The Chef by James Patterson and some other guy is a top five bestseller right now, and there’s one thing I’ll say about it; The Chef has James Patterson written all over it, even if the other guy contributed.
Scenes written by James Patterson rarely have a strong sense of place, and this applies to The Chef. Here in the first chapter, the protagonist is working at his food truck in New Orleans. A food truck is an interesting place. New Orleans is an interesting place. Put a food truck and New Orleans together, and it should make an interesting scene. Instead, this is what Patterson (and some other guy) come up with:
A collision of food, music, history, passion, and chaos… yep, that pretty much sums up New Orleans for you. “Nawlins,” as us locals say it. NOLA. The Crescent City. The Big Easy. Different names for the same magical, one-of-a-kind place. My hometown of three-and-a-half decades. The capital of the world, as far as I’m concerned. A city where anything can happen, and nothing is ever as it seems.
Ugh, that sounds like something from Wikipedia or a brochure. It makes me wonder if James Patterson (or the other guy) has ever been to New Orleans. You don’t necessarily have had to visit a place to write about it. But an author should be able to imagine being there and put that imagined scene into words.
If I had written this first chapter, I would have dropped this paragraph altogether and slowly brought New Orleans into it, maybe with some naked guy ordering food at the truck with nobody being offended. Yeah, maybe that’s a stereotype, but it’s not the first time Patterson (or any other author) has relied on a stereotype.
Next is the food truck. Here, Patterson (or the other guy) at least tries.
Last, I make the “shake.” I dump a batch of twisted strips of raw dough into the metal deep-fryer basket, then plunge them into the scalding vat of oil. Once they’re golden brown and perfectly flaky, I slide them into a serving boat and dust them with precisely six shakes of powdered sugar. Most New Orleans joints serve beignets, a similar, more common pastry. But I’ve always preferred these, known as angel wings. And I’ve never been one to follow the crowd, either here or in my other career.
There’s a lot of food description, enough to make me wonder if Patterson is trying to write one of those foodie murder mysteries. Maybe there are some New Orleans recipes in the book and I just haven’t read far enough yet. At any rate, there’s no sense of space or claustrophobia inside the truck. He should be bumping into stuff and getting frustrated with any coworkers (whom I’m about to mention).
And then there’s the James Patterson dialogue. Patterson tends to overwrite his banter, using long sentences that nobody in real life would ever say.
For example, here’s a scene where a female customer is flirting with the male protagonist. I’ve never seen a female flirt with a guy working in a food truck. I’ve seen male customers try to flirt with women who work in food trucks, but never the other way around. Maybe it happens, but I don’t think it does. This just shows how awesome the protagonist is, I guess.
Here’s how the protagonist’s ex-wife (yeah, his ex-wife works with him in the food truck… hack!) responds to the flirtatious drunk chick.
“Oh, honey,” she says, her (the ex-wife’s) voice dripping with experience and sarcasm. “Don’t let Caleb’s two hundred pounds of hunkiness fool you. That man’s a lot like the sun. Plenty hot when he shines on you, but try to get close and he’ll burn you to a crisp. Believe me, I know.”
“Don’t let Caleb’s two hundred pounds of hunkiness fool you?” Nobody talks like that.
Maybe I’m arrogant to rewrite the words of the bestselling author of all time, but seriously, an editor should have done this:
“Don’t let him fool you, honey,” she says. “The man’s a lot like the sun; he’s hot, but he’ll burn you to a crisp.”
The line is still hacky, but maybe somebody would actually say it.
So there we have it, another co-written James Patterson novel that feels like a first draft. Sometimes my own writing can feel like a first draft, but I don’t write/publish 10+ books a year like Patterson. As a masterclass author, he should have higher standards. If any writer deserves to get bashed (not physically), it’s a masterclass-teaching bestselling author who puts out rough drafts as final copies, like James Patterson.
To be fair, I should also bash the coauthor, the other guy, for writing this too. It’s disrespectful of me to leave out the other guy. I’m sorry, other guy.
(image via wikimedia)
Back in 1993, I was just friends with a woman named Suzanne. We were the same age, 28, and guys liked her a lot until they got to know her. She could get clingy really quickly, and guys would flee. Plus, she owned a big dog that didn’t like it when guys got amorous with Suzanne in her apartment, and that had caused some awkward moments. Guys respect single women who own big dogs, but the big dog isn’t allowed to interfere with romantic situations. That’s a deal breaker.
“He thinks he’s protecting me,” Suzanne said to me more than once.
“He’s going to make you single until he dies,” I warned her. “And then you’ll be… almost 40.”
I know that in most situations a guy isn’t supposed to mention a woman’s age, but we were just friends and she needed to know that the dog could cause her some future regrets, especially if he bit a good potential husband.
The dog and I got along because I never tried anything funny with Suzanne. She (Suzanne, not the dog) was attractive, but she wasn’t my type, and I wasn’t hers, and we both knew it. She had seen me with Daniella, my previous girlfriend (whom I wrote about in another blog serial called The Literary Girlfriend a few years ago) and knew what my physical type was.
Suzanne and I had met at a mutual friend’s party when I was living with Daniella and Suzanne was dating some guy I can’t remember except that he was tall with an exceptionally strong chin. Since we had a lot of the same friends, we kept running into each other, and we’d complain to each other about our awkward dating situations. For example, when Daniella broke up with me, Suzanne said I was better off without her.
“I never liked her,” Suzanne told me over the phone.
“Well, I liked her,” I said. I was torn. I felt like I had to defend my ex-girlfriend, but at the same time, I was flattered that Suzanne was trying to look out for me.
“She was mean,” Suzanne said.
“Not mean. Vindictive,” I said. “And she was never mean to me.”
“It was a bad moment.”
Anyway, Suzanne and I were going to meet up at a restaurant on a weekend evening because neither of us had anything else to do. That’s what we did. If we had nothing else going on, we’d hang out. Sometimes we’d go to a movie. Sometimes we’d go to a restaurant. A couple times, we even spied on guys she was dating; I’d drive in my nondescript car and she’d hunch down in the passenger side when we got close to her target. If Suzanne ever decided to write about her own awkward moments in dating, she’d be a bestselling author… or get locked up. And I was an enabler.
That night I arrived at the restaurant a little early and saw an attractive brunette with glasses sitting in the waiting area. Even though her skirt was kind of long, I could tell she had nice legs. She looked me over and opened her mouth and then closed it. I wondered if I knew her from somewhere. Maybe she thought I looked familiar. I think I look like a lot of people because strangers sometimes mistake me for somebody else. Or maybe they’re trying to scam me and I’m just gullible.
After hesitating, the brunette got up and tentatively took a step toward me.
“Thomas?” she said.
“No, I’m not Thomas,” I said slowly, kind of wishing that I was Thomas. I didn’t feel guilty about that. Suzanne and I weren’t dating or anything.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said.”
“It’s okay.”
We sat down on different benches on opposite sides of the waiting area. I tried really hard not to make eye contact. The brunette was cute, and I thought Thomas was a shmuck if he didn’t show up. Suzanne was late, but this was the 1990s, and nobody had cell phones. If a friend was late, you waited 15 minutes or longer before you gave up.
After 15 minutes, the brunette and I glanced up at the overhead clock at the same time and made eye contact.
“Did you get stood up?” I asked.
“It looks like it,” she said. “You too?”
“Probably not. She always runs late. I just got here early so that we’d average on time.”
The brunette smiled. “It’s been 30 minutes. I think I’ve been stood up.”
“He’s a fool,” I said, realizing that I’d meant only to think that, not say it.
The brunette got up to leave just as Suzanne strolled in. “Sorry I’m late,” Suzanne said, and we did the quick hug.
“I’m glad your date showed up,” the brunette said as she moved past us to the door.
“My date?” I laughed. “We’re just friends.”
I knew immediately from Suzanne’s body language that I shouldn’t have said that. I’d just taken a normal, friendly situation and suddenly made it awkward. Of course, things were going to get worse… or at least more awkward, And I’ll get to that soon.
To be continued in… Awkward Moments in Dating: Getting Stood Up vs. Getting Ditched!
As beat up as this is, it’s still nicer than my copy.
It’s great finding old books where you don’t expect them. Last week I discovered an old copy of an out of print book called How To Talk Well by James Bender laying around in the bottom corner of a closet. I don’t remember buying it. It’s warped from some water damage, and I didn’t try smelling it (like I do with some old books)
Reading the old book is even better than just finding it. Here’s a quick book review of How To Talk Well. I don’t know for sure, but this might be the only video review of this book on the internet.
*****
UPDATE-
It WAS the only video review of How To Talk Well.
This might not be the best news for book publishers. The short version is that print sales were down last month (February 2018) despite a huge opening for The Threat by fired former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe.
The Threat sold around 67,000 copies last month (which is pretty good, I guess) and knocked Michelle Obama’s book out of the #1 spot in nonfiction and bestsellers (which isn’t good if you like Michelle Obama more than you dislike President Trump). At any rate, without the anti-Trump book The Threat, print sales last month would have been really, really down.
The easiest way (maybe the only way) to make a lot of money in publishing (if you’re not already famous) is to write an anti-Trump book. Andrew McCabe is just one in a long list of anti-Trump authors.
For example, Fear by Bob Woodward sold more copies in its first week than any other book in Simon & Schuster history. Before that, a reality star wrote a book about Trump, and it became a bestseller even though everybody hates the reality star. A former FBI director wrote a book about Trump, and it became a bestseller, even though people who hate Trump blame the former FBI director for helping Trump win. A porn star even wrote a book about her experiences with Trump, and that became a bestseller because she’s a porn star and everyone thought the stories would be awesome.
It was actually disappointing. You’d have thought a porn star would have had more interesting stories.
This is one of those times when I wonder if my brain works differently from everybody else’s. I don’t understand why people who hate Donald Trump want to buy books about Donald Trump.
Don’t get me wrong, I have issues with Donald Trump, just like everybody else, but I don’t need to buy a book to find out bad stuff about him. I can just turn on any news channel or the radio or get on the internet and find out bad stuff about Donald Trump. I’m a cheapskate. I don’t want to spend $25 on a hardback book just to get something I can hear for free.
Besides, I can’t live my life being outraged by politicians, especially today. I see too many people consumed by outrage over today’s current events (which won’t stay current for very long). Each outrage against Trump is devoured the next day by the next day’s outrage, so every outrage is outdated the next day.
The same holds true for anti-Trump books. Each anti-Trump book gets outdated by the next one. It must be exhausting being somebody who is outraged at Trump all the time. Plus, it gets pretty expensive if you’re buying all the books. I feel sorry for the political wonk whose book shelves are filled with anti-Trump books. I think the word for that type of person is sucker.
These book sales have to tick off any political writer who is trying to write serious analysis about the Trump administration. Trump spends most of the day with business leaders or world leaders or rallies or golf courses, and all anybody talks about are rumors and tweets. There’s serious stuff going on with the tariffs and the Chinese and the North Koreans and NAFTA and it’s all connected, but the journalists who want us to rely on them for information are focused on stuff that is not necessarily serious, or they rely on sources who are known liars (and want us to forget about their previous dishonesty).
It’s kind of sad that the book business needs President Trump. When Trump is no longer president (whether he’s forced out, or loses reelection, or finishes out two terms), the publishing industry will need to survive without him. Sure, there might be a couple years where they can sustain that Trump hate, but the longer he’s out, the weaker those emotions become and fewer books will sell.
Yeah, things look really bad for the publishing business when Trump leaves office.
Maybe Michelle Obama will write another book.
(image via wikimedia)
I didn’t have a date for prom, but at least I had my friends with me.
My oldest brother loaned me his Trans Am (remember, this was the early 1980s) for the night and swore he’d beat the hell out of me if I damaged it. I loaded up five other dateless (but well-dressed) guys, and we drove to the fancy hotel that was holding the prom, and we cruised around the parking lot honking at girls who’d turned us down. That showed them, I guess.
All of us were bummed out that we didn’t have dates (you can get more details here), but we tried to act like we didn’t care, except for Keith. Keith was ticked off the whole time.
“I can’t believe she stabbed me in the back,” he said, referring to Karla, who had originally agreed to be his prom date. He was still complaining about her when we dateless guys marched into the ballroom together.
I laughed, but he knew it was the absurdity of the situation that I thought was funny, so he didn’t get angry at me.
“She should have given you more notice,” I said, trying to be supportive. She’d told him the Friday morning before prom, right before first period and in front of a bunch of people. I hadn’t been there (I always missed the good stuff), but Keith’s face reportedly had turned dark red and his fists had clenched. But he’d just nodded at the bad news and then gone on to class.
“She wanted to be with her friends,” he said. “What a bitch.”
“I blame Francine,” I said. Once Francine turned me down a few weeks ago, a bunch of other senior girls turned down guys too, and it wasn’t just nerds like me who were getting rejected.
“We got a bunch of lesbians at our school,” Keith said.
“I bet their after-prom party is gonna be crazy,” I said.
“Look at that,” Keith said, pointing to an ugly guy named Jack, who was holding hands with a cute sophomore girl. Jack carried his giant backpack with him around school and talked about military technology, no matter what. “Even Backpack Jack has a date.”
“Maybe she likes military technology,” I said, silently noting that Jack hadn’t brought his backpack with him to prom.
Keith was mad because he could have asked that sophomore girl first. He pointed out a bunch of girls who would have gone to prom with him, if only Karla had told him no when he’d asked her three weeks earlier. During the prom coronation, Keith complained that he could have been nominated if only he’d tried. Eventually, he cheered and whistled while I merely clapped politely.
After prom, we went to an expensive restaurant to hang out for a while, and a bunch of other post-prom partiers showed up too. Keith spotted Karla and Francine and several other girls we knew at a huge table in the middle of the restaurant.
“You gonna say hi to Francine?” Keith asked.
“Why would I?” I said.
Keith laughed and patted me on the shoulder and slung his tux jacket over his chair at our table. As he made his round to the girls, I made myself comfortable at our own table with my other friends. Maybe I should have said hello to Francine, I thought, but what else would I say? Are you having a good time? Maybe I could thank her for not telling everybody about the booger a few weeks earlier, but that might gross her out right before she eats.
“Hey, I got a seat with the girls,” Keith said, as he pulled his jacket off the chair. “I’ll be back a little later.”
Another guy at my table cranked his head back to check out the girls. “Damn him. He got the last seat over there.”
I tried to be sentimental about prom night, but I couldn’t quite get there. I knew that the next celebration would be graduation stuff, and then we’d never see each other again. Honestly, I didn’t like school and would be glad when it was over. I didn’t hate the people at my school, but I didn’t feel that close to them either.
Maybe it’s weird that I’ve never gone back to my high school. I keep in touch with one friend, but the last time I saw him was a few year’s ago at a family member’s funeral. But I don’t keep track of or stay in touch with anybody else.
When I was contacted years later for the 20th class reunion, it was the girl whose shoulder Francine had fake cried on. At the time, I’d forgotten about the fake crying (that just came back to me while I was writing the story). I responded to the email politely, saying it was nice to hear from her but I wasn’t going to the reunion. I was married with a family and a job, and I lived hundreds of miles away. To me, the idea of going to a reunion was impractical.
Anyway, it seems like high school students today are comfortable just going to prom with a bunch of friends. Most high school students are probably better off that way. Prom should be a fun event. There’s no need for the unnecessary pressure of asking somebody as a date just for the sake of having a date. Even without a formal event like prom, dating can be awkward enough.
Because I didn’t have a date, prom wasn’t that awkward. It was boring and kind of a let-down. I didn’t get drunk and crash my brother’s car. I didn’t get wild and crazy with a bunch of girls I barely knew. I just went home sometime after midnight and gave my brother his car the next day before I went to church.
That’s how lame prom was. I still went to the early church service the next day.
*****
That’s it for the awkward prom. Stay tuned for another episode of Awkward Moments in Dating. I promise, the next episode will actually have a date.
The mythical definition of fart was- “an explosion between the legs.”(image via wikimedia)
Nobody wants to talk about farts. I understand that. When I was a kid, kids would get into trouble for farting, but it was worse if we said the word fart. The word fart has a history, so it’s worth talking about it. Plus, saying the word fart is fun, so much fun that I had to make a video of it.
If you’re grossed out by farts, I understand, but I don’t think the video is all that gross. There aren’t any sound effects or foul smells. This is purely about the word fart.
Read Across America Day is approaching, and I almost missed it.
I like the concept of Read Across America Day. It was centered around Dr. Seuss’s birthday (March 2), and for a while adults such as teachers or librarians would wear one of those Cat in the Hat hats while reading a book like… The Cat in the Hat. It was a cool concept.
When I was a kid in the early 1970s, I wasn’t aware of anything like Read Across America week (it hadn’t been invented yet). I think our literacy program was Shut Up and Read, and teachers didn’t care if you read as long as you shut up.
It was smart to base Read Across America on Dr. Seuss. Decades ago when we elementary school kids went to the library, it was a stampede to the Dr. Seuss section. Back then, Dr. Seuss was like the kid’s version of today’s James Patterson, only the Dr. Seuss books were better written. Once the Dr. Seuss books were fought over and taken (I got a loose tooth fighting over Green Eggs and Ham), we had to settle for Babar or the Clifford, the Big Red Dog. They weren’t bad, but they weren’t Dr. Seuss.
In the last couple years, Dr. Seuss has been taken out of Read Across America because of a few offensive illustrations in some of his books. And yeah, I can understand why the illustrations are considered offensive. I can see why a teacher doesn’t want to highlight those illustrations to elementary school kids (“Hey, everybody, look at how Dr. Seuss drew THIS guy!”).
Maybe it’s not a big deal, taking Dr. Seuss out of Read Across America. It’s not like those atheists who still give presents on Christmas. You can celebrate reading books without reading Dr. Seuss. It’s possible. But when I was a kid, Dr. Seuss really was the best.
When you look back at books, cartoons, and comic strips from over 50 years ago, a lot of them had stuff that is considered racist today (but wasn’t considered racist back then… or people didn’t think about racism back then… or people didn’t care about racism).
I’m not sure what to do about it. It’s easy for me to not worry about it because I’m an old white guy. I mean, I don’t want other people to get upset over old stuff that I enjoyed, but I don’t want that stuff to disappear either.
This isn’t the first time that modern standards have been applied to older literature. Just last year, the American Library Association withdrew Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name from a children’s book award because of a few passages in her Little House on the Prairie books. Classic novels like Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird get banned or pulled from reading lists because of a forbidden racial slur (that I frequently hear in current popular songs). The solution seems to be to no longer promote the books but still make them available.
I don’t have a problem with the National Education Association backing away from Dr. Seuss during its reading week. I’ll be honest, though. Most of the children’s books the NEA promotes don’t seem all that appealing to kids. Out of the ten books on the homepage, I’ve read four of them (reading children’s books in the local book store doesn’t take much time), but three of them sucked… the joy out of reading.
These unappealing children’s books were primarily message or lesson books. Their purpose was not to entertain kids or make reading a fun experience. The purpose was to teach a lesson. I don’t even care what the lesson was (that’s for other bloggers to complain about). The books weren’t entertaining. The art wasn’t interesting.
I’m not going to say which books I’m talking about because that’s not my point. Today’s children’s books that are being promoted by the NEA are nothing like the children’s books that I was directed to in elementary school. I’m sure a lot of children’s books back in the 1960s and 1970s weren’t very good either, but my teachers didn’t promote them. My teachers gave us the good stuff.
Of course that all changed in junior high with The Yearling. Yeah, The Yearling won a Pulitzer Prize in 1939 (what were they thinking?), but it sucked… the joy out of reading.
Anyway, a great children’s book has illustrations that attract kids who hate to (or don’t know how) to read. Look at Dr. Seuss or The Berenstain Bears or whatever. Even kids who can’t read will follow the pictures, and that inspires them to WANT to read. Most of today’s children’s books (with a few exceptions) have passive illustrations that don’t really tell the story, and they don’t inspire struggling readers to take initiative.
The purpose of stuff like children’s books and Read Across America is to inspire kids to read. If it takes a Dr. Seuss book to inspire kids, go with a non-racist Dr. Seuss book. Just preview the book first.
(image via wikimedia)
As disgusting as it was, the string booger hanging from my nose didn’t matter. Francine would have turned me down for prom anyway. The booger just made it worse.
We were sitting in my car in Francine’s driveway after school on a Thursday ( you can get more details here), and I had just asked her to prom. When she declined, I adjusted the rear view mirror just so I wouldn’t have to make eye contact with her, and I saw the dangling booger.
I’m not sure if I physically flinched, but I know a bunch of thoughts flooded through my brain. I knew I couldn’t say anything about the booger, but I knew Francine had seen it, and she knew that I knew she had seen the booger, and neither of us would say anything about it, and she was in my car.
To my credit, I didn’t act like a murderer. A murderer would have driven Francine into a secluded area and… Actually, I don’t know what a murderer would have done because I’m not one. I just let her finish her explanation (she just wanted to go with her friends). When I say I “let” her finish and leave, it doesn’t mean I had any plans to keep her in my car against her will. The thought never occurred to me then (or now).
Then I watched helplessly as she got out of my car and fled into her house. I didn’t even bother to do anything about my nose problem until I got home. The damage had already been done.
Francine never asked for a ride after school again. She never accepted my offers to drive her home again (I asked twice out of politeness). I think it was because we had shared a really awkward moment. I hope it wasn’t because she thought I was a disgusting guy who didn’t check his nose.
Anyway, I felt selfish and guilty because I had destroyed our friendship just so that I might get a prom date. I went back and forth over this for a few days. After Francine’s melodramatic fake crying in the hallway, I’d been 80% sure she was going to turn me down, but I’d asked anyway. That proved I wasn’t a coward. I hadn’t been rude to her at all; that was in my favor. Plus, I didn’t say anything bad about her to my friends after she turned me down.
As far as I know, Francine didn’t tell anybody about the booger either. I never heard about it (and believe me, I was on the alert for mockery). She could have done some damage to me with booger ammunition, but she didn’t do it. I respect her for that. You know, we probably would have had a good time at prom.
Anyway, I learned my lesson with the booger. After that debacle, I knew I was never safe. I wasn’t that attractive, I wasn’t rich, and I didn’t have a magnetic personality, so I had to make sure there was nothing grossly wrong with me. If a really attractive woman has a booger dangling out of her nose, people might snicker behind her back, but suitors will still line up; it’s a fixable problem. For a boring guy like me, the booger would destroy any potential chance I might have.
Because of this experience, whenever I pass by a mirror in a public place, I check myself out. It’s not vanity. It might look like vanity, but it’s not. It’s survival.
Here’s a list of what I’ve discovered (and taken care of) since then because of my paranoia:
1. A booger in my nose (again)
2. Pee dots on my crotch (that I swear weren’t there when I checked myself in the bathroom).
3. Water dots on my crotch that look like a pee dots (that weren’t there when I checked myself in the bathroom). What’s the point of checking myself in the bathroom if these issues show up anyway?
4. Bird poop on my head (If you feel moisture hit your head when you’re outside, always look out for a white spot.).
5. Spinach (or broccoli) in the teeth
6. Undone fly
7. Shirt untucked in a bizarre way
8. Chocolate stain on the butt (Yes, I sat down on chocolate!)
I’m not (and haven’t been) the most hideous guy in the world, but I have/had enough natural flaws. I can’t afford to sustain the avoidable ones. I must always be vigilant. But at least I learned that in high school. Some poor fools never learn that lesson.
What about prom? Yeah, it was awkward too, of course, and I’ll get to that next.
To be continued in Awkward Moments in Dating: Dateless at Prom !
And for more cringe-inducing romance, read Awkward Moments in Dating: The Coworker.
(image via wikimedia)
My monotone voice has always been an issue for me. My friends in high school used to mildly make fun of my naturally quiet bored voice. A few years ago a celebrity yawned in my face when I was getting a signed photograph.
Some of my professional peers don’t pay attention to what I say, and that gets a little frustrating. I mean, they come to me individually to work with me, but in large groups I sometimes (not always) get ignored, even if I know what I’m talking about.
I’m the mild mannered guy who can get talked over. I don’t get walked over (I do my own thing if I need to), but I get talked over.
I’m not complaining; this is just how it is. Explaining a state of being is not complaining. If I explain and then blame everybody else, then that’s complaining. I’m going to explain, and then I’ll describe what I can do to change. That’s not complaining.
Anyway, a few nights ago I put up a video about books that are kind of similar to A Game of Thrones. I didn’t post it on the blog because I’ve already done too much Game of Thrones stuff on the blog recently. Anyway, after I published the video, I watched it, and then realized…
My voice in the video was not just monotone; it was extra monotone. It was extreme monotone. It was so monotone that I didn’t notice it was monotone.
How did I NOT notice this?
Despite my slow, pondering delivery, I talk about four different book series in this four minute video with both an introduction and a conclusion, so it isn’t a waste of time. I’ve seen video reviews go much longer and say nothing. Still, a little inflection would have been nice.
IMPORTANT UPDATE!!
The accompanying video has been temporarily removed. I could stand the monotone voice only so much!!!!
Now that I think about it, the video kind of sucked. I think I’ll just permanently remove it.
*****
Aaaarrrgh! I still can’t believe how bored I sound in the video. If I sound like that with books I actually like, I must really put people to sleep when I talk about boring job-related stuff (which I won’t discuss on my blog).
I have no doubt that I really like the books that I mention in this video. My voice makes me sound like I’m not sure. If I talk like that around coworkers about stuff that matters, I understand why they ignore me.
*****
Once I see a problem, I try to solve it. In the next video, I concentrated more on my voice and tried to speed up my words. Plus, I’m talking about grammar NAZIs. You can’t speak monotone when you’re talking about NAZIs, even if they’re the NAZIs of grammar.
It’s an improvement as far as emoting is concerned. I mean, I don’t cry or anything like that, but I have some (just a little) vocal inflection. I think it’s an improvement. I don’t want a weak voice, especially on such an important issue like grammar Nazis.
****
Actually that Grammar Nazi video was better, but it still wasn’t good enough for my high standards. Upon further reflection, it had to go as well.
(image via wikimedia)
I knew Francine was going to say no if I asked her to prom, but I had to ask her anyway. I’d told my friends that I’d ask her. Plus, I thought she was cool enough with our friendship to say yes. Then I saw her melodramatic act in the hallway between classes, where she’d fake cried on her friend’s shoulder after her friend had pointed me out to her from a distance (you can get more details here ).
I admit, I might have misread the whole thing. Maybe Francine had been fake crying over something else. Stuff like that happened. People misinterpreted situations all the time. There had been a TV show on a few years earlier called Three’s Company, where characters often misinterpreted stuff (almost always in a sexual way). It was a good lesson (not the sexual stuff, the misinterpretation stuff).
Despite the valuable lessons from Three’s Company, I was pretty sure I hadn’t misinterpreted the fake crying. Somebody had told Francine that I was going to ask her to prom, and she didn’t want to go, and it put her in an awkward situation. I couldn’t ask anybody for advice because it was embarrassing to admit you knew a girl probably didn’t want to go to prom with you. I could just not ask her at all, but that would be cowardly.
I had to think quickly. It was Thursday, and I didn’t want to ask on a Friday. I don’t know what was wrong with Friday, but it felt wrong to do a suicidal prom request on a Friday. I’d been ready on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Francine was (probably) using delay tactics. I just wanted to get it over with.
After school, I went straight to Francine’s locker and caught her by surprise. I didn’t grab her or anything. I just stood a comfortable distance and said her name. She glanced over and her eyes widened, but that could have meant anything.
“Did you need a ride today?” I asked. “I’m heading out.”
“Sure,” she said. She could have said no to the ride. That would have ended everything, but she said yes. Maybe I’d been wrong.
I was really nervous as I drove her home that day. I almost passed through a stop sign, but she yelled at me to stop in time. The breaks screeched, and Francine jolted forward.
“You trying to kill us?” she said, readjusting herself in the seatbelt.
“I forget about those things sometimes,” I said, pointing out the stop signs. I accelerated the car forward again and obeyed all traffic laws. “They’re so many of them, I stop noticing them.”
“They’re there so you know where to stop,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “But they put them at every intersection. It almost makes them impossible to notice.”
“That’s why they make them red.”
“That’s my point. All of them are red. It’s what makes them forgettable. There should be some color variation.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” she said. She actually sounded mad. I know I had almost driven through an intersection without stopping, but that shouldn’t have cancelled out her sense of humor.
“All the stop signs are red,” I said. “Red, red, red, red, red. My brain tunes them out after a while.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t drive, then.”
“Yet my driving record is perfect,” I said.
“You drove past a stop sign!”
“I almost drove past. Technically, I stopped in time.”
“Because I told you to!”
“And I’m thankful. But my record is still perfect.”
“How many stop signs have you driven through when I’m not in the car?”
I’d never been preoccupied with a prom date request while also driving before, I thought, but I couldn’t say that.
“Never,” I said.
“You wouldn’t know!”
The transition from my driving record to prom was going to be tough, I thought, but I had to do it. As we pulled into her driveway, Francine was still ranting about how I had no credibility as a judge of my own driving ability, and I had to cut her off.
“Hey,” I said. “I was wondering…”
She stopped talking.
“I was wondering… Would you like to go to prom with me?”
I could tell from the look on her face (or maybe it was just in her eyes because I can’t really describe what her expression was) what her answer was going to be.
“I promise to drive carefully,” I said.
She laughed, but it didn’t change her answer.
“I think I just want to go with some friends,” she said quickly, too quickly for it to be natural. As soon as she said “I think….”, I knew what she was going to say. Dejected, I glanced into the rear view mirror and fumbled with it, pretending to adjust it, doing anything I could to avoid eye contact with Francine at that moment. What I saw in my rear view mirror changed my life forever.
A long stringy booger was dangling out of my nose.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was gross, but I learned a valuable from this, and I’ll get to that next.
To be continued in Awkward Moments in Dating: Hygiene and Grooming Issues .
And for more cringe-inducing romance, read Awkward Moments in Dating: The Coworker.
