Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Phoenix
I've rediscovered this blog recently, and, since I really like the name I'm not going to start a new one so I'll just pick up here where I left off. Even though my last post is from over two years ago, I will leave those on here. There's some good parts in there, and re-reading them made me chuckle. Because I was a silly girl.
It may take some time for me to get back into the swing of things and I will most likely forget about this all over again, but I have a lot of things going on and I like to make fun of them. I might do some movie reviews. It does't matter if no one reads them, I just like to think my way through things.
I'm trying to figure out how to change things like my profile and stuff, so hopefully that will all be updated soon!
-SGG
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Parrot Sketch Included
It has been a long while since I have updated this blog. Or, in otherwords, since I do not merely update as much as I do vent about turbulent uprisings in reality, I have been at a loss as to what to make comment on. Today, I am very disturbed as to my profound lack of money. I find that when I am depressed on a subject, it seems to come up in daily conversation, the media, my dreams in more than coincidental amounts.
My naive 14-year-old sister said to me the other day, "Why don't we just get rid of all the money and start over?"
To which I replied, "This solution implies we simply remove all traces of currency, and what? Give everyone $1,000 and go from there?"
She was stumped, and I ended the conversation with her feeling a little foolish. She shouldn't, though, because it's not like anyone else has any better ideas. Stimulus checks? Please. That's not unlike my sister's proposition. Homebuyer credits? This only benefitted those who had already figured out the advantage of wasting money on a home for 30 years instead of wasting it on a rental indefinitely. Said beneficiaries went on to reward themselves with $8,000 worth of luxuries they would not have had, to furnish the home they would have acquired regardless.
I recently read Bright Shiny Morning by James Frey, and though I know his facts are immediately deemed refuteable, they are undoubtedly not far from the truth regarding the wealth of just one American city: Los Angeles. He said that the County of Los Angeles, were it a country, would have the fifteenth largest economy. In the same chapter, he dictated the absurd amounts of people to go there in search of riches and fame and end up broke like the rest of the country. This leads me to conclude that, in the same city where people scrape funds from multiple jobs in order to merely exist, the majority of the currency circulation comes from the mulit-millionaires and tourists.
Another reknowned publication stated that the three wealthiest men in the whole world have a combined net worth totaling more than the ten poorest COUNTRIES. Estimates average that each of these men by themselves have more money for their personal use than 3.3(repeating) COUNTRIES!
How did we get so lop-sided financially? When did this begin? As I recall, Adam and Eve did not posess nor long for any kind of lucre.
It's become so bad that, somehow, it has become legal for companies to rape our bank accounts. I found, though I was inexperienced when I first signed a contract with Bally Total Fitness and didn't read the fine print, that if you don't use their facilities, not only do they keep charging your account $50 a month, they charge an extra fee for which they find it necessary to contact the Credit Agency in lieue of calling me first.
Also, despite the fact that they "lower" their incomprehensibly high prices to accomodate those stricken with financial woes, Verizon (you know how much I love!! absolutely love!!! Verizon...) has now found it lucrative to deem mobile web a manditory feature on ALL cell phones, increasing their profit $15/month times a bagillion customers.
Then there is the unemployment rate (which I have recently read has gone down, but not enough to escape mention) that has been made worse for the past several years by diverting manufacturing and other aspects of business to other countries. This point has been touched on by many a Michael Moore film, so I do not need to continue this paragraph.
I think I speak for everyone when I desire the freedom to go to the movies because I want to, not because I am too broke to rent a beach house. I would like to reserve the right to DECIDE how to spend my money instead of companies and the government (you too, New York State!) stripping my hands of it before it even reaches the bank safe.
I am currently reading First Contact: Or It's Later Than You Think - Parrot Sketch Excluded by Evan Mandery. At first I was enjoying it because it was much more light-hearted and just plain silly in comparison to Bright Shiny Morning. There's even a part where he references the brilliant Parrot Sketch by Monty Python, one of my favorites, though it turns out the Parrot sketch is actually excluded (hence the subtitle). Nothing of this nature had been even alluded to in Shiny Morning, which is why I found it refreshing at first. Then I began to ponder what would make the two authors write such different stories, both being around-middle-aged caucasian men. Both have a witty sense of literacy. The main difference (and I may have read into this a little too much, but still) being that Frey grew up in and out of rehab and without being spoon fed life through conveniences like money. As far as I know, the living he now makes comes from talking about his bitter reality. Then there is Mandery, who does not come with an autobiography so any information besides the facts is inferenced, a graduate of Harvard Law and current professor of Law at a New York college and novelist. I am willing to bet his silly stories come from his peace of mind due to his lack of worry about the possobility of getting hit by a car walking down the street without health insurance. (Again, I'm merely presuming people with money have health insurance.)
I am not implying any ill-will towards either of these great authors, but it does shine a light on the side-effects of money in both directions. I am also not saying I need to win the lottery to be happy. I would settle for the ability to stand on my own two feet, or pay for the surgery my dog will imminently require... things of this nature.
I would like the aforemention Peace of Mind, and I would like it with the Parrot Sketch Included.
My naive 14-year-old sister said to me the other day, "Why don't we just get rid of all the money and start over?"
To which I replied, "This solution implies we simply remove all traces of currency, and what? Give everyone $1,000 and go from there?"
She was stumped, and I ended the conversation with her feeling a little foolish. She shouldn't, though, because it's not like anyone else has any better ideas. Stimulus checks? Please. That's not unlike my sister's proposition. Homebuyer credits? This only benefitted those who had already figured out the advantage of wasting money on a home for 30 years instead of wasting it on a rental indefinitely. Said beneficiaries went on to reward themselves with $8,000 worth of luxuries they would not have had, to furnish the home they would have acquired regardless.
I recently read Bright Shiny Morning by James Frey, and though I know his facts are immediately deemed refuteable, they are undoubtedly not far from the truth regarding the wealth of just one American city: Los Angeles. He said that the County of Los Angeles, were it a country, would have the fifteenth largest economy. In the same chapter, he dictated the absurd amounts of people to go there in search of riches and fame and end up broke like the rest of the country. This leads me to conclude that, in the same city where people scrape funds from multiple jobs in order to merely exist, the majority of the currency circulation comes from the mulit-millionaires and tourists.
Another reknowned publication stated that the three wealthiest men in the whole world have a combined net worth totaling more than the ten poorest COUNTRIES. Estimates average that each of these men by themselves have more money for their personal use than 3.3(repeating) COUNTRIES!
How did we get so lop-sided financially? When did this begin? As I recall, Adam and Eve did not posess nor long for any kind of lucre.
It's become so bad that, somehow, it has become legal for companies to rape our bank accounts. I found, though I was inexperienced when I first signed a contract with Bally Total Fitness and didn't read the fine print, that if you don't use their facilities, not only do they keep charging your account $50 a month, they charge an extra fee for which they find it necessary to contact the Credit Agency in lieue of calling me first.
Also, despite the fact that they "lower" their incomprehensibly high prices to accomodate those stricken with financial woes, Verizon (you know how much I love!! absolutely love!!! Verizon...) has now found it lucrative to deem mobile web a manditory feature on ALL cell phones, increasing their profit $15/month times a bagillion customers.
Then there is the unemployment rate (which I have recently read has gone down, but not enough to escape mention) that has been made worse for the past several years by diverting manufacturing and other aspects of business to other countries. This point has been touched on by many a Michael Moore film, so I do not need to continue this paragraph.
I think I speak for everyone when I desire the freedom to go to the movies because I want to, not because I am too broke to rent a beach house. I would like to reserve the right to DECIDE how to spend my money instead of companies and the government (you too, New York State!) stripping my hands of it before it even reaches the bank safe.
I am currently reading First Contact: Or It's Later Than You Think - Parrot Sketch Excluded by Evan Mandery. At first I was enjoying it because it was much more light-hearted and just plain silly in comparison to Bright Shiny Morning. There's even a part where he references the brilliant Parrot Sketch by Monty Python, one of my favorites, though it turns out the Parrot sketch is actually excluded (hence the subtitle). Nothing of this nature had been even alluded to in Shiny Morning, which is why I found it refreshing at first. Then I began to ponder what would make the two authors write such different stories, both being around-middle-aged caucasian men. Both have a witty sense of literacy. The main difference (and I may have read into this a little too much, but still) being that Frey grew up in and out of rehab and without being spoon fed life through conveniences like money. As far as I know, the living he now makes comes from talking about his bitter reality. Then there is Mandery, who does not come with an autobiography so any information besides the facts is inferenced, a graduate of Harvard Law and current professor of Law at a New York college and novelist. I am willing to bet his silly stories come from his peace of mind due to his lack of worry about the possobility of getting hit by a car walking down the street without health insurance. (Again, I'm merely presuming people with money have health insurance.)
I am not implying any ill-will towards either of these great authors, but it does shine a light on the side-effects of money in both directions. I am also not saying I need to win the lottery to be happy. I would settle for the ability to stand on my own two feet, or pay for the surgery my dog will imminently require... things of this nature.
I would like the aforemention Peace of Mind, and I would like it with the Parrot Sketch Included.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Why Verizon Should Give Me a New Phone
It's quite simple really. It doesn't work.
I'll start by listing the many other things I could have spent my money on: two over-flowing tanks of gas, tickets to see Wicked, gray wedge-heeled boots, a weekend's worth of tequila shots, 100 songs from iTunes, a night at a hotel in NYC or health insurance.
But no. I declined all of these things to purchase the EnV2. Don't get me wrong, it's infintely better than the horse pile of wires called the Palm Treo. I appreciate more than anything not having that worthless device anymore. (Acutally, it's still in my posession, and if you are in great need of a horse pile of wires it's on craigslist for $100.) I do love the fact that it works like a normal phone and doesn't have epillepsy or schizophrenia or bi-polar disorder and all the other issues notorious of the Treo. But it does have narcilepsy. (More on that in a minute...)
Here's the thing: two years ago I purchased the Palm Treo half-price for $400. I thought I was the stuff because it was like a laptop in my pocket, which is cool when you're moving out of your parents house for the first time. What no one told me was that I couldn't download games or ringtones, recieve or make calls, and the battery would only last two hours. The fine print sucks.
Anyway, I figured since I was paying so much for the phone, I'd want it to have a camera, and the store I was at didn't have that model so they had to send out to get it. And there enlies my problem - during the time it was being ordered, I moved across the country so the phone got shipped to the store, then to my parents who sent it to me. By the time I recieved the phone it had been about three weeks since I bought it and four or five days after that, I decided it was a horse pile of wires and wanted a refund or exchange.
After four eighty-minute round-trip visits to the corporate store in a span of one week, I still had the horse pile of wires on my passenger seat, mocking me with it's flashing battery light. It must have known that even though I'd only owned it for a couple of days, on paper it was really four weeks and therefore the window for returning it had expired. It also must have called the store behind my back and arranged for them all to tell me different things so I'd have to spend an entire week driving around trying to get rid of it.
It began to haunt me like those creepy children in scary movies that wait in old houses for unsuspecting innocent people to move in so they can posess them with their demon powers. (In fact, I even named it Damian.) The innocent people either die trying to get rid of the Satan-children or are forever scarred because of the curse they've been consumed with. And the people at the Verizon store in the 'Customer Service' department are the ones that serve their customers to the psycho toddlers just to see them writhe in their own personal hell of calling 1-800 numbers for all enternity.
Steven King will steal this from me eventually, but you read it here first.
Back to my EnV2... So finally I had the funds to semi-permanently rid myself of the horse pile of wires (semi because no one else wants it) and I enjoyed my new LG for about four months. Maybe three. Suddenly, it contracted narcilepsy. I made a rule that my phone was not allowed to shut-off without my permission, but it persisted. I tried time-outs, physical abuse and trips to the 'doctor' (yet another corporate store) and it still didn't phase the EnV2. I think I deserve the new phone just for sticking with these people for another full two-year contract after the way they treated me in 2007!
Do you see what I mean about being cursed? Freaking Damian.
I've come to the conclusion that Verizon is endangering my life: if you've seen my earlier post about all of the sex offenders in Rochester, you well know what a dangerous, medium-sized city I live in. Plus the 12 gun-shot victims in the past week that I read in the Democrat and Chronicle just today. So let's say that, since I work toward the city, someone is waiting for me when I leave work and am walking through the dark parking lot by myself (which happens frequently) and one of these creeps jumps me, chloroforms me and sticks me in his trunk.
I wake up some time later and am slightly disoriented by my strange surroundings and the sudden throbbing in my skull. I hear low voices in the next room. I try to silently call for help, but my phone has turned itself off. I have to turn it on, and the Verizon 'welcome' music radiates off the walls and into the other room where all of the men are deciding my fate. When they hear the sound, the desicion is made.
They shoot me in the face, slice my heart out and shove it down my throat before decapitating me. Who knows what they do with my headless corpse! I don't. I'm dead by this point. All thanks to Verizon not giving me a new phone.
Thanks a lot, Verizon, for shooting me in the face, slicing my heart out, decapitating and most likely violating me.
Can you hear me now?
I'll start by listing the many other things I could have spent my money on: two over-flowing tanks of gas, tickets to see Wicked, gray wedge-heeled boots, a weekend's worth of tequila shots, 100 songs from iTunes, a night at a hotel in NYC or health insurance.
But no. I declined all of these things to purchase the EnV2. Don't get me wrong, it's infintely better than the horse pile of wires called the Palm Treo. I appreciate more than anything not having that worthless device anymore. (Acutally, it's still in my posession, and if you are in great need of a horse pile of wires it's on craigslist for $100.) I do love the fact that it works like a normal phone and doesn't have epillepsy or schizophrenia or bi-polar disorder and all the other issues notorious of the Treo. But it does have narcilepsy. (More on that in a minute...)
Here's the thing: two years ago I purchased the Palm Treo half-price for $400. I thought I was the stuff because it was like a laptop in my pocket, which is cool when you're moving out of your parents house for the first time. What no one told me was that I couldn't download games or ringtones, recieve or make calls, and the battery would only last two hours. The fine print sucks.
Anyway, I figured since I was paying so much for the phone, I'd want it to have a camera, and the store I was at didn't have that model so they had to send out to get it. And there enlies my problem - during the time it was being ordered, I moved across the country so the phone got shipped to the store, then to my parents who sent it to me. By the time I recieved the phone it had been about three weeks since I bought it and four or five days after that, I decided it was a horse pile of wires and wanted a refund or exchange.
After four eighty-minute round-trip visits to the corporate store in a span of one week, I still had the horse pile of wires on my passenger seat, mocking me with it's flashing battery light. It must have known that even though I'd only owned it for a couple of days, on paper it was really four weeks and therefore the window for returning it had expired. It also must have called the store behind my back and arranged for them all to tell me different things so I'd have to spend an entire week driving around trying to get rid of it.
It began to haunt me like those creepy children in scary movies that wait in old houses for unsuspecting innocent people to move in so they can posess them with their demon powers. (In fact, I even named it Damian.) The innocent people either die trying to get rid of the Satan-children or are forever scarred because of the curse they've been consumed with. And the people at the Verizon store in the 'Customer Service' department are the ones that serve their customers to the psycho toddlers just to see them writhe in their own personal hell of calling 1-800 numbers for all enternity.
Steven King will steal this from me eventually, but you read it here first.
Back to my EnV2... So finally I had the funds to semi-permanently rid myself of the horse pile of wires (semi because no one else wants it) and I enjoyed my new LG for about four months. Maybe three. Suddenly, it contracted narcilepsy. I made a rule that my phone was not allowed to shut-off without my permission, but it persisted. I tried time-outs, physical abuse and trips to the 'doctor' (yet another corporate store) and it still didn't phase the EnV2. I think I deserve the new phone just for sticking with these people for another full two-year contract after the way they treated me in 2007!
Do you see what I mean about being cursed? Freaking Damian.
I've come to the conclusion that Verizon is endangering my life: if you've seen my earlier post about all of the sex offenders in Rochester, you well know what a dangerous, medium-sized city I live in. Plus the 12 gun-shot victims in the past week that I read in the Democrat and Chronicle just today. So let's say that, since I work toward the city, someone is waiting for me when I leave work and am walking through the dark parking lot by myself (which happens frequently) and one of these creeps jumps me, chloroforms me and sticks me in his trunk.
I wake up some time later and am slightly disoriented by my strange surroundings and the sudden throbbing in my skull. I hear low voices in the next room. I try to silently call for help, but my phone has turned itself off. I have to turn it on, and the Verizon 'welcome' music radiates off the walls and into the other room where all of the men are deciding my fate. When they hear the sound, the desicion is made.
They shoot me in the face, slice my heart out and shove it down my throat before decapitating me. Who knows what they do with my headless corpse! I don't. I'm dead by this point. All thanks to Verizon not giving me a new phone.
Thanks a lot, Verizon, for shooting me in the face, slicing my heart out, decapitating and most likely violating me.
Can you hear me now?
-SGG
Sunday, November 1, 2009
A Painful Realization
A couple of days ago I did what I am notorious for: I went to Target to get some dresses and walked out with a coat and a scarf. But, to my defense, I absolutely fell for the coat. It's a faux silk fabric that can stand up to the harsh Rochester elements, a fantastic jewel-toned purple that compliments my new auburn haircolor, and it's a trench so it will be in style for a couple years.
I seem to have forgotten to mention that this particular Mossimo masterpiece was half-off.
I built an outfit around this dress for an upcoming vacation, and even texted some of my friends, bragging about the find. When I went to bed that night, I was still dreaming up different looks that my coat could be the focal point of. Boots, stilettos, flats; skinny jeans, leggings, tights; blue, green, gray...
This morning I was excited to premiere my coat, call it a dress-rehearsal for my vacation (in five days!). Underneath it I wore a bright blue dress, the scarf with cool-pallette colors to tie the two pieces together, brown suede pumps to offset the shiny purple fabric, and my oversize red bag. I looked in the mirror and approved initially, but as I was leaving the house, I caught a quick glimpse in the door window and saw Willy Wonka's wife.
I got in my car and started the engine, dismissing that thought immediately. When I got to my destination, I began to second-guess my attire again. (Triple-guess?) It hit me that this is October in Western New York - colors are no longer permitted under penalty of judgmental stares. I walked in the building and, just as I had surmised, everyone was wearing neutral colors, so perfect to match the seasonal foliage.
I began to feel like an outcast and suddenly all of these people I knew well were strangers. Thankful for my new haircolor, I hoped no one would recognize me and kept my head down. So I sat, quiet and miserable, wondering what kinds of things they were all thinking about their friend, Mrs. Wonka and her outrageous wardrobe. I was preparing myself for the steady stream of jokes about the new hairdo and "I know we told you that you never wear any color, but that doesn't mean you have to wear them all at once!" -type remarks, when I recalled what a real stranger told me two years ago.
If you read my personal information in my profile, you will find an excerpt that mentions a man I met on a 27-minute plane ride who gave me the most precious and personal advice. To summarize, I had revealed a couple things to him that suggested I never 'live on the edge' or 'grab life by the horns' or anything else beer commercials tell us to do. If I was told not to do something, I didn't question it, I just said 'ok' and sat down, zipped my lips and forgot the whole thing.
What happened that changed my life was this: the man got up from his seat and began saying his goodbyes, but before getting off at his stop never to be seen again, he leaned over and said,
I seem to have forgotten to mention that this particular Mossimo masterpiece was half-off.
I built an outfit around this dress for an upcoming vacation, and even texted some of my friends, bragging about the find. When I went to bed that night, I was still dreaming up different looks that my coat could be the focal point of. Boots, stilettos, flats; skinny jeans, leggings, tights; blue, green, gray...
This morning I was excited to premiere my coat, call it a dress-rehearsal for my vacation (in five days!). Underneath it I wore a bright blue dress, the scarf with cool-pallette colors to tie the two pieces together, brown suede pumps to offset the shiny purple fabric, and my oversize red bag. I looked in the mirror and approved initially, but as I was leaving the house, I caught a quick glimpse in the door window and saw Willy Wonka's wife.
I got in my car and started the engine, dismissing that thought immediately. When I got to my destination, I began to second-guess my attire again. (Triple-guess?) It hit me that this is October in Western New York - colors are no longer permitted under penalty of judgmental stares. I walked in the building and, just as I had surmised, everyone was wearing neutral colors, so perfect to match the seasonal foliage.
I began to feel like an outcast and suddenly all of these people I knew well were strangers. Thankful for my new haircolor, I hoped no one would recognize me and kept my head down. So I sat, quiet and miserable, wondering what kinds of things they were all thinking about their friend, Mrs. Wonka and her outrageous wardrobe. I was preparing myself for the steady stream of jokes about the new hairdo and "I know we told you that you never wear any color, but that doesn't mean you have to wear them all at once!" -type remarks, when I recalled what a real stranger told me two years ago.
If you read my personal information in my profile, you will find an excerpt that mentions a man I met on a 27-minute plane ride who gave me the most precious and personal advice. To summarize, I had revealed a couple things to him that suggested I never 'live on the edge' or 'grab life by the horns' or anything else beer commercials tell us to do. If I was told not to do something, I didn't question it, I just said 'ok' and sat down, zipped my lips and forgot the whole thing.
What happened that changed my life was this: the man got up from his seat and began saying his goodbyes, but before getting off at his stop never to be seen again, he leaned over and said,
"Do me a favor, honey: stop being such a chicken shit."
He threw his coat over his shoulder and walked out of my life. Real James Dean-like.
And so I sat, the modern-day Scarlett O'Hara, having reality dumped upon me and being too stunned to react. If I had known he'd had such a knack for good advice I wouldn't have spent the preceeding 27 minutes talking about Canada or the New Orlean's Saints post-Katrina or what's that guy's name from that show that got canceled in the 90s? I would have had so many things to to ask him! Countless little worries or doubts I had that needed the opinion of someone so sure of himself that he just gave impeccable gems of wisdom to complete strangers as if they were Tic-Tacs.
But then I realized the only reason I would need someone like that is if I didn't take his advice, and as I continued my flight after he'd gotten off I mentally ran through my entire life, wishing I'd had those words echoing in my head years before they were actually spoken.
To pair this advice with another droplet of insight given me by a friend only a couple of days ago, who texted me, "Stay confident, that's what men like," you could say I've had a pretty eventful morning of rude awakenings.
So I challenge myself, and anyone reading this, to put on the 'purple coat' of confidence and dare someone to call you Mrs. Wonka ever again! The next time I wear that coat, it will be because I wanted to buy it because I fell in love with it and if heads turn, they turn. If people talk, let them be jealous of my guilty pleasure. If they want to criticize, be glad you stirred up the dust that they let settle by being passive and inactive.
And if no one even notices, well, that's great too, because we did something for ourselves and no one else.
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