It's Not What You Say, It's How You Say It

Playing Catchphrase with my sister's friends makes the "BABY FISH MOUTH!" scene from When Harry Met Sally seem totally plausible.

A sampling of some actual guesses that some reasonably intelligent people actually made:

"Blind mailman!"
"Clothes laboratory!"
"When someone has a heart attack it's called...?" "A heart attack!"
"This is the name of a toothpaste and also a famous painter." "Aqua-Fresh!"

Status: Delivered

A guy in my office just had a baby (well, technically, his girlfriend had the baby) and sent this announcement via e-mail:

"Baby Causes Havoc In Brooklyn"
Stats:
Birth date: Dec. 20, 2011 (1st day of Hanukah; exactly one year before end of Mayan calendar)
Weight: 7 pounds, 1 ounce (3+ kilos)
Height: approximately the height of one baby
Eyes: very dark
Hair: too much for a baby
Feet: small
Languages: baby patois, fluent Yiddish, Yoruba, and several Cantonese dialects; restaurant Spanish
Interests: making fists with both hands and feet, looking at stuff in a confused manner, small business development, small gray cats, environmentally friendly diapers, public radio

I love my job. ♥

Alphabet City

An engineer left this comment today on the manuscript I gave him to review:

"I do not understand the symbol that looks like a big lower-case u written the size of a capital."

In other words, a capital U. He doesn't understand a capital letter U.

I love my job.

Where It's At

My great-grandfather was from Armenia. The only thing most people know about Armenia is the Kardashians. The only remotely positive thing about this is that it's a perfect example of how all Armenian surnames end in some form of "-ian." For further proof, please see the guys from System of a Down. (If you know my last name, the answer is it was shortened when my grandparents emigrated to this country.)

People ask me all the time, "Where is Armenia, anyway?" My standard answer to this query is "near Turkey." The irony of this, if one can call it that, is that between 1915 and 1923, the Turks slaughtered approximately 1.5 million Armenians in what is known as "The Great Crime." It's possibly the second worst genocide in history, behind the Holocaust. The word "genocide" was even coined to describe this particular massacre. I'm sure the Armenians don't exactly appreciate this association.

A better answer, I've found, to the question of Armenia's location is "ancient Troy." Which technically, of course, makes me a Trojan.

I prefer this explanation.

Why I Don't Drink, or, "If You See Something, Say Something"

So I decided to go out last night. Yep, you heard me — to a bar. In Williamsburg. To see this guy I only know from Twitter play a show. With his girlfriend. On a night when I had work AND school the next day.

I have no idea why I thought any of this was a good idea.

(Yes I do: I wanted an excuse to wear my awesome new boots again.)

Anyway, as you may already know, I'm on a few medications. One of these specifically states that one should not drink alcohol while taking it. Another is alternately prescribed for smoking cessation. I smoke "socially," as in, I smoke because I'm socially inept and it gives me something to do when I feel awkward in public. I think you see where this is headed.

A friend from home once said I'm like a cicada — I only come out once every 17 years. This may or may not have to do with the occasional experience of an evening ended slumped over a garbage can on a deserted subway platform moaning, "Oh God, why do I do this to myself?"

At least my boots stayed dry.

Rise Of The Dead

Little Dead Riding Hood:

Happy Halloween, bitches!

Reading Comprehension FTW!

Me: "As much as I want to support them, #OccupyWallStreet reminds me of my junior year of high school when a bunch of kids organized a walk-out to 'protest' the Iraq war just so they could get a smoke break. #Cynicism"

Me: "[To be clear, this was the 1991 Iraq war.] #DejaVu"

Random pompous douche who lives in Canada: "@BeccaGo: Yea, it's just like that. Except not at all. Outside for 4 weeks, 700+ arrests? You can tell HS wasn't very long ago for you. #exp"

Me: "@RandomDouche: High school was 23 years ago for me, if you bother to read my next post. And I live here. So you can shove your #exp."

God, I love Twitter.