in related news, the number in the FreeCell sentence was updated twice while writing

Anyone who has been unemployed for a while knows that your days just begin to meld together. Weekend. Weekday. It’s all about the same, especially when you are still awake at 4 AM and still asleep at 12 PM. So, day in and day out, there isn’t much to report. Today, I ate some food! Although, my winning streak on FreeCell has now passed 450. Excitement abound.

But, with all this free time, I have taken up to reading only the finest writing available on the internet—Facebook fan pages, comments on Youtube videos, ew.com articles, you know, generally high brow material. And can I just ask, what is with people and spoilers? Like, HA HA HA I know something about this show that you don’t (but will become public knowledge in like two weeks anyway). Wow. That is so impressive. I cannot even believe how cool that is. You really must be a better person than I am to have that soon-to-be-moot and ultimately inconsequential information.

There is this whole culture out there of “I know something you don’t know” or, worse, “I knew something that you now know before you knew it, which still makes me a better person.” There is a whole Facebook page devoted to something like “I knew that band before it was big!” Like, the number of people who openly brag about knowing about Owl City before he became mainstream is pretty astounding. How is that impressive? How is that something that you would say out loud (or, you know, to the internet). It’s not like you have exclusive Stones demo tapes or something. It is a dude with one album and a runaway hit. Yeah, I heard Owl City before he made it big, too. It was called Death Cab for Cutie. (Har har har).

Spoilers are worse though. The whole name-dropping game of hey I knew about this person before you did is just being ass for being an ass’s sake. Which is annoying enough. But, people who insist on posting spoilers on comment pages or Facebook news feeds are showing off to the detriment of others.

Person A: Oh wow I’m so excited to read this book! I can’t wait.

Stranger: I ALREADY KNOW WHAT HAPPENED THIS HAPPENS AND THEN THIS HAPPENS I’M SO MUCH COOLER BECAUSE I ALREADY KNEW SEE I KNEW I KNEW IT I KNEW IT FIRST.

Person A: … page one …

Whatever happened to just watching or reading or seeing something and enjoying it? Is that not okay any more? I don’t think it is a ridiculous thing to ask. I mean, isn’t that the whole point? Do people now go into movies thinking, wow I can’t wait to see this but good thing I already know everything that happens? And whom are you trying to impress, internet? I mean, who is like, oh wow that DID happen! Thanks, superguy2125 (worst fake internet alias ever)! You ARE smarter than I am!

I do remember once as a kid spoiling the end of the movie Phenomenon to a friend. With fury in his eyes, he tried to ruin the ending of something I was excited about and had not yet seen: Independence Day. Sad for him, he had not yet seen it either. EARTH WINS, he shouted. Turns out, he was right. Sorry if that was a spoiler, but if you haven’t seen Independence Day yet, what the hell is wrong with you?! (But you totally should).

My brother, on the other hand, took a different route. Every birthday party or Christmas morning or any other present opening time (what other present opening times are there? Damn you, rule of threes), he would state, as a person began to open a present, “I know what it is!” And after the present was opened, he would announce, “I knew it!” Now, if you want to drive an eight-year-old Jesse absolutely nuts, do that. NO YOU DIDN’T! YOU DID NOT KNOW! TELL ME NOW. WHAT DO YOU THINK IT IS? WHAT! JUST SAY IT FIRST! SAY IT FIRST! (Eight-year-old Jesse was pretty high strung). His game was simply to say he knew more than the room, despite any evidence either way. Part of his game was also probably to drive me nuts.

Now, maybe these people actually do know more than I do. Maybe they have some insight into why they are not the worst people ever. Maybe the great spoiler in life is that blessed are those who ruin the endings of movies, for theirs is the kingdom of God. But if it is, just don’t tell me.

the third tier is still high enough that you'd die if you fell from it...

I don’t front. I am a huge American Idol fan. Intellectuals and snobs may turn up their noses, but I just don’t care. I love it. Well, I loved it. In the past few seasons, it has been quite abusive to me (when I have showed it nothing but love), but that’s not the point. The point is that I am a huge fan. Perhaps bigger than you’ve ever met. I don’t just watch the show and enjoy it. A good portion of my brain space is irreversibly committed to who sang what knowledge. Or to contestants you probably don’t even remember (I love you, Nikko Smith). And sometimes it pops out in what could be embarrassing conversations. Embarrassing if you front, which if you read my first line, I do not. Conversations like:

Person: Wow, I can’t believe Adam Lambert sang “Satisfaction” [on season 8 of Idol]. I wonder what it took to get the Stones to release that song to be covered.

Jesse: Well, Bo Bice sang it in season 4.

Person: Really?

Jesse: Oh, and Gina Glocksen sang “Paint It, Black” in season 6.

Person: …

Jesse: Yeah, you just got schooled.

Perhaps you are wondering to yourself, who was the 11^th contestant voted off in season 3? Why that would be Matthew Rogers. What song did he sing? That would be “Amazed” by Lonestar. You know who else sang a Lonestar song? Well, Anthony Federov sang one in season 4 (“I’m Already There”). Perhaps you are wondering what song Katharine McPhee auditioned with. Well that would be “God Bless the Child.” Mikalah Gordon also sang that song on the show (2^nd week of the semifinals) and for the season 4 CD.

I have had a two-digit number’s worth of dreams in which I am a contestant (and one in which I was a contestant on So You Think You Can Dance. I had told everyone I know to watch me on the show and then it dawned on me that I can’t dance. Panic.). I have without irony used the sentence, “I worry what I would pick for ‘Country Week.’” I have correctly predicted, based on the theme, what a contestant will sing multiple times (two weeks in a row I said, “ugh I bet he’s going to sing/ruin X” right before David Cook came out and was right [“Always Be My Baby’ and “Music of the Night”]). And boom goes the dynamite.

But, despite all of this, I would not classify myself beyond the 3^rd tier of fandom. I truly believe there exists at least two higher echelons of fans. I have never spent money on any Idol merch other than music (which I argue is the one piece of merchandise you are supposed to buy. Right? It is a music show. Shouldn’t you buy the music?). That is, I have never seen the show in person or attended any of the tours. I have never bought a t-shirt or poster or anything like that. So, there is a level of fan that does that, which has to be higher than me. If you are walking around sporting a t-shirt with David Archuleta’s smiling face on it, you automatically outdo my knowledge that Diana DeGarmo came out first in the semifinal rounds of season 3 and sang “I Got the Music in Me.” (Seriously, I got like a B- on my British Literature quote identification midterm. This ability cannot be used for good, only evil.)

But then there is that top tier: actually crazy people. I make no claims of sanity, and those Jordin Sparks-clad fans are certainly not excluded from the tea party, but there is a level of crazy that runs just inexplicably deep. For example, nothing having to do with American Idol has come remotely close to making me cry (nor should it). I would never, ever, ever enter the world of online message boards about the show. Ever ever ever. Ever. The extreme emotional connection people feel and, for some reason, have to share with this online community of fellow crazies is stupefying. Something about the level of anonymity combined with the actual disconnect from the show (were you on it?) and the reality that it is just a TV show (yes, just) creates this perfect storm of overreaction and misplaced passion that could knock a moving freight train out of its tracks. There exists this legion of superfans that send hate mail to votefortheworst.com and make signs to hold up at their televisions for, presumably, contestants who cannot possibly see them and organize petitions to get their “unfairly” ousted favorite contestant back on the show.

But this isn’t Idol’s fault. I actually believe it is the other way around. American Idol didn’t make crazy fans out of these people; these people were always crazy. Like really, actually, I don’t know if they should be allowed to drive, please tell me these people are not responsible for children crazy. The kind of people that, after revealing their obsession, you discreetly feel for your keys should the need for a weapon arise. The kind of people that don’t seem to notice that your eyebrows had permanently risen since they started talking to you. The kind of people that you don’t make sudden movements around. These people, they just happen to direct all that crazy toward American Idol. Anything that has regular fans has crazy fans. TV shows, celebrities, comic books, Barack Obama. In fact, I bet things you didn’t think could have regular fans have crazy fans. I’m sure there are people out there with deep emotional attachments to the varieties of pudding or the styles of nail clippers or the brands of decks of playing cards.

Also, just to go back a tic, I hope that the inventor of the caps lock key, the inventor of the YouTube comment, and the inventor of “reply all” are sharing a table in Hell for crimes against humanity. Just saying.

and i didn't need to upload it, as all those songs are already on my computer...

I’ve been having trouble sleeping. Well, no. I’ve had absolutely no trouble sleeping from 6 am to 3 pm. That’s been effortless. I have had trouble sleeping like a regular diurnal mammal. So, in between when I decide to go to bed and I actually fall asleep, I have been getting a lot done. For example, I have upped my winning streak on FreeCell from the low to the mid 300s. But, I felt that I could perhaps be even more efficient. So last night, I decided to go through a stack of unlabeled CDs to label them.

I found some weird things. I found a mix CD that was labeled. There was “[undisclosed name]’s mix” written on the front, along with the date and the #7. The date harkens back to a more innocent time, pre-9/11 time when we had boy bands aplenty, J. Lo had not yet met Ben Affleck, and Aaliyah was still alive. Ah, the halcyon days of yore. In any case, here is the playlist (seriously, you can’t make this stuff up, folks):

1)‘N Sync – Gone

2) something Indian

3) Theme from (the original) 90210 (which you now sadly have to clarify)

4) Linkin Park – Crawling in my Skin

5) from Rent – Rent

6)‘N Sync – Dirty Pop

7) something Indian

8) Blu Cantrell – Hit ‘Em Up Style (Oops!)

9) J. Lo – I’m Real

10) ‘N Sync – Do Your Thing

11) Mandy Moore – In My Pocket (a very poor quality version)

12) ‘N Sync – Celebrity

13) Xtina, Pink, Mya, Lil Kim – Lady Marmalade

14) Willa Ford – I Wanna Be Bad

15) from Moulin Rouge - Hindi Sad Diamonds

16) Jordan Knight – Give it to You

17) Aaliyah – Are You That Somebody (RIP)

Full disclosure: the tracks showed up in my iTunes without labels. I had to look them up (by reaching into my memory and instantly knowing the songs). Also, I was trying to detect a theme for the CD. And I couldn’t even come up with a joke answer. Something using the word bling?

Also also, let’s talk about 2001 in music for a second. Napster was in full swing then. Music was apparently doomed forever, and the sale of music would never be the same. Number one selling album that year? Linkin Park. This album went like ten times platinum. Things were free and still (somehow) legal, and something like ten million people spent actual money on the Linkin Park CD. Just saying.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, I had come across something even weirder. There was a CD with just two documents on it. One was a set of notes and the other was an essay written by, well, I don’t know. Not by me or anyone I know. WHERE DID IT COME FROM? And, if you are me, you would naturally start to play out the first twenty minutes of Enemy of the State in your head. Did Jason Lee drop this in my shopping bag before he rode his bike in front of a bus?! Is Gene Hackman standing on my roof?! Are a bunch of people going to try to kill me?! What is going on?!?! (Apparently, in my head, I am played by Will Smith.) (I imagine that actually casting the role of me would involve doing a wikipedia search to see if William Hung is still around and then calling the South Park guys to see if they still have the puppet they used in Team America).

I think it was someone’s homework. I hope that person worked it out, as this CD been in a box for years. In any case, I can cross that off of my list. CDs I never look at have been messily labeled. Good. So that way when I put them back in the box and not touch them for three years, they will at least have the words “mp3s” or “pictures” scribbled on the front of them. I can sleep soundly now.

Also, it is legal to drink on planes.

I love airports. I do. I don’t love it like I love other things—like, say, pizza. But I still give them the thumbs up. I think my ability to say that I love airports stems from the deep hatred other people have for them. To say I love airports could also be translated as I don’t hate airports with a burning passion of the Christ. I really think some people are at their most miserable in an airport. And, to that, I say a few things. A) You are the one who had all of those kids. And b) just calm the f down! Like seriously. Yes, things cost more in an airport. Yes, you have to take your shoes off. Yes, the lines can get long. But if you aren’t a crazy person, it all goes by quite quickly and painlessly.

On my latest flight, I ran into the usual suspects. The “I have no idea what to do at airport security” people. The “a cup of coffee costs what?!” people. The “what do you mean I can’t carry on 165 bags” people. You know, the sort of (white) people who use phrases like “this is ridiculous” with the sense of entitlement that makes you want to kill yourself. Honestly, if you ever hear those words leave your mouth, it is time to rethink your entire outlook on life.

I imagine these people have never had to work in any industry in which you interact with another human being. Like, yes, it was the guy whose job it is to initial your boarding pass who made up the rule to check your ID. That’s him, the head of TSA. This is where he works. SFO United gates 70 – 89. Calm down, woman.

The key to enjoying airports is getting there early. I always get to airports early. Sometimes, I get there super early. But typically, just regular early. That way, if security takes a long time, that’s cool. Oh, a long line to get my coffee? Awesome. I have three hours to kill anyway.

I think part of loving airports also has to do with living in New York. You won’t have to fight anyone for a seat on the plane. You are already used to paying over five bucks for a cup of coffee and a muffin. You are simply amazed to find bathrooms that have interacted with a mop. All in all, you could do a lot worse (like, say, the R train).

Still, with any flight there is an added bonus. Every flight has something. The added bonus on my flight was that there was a mystery bag that had snuck on board. So after some taxiing (words with two i’s in a row always look funny. Like skiing. Or radii.) we headed back to the gate. People on the plane freaked out. “This is ridiculous!” God forbid airline employees follow national law. The bigger freakouts came from business and first class. Yeah, I bet it is hard sitting in your huge chair that reclines. Your life really is just so hard.

I did get to make my best Jim Halpert face when the head airline stewardess (do they have an official name? Flight queen?) reminded us more than once that “in case of an emergency, you must leave all of your belongings behind” as if it were more applicable to this flight. Great. But I don’t mind. I have had to make announcements before. Sometimes they just don’t go as planned. I suggest writing them down first.

The old guy next to me was one of those old guys who learned to start conversations using the chum method. Dump a bucket of open-ended statements in the water and wait for the sharks around you to bite. I don’t play that game. “I guess it’s all in the name of safety!” he’d say to no one. I usually pretend I don’t speak English (you know, by reading a book). Rude? Maybe. But you have to be careful. Grandpas have these bear trap stories that they unleash on strangers. A polite nibble and suddenly you are desperately trying to gnaw your leg off as he tells you about the time he flew out of St. Louis in 1974. By the way, you should be visualizing someone setting a shark trap for bears or a bear trap for sharks. In any case, this bear-shark ain’t falling for it. Better luck next flight, corrective shoes.

Behind me, just for comic relief, sat the funniest little old Asian lady that you ever did meet. She was the last one on the plane, dragging her carry-on (and by carry-on, I of course mean garbage bag). After the return to the gate to remove the mystery bag, she gleefully announced “we’re here in New York!” I giggled. The French couple next to her didn’t get the joke. I think it was a joke. Either that, or I meanly laughed at a confused old lady. But I prefer to think that I laughed at the expense of the French couple.

The old Asian lady apparently hated San Francisco, told the French couple they were gorgeous and interrogated them about when they were having kids, and proudly announced she was taking a cab to Connecticut. And as it turns out, the old gal could book it. The second the armed door open, the lady was, garbage bag in hand, out of the plane.

She blew past the James Spader look-alike who had earlier thrown a huge fit over the return to the gate. He of course threw a fit again. He started with the “Excuse me” (yes, it is said with a capital E) and shouted (to no one. Seriously. She was gone.) “why are you in such a hurry?”

Now if I were an airport crazy, I might have punched him in the face. You are the one! You! Sitting there freaking out about nothing! You! But I was still in range of the grandpa tractor beam, so I wasn’t about to reveal my fluency in English. And, I love airports.

sometimes, i just draw pictures

My academic success was hampered by several things—laziness, apathy, a poor retention of facts and figures. And, my later years in school were always hampered by the fact that I was generally satisfied with the B+. Sure, I could go for the A but I already know enough for the B+. It seemed like a lot of extra work just to top off an already quite full tank. This isn’t to say I am dispassionate about life or success, but that I am rather dispassionate when it comes to early British Literature. As an English major.

Sidebar defense: In my defense, I became an English major not because of a love of English Literature, but because I was pretty good at it. I mean, how hard is it? You read something and you tell someone what it means. This means this because it says so. Don’t believe me? Well, let me show you exactly where. Here, here, and here. The best part was poetry. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Except for the occasional Whitman or T.S. Eliot monstrosity, poems are like 20 lines long and have a title. “This poem is about sadness.” “I feel so sad, so very sad / I feel so very sad.” Then you write something about how this poem is about sadness because it says so. It does. Right there in it. See? After you have established that, you make a reach. First, apply the adverb perhaps and the verb suggest. “Perhaps the theme even suggests that his sadness is the sadness of God / man / God toward man / man toward God / man toward man.” I mean, perhaps. Who the fuck knows?

Anyway, other than personal flaws, I think that a large gap in my academic abilities lies in my inability to take good notes. Part of it is that I give myself too much credit. “Oh, you’ll remember that,” my lazy hand tells me brain, “I won’t write that down because you can just remember the year that Freud was born. We’re good.” But it also has to do with just the things my ear chooses to latch onto and the things it chooses not to. For example, it chooses to notice a grammatical error in someone’s lecture but not, say, the actual sentence he was saying. What did he just say? Well, I know there was a “who” that should have been a “whom” somewhere in there. Oh, the actual content? Yeah, I let that pitch sail by.

Still, my notes tend to be vaguely helpful to me—like a list of keywords from a conversation (once, in a class I wrote down “the heart of the matter” after my professor said “we’re going to get right into the heart of the matter of this chapter of Ulysses today.” I did not write what the heart of the matter actually was). They will spark some “oh yeah I remember talking about that” sort of thoughts in my brain. The real problem lies in when I write them for the benefit of someone else. You have two roads that we could travel down: the nonsense road (“the heart of the matter”) or, like the notes I took for a recent conference session I led, the useless road. At one point, I wrote something like “Museum arrow Schools and Groups arrow Teens.” I bet that was really helpful for our participants.

This also comes into play in taking a phone message. Well, I didn’t write down the woman’s last name, but I did write down the word community group about six times. I also wrote down her phone number and the number of teachers in her school, but not the name of her school. So, good luck! It’s a wonder I wasn’t laid off earlier.

Merry Christmas Eve, everybody!

oh, and the niners lost.

I am not one to spend money on insurance or warranties or protection plans. Like [astute political reference], I am typically short-sighted when it comes to matters of financial security. Why spend a little extra now when I can put it into my savings account (and by savings account, I mean the nearest place that sells food)? Who cares that I always break my iPod/Blackberry/U-Haul? Why spend $18 now when I can spend $265 later on a whole new one? Better yet, I often choose not to learn from my mistakes. So when the next expensive piece of equipment dies on me for no reason after I drop it, I don’t think “hey I’m accident prone, I better play it safe.” Instead I choose to forgive and forget (as in, forgive myself and then quickly forget anything substantial I could have learned).

I think that a toilet plunger is that AppleCare Protection Plan of your bathroom. It is a forgettable purchase, and, for some, an embarrassing one. I, for one, choose not to be embarrassed by drug store purchases. Why, yes, that is a large tub of Metamucil I am buying. Thank you. Debit, please. The plunger is a purchase I often forgo / forget simply because it sort of falls under that category of insurance. Not something I need at the moment I am in the drug store, so something I never think to buy while I’m there. It is, in fact, a useless object until disaster strikes.

Disaster struck. It did not strike me in either perpetrator or host. But, I was that supporting character who helped keep the action of the story going. The Judy Greer, if you will. So, perpetrator, host, and Judy Greer were sitting around, watching TV, and disaster struck. After it was established that the easiest single-person solution (that is, the plunger) was not available, we put our heads together.

Sometimes there is a situation that can only be made worse by group work. For example, a clogged toilet with no plunger. There was actually a moment in which two of us shouted a simultaneous “no no no no no!” as the third pulled a chain. Perpetrator referred to it as the new Katrina. You’re doing a heck of a job, Brownie (I can’t take credit for that poop joke, but I am not one to let a poop joke, however plagiarized, pass by). As brownie was doing its job, the levees had broken. Water. Everywhere. (Water, of course, being a euphemism).

With someone now trapped in a bathtub, we sprinkled a whole pack of paper towels on the ground. I had earlier suggested that dish soap can help to loosen clogged drains. It did succeed in making the water soapier, which I suppose is a step in the right direction. So, the soapy flood waters were now a big papery mess as we debated the fate of the bathmat.

Then, we found a plunger. Well, most of a plunger. The handle was so short that one’s (my) hands had to be submerged in water (again, euphemism) to use it. Also, we found dish gloves. Well, I found them. Sorry, host’s mom. These had a higher calling. Thankfully, a plunger is a very effective tool. The waters receded and all that was left to do was throw away the hundreds of paper towels, the plunger, and the dish gloves, mop the floor, and then close the door behind us.

It was a good reminder to me that in my own bathroom, it might be a good idea to have a plunger on hand, in the spirit of always hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. And someone over there is going to have to remember to buy a new plunger, too.

And some new dish gloves.

full full disclosure: i may have been thinking of joanna kerns the first time

I once had a writing professor who decried the rampant iPod usage in New York City. You miss out on hearing the world around you, she would say. There is where you’ll find inspiration. There is where you’ll find stories. Well, I have been iPod-less for a while (not by choice, but by my clever combination of clumsiness and poverty), so my commute is often subject to inspiration and stories whether I want them or not. The other day, as I headed out to my second ever day of (still fartless!) yoga, I was unintentional eavesdropper to an odd conversation.

The woman next to me was telling her friend about her CUNY School of Journalism application. She complained as she flipped through the pages. “They want us to answer all of these questions. Here, look at this. They want us to identify all of these.”

Well, I felt like I was in it to win it, so I peeked at her list. There were many blank spots. “Look at this, I don’t know who these people are!” The first three were all blank: Judith Miller, Tom DeLay and John Roberts. “Who is this? Tom DeLay. I don’t know who that is.” Now, I don’t necessarily believe that everyone needs to who Tom DeLay or, say, the current Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court are. But surely, the one group of people who absolutely should is journalism students, right? Am I crazy?

Full disclosure: if someone were to ask me who Judith Miller is, I would quickly and confidently answer, “oh, she was the mom on Who’s the Boss?” But, I am not applying to be a journalism major anywhere. And, if asked who Valerie Plume is, I would know. So there.

I mean, different people know different things. She did have something written for a lot of the other terms. For example, for “Derek Jeter” she had written “Yankees” and for “Darfur” she had written “hunger.” She gets points for concision. Too many writers today suffer from an intolerable, over-modified case of logorrhea and pretension—showing off for their readers that they know who Valerie Plume is (as if it is somehow impressive). Touché, subway lady.

But, I can’t help but wonder why she is even looking at a degree in journalism. Is that really what you’re drawn to? I mean, it’s not exactly a degree that opens a lot of doors (says the English major). What is your end goal? Maybe she intends to learn who Maureen Dowd is (another blank she asked her friend about). Maybe. But the way she said it, it was as if no one should care who Maureen Dowd is. Like a high-school student asking during a poetry lesson, “when are we ever going to use this?” (Answer: the ability to understand metaphoric language is essential to all forms of communication; the overarching skill of being able to read, understand, and reiterate the meaning of a text is necessary for any professional job; and engaging the imagination, that is, the metaphoric, allows any and all learning to occur, you little punk). She then took her application, folded it into quarters, and put it back into her purse.

Maybe I am just a big snob (true) and maybe she has some vision in mind in which a degree in journalism will be useful (it’s possible). I mean, there are plenty of celebrity news writers and whatnot that probably have no clue who Samuel Alito is and will happily live their lives not knowing. And they’ll probably make more money than I will and get to meet cool people like Maggie Gyllenhaal or Zooey Deschanel or that guy from Once. So maybe she has a point.

Or maybe, I just need to invest in a new iPod (donations are always welcome).