I Can't Hide It

I like to think of myself as a gypsy. A world traveler. Someone who is familiar with both coasts of this great nation and decently familiar with a handful of more exotic destinations. (My renewed passport was waiting for me on my return from DC! Hooray!) The world is my oyster! I am at home everywhere!

But apparently my roots really show. And it's not because I haven't been to my stylist recently. (WAH-WAAAAAH.) On this aforementioned trip to DC, I was getting a Dark Cherry Mocha to accompany me on my four-hour trip to BWI--because apparently I thought I needed enough sugar to kill an elephant just to make it to the airport--and I was talking to the barista. He spent about three seconds talking to me before he said,

"So...are you from the West Coast?"

And I'm not even that blonde anymore. Apparently my speech pattern gives me away.

It's not the first time I've heard this, either. Shout-out to LT, who was the the first person to mention to me, in his nasal East Texas accent, that I had "the accent" of the West Coast. (Ten effing years ago.) It's not really an accent, per se--it's more of a speech pattern. Quick, quick, slow, says LT. I hear it in my friends, especially after a weekend like this one, in which I was without it, listening instead to the intellectual, measured accents of my sorority sisters. (Not a joke. Those ladies ARE intellectual and measured.) Last night I was in Philly, talking to a bunch of boys from Rhode Island with the thickest East Coast accents I'd heard in some time. They sounded like they came from another planet, especially compared to the firefighter from Charlotte, his drawl thick but soft, unlike the hard percussiveness of the RI accents, like a drumstick hitting a pad. And all Southern drawls are not created equal. My friend from Kentucky has an accent that is totally different all over again, way softer than the firefighter's, and lighter, too. More like smoked clover honey than the slow-moving BBQ sauce rhythm of the Carolinas. My friend Ray-Ray, mentioned here, has a Memphis accent like the twang of a banjo string. You can hear the hills of Tennessee when she talks.

Okay, where's my passport? I have itchy feet already.

No Caulk Was Harmed

I was not ACTUALLY learning Ancient Hebrew, or, in fact, re-caulking the bathroom, at the time of the last post. My bathtub was in fact re-caulked last week, but not by me. And the closest I come to Ancient Hebrew is the King James Bible. The verse of the day, by the way, is Mark 6:4, World English Translation. "Jesus said to them, 'A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country, and among his own relatives, and in his own house.'"

What? It was quoted recently in the gangsta rap I was listening to. (Not 4 Sale, Kardnial Offishall.)

My Own Grandmother Prefers Scotch Anyway

A buddy walked into my apartment not long ago, picking me up on our way to a movie, and ended up waiting for me to finish learning ancient Hebrew and re-grouting the bathroom, like girls always do when we have to go somewhere, and went straight to the liquor cabinet to pour himself and myself a drink. I heard the clank, clank, clank.

And then he appeared in the bathroom doorway, holding a plastic gallon. "WHAT," he said, with all possible snottiness, "are you DRINKING?"

I paused with the caulk gun still in my hand. "Canadian Club whiskey," I said, perhaps a trifle defensively. "I like it. So?"

He shot me a withering glance and turned around, heading back to the cabinet. "I knew I was coming to your place, I figured you'd have some good alcohol, I KNOW you have taste," he muttered, in a stage whisper. "CANADIAN CLUB. Seriously. And that's all you have?"

"I have vodka in the freezer, asshole," I called. "And I actually have mixers for that, namely, the OJ in the fridge. And I even have ice."

He re-appeared with a screwdriver on ice for himself and a whiskey on ice for me. He took a swig of mine in front of me, just so I could see the look on his face. "Wow, Grandma," he said, looking down at the glass. "Is that you?"

Okay, so Canadian Club is a little on the sweet side, I get it. I like bourbon and that shows in my whiskey tastes. But I also like Scotch, and my tastes change depending on my mood, which is probably why I drank some Canadian Club today and then poured the glass down the drain, wishing I still had my Speyburn. I've been cutting back on my alcohol storage for some time, so my liquor cabinet is down to the bare bones, but I guess I can't get away with just one whiskey from the entire spectrum--and if I do, it certainly can't be CC. If I, uh, want people to willingly show up at my house.

I Don't Care What Your Major Is, STAY OFF MY COMPUTER

CMU Princesses*, can I get a shout-out here?

The ridiculously difficult engineering school--recently repped in SNL--that I went to is especially famous for its Computer Science program, which is so eponymous that it has its own entire college. Subsequently, I dated a lot--a LOT--of computer science majors, or electrical engineers, or information systems majors, and the first thing they did, when coming to my dorm room, would inevitably be to sit down at my computer to look something up real quick, or download a song on Napster (ah, you remember) and not ten seconds would go by before I heard this:

"...WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT?"

Me: (Sighing.) "Is there a problem, babe?"

Him: (Exasperatedly moving my mouse.) "I can't find a damn thing on your desktop. How do you WORK with all of these icons everywhere? I'm moving them all into [some folder named something that is meaningful to him but that I will never be able to find]. Also, you're running the outdated version of Internet Explorer. Let me upgrade that for you. Jesus, who runs Window 98 anymore? You really need XP--but not the home version, the Pro version. I have a buddy who has a bunch of registered copies. And what the FUCK are you doing with your security settings open on your shared folders like that? This is RIDICULOUS. Let me also download [fifteen applications designed to make my life easier] and install them [all over the place on top of the applications you already know and love]."**

Me: (Opens four beers.)

Eventually I learned that, much like the army, in which you don't volunteer for anything, even if they say, "We need someone to drink, alcohol, large quantities of, and entertain, women, sexy, young, at least nights per week, four..." that I could no longer allow a man NEAR my computer, even if he said, "I have a program that will, complete sets of, problems, download songs, clean, automatically, deliver to, doorstep, your, beer, cases of" there'd always be a catch and I'd spend the next three weeks looking for the problem sets that were due and the chat program I loved and call the guy and yell at him and wake up for class late three weeks in row, and it was ALL BECAUSE I LET SOME GUY SIT DOWN AT MY COMPUTER.

*Princesses: if you are a man or a woman, this applies to you. Did you date a man (or even, possibly, a woman) that routinely played the masculine role in your relationship? And by "played the masculine role" I mean, "walked into your room and moved all your shit around to more comfortably accommodate him/her"? You did? Wasn't that ANNOYING?

**I've taken a lot of the cuss words out. Believe me.

All Bike Commuting Put On Hold

Because it SNOWED TODAY. Yes, it did.

Also all motorcycle work is being put on hold, since my fingers freeze outside.

Uh, in case you were wondering.

Nice Rack

And will you check out those mudflaps?

Let's get on this commuting by bike thing. You shiny steed, you.

Not mentioned: motorcycle battery sitting in the window.