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Salesmen. Crappy music. Sex.
May. 22nd, 2006 | 12:50 pm
So through the grapevine I heard that the phrase "I just wanted to touch base with you" that floats ubiquitously about my workspace because of the three salespeople surrounding my cubicle is in fact a required comment; i.e. they have to say it.
Why? Why can't they mix it up? There are any number of adequate phrases that would get across the same message, more or less: "I just wanted to check in with you", "I'm just checking in", "I just wanted to see how things were going" are all perfectly servicable substitutions for the previously mentioned phrase; in fact all three of them are in my opinion superior, being that they (1) are simpler (2) are more conversational and (3) lack any trace of a baseball metaphor. This last point is especially important if you, like me, consider ill-placed baseball metaphors and aphorisms to be a cancer upon the English language. Plus, these phrases are less, uh, "loaded"; or, as my dad put it, "'Just want to touch base with you'? That's kinda gay," accompanied by a prounounced fluttering of the wrist.
My brother proudly showed me his new All-American Rejects album, which leads me to wonder if all my attempts to get him to listen to non-shitty music have been for naught. One All-American Rejects can undo the effects of a hundred Arcade Fires or Soul Coughings (to name two non-crappy bands that he listened to on my recommendation, and enjoyed thoroughly).
Is there anyone else who, at one point, watched Talk Sex With Sue on the We channel? At first the spectacle of an elderly woman discussing concepts such as vaginal lubrication and buttplugs held a certain morbid fascination, but when I realized that I had watched for nearly two months in a row and learned nothing I hadn't known before, that it was time to stop. There's only so many times I can watch an old lady twiddle her index finger about in a thoroughly ill-advised demonstration of the technique involved in "softening up" an uncooperative asshole in preperation for anal sex.
Besides, the Big Questions were never asked. Oh, you know what I'm talking about. No discussions of the differing patterns inherent in male and female arousal; the former comparable to a hundred miles of straight highway in Wyoming, the second roughly equivalent to a baffling sexual labyrinth with dead ends at every turn.
Very little is occurring in my life right now. I plan on calling Highsmith tomorrow to hear about a second internship--that'd be a real coup if I could snag it. We'll see. I have professional writing experience so that already puts me head and shoulders above my fellow english majors, many of whom read little outside of Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson, and most forgetting that those two writers possessed TALENT in addition to copious amounts of drugs. Kerouac in particular was a hell of a writer. Capote's famous statement that On The Road "is not writing, it's typing" leads me to believe that he never read the book; or if he did, he was a moron. There's a lot more going on in that novel than most people suspect. Anyway, enough of this for now.
Why? Why can't they mix it up? There are any number of adequate phrases that would get across the same message, more or less: "I just wanted to check in with you", "I'm just checking in", "I just wanted to see how things were going" are all perfectly servicable substitutions for the previously mentioned phrase; in fact all three of them are in my opinion superior, being that they (1) are simpler (2) are more conversational and (3) lack any trace of a baseball metaphor. This last point is especially important if you, like me, consider ill-placed baseball metaphors and aphorisms to be a cancer upon the English language. Plus, these phrases are less, uh, "loaded"; or, as my dad put it, "'Just want to touch base with you'? That's kinda gay," accompanied by a prounounced fluttering of the wrist.
My brother proudly showed me his new All-American Rejects album, which leads me to wonder if all my attempts to get him to listen to non-shitty music have been for naught. One All-American Rejects can undo the effects of a hundred Arcade Fires or Soul Coughings (to name two non-crappy bands that he listened to on my recommendation, and enjoyed thoroughly).
Is there anyone else who, at one point, watched Talk Sex With Sue on the We channel? At first the spectacle of an elderly woman discussing concepts such as vaginal lubrication and buttplugs held a certain morbid fascination, but when I realized that I had watched for nearly two months in a row and learned nothing I hadn't known before, that it was time to stop. There's only so many times I can watch an old lady twiddle her index finger about in a thoroughly ill-advised demonstration of the technique involved in "softening up" an uncooperative asshole in preperation for anal sex.
Besides, the Big Questions were never asked. Oh, you know what I'm talking about. No discussions of the differing patterns inherent in male and female arousal; the former comparable to a hundred miles of straight highway in Wyoming, the second roughly equivalent to a baffling sexual labyrinth with dead ends at every turn.
Very little is occurring in my life right now. I plan on calling Highsmith tomorrow to hear about a second internship--that'd be a real coup if I could snag it. We'll see. I have professional writing experience so that already puts me head and shoulders above my fellow english majors, many of whom read little outside of Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson, and most forgetting that those two writers possessed TALENT in addition to copious amounts of drugs. Kerouac in particular was a hell of a writer. Capote's famous statement that On The Road "is not writing, it's typing" leads me to believe that he never read the book; or if he did, he was a moron. There's a lot more going on in that novel than most people suspect. Anyway, enough of this for now.