Fuck!
So I just found out that the head writer of Days of Our Lives, along with many other staff writers, will not be back when the writers' strike is over. If you don't watch the show, then you probably don't care. But if you do, then you should know that this is pretty much the Days death knell. For the hackity hack hack who is now the Head Writer? Sucks it.
In one month's time, I've noticed that many storylines don't jell (ok, they often didn't, but now it's even more ridiculous), some characters are getting way too much screen time (Jarlena much?), and the dialogue -- the dialogue has mostly been craptacular. Some of my fave characters have also received less screentime.
The show finds out in March whether or not it'll be renewed -- it's been on for over 40 years and is pretty much a staple in the daytime drama community. But it's also the only soap on NBC (which is likely contemplating a fifth (or is that 6th) hour of the moronic Today show). So, unless Sony (the company that owns it) can shop it over to CBS, then its future remains pretty dim.
Lest you think the titular Fuck! was just in reference to the demise of my beloved soap, let me assure you that it isn't. It's just the latest in a string of disappointments in my life.
To wit:
1. Last Monday I felt a little weird. I got on the bus after work and clutched my mittens in my left hand. I worried that I might drop one, so I shoved them into my shoulder bag. I just don't like wearing mittens on the bus -- they make it hard to grasp the metal pole thing when you're standing. And even though I don't want to grip the metal handle things with my bare hands (germs, you know), it's pretty much a necessity.
I pulled the string for the bus to stop so I could go to this grocery store to buy cheese. What I didn't know was that they recently changed the stops (i.e., eliminated the one I wanted) so I actually ended up getting off the bus about 2 blocks away from where I wanted to be. I was mad about that, and as I put my mittens on and ran (yep, I ran) 2 blocks south, I was also annoyed. Annoyed, mad, and getting rained/snowed on.
At the store, I ended up getting one of those already-cooked chickens, 2 blocks of cheese (the real reason I went to this particular store) and maybe something else. I felt rushed at the checkout and instead of putting on my mittens, I shoved them into the left pocket of my coat.
When I got home, I immediately took off my hat and scarf and tossed them onto the floor. Then I removed my coat, hung it up, and kicked off my boots. It's what I do, okay? Normally I pick up the hat/scarf, etc. and put them on this table thing in the kitchen, but this particular Monday? I did not. I also did not remove my mittens from my coat pocket. And I should have.
Blah blah blah, the next day I woke up and realized I'd forgotten to lock the door to my apartment. That's right, anyone could have just come in and done god knows what (dusted my shelves, picked up my hat, killed me, that sort of thing). Thankfully, nothing freaky had transpired, so I went about the morning ablutions to get ready to go to work.
But when I went to put on my mittens, only one of them was there.
I checked the floor of the closet. No mitten.
I checked the floor of the hallway. No mitten.
I checked the table in the kitchen. No mitten.
I rechecked my coat pockets. No mitten.
I checked the grocery bags. No mitten.
I called the grocery store to ask if anyone had turned in a black mitten.
No one had.
I was sad. And upset. And panicked.
See, this wasn't just any black mitten. Actually, it's 2 mittens. One mitten inside another mitten.
The inner mitten is a pink/hot-pink/white-striped yarn mitten that's kind of like a sock puppet. It has eyes sewn onto the top of it, and when you open your hand, there's a tongue sewn into the inside. So you can wear these mittens and have little puppet shows, or make them talk to you, or have them bite someone's hand. They're super cute and I bought them at Urban Outfitters in 1995. They made me laff so hard in the store, I had to purchase them. I mean anything that can make you feel that good is totally worth the 14 bucks or however much they were.
The sock mittens were old and kind of ripped, and I placed them (I forget their names, yep I named them) inside my thin Goretex Windstopper North Face mittens (also purchased in '95) some years back for extra insulation.
So I was sorry to lose the puppet mitten, but, I figured, what the heck, maybe I could commission a friend who knits to make me another pair. I could get over that loss. No big. I would go to The North Face store and get more mittens. Especially since a big fat snowstorm was on the way.
I went to The North Face and the 20-something still-in-school employees asked if they could help me. I plopped my remaining mitten on the counter and said, "I'm looking for this, since I lost the left one yesterday."
"That's the coolest mitten I've ever seen!" said the tall cute boy employee. I was a little surprised at such an exuberant reaction, but you know, I *do* have pretty cool mittens (or at least, I did), so there you go.
Then I learned that The North Face no longer makes this kind of mitten, and so I'd have to find something else. They just don't make thin Goretex Windstopper mittens for normal people anymore. Sure, they have thick fat mittens for all sorts of athletic purposes. They have mittens for snowboarding, skiing, scaling mountains, snowjumping, snowsnorkeling, and assfreezing, but for regular people who just want some damn mittens to wear outside for like, no reason at all, except maybe waiting for a bus or something? Tough shit, they don't got mittens for that.
They have *gloves*. Again, most of the gloves are designed for Athletic A-holes, but they're not really plain normal ones for regular peeps.
And gloves suck. Mittens are cool because, as a former ex-co-worker once told me, "They rely on the buddy system." All of your fingers are mooshed together and they keep your hand warmer than it would be if your digits were housed separately (as they are with gloves).
I tried trying on the gloves, but it's kind of hard when there's a big cardboard thing in the way, not to mention the stupid plastic thing that keeps people from stealing. I scratched my wrist on the cardboard and a little flap of skin came up. Eventually I found a pair of gloves with no cardboard and no stupid plastic thing and so I got those for like a million dollars. But they feel too tight and they're not mittens, and I hate them.
As I left The North Face, a bunch of blowing snow came at me and pissed me off. I decided to walk to the grocery store where I last had my mitten, just to see if maybe the Lost and Found lady had lied to me, I mean, made a mistake.
She hadn't.
Then I walked the exact path home I'd taken the night before, just to see if maybe somehow, by chance, my mitten was lying on the sidewalk or in a gutter or under a little bit of snow.
But then I remembered the fricking windstorm we'd had the previous night and how it was very likely that even if my mitten *had* been on the sidewalk or in a gutter yesterday, it had likely been picked up by the 40 miles an hour wind and carried off to some faraway land or something.
:(
So my left mitten is gone, and I can't replace it. It's funny, I thought I would have been more upset by the loss of the sock mitten, but it turns out that The North Face mitten is the one that's impossible to replace.
The next day at work, I went to The North Face website and did a search, just to see if the young employees had misled me.
They hadn't.
I found the "Contact Us" page and wrote an e-mail to them, as any concerned consumer might do, and which I find myself doing way more often than I'd like. (Fish, shrimp, cheese, body wash, etc.) I made sure to mention that the employees at the store had said I wasn't the only one asking about this kind of mitten (truth!). I figured that might help my case.
The next day, I got an e-mail back saying they had no plans to reintroduce the thin Goretex Windstopper mitten, but that my e-mail would be forwarded to R&D so they would know of the interest in said product.
One small step? Who knows. Probably not.
The other shit that's sucked lately?
a. I didn't get to sleep on Thursday night at all. Was it due to:
1. Non-stop alarm buzzing from 404?
2. Baby yowling next door?
3. Wind rattling the windows?
4. Hammering from upstairs schmuck?
5. Severe facial and head pain?
If you chose 5, ding-ding-ding, you're the lucky prizewinner. I haven't felt headpain and facepain like this in quite some time, either. I couldn't even watch all the TV I wanted to. I saw the Lost premiere but didn't see my tape of Supernatural or Days. You know it's bad when my eyes hurt too much to watch tv.
I stayed home from work and tried calling the ENT. The ENT's office voicemail said they were all wusses who couldn't come in due to the snowfall, etc. Then I called my regular doctor and she called stuff in for me. Yay. Barbiturates and antibiotics, my old friends. (Actually the barbiturate/acetaminophen/caffeine mix is new to me, but still.)
Oh and I had an alarming encounter with buzzerperson the other week and there were some fraudulent charges on one of my credit cards, but you'll just have to wait for the next installment to read about those.
And by the way, one of those cheese blocks I bought? Was green and moldy. I didn't notice it when I got it, of course.
Fuck.
In one month's time, I've noticed that many storylines don't jell (ok, they often didn't, but now it's even more ridiculous), some characters are getting way too much screen time (Jarlena much?), and the dialogue -- the dialogue has mostly been craptacular. Some of my fave characters have also received less screentime.
The show finds out in March whether or not it'll be renewed -- it's been on for over 40 years and is pretty much a staple in the daytime drama community. But it's also the only soap on NBC (which is likely contemplating a fifth (or is that 6th) hour of the moronic Today show). So, unless Sony (the company that owns it) can shop it over to CBS, then its future remains pretty dim.
Lest you think the titular Fuck! was just in reference to the demise of my beloved soap, let me assure you that it isn't. It's just the latest in a string of disappointments in my life.
To wit:
1. Last Monday I felt a little weird. I got on the bus after work and clutched my mittens in my left hand. I worried that I might drop one, so I shoved them into my shoulder bag. I just don't like wearing mittens on the bus -- they make it hard to grasp the metal pole thing when you're standing. And even though I don't want to grip the metal handle things with my bare hands (germs, you know), it's pretty much a necessity.
I pulled the string for the bus to stop so I could go to this grocery store to buy cheese. What I didn't know was that they recently changed the stops (i.e., eliminated the one I wanted) so I actually ended up getting off the bus about 2 blocks away from where I wanted to be. I was mad about that, and as I put my mittens on and ran (yep, I ran) 2 blocks south, I was also annoyed. Annoyed, mad, and getting rained/snowed on.
At the store, I ended up getting one of those already-cooked chickens, 2 blocks of cheese (the real reason I went to this particular store) and maybe something else. I felt rushed at the checkout and instead of putting on my mittens, I shoved them into the left pocket of my coat.
When I got home, I immediately took off my hat and scarf and tossed them onto the floor. Then I removed my coat, hung it up, and kicked off my boots. It's what I do, okay? Normally I pick up the hat/scarf, etc. and put them on this table thing in the kitchen, but this particular Monday? I did not. I also did not remove my mittens from my coat pocket. And I should have.
Blah blah blah, the next day I woke up and realized I'd forgotten to lock the door to my apartment. That's right, anyone could have just come in and done god knows what (dusted my shelves, picked up my hat, killed me, that sort of thing). Thankfully, nothing freaky had transpired, so I went about the morning ablutions to get ready to go to work.
But when I went to put on my mittens, only one of them was there.
I checked the floor of the closet. No mitten.
I checked the floor of the hallway. No mitten.
I checked the table in the kitchen. No mitten.
I rechecked my coat pockets. No mitten.
I checked the grocery bags. No mitten.
I called the grocery store to ask if anyone had turned in a black mitten.
No one had.
I was sad. And upset. And panicked.
See, this wasn't just any black mitten. Actually, it's 2 mittens. One mitten inside another mitten.
The inner mitten is a pink/hot-pink/white-striped yarn mitten that's kind of like a sock puppet. It has eyes sewn onto the top of it, and when you open your hand, there's a tongue sewn into the inside. So you can wear these mittens and have little puppet shows, or make them talk to you, or have them bite someone's hand. They're super cute and I bought them at Urban Outfitters in 1995. They made me laff so hard in the store, I had to purchase them. I mean anything that can make you feel that good is totally worth the 14 bucks or however much they were.
The sock mittens were old and kind of ripped, and I placed them (I forget their names, yep I named them) inside my thin Goretex Windstopper North Face mittens (also purchased in '95) some years back for extra insulation.
So I was sorry to lose the puppet mitten, but, I figured, what the heck, maybe I could commission a friend who knits to make me another pair. I could get over that loss. No big. I would go to The North Face store and get more mittens. Especially since a big fat snowstorm was on the way.
I went to The North Face and the 20-something still-in-school employees asked if they could help me. I plopped my remaining mitten on the counter and said, "I'm looking for this, since I lost the left one yesterday."
"That's the coolest mitten I've ever seen!" said the tall cute boy employee. I was a little surprised at such an exuberant reaction, but you know, I *do* have pretty cool mittens (or at least, I did), so there you go.
Then I learned that The North Face no longer makes this kind of mitten, and so I'd have to find something else. They just don't make thin Goretex Windstopper mittens for normal people anymore. Sure, they have thick fat mittens for all sorts of athletic purposes. They have mittens for snowboarding, skiing, scaling mountains, snowjumping, snowsnorkeling, and assfreezing, but for regular people who just want some damn mittens to wear outside for like, no reason at all, except maybe waiting for a bus or something? Tough shit, they don't got mittens for that.
They have *gloves*. Again, most of the gloves are designed for Athletic A-holes, but they're not really plain normal ones for regular peeps.
And gloves suck. Mittens are cool because, as a former ex-co-worker once told me, "They rely on the buddy system." All of your fingers are mooshed together and they keep your hand warmer than it would be if your digits were housed separately (as they are with gloves).
I tried trying on the gloves, but it's kind of hard when there's a big cardboard thing in the way, not to mention the stupid plastic thing that keeps people from stealing. I scratched my wrist on the cardboard and a little flap of skin came up. Eventually I found a pair of gloves with no cardboard and no stupid plastic thing and so I got those for like a million dollars. But they feel too tight and they're not mittens, and I hate them.
As I left The North Face, a bunch of blowing snow came at me and pissed me off. I decided to walk to the grocery store where I last had my mitten, just to see if maybe the Lost and Found lady had lied to me, I mean, made a mistake.
She hadn't.
Then I walked the exact path home I'd taken the night before, just to see if maybe somehow, by chance, my mitten was lying on the sidewalk or in a gutter or under a little bit of snow.
But then I remembered the fricking windstorm we'd had the previous night and how it was very likely that even if my mitten *had* been on the sidewalk or in a gutter yesterday, it had likely been picked up by the 40 miles an hour wind and carried off to some faraway land or something.
:(
So my left mitten is gone, and I can't replace it. It's funny, I thought I would have been more upset by the loss of the sock mitten, but it turns out that The North Face mitten is the one that's impossible to replace.
The next day at work, I went to The North Face website and did a search, just to see if the young employees had misled me.
They hadn't.
I found the "Contact Us" page and wrote an e-mail to them, as any concerned consumer might do, and which I find myself doing way more often than I'd like. (Fish, shrimp, cheese, body wash, etc.) I made sure to mention that the employees at the store had said I wasn't the only one asking about this kind of mitten (truth!). I figured that might help my case.
The next day, I got an e-mail back saying they had no plans to reintroduce the thin Goretex Windstopper mitten, but that my e-mail would be forwarded to R&D so they would know of the interest in said product.
One small step? Who knows. Probably not.
The other shit that's sucked lately?
a. I didn't get to sleep on Thursday night at all. Was it due to:
1. Non-stop alarm buzzing from 404?
2. Baby yowling next door?
3. Wind rattling the windows?
4. Hammering from upstairs schmuck?
5. Severe facial and head pain?
If you chose 5, ding-ding-ding, you're the lucky prizewinner. I haven't felt headpain and facepain like this in quite some time, either. I couldn't even watch all the TV I wanted to. I saw the Lost premiere but didn't see my tape of Supernatural or Days. You know it's bad when my eyes hurt too much to watch tv.
I stayed home from work and tried calling the ENT. The ENT's office voicemail said they were all wusses who couldn't come in due to the snowfall, etc. Then I called my regular doctor and she called stuff in for me. Yay. Barbiturates and antibiotics, my old friends. (Actually the barbiturate/acetaminophen/caffeine mix is new to me, but still.)
Oh and I had an alarming encounter with buzzerperson the other week and there were some fraudulent charges on one of my credit cards, but you'll just have to wait for the next installment to read about those.
And by the way, one of those cheese blocks I bought? Was green and moldy. I didn't notice it when I got it, of course.
Fuck.
posted by H. at 2:42 PM
5 Comments:
You're a better writer right now than lots of full-time writers. So my advice -- & I love telling other people what to do -- is:
(1)
Write a TV script & submit it. Then write a play & submit it. Then write a film script & submit it. Then write a short story & submit it. Then write a novel & submit it.
(2)
Rinse.
(3)
Repeat.
If when I was your age I'd started writing just one thing every year, by the time I got to be my present age i'd have a big cool humongous tottering pile of written things written, some of them probably published ... But no!
Aw, thanks, who! That is good advice. But that all sounds like a lot of work.
Just kidding. Kinda sorta.
Btw, got any ideas for a tv, play, film, short story, or novel I could write? (Ideas for submitting would be welcome also.) :)
Your writer-in-residence,
h.
PS: Be on the lookout for the next installment of The Mitten Saga...(it ain't over yet). Surprisingly.
Jesus H, I think I'm going to kill myself now. That was about as dreary a post as I've ever read. I hope things have improved at least a little.
Aww, I don't want anyone offing themselves, Hannah L! I will say things have slightly picked up, in fact, I was going to do another post called "Un-fuck?" - but I haven't yet. The mittens saga continues... Thanks for sharing my pain and sending good wishes. :D
Senor Blanco of the twice tired community said he's bringing his copy of Writer's Market with him next time you guys do lunch so that he can lend it to you.
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