Katie Doyle, Girl About Town

Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2002 - 7:43 p.m.

Chocolate Reddi Wip is just so wrong.

So is this page. Talk about buying into your own press. I am always amazed when companies try to make their product seem fun/hip/nostalgic/etc. It just comes off as oh so not cool. Part of the coolness of Reddiwip is we all got to that stage in 5th or 6th grade - maybe 7th, for you late bloomers who only just recently discovered the tang-briny goodness of feta - where you spray the stuff into your mouth, and from that moment on, it's a ticket back to Nostalgiaville you can cash in any time past the age of 25. But when they make a big deal about that on their website, it sort of robs you of the innocence of youth it used to embody. Now it's a marketing gimmick. Why do they gotta go there, man? It doesn't make me want to run out and buy the product, it just sort of makes trite a formerly decent memory. You notice they don't go down the turn-the-can-rightside-up-and-get-high-on-the-aerosol path, now do they? Why is that, Reddiwip guys, HUH? Freakin' ad-men.

Bygones.

We don't need no stinking handouts
So anyway, I'm drivin' in my car today - coz, like, that's what I do in my car - and I take this exit off the highway, and down by the bottom of the ramp, I see this guy with a sign on corrugated cardboard like homeless people so often have. So I'm thinking "oh, homeless guy." (i'm quick that way) Then I'm kinda glad he's way down there, because that means he's too far away to meander up to my end of the line, and when the light turns green, I will be able to breeze past him without having to feel guilty about not wanting to give him any of my unplentiful and already too hard to keep cash. Woohoo. It's not that I necessarily mind giving my money away to complete strangers, especially if said strangers seem worse off than I am. But I really don't have much of it these days as it is, so I really hate being guilted because I didn't give up any. Plus, what is with that whole panhandling thing, anyway? Most of the beggars I see here in the greater LA area are wearing better shoes than I am. Here's a tip, all you people driving Benzes and panhandling to the tune of 80+ thou a year: wear bad shoes. If I see someone begging, and they're wearing nicer shoes than the ones I'm wearing, I figure he doesn't need MY cash, because shoes are expensive, man, and he seems to be doin' all right. This guy looked pretty all right, too. He was all clean, and rather hiply dressed, nicely shaved, etc. And he had all his teeth, and again, they were whiter than mine. So I'm thinking he makes a pretty decent living down by the bottom of the ramp there, but anyway. The deal is, I see this guy flipping his sign up at people now and again, and he seems in pretty good spirits. He didn't seem to be walking around up to cars or anything, either, just kinda standing on the corner, flipping his cardboard sign. Then I get closer, and I see on the one half of it when it's folded, there's a big smiley face drawn. And as he was closing it to that, I had seen the sentence "drive safely." So I start smiling, because at least he's a really cheerful, friendly, well-wishing kinda beggarman. Then he sees me smiling, and he's grinning already, and he flashes the whole sign at me, and it says "Beautiful lady, drive safely." And I laugh and wave, and then I think you know, that's what people need in the world; that's what we want. A little good cheer and happiness to greet us as we move thru the world. And if I'd been able to stop, I woulda given that guy my last five bucks, just for being a good influence on my day, 'steada draggin' me down and making me feel guilty and bad. That's probably his logic, and it probably nets him a pretty fair amount of money, but you know what? I don't care if it pays for a house bigger than mine, with a Mercedez in the driveway and a pool in the backyard. It was nice to get a bright, shining smile and a compliment from a complete stranger in the wilds of LA when I know I look like crap in my glasses and baseball cap, and I haven't been as nice as I could have been today. I hope that guy has a great holiday.

I go shopping
Speaking of having no money, I spent a pretty fair amount of my educational fund on landscape books today...whew. But I got some cool reading material, so at least I have a way to pass the holidays in at least a semi-educational style. I also bought one o' them there measuring wheels, like the surveyor types have, that you wheel along in front of you or beside you or whatever, and it measures how many feet and inches you've travelled. I figured that would make it easier to measure a site, 'steada wrestling with a tape measure all by my lonesome. I'll let you know how it works; I'm measuring the slab up above the house tomorrow. Or, um, Friday, since I am not a person who needs to spend Thanksgiving measuring property. Not that there would be anything wrong with that. But, you know, I'm not.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, I hope everyone will have a very pleasant day and a safe holiday. May those of you with no family wherever you are find a congenial place to spend your day with friends. Ditto, those of you with family you need to escape from. I myself enjoy being 1500 miles away from my family. I get to spend it with my boyfriend's family, who are all very nice, even if just by virtue of not being people I had to grow up with. His mom loves me just because I make him happy, so she's always really cool. His brother is kind of a pain, but he's a pain to everybody, so you just kinda have to say "shut up, geek" and dish it back in kind. There will be football and maybe a movie on DVD with Bro's gigantically huge home entertainment system blaring you back into your seat like you're suddenly lodged in a Memorex magazine ad (or whatever ad that used to be), and more food than you could ever eat in a year, complete with cookies and pie and M&M's. There are always M&M's. Boyfriend's mom likes them, so there are deep dishes FULL of the things. I like them too, so it's sort of my universal hell being surrounded by them for an entire day, because I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I am not supposed to eat sugar, and frankly, I have no willpower. If one of those big talking M&M's came and sat down next to me at a party, I'd cannibalize his ass in a heartbeat, because I'm sorry, but chocolate is the bomb. It's my valium and my upper all at once, dudes. In fact, smear a little peanut butter on that talking ball o' goodness, and I am all over that badboy.

But, that's probably more than you ever needed to know about me.

Bygones.

Is the building run raining peanut hungry?
Can I just say, it is really unfair to wake my ass up after two hours of sleep at 8:30 in the morning and then be mad because I tell you to "knock off the lovey-dovey because you're wakin' me up." (oh yes, I did) I am not conscious after 2 hours of sleep at 8:30 in the morning. I am not conscious after 2 hours of sleep any time, so why would you think I'd be conscious and coherent just because it's technically morning? To be fair, I probably should've just let the hair stroking progress for a few minutes and subside on its own, but I was in the middle of some sort of whacked out dream involving pistachio nuts and a herd of stampeding hippopotami in an executive office building, so I can not be held responsible for the fact that I wasn't alert enough to be cuddly or phrase my request in a less non-loving manner. I can't even form a sentence in that state, usually, and in fact I remember saying something before that that wasn't even properly syntactical, not to mention that the phrase "lovey-dovey" was heretofore not even a part of my vocabulary. I knew it yes, but I did not use it. Therefore, clearly, I was not in a coherent and alert frame of mind and should not have had to deal with stony poutiness and irritation for what turned out to be the next hour and a half and then into the afternoon. Typical freaking guy. At least he finally told me why he was mad so I could laugh and then apologize. Let that be a lesson to you, though. Rampaging hippopotamuses are not conducive to receptive lovey-dovey hair stroking. Nor, apparently, is eating a third of a pound of pistachio nuts right before bed.

Bygones.

All right, people. That's it for me today. No quotes, not headlines, no bitching. Have a safe and happy holiday. I hope you all have Friday off. I will be here, because I am very, very, very bored. But you guys have fun.

Peace out,

Katie

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"I hear that hippopotamuses are very big on Broadway. "
"Hippos are big everywhere."

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