Sam's Club is Hell

I just returned from my second trip ever to Sam's Club. With multiple experiences at the establishment under my belt now, I feel justified in concluding that Sam's Club may just be the worst place on Earth.

There.is.so.much.crap. HUGE bundles of crap EVERYWHERE.

While the aisles are labeled, you need a map to navigate the place since walking around the store to figure out where bar towels are takes approximately 35 minutes. This is, of course, assuming that you're pushing your gi-normous, barely navigable cart around with you the whole time. You can't help but judge everyone you see there too. 13 pounds of grapefruits? 7.5 pounds of turkey jerky? Who are you people?

I apparently fit in perfectly with these people though, because not even at Sam's Club can I escape the mistake people always make wherein they assume I work at whatever retail store I'm patronizing, or, even if obviously a customer, ask me questions as if I work in said store. No, I don't have any idea where they moved the soda, and yes, I do have approximately 900 plastic cups in my cart at the moment, but that doesn't mean I know where things are in this hell hole, it means I asked someone in a vest.

It doesn't help that the store is located down the stretch of 29N that I happen to find the most depressing strip of road that I have ever traveled. My standard disdain was compounded today by the fact that, in addition to the water main work that forced two lanes to merge into one, there was a moving truck broken down on the way there, and a garbage truck broken down on the way back. No joke.

So to my coworkers who requested I pick up Shop Vac bags and hanging plant holders while I was there: I'm sorry I returned empty-handed, and admittedly I didn't even look for your stuff. Just be happy I came back with both my cups and my sanity.

Super Superficial Me

If you were Jill Carroll and had guaranteed yourself seemingly unending media coverage by publishing a serialized account of your experience as a hostage in Iraq, wouldn't you do something about your hair?

Beach-y Keen

Yes, yes--am woefully remiss in recounting our beach adventure. It was grand (most of the time). It looked like this:

Judgment Call

Last night at The Extraordinaires show I was introduced to some guy who'd just moved to Charlottesville to attend Law School. He's been here three days and has somehow already managed to ingratiate himself with the notoriously pretentious? insular? awesome? staff and owner of the Bistro/Ballroom aka my friends.

He told me he'd moved to Virginia from Salt Lake City. Obviously of Middle Eastern descent, I felt free to launch in to some drunken rambling about how I've heard Salt Lake City is great and I've seen pictures that make it look beautiful and I'm told it's really not that bad living with all those Mormons and blah blah blah oh and yeah, my authority on the subject stems from this one blog I read, written by some woman I've never met and don't actually know, who sometimes talks about her experiences in Utah.

Dooce itself didn't ring a bell, but when I described her website a little further there was a hint of recognition in his eyes.

"Oh my god you read that? That's crazy--she totally wrote about me and she's totally a bitch."

And now I am faced with a dilemma. Do I believe the woman I don't know but who I feel like I know, who says he sucks? Or do I believe the guy I don't know but who I suspect I will know if he continues with his current drinking habits, who says she sucks?

Work?

Check out our schedule, for it is kickass

F 08/18 The Extraordinaires, The Corndawg, Adam Got Robbed
S 08/19 Boston Afrobeat Society
M 08/21 "Happy Hollow" Happy Hour Cursive Listening Party
F 08/25 Bio Ritmo
Sa 08/26 Osmotic, Man Mountain Jr., Hippadellic
W 08/30 John McCutcheon, Greg Howard, Fundraiser--Al Weed for Congress
Th 09/07 Dr. Octagon aka Kool Keith, Q. Black & The Whoppaz
Su 09/10 The Reverand Horton Heat, Horrorpops
Th 09/14 Wrinkle Neck Mules, The Nice Jenkins, Cashmere Jungle Lords
F 09/15 Rogue Wave, Jason Collett, Foreign Born
M 09/18 M. Ward, Portastatic
Th 09/21 Flin Flon
F 09/22 Devil Music Ensemble scoring "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde" @ Vinegar Hill Theater
Su 09/24 Architecture in Helsinki
M 09/25 Mates of State, Starlight Mints
Tu 09/26 Long Winters
Th 09/28 Of Montreal, Doofgoblin
Sa 09/30 Chuck Brown
Th 10/05 Jon Spencer's Heavy Trash, The Sadies
M 10/09 Xiu Xiu
Tu 10/10 Wolf Eyes, John Weiss, Grand Banks
Sa 10/14 Islands
Tu 10/17 Portastatic, Jennifer O'Conner
F 11/03 Hanzel und Gretyl, Bella Morte, InTenebris
M 11/06 The Slits, The Apes, Rah Bras
F 11/10 She Wants Revenge, Pretty Girls Make Graves
Su 11/12 Blue Cheer
Th 11/16 Cursive

Come to our shows.

GVSB

Being all depressed-like for the past week or so means I've already caught up on the last two Project Runway episodes I slept through and don't have any 'worthwhile' teevee headed my way until 10 (when, no doubt, I will be sleeping). Good news is that this gives me more time to read, which is great because I've been engrossed in the Ian McEwan novel I started Monday, The Child in Time, ever since I picked it up (although admittedly I'm still only 1/3rd of the way through--don't tell me if that last 2/3rds sucks ass).

I've dog-eared a couple striking passages thus far and today's Unfogged posts kinda had the issue of differences between the sexes at the forefront of my mind so I give you this (p. 54-55):

"Such faith in endless mutability, in re-making yourself as you came to understand more, or changed your version, he had come to see as an aspect of her femininity. Where once he had believed, or thought he ought to believe, that men and women were, beyond all the obvious physical differences, essentially the same, he now suspected that one of their many distinguishing features was precisely their attitudes to change. Past a certain age, men froze into place, they tended to believe that, even in adversity, they were somehow at one with their fates. They were who they thought they were. Despite what they said, men believed in what they did and they stuck at it. This was a weakness and a strength. Whether they were scrambling out of trenches to be killed in their thousands, or doing the firing themselves, or putting the final touches to a cycle of symphonies, it only rarely occurred to them, or occurred only to the rare ones among them, that they might just as well be doing something else.

To women this thought was a premise. It was a constant torment or comfort, no matter how successful they were in their own or other people's eyes. It was also a weakness and a strength. Committed motherhood denied professional fulfillment. A professional life on men's terms eroded maternal care. Attempting both was to risk annihilation through fatigue. It was not so easy to persist when you could not believe that you were entirely the thing that you did, when you thought you could find yourself, or find another part of yourself, expressed through some other endeavour. Consequently, they were not taken in so easily by jobs and hierarchies, uniforms and medals. Against the faith men had in the institutions they and not women had shaped, women upheld some other principle of selfhood in which being surpassed doing. Long ago men had noted something unruly in this. Women simply enclosed the space which men longed to penetrate. The men's hostility was aroused."

Having read a couple other McEwan books I do think he truly believes this himself. I'd argue (weakly, for I am a woman) the part about it rarely occurring to men that "they might just as well be doing something else," but I do think men certainly have a stronger ingrained sense of duty to non-familial institutions. In general though I agree with the premise, at least insofar as I've experienced/observed trends as a twenty-something, and tend to think people who would refute the claim are doing so because they think they "ought to believe" otherwise.

This is the part where I would suggest that you provide your own insight in the comments because I know you, yes you anonymous lurker who, last time they were drunk at the Bistro/in my backyard/elsewhere, admitted they check out this blog, are reading this. If that request is for naught though, then I'd just say Ray, I hope you'll let me know what you think.

Are My Expectations Too High?

Me: "...so just send me an email, it's beth at satellit...."

Him: "-okay, Beth, at, now is that at the word or at the symbol?"

Me: "Uhh"

p.s. in a concerted effort to post more/daily? expect significantly less quality/content per post.

Me and My Reality TeeVee

How fitting that RockStar: SuperNova was on while I wrote that last post. Has anyone seen that? I hope not, because it is a waste of your life.

Too Heavy Too Light

Driving home from visiting my Mom this evening I heard 7 Mary 3 on the radio. If I remember correctly, and I'm not trying to implicate my brother here by any means, I actually went to the trouble to steal that album (was there only one? was there only one with a hit?) from him after I noticed it in his library. Truth be told, I do not believe he actually paid money for it, but rather seem to recall it somehow migrated to our house via my father who used to bring home free promo CDs from the record store he sometimes did work in. How I was ever deluded in to believing that there was anything redeeming about that band, and particularly 'Cumbersome,' is beyond me.

People I Hate at the Gym, Part II

Aside from this guy (who now needs a name to distinguish him from other gym-goers I hate and who thus will henceforth be known as Boring Grimace-y Face Guy or BGFG), there is one other gym regular who unknowingly suffers my silent wrath most mornings.

Loathed for myriad reasons, Gold Chain Guy insists on wearing a Gold's Gym emblazoned tank top every day and complimenting it with a number of unflattering, retired Floridian/my high school chemistry teacher-esque gold necklaces adorned with various charms. He's that dude that not only wears, but frequently answers his cell phone mid workout, an act I superficially view as one of the seven deadly sins of gym etiquette-- I used to think maybe he was someone so vital to the Earth's rotation that he had to be reachable at every.single.moment., but I've decided no.

Over the past year I've noticed him offering unsolicited form advice to a number of patrons. This, combined with the fact that he does his sit ups on the smallest of small exercise balls that leaves his butt approximately 11 inches off the floor and follows those up with these swing-y, feet-way-up-above-the-head, Cirque de Soleil-like ab moves which just can't be doctor recommended, has all resulted in the development of a deep-seeded and completely irrational distaste for the man. (Plus he used to be work out buddies with awful ex girlfriend of otherwise lovely friend, which only further confirms that he is, in fact, my gym's version of the devil incarnate.)

I had already successfully avoided BGFG this morning, through a series of stealthy moves, including, but not limited to, burying my head in a book, strategic machine choices based on his current and anticipated locations, and a spur of the moment detour in to "Ladies Gold's" (the only place I am truly safe) right when he was about to corner me and regale me, I suspect, with (anything but) scintillating tales of how the Sprint store is now the Embarq store. Who knew!

Maybe smugness over my perceived success led to a hint of a smile or some other mild expression of approachability, because next thing I know GCG is giving me the universal "take your head phones out of your ears" motion. I quickly pursed my lips and prepared for him to tell me in the nicest manner possible that I'm an incompetent boob and really should lock my wrists and keep my elbows at my sides when working triceps on the pull down. But no.

Out loud: "You come here consistently and you know, sometimes people don't get the uhhh reinforcement they need, so I just wanted to let you know it's really paying off."

In my head: "Why than...eww eww gross stop talking to me with your unnaturally hairless body and flashy jewelry and cell phone which no I have not heard ring thanks to my headphones but that I suspect plays some lame, mildly obscure late 70s/early 80s song from your youth that makes you feel hip and with it and just a bit edgy but really just confirms that you are a complete ass and skeezy to boot. Plus you do sit ups wrong."

Out loud: "[Awkward chuckle.] Oh. Thanks."

And thus Gold's Gym was officially anointed the new battleground for human interaction avoidance.

This totally happened at the Bistro last year with my ID and some girl I didn't know. How come I'm not famous.