The Great Interview Experiment

Say it with me fellow bloggers:  I. AM. SOMEBODY! 

Yes, yes, you are!  And Neil at Citizen of the Month thinks so too, which is why he launched The Great Interview Experiment.  The idea is that you don’t have to be a big name in the blogiverse in order to be interesting or have something to say.  In this great big blogosphere, we’re all word lovin’, picture postin’, spend too much time bloggin’ and not enough time helping around the house celebrities, and we all deserve some recognition.  Thus, The Great Interview Experiment in which bloggers interview fellow bloggers and then post the interview on their site. 

I was interviewed by Hamster Grrl and it turns out that we may have been separated at birth.  Her questions were funny and interesting.  My answers only marginally so, but she managed to make me sound brilliant.  Now that’s blogging!  Check out her interview here.  Yes, you will notice that she interviewed me some time ago and I am a moron for not directing you to her sooner.  Bad, bad, blogger!  Consider my hand slapped.  But hop on over to Hamster Grrl and give her some luv.

I sent interview questions to my interviewee but he never responded.  I’m not hurt.  I don’t feel the sting of rejection.  Excuse me while I go call my therapist.

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Response-able

I’ve been spending a lot of time training Dingo Girl lately, with mixed results.  She is smart and learns quickly.  She enjoys learning new things, but after she’s learned something new, when you give her the command she looks at you like, “It was fun learning that, but don’t expect me to just do it every friggin’ time you snap your fingers, be-otch.” I’ll write more about this later, but the biggest problem is with Dingo Girl’s response times.  She’ll do something, especially if there is a treat at stake, but don’t expect for her to rush about it.  Yeah, she’ll come, but she has an itch she has to scratch first and maybe she wants to check to see if there is anything in the garbage can along the way. 

You may have noticed, if you’ve been following this blog, that the blog itself was experiencing this very same problem.  You would innocently point your browser to asiwassaying.com and then your browser would wait and wait and wait.  The website would eventually serve up the page, but it had an itch it had to scratch first and maybe it wanted to check to see if there was anything in the garbage can along the way.  In the time it took the page to load, you could have prepared and filed your taxes.  On a particularly slooow day, your refund would have already arrived and you would find yourself with enough time to lounge on a sun-drenched beach in Antigua sipping umbrella drinks and checking out the cabana boy before the first As I Was Saying pixel hit your screen.  This site is undergoing improvements and the first one I wanted to address was response time.  If you are like me I truly feel sorry for you when it comes to cyberspace, you know the angst any delay brings.  If a page doesn’t load within .2 nanoseconds after I click on a link, I twirl my hair, gnash my teeth, and bemoan the fact that valuable seconds of my already jam packed day are being sucked up by the cyberspace gremlins.  The option of backing away from the computer just does not exist.  I am convinced that whatever is on the other side of the computer screen fighting to make its way through is absolutely vital to my existence.  Vital! 

But you, dearest readers reader Mom, will have to wait no more. 

Did you notice the speedy response time today?  Did it impress you?  Did it make you happy?  Did it make you want to add As I Was Saying to your Google Reader?  If so, take a second, add me to your Google Reader and then come back and I will tell you how Mr. Dingo saved the day and how my old web host is now on my shit list along with idiots who wear Uggs in the summer, Rachel Ray, and people who unwrap hard candy during the tearjerker scenes in the movie theater.  (Oh, if we ever meet again, “Mr. I’m Too Manly To Cry During The Notebook But I Happen To Have A Brand New DVD With Me That I Am Dying To Open,” I’ll show you what it feels like to be a Twizzler.) What was I saying?  Oh, add me to your Google Reader.  Go on, I’ll wait.

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Mr. Dingo is not only a superfantastic cook, my own resident comedian, and the Dingo household late night, torrential rain, blinding snow, stars are not in alignment dogwalker, he’s also my very own personal IT guy.  Yep, all of the knowledge but none of the khakis with white socks and black shoes.  A few days ago when I started to receive emails from you gently notifying me that Social Security would be defunct by the time my page loaded, I asked Mr. Dingo to figure out what the heck was going on.  He said that it had something to do with [insert technical computer jargon here that I don’t understand even though Mr. Dingo explained it four eight twice] and our web host.  He contacted the web host via email because we all know trying to get in touch with a live customer service agent these days is like trying to squeeze into those chic winter pants you bought last fall that were so comfortable in the dressing room.  Their website promised a response within 24 hours.  Two days later, two whole days later, we still had not heard back from them.  When we figured moving at the speed of a garden slug was their standard operating procedure, we switched web hosts. 

The transfer has not been without its own adventures.  My posts did not transfer verbatim.  The punctuation apparently decided that it liked the old web host better, especially the commas and the periods.  With all the pausing and stopping they do, they found nothing wrong with the old ways.  So instead of ellipses, apostrophes, and em dashes, you saw ¤, ×, or ð.  No, I wasn’t trying to send coded messages.  There are no fragile vials filled with doomsday secrets; there are no creepy robed men; there is no flabby Tom Hanks in a bad toupee.  It was merely a freaky transfer issue that has since been resolved through my meticulous attention to detail and the magic of “find and replace.” So far, the only other issue we’ve encountered was brought to my attention by Lunanik from Secrets of a Black Heart, who emailed me to let me know the comments weren’t working properly.  Thanks Lunanik!  Your blog name to the contrary, your heart is not so black, merely a shade of cerebral grey.  Now, if I can just get Technorati to feature me on the front page, all will be fine in the world.  In the meantime, comment away, folks!  Comment away!

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Craptacular

I haven’t posted much this craptacular week.  Certain family situations had my hackles raised and claws drawn.  I might let you get away with a minor slight against Texas, but don’t mess with my Mama.  The helplessness of not being able to do anything for her but offer words of support angered me almost as much as the jackass that’s making her life difficult right now.  That the jackass happens to be another family member doesn’t help matters.  Maybe one of you out there is wondering whether I’m referring to you.  Well, if you have to wonder… So, I spewed enough acid in my potential posts to peel multiple layers of polyurethane off my hardwood floors (at one point when I was writing, Mr. Dingo mentioned, quite spontaneously, that he had never liked the monsters in Aliens).  And then I deleted my words in case there was a possibility that I would have to eat them later.  A few days before posting my first blog entry last month I read Julie Pippert’s post about How To Talk About Other People On Your Blog.  It was a thought-provoking post about how we blog about our personal histories and the people in our lives.  I’ve since printed out her Seven Guidelines and have it taped by my desk until I can make it to the tattoo parlor to have them etched into my forearm.  Even if I’d never read Julie’s post , I hope that I would’ve deleted my angry rants before posting them, but it’s nice to have a reminder for those times when the angel on my shoulder is taking a day off and the devil is dancing up and down on the SUBMIT key.

In other crapitudinous news, Dingo Girl decided that the dog food and copius table scraps we usually feed her just weren’t good enough.  She decided to go for “the other white meat” and took a chunk out of a friend of ours.  Just because I cracked a lame but somewhat racially charged joke about it, believe me, it’s nothing to laugh about.  Having your dog bite someone is intolerable.  The fact that we live in NYC and a simple walk around the block puts us in contact with mouth-watering hordes at roughly every mealtime makes the situation all the more dire.  Beyond the scrumptiousness of this particular friend — whom Mr. Dingo and I have often commented would go well with a nice Chianti, lightly dusted with rice flour and quickly sautéed with cherry tomatoes and a light cream sauce — we don’t know what triggered her bite.  She hasn’t been feeling well lately and has been unusually skittish during our walks.  She constantly looks over her shoulder as if she’s being tailed and will dart away at the slightest sound and unexpected movement.  When this first began to happen, I thought, “She has those keen dog senses!  She knows something I don’t!  We had better run!” And the two of us would bolt down the street together screaming, running from nothing in particular.  Today, a guy wearing a hockey mask carrying a machete dripping blood could suddenly appear behind us causing her to freak out.  I would ignore her warning with a yawn and sigh.  She has set me up to be one of those stupid, oblivious people in horror movies!  Well, anyway, her skittishness has made me wonder what she gets into during the day when I’m at work.  Maybe The Vampire has recruited her into his secret agent network or something.  Or maybe she watches Nancy Grace on CNN all morning and has come to realize that evil lurks around every corner, but all we can do about it is cry and cry.

Up until now I’ve taken Dingo Girl on shopping expeditions.  That’s one of the great things about NYC.  Most stores allow canine companions and many have water bowls at the door and delicious treats behind the counter.  Among Dingo Girl’s favorite shopping haunts are Home Depot and Bed Bath and Beyond.  Dingo Girl is all into the DIY thing.  And if shopping for my DIY efforts isn’t enough to satisfy Dingo Girl’s appetite for treats, my execution of the actual DIY labor may distract me long enough so that she can sneak into Not a Dingo’s litter box for a feline fudge brownie.  Yum.  Often, though, we work as a team.  I create while she destroys.  If I get new curtains, that means she can lay on the old curtains and chew on the hardware.  If I buy new pillows, that means she can rip up the old pillows.  This may not sound appropriate to you, but that could only mean that you have never experienced it.  You see, together, we are the godlike creator/destroyer.  We are the Phoenix, rising from the ashes we fashion.  We are Shiva.  We are Bob Villa!

I spent two days calling trainers/behaviorists who work with aggressive dogs.  That was one of the hardest things to overcome — the label of “aggressive dog.” One trainer understood my qualms about labeling Dingo Girl and rephrased it, “so you have a dog that has exhibited aggressive behavior.” Yes, that’s more like it, though I prefer to think that she was inappropriately confrontational or unnecessarily argumentative.  Maybe the ultimate irony is that she now gets a trainer because she had a fit of rebellion, lashing out at authority in the form of a pulpy little human hand?  Well, after a lot of research and calling around I found someone I trust to help us.  This particular behaviorist doesn’t come cheap, but the cheap ones all asked if Dingo Girl bruised easily.  Really, for what we’re paying this behaviorist, I think Mr. Dingo and I should get to bite her.  We’ve just finished paying Dingo Girl’s surgical bills and thought that this month would be the month we get a little cushion.  Instead, this month is the month that Mr. Dingo and I have to decide who is going to sell their kidney.  I sold my soul last month, I think it’s Mr. Dingo’s turn to put up. 

So, those two things are what drove me into writing reclusiveness last week.  I didn’t know how to write about them and I was throwing myself a pity party.  Be glad I didn’t invite you to the party.  It was a last minute thing and all I had on hand were feline fudge brownies.

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Mo’ Confused

I’m supposed to meet with my thesis advisor in a few hours, but with the snow falling outside and predictions of sleet I’m desperately hoping that school is cancelled and we have to reschedule.  Thirty-something years old and I’m conjuring up the Snow Gods from junior high.  The incantation goes something like this, “Please, please, please, please, please, and I won’t ask for anything ever again!”

In the last week I’ve read three novels, two articles, and numerous academic texts on my subject.  I am sure that given Murphy’s Law of Students (you know, the one that determines that you will be asked a question based on the one thing you did not study) I will be asked to discuss a word I encountered only tangentially in my texts:  Möbius.

I had to look it up a gabajillion times to make sure I understood what the word meant but only the good Lord and Mr. Möbius can figure out how it applies to 18th century Gothic literature. This morning I decided that if I couldn’t discuss it with any coherency it would behoove me to, at the very least, know how to pronounce it correctly.  “Möbius,” for those of you dying to know, is pronounced mɶ-bee-uh s . 

Now there, wasn’t that helpful?  Yes, I thought so.

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The Vampire

I am so freakin’ tired today.  I have no idea how I’m going to stay awake through the endless rounds of meetings that are on my schedule.  I think it’s going to be a Red Bull kinda day.  Today, the bags under my eyes and the zzzzz’s emanating from behind the closed doors of my office are brought to you courtesy of the nocturnal habits of our upstairs neighbor. 

I’m not really sure what he’s doing up there but he keeps some very odd hours.  Vampire hours.  Without fail, between midnight and 5am it sounds as if he’s trying to gouge out a life-sized replica of the Grand Canyon by pushing the entire inventory of our local IKEA across the hardwood floor of his apartment.  At 5am he either crawls back into his coffin or he has finally decided that the chiffarobe actually does look better wedged between the mini-fridge and the sink and all is quiet until the next evening.  Lather.  Rinse.  Repeat. 

Being the nosey parker that I am, I once asked him what he does for a living.  I got some vague entrepreneur, actor, model, type answer.  I’m thinking that maybe he’s in the witness protection program or he’s a secret agent and he hasn’t fully worked out his cover story.  Now, I’m not a vindictive person but if he doesn’t STFU so that I can get some sleep I’m going to put his picture in a full page ad in the New York Times with the headline, “Here he is.  Please come get him.”

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