Damn You, NPR (or, More Reasons Why I Will Die Alone)

There are so many things I wish I were. I wish I were Australian. I wish I were living in Chicago. I wish my knees weren't quite so red. Mostly, though, I wish I were cool. I use the subjunctive "were" here not only because it's a wish, but because that's all it will ever be. My undying devotion to public radio is a one-way ticket to eternal dorkdom.

So really, as much as I love it, NPR has ruined my life. Here's why:

1. If it's a warm day and I'm stopped at a traffic light, I'll generally have my window rolled down. But whereas many people my age would be sporting aviator shades and blasting some new rock 'n' roll chart-topper, I've got my radio turned to my local NPR station and I am carried away in my own little news cloud of divinity, listening to Weekday's Steve Scher discuss broccoli florets and cross-pollination.

2. It has happened on numerous occasions that I will be listening to an NPR story in the car that's so intriguing that when I get to my destination I have to stay in my seat to hear the end of it. Oftentimes, this occurs in the library parking lot. I'll be sitting in the car, fascinated, and I'll let my eyes wander to the vehicles around me. I have lost count of the number of people I've seen doing what I assume to be the exact same thing. This should be comforting, the fact that I'm not alone, but it so isn't. Are my fellow public radio car listeners socially awkward twenty-somethings who drive their mother's purple minivans and name their fish after Shakespeare characters? That would be a no. Are they attractive, eligible bachelors enraptured by the BBC's The World? That would be another no. They are balding men in their mid-fifties who more likely than not just finished a marathon reading of The Memoirs of Richard Nixon.

3. One of my favorite Sunday morning rituals is playing the Sunday Puzzle with New York Times crossword editor and NPR's Puzzlemaster Will Shortz. As if that weren't dweebish enough, I actually shout out the answers. At the radio. Alone in my room.

4. If it weren't for NPR's book recommendations, I would have nothing to read.

5. Aside from Mauro Rosales (a 30-year-old professional soccer player from Argentina) and David Muir (correspondent and weekend anchor for ABC World News), all the loves of my life are public radio personalities. Some are gay; most are over the age of fifty.

6. Whenever my mom or I turn on NPR in the kitchen, it's largely static. If there's only one person in the room, and if she sits in a particular chair in a particular place and turns her body in a particular direction, the static is manageable. If, however, someone else enters, the radio blows a gasket. Minimizing the obnoxious background noise requires a bizarre, almost tribal dance across the tiles to find a position that does not interfere with the broadcast. My most exciting discovery in recent memory came yesterday evening when I was searching for the Sounders game on TV and learned that our television has entire channels dedicated to the radio. I'm fairly certain everyone in the universe already knew this. If my life were an episode of the podcast Too Beautiful to Live, this "discovery" would feature in the segment "That's Not News." But let me tell you, at that moment I fancied myself a genius. When you play NPR through the TV rather than through the radio, there's--get this--no static. It's beautiful. I feel like I've won the lottery.

7. I live for the KUOW pledge drives. I just love the unscripted moments during which my favorite radio personalities are revealed to be normal, dorky people just like me.

8. I was describing this post to my mom and she felt the need to console what she perceived to be bitterness on my part toward the fact that my life revolves around public radio. "I'm sure there are plenty of people your age who were listening to NPR in elementary school," she said. "I think it's great. Good for you." Yes, Mother. I nearly rupture an artery in excitement when I get a 94.9 KUOW sticker in the mail with my membership renewal form. Good for me. If I am an example of what happens when 7-year-olds listen to NPR, I think I'd prefer that my child not even know how to spell it.

Poetry Corner Sunday Night

I was listening to A Prairie Home Companion this morning, as I do every Sunday morning. Garrison Keillor announced one of his musical guests: a folk singer, previously unknown to me, by the name of Joe Pug. He hadn't gotten two lines into his song "Hymn 101" before I knew, with every ounce of certainty inside me, that this was one of the most significant pieces of music and poetry I would encounter in my life. To me, there is no statement more profoundly moving, no statement more full of courage and simultaneous trepidation, no statement plainer and yet more philosophically complex than the line, "I've come to test the timber of my heart." I wish I could explain the emotions that swell inside me when I hear it and read it and sing it aloud. It just fits. That's really all I can say. It is the sentence of my life.

Hymn 101

By Joe Pug

And I've come to know the wish list of my father
I've come to know the shipwrecks where he wished
I've come to wish aloud
Among the over-dressed crowd
Come to witness now the sinkin' of the ship
Throwin' pennies from the sea top next to it

And I've come to roam the forest past the village
With a dozen lazy horses in my cart
I've come here to get high
To do more than just get by
I've come to test the timber of my heart
Oh, I've come to test the timber of my heart

And I've come to be untroubled in my seekin'
And I've come to see that nothing is for naught
I've come to reach out blind
To reach forward and behind
For the more I seek the more I'm sought
Yeah, the more I seek the more I'm sought

And I've come to meet the sheriff and his posse
To offer him the broad side of my jaw
I've come here to get broke
Then maybe bum a smoke
We'll go drinkin' two towns over after all
Oh, we'll go drinkin' two towns over after all

And I've come to meet the legendary takers
I've only come to ask them for a lot
Oh they say I come with less
Than I should rightfully possess
I say the more I buy the more I'm bought
And the more I'm bought the less I cost

And I've come to take their servants and their surplus
And I've come to take their raincoats and their speed
I've come to get my fill
To ransack and spill
I've come to take the harvest for the seed
I've come to take the harvest for the seed

And I've come to know the manger that you sleep in
I've come to be the stranger that you keep
I've come from down the road
And my footsteps never slowed
Before we met I knew we'd meet
Before we met I knew we'd meet

And I've come here to ignore your cries and heartaches
I've come to closely listen to you sing
I've come here to insist
That I leave here with a kiss
I've come to say exactly what I mean
And I mean so many things

And you've come to know me stubborn as a butcher
And you've come to know me thankless as a guest
But will you recognize my face
When god's awful grace
Strips me of my jacket and my vest
And reveals all the treasure in my chest?

So That Happened

In the words of KOMO 4 weatherman Steve Pool, "Let's get right to it."

1. My family wants to paint the inside of our dish cupboard some shade of turquoise. The one my mom and I have chosen is part of Behr's Disney Collection. It is called "Ariels Song." No apostrophe. My dad wants to pick a different color because it's Disney. I want to pick a different color because I would rather perish than support such an egregious lack of punctuation. 

My perfection has a first name, it's M-A-U-R-O.

2. I'm sorry to those of you who don't give a crap about soccer, but it would be sacrilege for me to not mention that my boys kicked some New York Red Bulls ass tonight: 4-2. They burned 'em. As always, Mauro "El Fuego" Rosales was making magic and the team closely followed my two helpful keys to the match: 1) Give it to Mauro, and 2) Don't suck.

3. My cat, the little stinker, has of late fallen into the habit of stealing my beanbag chair if I happen to vacate it for any period of time greater than or equal to 2.8 seconds. And I really mean 2.8 seconds. I'll be reading, Taffy lying on the floor several feet away, and I'll decide I want my water bottle which is on the other side of the room. I'll stand up, take literally two steps forward, turn around, and Taffy the Vulture will already be halfway into my seat. I'll laugh (for some reason each time is infinitely more hilarious than the last), lightly scold her with a "Bug, I'm still sitting there!" and then find some other way to occupy my time because I'm a sucker and there's nothing in this world more adorable than my little squash blossom settling into the beanbag chair that she just appropriated for herself.

4. During the game tonight, I counted a total of five players on both teams whose shoes matched the "Ariels Song" (still no apostrophe) paint swatch we taped to our dish cupboard.

My perfection has a second name, it's R-O-S-A-L-E-S.

5. I informed my mother that I had named my body pillow Mauro. The following conversation occurred:

Mom (putting her hand to her forehead as if shielding her eyes from the sun): Oh lord, I really did not need to know that.
Me: What? All I do is lean against him when I read! I think it's a good name change.
Mom: Change?
Me: Yeah. He used to be called Grissom.
Mom: Oh, how the times have changed.

Cleaning Out My Closet

One of my favorite weekly segments on the podcast Too Beautiful to Live is called "Jen Cleans Out Her Closet," in which the producer discusses all the emails/news items/pop culture phenomena that she didn't have time to bring up earlier in the week. I am modeling today's post after that segment, considering I have a backlog of posts and there's really nothing I do better than make snarky lists.

1. Last week, my friend Meaghin (whom I met during my study abroad program in Australia), was visiting Seattle and the Olympic Peninsula with her parents. I spent a day with her wandering around the city. 

The highlights: 
-The requisite out-of-town-guest visit to Gas Works Park, during which I inexplicably yawned 9,000 times.
-Meaghin informing me that my dad's Toyota Matrix was "huge" and that we'd never find a place to park it if we were in her hometown of LA.
-Lunch at a restaurant I can only refer to as "the place that used to be Bambuza," where I thought I saw Sounders midfielder Brad Evans ride by on his bike. (As you'll no doubt see, by clicking on his name, it was a gigantic disappointment that it wasn't actually him.) 
-A trip to the central branch of the Seattle Public Library and a healthy stint in the map room looking at the enormous 3D globe and table maps.

2. My friend Scott was home for the weekend from grad school in Bellingham, and we took advantage of our time together by doing what we do best: eating Thai food and watching The Nanny. 

Other highlights:
-Trying out the first two episodes of Living with Fran (jury's still out on that one).  
-The Beautician and the Beast, which we watched in 15-minute installments on YouTube. -Sounders game. Scott has previously maintained that he finds soccer "ass-numbingly dull," so his decision to grace us with his presence called for popcorn and a round of celebratory game-time margaritas. 
-Scott's announcement at the end of the game that his ass was, in fact, not numb, and that he would gladly watch another match.

3. Having graduated from her Masters program at Stanford, my dear friend Jessica is home for a month and a half to spend some time with her family before heading back to California to start her teaching job. I, of course, am beyond happy for her but beyond unhappy for me because her moving back down the coast means her not being here to entertain me on an hourly basis with her witty quips and profound analysis of LOST. 

Weekend highlights:  
-A trip to our special place - the Starbucks in Barnes & Noble - for coffee and a spirited discussion of must-see television.
-A harrowing morning during which Jess, who was home alone, realized that she had no power in her house and became convinced that a band of feral meth addicts roaming her neighborhood had cut her electrical cords. Electricity was restored by the time I dropped her off after coffee, so if it truly was the meth addicts, at least they were kind enough to give her back her internet.
-Coffee and pastries at The Essential Baking Company, an adorable organic bakery in Fremont. 
-In the car on the way to Fremont, Jess informed me that the bakery was rather "hipster." While I lamented the fact that I did not wear my Orcas Island shirt--a tee with a topographical map on the front, which is the only semi-hipster item of clothing in my bland wardrobe--Jess could at least say that she was sporting Toms.  
-Our lengthy discussion about literature. This was perfection. I love very few things more than I love talking about books with my closest friends. 

I now declare my closet officially clean, albeit utterly un-hip.

Olivia's Least Favorite Things

In the wake of Queen Oprah's dethroning, it seems like everyone has clambered aboard the Favorite Things minivan and is taking a joy ride through the neighborhood. Because I like to be a contrary ass, I have compiled a list of my ten least favorite things. Here it is:

Olivia's Least Favorite Things

1. Croc cell phone case. Because it wasn't freakish enough to just wear them on your feet.

2. An unsolicited gym membership. Nothing makes you reevaluate your friendships like a not-so-subtle suggestion to lay off the Double Stuf Oreos, you tub of lard.

3. The L.A. Galaxy. Will anyone who actually likes this team please tell me why? (I will automatically invalidate any reason involving David Beckham.)

4. This next item made the cut because it so impressively combines my favorite thing in the world (public radio) with something that makes me wish I was never born. See for yourself. This is an excerpt from an NPR interview with Amy Dickinson, syndicated advice columnist, who invited readers to write in about the worst gift they ever received.

Amy Dickinson: Merry Christmas, Neal. Let's get to it, shall we?

Neal Conan: Okay. Right.
Amy Dickinson: Dear Amy, it was a Christmas toilet, a blue one... 
(Soundbite of laughter)
Amy Dickinson: ...we put it in the basement. It still scares me.

Other gifts mentioned in this interview include, but are not limited to: a cemetery plot, a shotgun and a hunting jacket, and an already used, still sticky smoothie blender from a mother who "refuses to take suggestions."

5. I am being told by Google that the USA's loss to Panama in this year's Gold Cup classifies as an "awful gift." I'll go with it, just because I watched that game and happen to agree that "awful" is an appropriate adjective.

6. Whatever the hell this is.

 
7.  Typos on business signs.

Mind you, I am not against all typos. For example, this next one makes my life worth living: 

8. Microwave for One. I can't think of a single thing more profoundly depressing, except for maybe the boyfriend pillow. (Both of which are likely going on my next Christmas list.)

9. Army-run dollhouses. I'm guessing this was pre-Third Amendment.

10. Leaky kayaks.


There you have it. I'll let you know if I manage to unearth any more photographic evidence of me doing something stupid and/or embarrassing. For now, though, I'll leave you with that parting image of my soaking wet rear end. You're welcome.

How My Mom Cost the Sounders Their Game

Here is my scathing weekly Sounders post-game report.

They tied.

Which, considering that they were trailing until the last 20 minutes of the game, should be a positive. Except that right after we scored for the second time, making it 2-1, my mother expressed sympathy for the "poor" Vancouver goalie who'd just conceded two goals in less than five minutes. "I just feel so bad for him!" she said. "I wish there didn't have to be a loser!" You could have counted the seconds between when she said that and when Ozzie Alonso did a horrible job of settling the ball after a pass in the goal box and Vancouver scored. Our reactions:

Here's a familiar sight: Fredy Montero not scoring

Me: NOOOO! I WANT TO CRY!
Mom: Are you kidding me?!
Michael: THANKS, MOM! 

It really was her fault. And this wasn't the first time, either. When I was younger, long before the Sonics got shipped to Oklahoma City, she made a habit out of feeling gut-wrenchingly sorry for Shaq whenever he drew a foul and missed his free throws. It was like for those two shots my mother became president of the Shaquille O'Neal Fan Club.

"You got what you wanted, Mom," Michael said after the game tonight. "You did say you wished there didn't have to be a loser." "I know," she answered, "and now I feel awful!" "You should feel awful!" I shouted. "You should feel like crap!" Now, many of you may be incredulous that I wished guilt upon my mother in such a state of fury. But this is true: she really did cost us the game. And she knows it. I offer as proof this exchange that just took place:

Mom: Goodnight, Liv.
Me: 'Night, Mom. Thanks for screwing up our game.
Mom: I promise I'll never feel sorry for the other team again.
Me: I'm going to hold you to that.
Mom: I'm sure you will.
Me: I hope you can sleep tonight.
Mom: I'll have a hard time. But I know my family will forgive me.
Me: No. No, we won't.

Such love in this family. Such love.

Addendum
When I woke up this morning, the first thing I said to my dad was this: "Do you know what your wife did last night?" "I told him," my mom said, "and I still feel terrible. I kept waking up last night thinking, Why did I say that?"


I think she feels sufficiently rotten. My work here is done.

Skirts Are for Girls, Pants Are for Boys (and Other Lessons)

My friend Julia, whom I met in my study abroad program in Australia, came to visit this past week. She's getting her Masters this summer at the University of Oregon in Eugene and was hanging out with me until she could move in to her house. As I usually do with my longer post topics, I will give you the highlights, more or less in chronological order. (Side note: The title of this post has nothing to do with anything you will read below. It comes from an episode of 19 Kids and Counting that we watched one evening). Okay. Here we go:

1. Julia arrived on Sunday afternoon. On Monday, which was miraculously beautiful, we packed a picnic lunch and headed to Gas Works Park on the northern tip of Lake Union. It was abuzz with activity: a man in full army garb; a ripped, spray painted couch at the base of the hill; a topless dummy chilling in the boatyard. 

2. After Gas Works, we paid a quick visit to the Fremont Troll and got ice cream at Molly Moon's in Wallingford. Then it was over to Pike Place to see the Gum Wall and three impossibly gorgeous men dressed in suits, standing in front of the fish market singing Beatles songs. We walked to the sculpture park and then over to the Moore where my dad gave us a tour, including a climb up onto the fly rail and into the dome. We also toured the Paramount. It was a very theater-centered afternoon. Oh, and I almost forgot the man we saw at Westlake Center, holding up a sign that read, "Ron Paul for President 2008." You're a little late for that, pal.

3. We took two separate trips to the skate park near my house to spray paint on the graffiti wall. Here are our masterpieces from the first visit:

Renegade Julia was responsible for the boat windows on the left and the heart and camera on the right.

 

 

 

You can tell I have no artistic talent because I just regurgitated lyrics from "Live Here" by The Lonely Forest.

The next day, we drove past the wall and noticed that my lyrics were still up, as were Julia's heart and camera, but someone had painted over her ship windows. As in, only over her ship windows. And it wasn't like they'd painted anything cool. It was white. They covered her art with a coat of white paint. We got our revenge the next afternoon by painting this over the white:

 We also extended our artistic prowess onto the other side of the wall (after replenishing our dwindling supply of spray paint). This was the result:

Finished product.

Julia in action.

The green light is supposed to be a globe. Again, I'm not very skilled.

When our fingers were sufficiently paralyzed from spraying, we scaled the climbing wall.

4. It was entirely necessary for us to reward our rebellious behavior at the graffiti wall with a trip to Theno's Dairy for ice cream. I then took us on a very circuitous route to the Redmond Trader Joe's where we needed some groceries, including a watermelon. Julia grabbed a basket and was toting the melon around the store. I kept joking that she "carried a watermelon" like Baby from Dirty Dancing. Julia didn't think it was very funny.

5. The next day we woke up early and headed to Orcas Island to drop off pottery for my mom. The weather held out while we were there, and after delivering the pots, visiting with a couple family friends, getting drinks and snacks at Teezer's Coffee House, bread at Rose's Bakery, and chocolate at Kathryn Taylor Chocolates (what more could you need?), we drove up to the top of Mt. Constitution. On our way down, a mother and baby deer crossed the road in front of us. Neither of us had ever seen a baby deer before--it was so tiny and adorable, prancing around like a rabbit!

I know I'm omitting a ton, but I think this pretty much covers the highlights. It was great to have Julia here for a while. I'll have to nag her to send me the photos she took. Actually, she's probably going to read this before I get a chance to ask her. So Julia, will you send me your photos?

You Probably Don't Care

Welcome to "You Probably Don't Care," my latest blog segment wherein I will regale you with useless facts about my life. I decided it was high time I became an expert on myself, considering I spend so much time researching and writing articles for my internship that I have turned into something of a Seattle savant. (I'm kind of a big deal here.) I could tell you that the Evergreen Point Floating bridge is the longest of its kind in the world, or that Lake Union is 34 feet deep and its houseboat population of over 200 is the largest in the world outside of Asia. Here are 11 more things I can tell you:

1. I collect poetry book titles.
2. I collect greeting cards of elderly women with their mouths open and hands to their cheeks.
3. I have over 70 names for my cat.
4. The only time an unsanitary word escapes from my mouth is when I'm watching soccer. Actually, it doesn't so much "escape" my mouth as it does sledgehammer its way out.
5. Listening to "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People makes me feel like I'm one of the cool kids.
6. Proof that I am not a cool kid: I use the phrase "cool kids."
7. Reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin just made me bitter.
8. I use a beautifully bound collection of seven Jane Austen novels as a doorstop. I mean no disrespect to Ms. Austen. And I am just now realizing that I have quite a hefty selection of Norton anthologies that are all thicker and heavier. I use the Norton Anthology of American Literature as a doorstop.
9. I listen to "Live There" by The Lonely Forest whenever I need to feel a little Evergreen State pride. I get all verklempt when they sing "I just want to live here, love here, and die here."
10. You know I mean business when I whip out the Yiddish. (That's almost a slant rhyme, right?)
11. I'm sure I've mentioned this here before, but it bears repeating: If a house fire were to trap me upstairs with my cat, I would, in less than a heartbeat, sacrifice myself to get her to safety. I am well aware of how crazy this makes me.

I Miss You

It's 11:45 pm. I've been lying in bed watching Sports Night for the past three hours. I should be tired. I should sleep. 

Instead, I want to talk about something I've lost. Or, more appropriately, someone I've lost. One person. One of the truest, most loyal friends I will ever have. And I doubt she even remembers my name.

She's never going to read this. She's never going to read this because we've barely spoken since our high school graduation. She's never going to read this but I'm never going to stop wishing she would--never going to stop hoping that every morning when I check my email there will be a message in my inbox from a girl who used to flood my inbox daily with one-sentence updates in ye olde days before texting. She's never going to read this but I'm writing it anyway, because I waited too long to say this to her face and I lost her before she could hear it.

She used to live down the street. In junior high we would sit next to each other on the bus and lament the fact that we had brothers. We would walk to high school together, or sometimes she would get a ride and pick me up along the way. At the end of the day we'd sit on the bottom bed of her bunk and talk about what scared us. I was in awe of her. I am still in awe of her. She knew exactly where she was going and exactly how she would get there--a gift that, at 16, was like a treasure map that only she could see. We watched Chicago on repeat in her living room while her younger brother learned the lyrics to "We Both Reached for the Gun." We took her dog on walks around the neighborhood. We discovered a bush that only flowered at night.

We used to write long notes to each other--all the time, really, but especially when we went away on vacations. She once took a road trip with her family to South Dakota and wrote me a letter using an entire legal pad, complete with a running tally of every cow she saw along the way. We giggled about our crushes. We pulled what would turn out to be my only all-nighter to finish a project for social studies. She wrote quotes from Office Space on my whiteboard. We walked each other home at night. We dodged an egg that someone threw out their car window. When an old mattress was blocking the sidewalk between our houses, we concocted an elaborate story about how someone was probably murdered on that mattress and the perpetrator was disposing of the evidence. We scared ourselves so thoroughly that the person who walked the other one home would literally sprint to back her own house and immediately call to say that she'd made it--that no egg-hurling, mattress-dragging lunatic of the night had captured her before she could brush her teeth. 

I think about her a lot. I doubt she does the same. I know I am not a part of her anymore, and there's not a feeling in the world worse than knowing that someone else can serve your exact function and then some. It hurts too much to think that I could disappear that quickly and that completely. 

So if you ever read this, HSMM (if you even remember what these initials stand for), know that you were my constant, my eternal better self. Know that I miss you. Know that I love you. Know that you will forever be my hero.  

And please, someday, come back to me.