchase try the eco excuse. How he couldn’t see the reams of irony that surrounded us. Paperchase is practically a tree coroner with gift tags instead toe tags for the forests they’ve turned into gift wrap.

So, this year I’m going to be strong. No one gets my email. Except the Container Store sales lady. She can have my email. In fact, I already gave it to her. Because I love the Container Store. When I die I’d like my ashes to be placed in any one of their canisters. Maybe even distributed across a few that are stackable and matching, like the Orla Kiely ones, now those are super cute Mr. Barney’s sales person.

You see my email, although electronic, is still something private. Like the old-fashioned mailbox I will give you the address if I hope to stay in touch with you. If I like you. If you’re hoodwinking me into giving it to you, we should probably not be friends. After all, friends don’t poop in others friends inboxes.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I just got an email from the Container Store. Yay! Massive discounts!

 

 

 

 

December 17, 2015

The Big Juice and Candle Swindle

I clearly have a very successful career as a screenplay writer in my head, and now I’m also a blogger (thanks to the two people who subscribed to my blog who are not my boyfriend and my friend who was checking the sites analytics). But, if I were to choose another way to make money  – so I could holiday in the kinds of places I deserve to in my head –  I would go into juice, or candles.

Or maybe both.  Juice and candles. And then my house would always smell like the Rag & Bone stores at Christmas and my digestive system would always be as clear as a luge track at the start of the winter. You see neither of these items – candles or juice – can be purchased for fewer than eight dollars.

Let’s begin with juice. It’s like there was some kind of minimum juicing law passed. Some juicing vigilante  – highly energized because he’d only ever drunk  juiced turmeric, dandelion and collard greens  – got all the other people who make juice together.  They all did fresh pressed ginger shots together and decided that if people cannot work at Walmart for under nine dollars an hour, there’s no way they could ever sell a single juice they make for under eight. And because they were all amped from the shots, they all saw the logic in that. And all the juicers did a secret, very firm because of their healthy bones handshake and went back to pressing what little life there is out of beet leaves. And they began charging $8 and up. And guess what? You know what, because you’re reading this post while you gulp down an $8 “Beet-a-Licious” aren’t you?  Hell, I wrote it sipping on a $10 “All Hail to the Kale”.  Hail these juices we do. We lap this stuff up like pro athletes taking erythropoietin in the back alley of the Olympic Village. Bless them, the OG juicers. And we laud the benefits of juice too. “The ‘Sweet Greens’ one actually made me shit myself, ” someone once told me enthusiastically. On that note, let’s talk about candles.

Scented candles cannot be purchased for less than double digits. Again, something happened.

Someone figured out that we really want our homes to smell like citrus orchards, or eucalyptus wood fires, or a library filled with marsh scented romance novels, and we flew like moths to their glorious smelling flames. This year a scented candle holiday gift can cost you up to $500. As I said before, I make my house smell like the Rag & Bone store at Christmas all year round and I happily throw out piles of dirty smelling money to do it. It is a little ridiculous. And while I’m a fool, I am still smart enough to do the math on how much it really costs to press roots and leaves in a world where fresh produce is abundant. And how much it really costs to make wax smell like 34 Saint Germain Boulevard.  (Yes you can buy a Diptyque candle that smells like their original store in Paris. Of course I love it.  Seems I have a thing for store smells…) 

Here’s my theory though. I think the two industries – juices and candles – are in cahoots. You know, the “Sweet Greens” clears the pipes; the scented candle covers any evidence of said pipe cleaning. Think about it.

Will I stop buying juices and candles? No way. I have a loyalty card at Juice Served Here, and I will take my free juices there. Also, as a successful screenplay writer in my head, I will always reward myself for attempting to write with a long bath and a scented candle. And one day when I’m actually famous I plan to have my own candle range. It will smell like wool being pulled over your eyes with a hint of fresh pressed ginger.

December 10, 2015

I Panic When I Buy Coffee

I panic when I buy coffee that is not from Starbucks. It’s a deep-seated panic that jolts my heart nearly awake enough for me not to need the caffeine, but not quite enough to rip me from my somnolent haze. And the reason is three words: Tall. Grande. Venti. That’s right. Tall. Grande. Venti.

Let me explain. You see, back in the day coffee wasn’t a big deal. It was just caffeine. It had a job to do, and you got it so it could work its magic and you could make whole sentences by the time you got to work. And so you went to Starbucks. You muttered that you wanted a coffee in small, medium or large and someone repeated your order back to you with a huge smile saying Tall, Grande or Venti. And eventually this became part of your nomenclature.

And then they came. The coffee cognoscenti. The ones who pooh-poohed this proliferation of caffeination, preaching hand crafted, hand made, doubled steamed dry cappuccinos and the likes. Basically they came and small batched the shit out of coffee. Planting their flag in a pile of beans as the sommeliers of caffeine. Baristas in the high courts of coffee they turned coffee into an academic pursuit with cocoa sprinkles in a leaf shape on the top. Or maybe it’s a heart. Do academics heart things? Probably not right?

And in these hallowed spaces – these ivy leagues of coffee – you just can’t say, “I’ll have a Grande iced coffee with one pump of vanilla.” No. If you mutter a half sentence that has Tall, Grande or Venti in it, you’re pretty much throwing the book at the institution of coffee.   You’re aligning with corporate America and the downfall of all small business. You might as well call the barista a guy who makes coffee, and his finely crafted facial hair – yes I’ll say it – a beard. What you are doing is exposing yourself as someone who uses caffeine rather than someone who appreciates coffee. You might as well also tell everyone there that you drink wine from the box and not just when the screw tops are all finished.

If you’ve ever dropped a “Grande” bomb in one of these places, you’ll know exactly what I mean. You are frowned at in away that’s not about misunderstanding; it’s more of a “God is disappointed” frown. Then you are shown cups and asked to point at which one you would like, like a child who is minutes away from a time out if you don’t get it right. And then when you get your coffee you will notice there is no leaf/heart – a gentle jab really because they hate you.

So each time I wander, not fully awake, into one of these places, I fear I will be exposed for the Venti fraud that I am: a girl who just wants a cup of Joe in the morning. (Also, at the end of the day I just want a glass of wine but I’m happy with a cup too). And somehow I’m turned into a mumbling twit as I lose all words while my brain tries to navigate around those three no-no ones. I think I might have a family history of Tourette’s and pray I don’t blurt one out like a puff of the steam they are putting in the wet cap with almond milk.

I really hate that coffee has become a way to make me feel so bad about myself. That what I hold in my hand is now a sign of class, social standing, and political alignment. I mean its just caffeine. One cup and I’m as smart as the next guy. It can be delicious, crafted, double roasted, tripled foamed, but its just caffeine. Wake up and smell the Grande coffee.

*This was written using the Wi-Fi of a “fancy” coffee shop just for spite.

December 2, 2015