Ever wonder what kind of email “Geese Aplenty” gets? Me neither. But sometimes I check my inbox anyway, and recently I found this:
“I’m not trying to sell you anything, I promise. I do want something from you, though. I’m an English major at UCLA currently taking a History of Rock and Roll class, which is why my life is really going places. Our last assignment for my Rock and Roll class is to contact someone older than us and ‘ask about the music that he or she grew up with. Try to find out what kinds of music were more important to this person and why,’ and then write an essay comparing that to our own experience and examples from our book. As I was thinking about my essay, I kept thinking about what you had written in that post about the way music affects you at different ages and suddenly had the brilliant and not-creepy-at-all idea to see if you wanted to help me out. Don’t worry about it if you can’t, because I can absolutely find someone else. But I picked you first, so if this were middle school and we were playing dodgeball, it would mean something pretty serious.”
I helped her out--I mean, she invoked the sacred honor of being picked first in dodgeball, which gives me as rosy a glow in my thirties as it did when I was eight--but I had to stop and think about something. As a teenager, I applied to UCLA, didn’t get in, and ended up attending UC Davis. At the time, I figured my scores weren’t high enough or my application essay wasn’t persuasive (my thesis statement: “I never had sex with a cheerleader in high school but I’m hopeful that college will change all that"). But it never occurred to me UCLA just might be too difficult in terms of its academics. But surely it must! I can’t even wrap my mind around the enormity of the idea of writing about my experiences with music and interviewing people about music. Thank God I was an English major at Davis where I could do activities more geared toward my more limited abilities--such as reading novels, writing papers, and studying theory. Dodged a bullet there!
On a completely unrelated note, I’m aghast because the rules of our “Secret Santa” exchange at work said: “Please do not give the gift of shoes or socks, as they are unlucky.” No wonder things haven’t been going my way lately; I’ve foolishly been indulging in footwear. From now on? Bare feet--all day, all the time. My ship is finally coming in!
Knives are unlucky gifts in Asian cultures. Go figure.
Meanwhile all the email I get about my web site basically consists of the following:: “What is this and why are you sucking up space on the net?” Uhm. If I knew that wouldnt it say on the freaking about page? I mean, really.
You’d better hope she gets an A on the paper or I’m thinking that little dodgeball analogy might come back to haunt you a bit.
Sometimes I really question my alma mater. I’m pretty sure there was no History of Rock & Roll class available at UCLA in the late 80s/early 90s.
Yeah, I’d heard about the knives thing, but shoes and socks? Wow.
Dang - I had all my shopping done. Now I gotta return all the shoes and socks. There are going to be some really disappointed friends this year.
Don’t forget that if you go bare foot, you have to paint your toe nails. I never knew it was considered indecent to wear open toe sandals unless the nails display nail polish until just recently. I guess I’m socially retarded.
Oh crap. I bought my husband shoes for Christmas. We don’t need any more bad luck after having a hurricane slam into us and all this year. Thank you for the heads up. Disaster averted.
You thought it would be easier to sleep with a cheerleader in college?
Like I said...non persuasive.
aw, that’s sweet, grandpa.
Oh sure, you can go barefoot out there! What are we non-SoCal residents supposed to do about this crisis?
(In “truth is stranger” news: I just told my brother it would be fine if he got me a pair of shoes for Christmas. Now I’m thinking I should go back over the year after the last time he got me shoes to see how it went.)
I was stuck at “which is why my life is really going places,” but I shook that and now all I can think about is, what event, past or future, prompted the composer of the Secret Santa rules to even BEGIN to worry about giving shoes?
So I can recover and go back to work and get my job done, I’m just not going to believe one single word of this post (except the part about the cheerleaders).
We got the same kind of message at work here. Ours said, “don’t try regifting that bornean monkey paw to another co-worker. Our insurance administrator says premiums will rise threefold if another one of us receives it.” And I had even knit it an adorable snowman mitten to make it more seasonal.
Hmm, well, sounds like someone majored in being a big crabapple. I mean, I’m sure it wasn’t for her masters thesis or anything.
Ok...my understanding of the knife/gift/bad luck business is that IF you give someone a knife as a gift they must give you money in return (traditionally a quarter) so that in essence you have paid for it and removed it’s “gift” status in the Universe. The reason being that if you simply give a knife as a gift it will evenutally cut the friendship...I guess whatever force would cause it to do that cutting is sorta stupid if it thinks a $150.00 buck knife is only worth a quarter, but whatever.
Here’s one to piss you off Greg...I am pretty sure that I did get accepted to UCLA that year...with a 2.17 GPA and lower SAT scores than you must have generated.
Affirmative action is almost as strange as alcohol! (You’ll all be happy to know that I dropped out of SFSU after a year and a half.)
Well, I bought everyone leather soled slipper socks this year, via internet, mailed directly to them, and they’ll all just have to grit their teeth and do the best they can with that.
Furthermore, what was your answer to the researcher?
I listened to the Beatles and Motown if it came on the radio, but the Clancy Brothers were what was playing in my house while I was growing up.
most of your regular readers do not see the underlying sadness in this post, which brought tears to my heavily eye-linered lids. if i were a cheerleader, greg, i would gladly give you what you need.
yours, fondly
...she was someone you could have told everything. Everything!
Yeah, lowly English student.
My god, this morning I caught myself mentally diagramming the sentences as they fell out of Steve Inskeep’s mouth.
After my final, I needed either a shot or a Valium. Or both.
Underlying sadness?
I saw the Narnia movie this weekend, and as I looked at the WWII sets and costumes, I realized that when I was my kids’ age, the world still kind of looked like that. I believe I may have worn some of the Narnian’s sweaters.
It is cool as hell to be here from a different world! I remember when there was almost no plastic, only cheap crap from Japan. The first time I saw big white quilted “sports” shoes was on an Astronaut. It’s great to be here in the future! My new razor cell phone looks JUST like Captain Kirk’s communicator.
THANK YOU so much for the tip about the shoes and socks! And sometimes I only wear one or the other, so that would explain those ambiguous days. You’ve made things so clear! I should really come here first with my concerns.
Shoes and socks may be unlucky. But slippers? A good pair of slippers is just nuthin’ but pure luck and good fortune—trust me on this.
So, “The Thompson Twins"--how’s Reg treating you these days? Striking back much?
i get a pair of socks almost every year for xmas. this might be shedding some light on my general plight in life.