Surrounded by Treasures: the rattling contents of my cranium

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Wednesday, October 26, 2005

the rattling contents of my cranium

These are a small sampling of the sorts of things that have been rattling around in my mind over the past 24 hours -- a mental snapshot, if you will.

(Speaking of snapshots -- I almost made a very Freudian typo there, and I'll let you figure out what it was -- I feel like I will never take another decent photograph as long as I live. I have the amateur photographer's version of writer's block. It's painful.)

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thing one: I realized today, when I was humming "One Special Boy" from Bye Bye Birdie, a show I haven't seen since I was in its pit combo in high school, that at that time (high school) I don't think I ever actually grasped that that song is pretty much a parody of teenaged girls and their obsession with Going Steady. I thought it was a serious song. That's because I was, as one classmate once informed me, book-smart but life-stupid. Also, I was a teenaged girl obsessed with Going Steady. Hey, at least I knew "How Lovely to Be A Woman" was a joke, right?

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thing two: T and I, like most people, have come up with several name-based descriptions for certain types of behaviors. We have a name for people who are whiny, attention-seeking hypochondriacs, for people who are very neurotic about food, for people who call in sick to work every Monday, for people who think work is more important than life itself, for people who tune you out while you're talking to them, and so on, all based on real people we have known for whom these activities were, well, characteristic, shall we say. And that got me thinking about what "pulling a Rachel" might be. I have no illusions about this. As much as I would like a Rachel to be, oh, I dunno, being a good and creative mother, or having a perfectly Biblical response to a stressful situation with my husband, or coming up with a brilliant rejoinder in a debate, or something of that laudatory sort, I know that this is not the case. No, a person has pulled a Rachel when he or she has done something utterly, ridiculously, embarrassingly absent-minded. Like putting his or her head in a rotating ceiling fan, or tripping over the coffee table, or saying "excuse me" to the dog and expecting the dog to get out of the way, or leaving her purse in a Kentucky Fried Chicken across the state and not realizing it until she goes to unlock the door at home, thus necessitating a six-hour drive in the pouring rain the next day with a screaming carsick infant. Not that I've ever necessarily done these things (ahem). But I am fully confident that there are people who have actually used my name in relation to this sort of bumbling inadequacy. Because that is how cool I am.

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thing three is a little story. Once there was a woman who took a pretty decent picture of Half Dome and its reflection in the Merced River, framed around Sentinel Bridge. She gave a print of this picture to her father-in-law, for his realty office, and a guy who published a travel magazine saw the picture and asked the father-in-law if he thought the photographer would let him run it in an article about Yosemite, with a photo credit. The father-in-law told him to call the woman and ask her, and the publisher did, and the woman said, "OK, but please send me a copy of the magazine in which you use it." The publisher didn't even say thank you after he got the picture, let alone send a magazine to the woman, so the woman figured he'd decided not to use it, except that he did. In an advertisement for which the woman later found out he was paid a four-figure sum. So after thinking about it for a while, and after much encouragement from several different people, the woman sent him a bill. Yesterday. The woman is not totally sure she didn't do something pretty pointless and maybe stupid, and yet the woman has also already mentally spent the imagined money.

Posted by Rachel on October 26, 2005 07:59 PM in the round of life

Comments

I don't know what dog you're talking to, my dog moves when I say excuse me. Of course, I am convinced that my dog has secretly learned English behind my back. Don't take this the wrong way, but you and T are almost as catty as we were in high school. Must be fun!

I remember we used to make fun of just about everyone and everything. Obviously not very nice, but of course, being teenagers we were quite elitist. Unfortunately we found some kind of a sick sense of security talking about everyone elses problems and it served as hours of entertainment. Not my proudest few years ;-)

Also, I know some crazy hypochondriacs and they aren't that way to get attention. They are honestly, totally consumed with fear. It is so sad. Must suck to live in fear like that. It's a serious illness that can actually cause your body to physically break down into real sicknesses. My mother is living proof of that.

Posted by: jenn at October 27, 2005 12:07 AM

Oh yeah, I'm glad you wrote that guy. I really hope it works out for you. You can always pursue it if it doesn't.

Posted by: jenn at October 27, 2005 12:08 AM

Thing one made me think of the way that I often have a conversation with someone, completely miss something, then understand it all in a flash, hours or days later when it's too late to do me any good. Not completely the same as listening to a song from an "older and wiser" perspective-- but probably evokes a similar "Doy!*facepalm*" reaction. ;o)

About thing three-- that guy has some nerve! Maybe he didn't send you a copy of the magazine because he knew you'd realize that he must've been paid (handsomely) for his use of *your* photo. I hope he has the decency to pay your bill.

Posted by: Michael at October 27, 2005 05:22 AM

Someone STOLE your picture? Heck yeah, I would send him a bill. Jerk. He'd better send you a nice sum of cash.

Posted by: mary at October 27, 2005 05:29 AM

I hope the picture thing works out!

Posted by: Kat at October 27, 2005 10:09 AM

Umm...have you ever said "excuse me" to a stuffed moose?????? Nate sure thought that was funny! LOLOL

Posted by: debi at October 27, 2005 10:54 AM

Hi! You don't know me, but I found your journal a while ago, through a friends of friends of friends late night internet browsing thing - I bookmarked it because I, too, have a Nikon, and also we read a lot of the same books. (Being a firm believer in the fact that you can judge the quality of a person by what books they read.) I haven't had an occasion to comment before - sorry for the awkward introduction.

I just wanted to sympathize about photographer's block - I've had it since March, and it's awful. You live in such a gorgeous area, though - I hope you're inspired again soon! (And I hope the magazine pays you. That's a bum deal.)

Posted by: tigergladys at October 27, 2005 02:55 PM

Sooooo...do we get a cut? Friend Fees? Something?

Posted by: Kristen at October 27, 2005 06:39 PM

My dog gets out of the way.

I hope you get your money. If the man's even part human, you will.

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