Barb’s Burblings

If you want to visit a site that you make you laugh until you cry, check out Hyperbole and a Half. Seriously, it brings me nothing but joy. And insight into my life. Seriously, this spiral (from “This Is Why I’ll Never Be an Adult“) happens to me on an all-too-regular basis at work:

The longer I procrastinate on returning phone calls and emails, the more guilty I feel about it. The guilt I feel causes me to avoid the issue further, which only leads to more guilt and more procrastination. It gets to the point where I don’t email someone for fear of reminding them that they emailed me and thus giving them a reason to be disappointed in me.

Then the guilt from my ignored responsibilities grows so large that merely carrying it around with me feels like a huge responsibility. It takes up a sizable portion of my capacity, leaving me almost completely useless for anything other than consuming nachos and surfing the internet like an attention-deficient squirrel on PCP.

Do yourself a favor and check out the archives. Made of awesome, and perfect for a Sunday night.

I was excited when I read that Crumbs, a New York-based cupcake shop, was going to be opening up some shops in the DC area. After all, you can never have too many cupcakes! But after reading the article in today’s WaPo about it, my enthusiasm has lessened, thanks to these quotes from co-founder Jason Bauer:

“When we come into the market, people are going to realize what a real cupcake is all about,” boasted Bauer, 40, who opened the first Crumbs on New York City’s Upper West Side with his wife, Mia, in 2003.

“We came down to that market four months ago and did a complete tour and hit every cupcake place,” Bauer said. “Quite honestly, we weren’t impressed with anybody’s product.”

Dude. Not cool. I certainly haven’t hit every cupcake place around here (though I dream of it), and though I don’t like all the ones I have hit, there certainly are some really good shops here–I’m particularly fond of Red Velvet, Fancy Cakes by Leslie (though I wish they’d go back having more varities of cupcake–not “decorate your own cupcake”), and Georgetown Cupcake. And so even though it looks like there’s going to be a Crumbs in an area of downtown that I frequent–as well as one in Rockville–I’m less inclined to check it out than I would be if Jason had just been like, “DC has shown that it loves cupcakes, and we’re eager to compete!” or something similarly inoffensive.

I’ve been amused reading the latest entries on Pamie’s blog. She’s been posting letters she wrote when she was 15 to boys she liked/dated. (It seems like there may have been a relationship, though not the undying love the 15-year-old Pamie believed it to be.) It reminds me of when Wing posted chapters from the novel she wrote as a teenager–now available for sale. (It’s pretty darn amusing. I say this as someone who has her own writing from a similar period in life squirreled away somewhere.)

Anyway, in that vein, I pulled out my own old diary, just to see. And oh, good times. For example, this, from when I was 14:

After trudging through the day, I realized something: last night, I gave [Boy] my heart.

This was written the day after a party I went to, in which Boy and I (and a bunch of other people) chatted and he talked about how depressed he was that his friends all had girlfriends but he didn’t. This was, quite possibly, the most I ever talked to this boy, with whom I had one class.

All day (even now) I feel this empty, gnawing feeling where my heart should be. I think about him all the time. Sometimes I take out old yearbooks and just stare at him. I don’t even know what I see in him. All I know is that I stare at him in Geometry all the time,

And I wonder why I did so poorly in that class!

I veg out thinking of him, and picturing him helps me to sleep at night.

Mind you, the next entry, dated two weeks later, starts

I took back my heart. I still have a crush on [Boy], but I took my heart back.

Well, that’s encouraging. And I somehow managed to be WAY less melodramatic about my next crush, with whom I had an actual relationship. Not a romantic relationship, mind you, but we were friends. Actual friends. We talked on the phone. We hung out. I believe he’s now a priest.

But to give you even more of an insight into my mind, we have this:

I might have a crush on [Yet Another Boy]. I’m not sure yet. I hope not; he’s only in 8th grade.

I was in 10th at the time.

But he is taller than me.

There was possibly more to the attraction than that, but I’m not going to swear on it.

In some ways, I wish I were more different from the me of 1993 than I am–looking at my life, I can see myself developing crushes, and it not being THAT different. But the main thing is, I REALIZE that it’s just a crush. Not whatever I thought these infatuations were.

There are times when it’s WAY easier being 31 than 15. Also, you can have ice cream for dinner and nobody cares.

Each week, the Washington Post has in its Opinions section a “5 Myths About” feature, addressing myths about various topics. This week’s was about executive pay, and I was glad to see it. I’ve long been uncomfortable with the amount of vitriol levelled at people who work at financial companies, in large part because my dad works at a brokerage firm, so I grew up surrounded by people who worked in the financial world. Obviously, I understand why people are upset, but labeling it all as “Wall Street” and condemning the world of finance outright is foolish. In particular, this quote stood out to me:

Collectively speaking, Main Street is Wall Street’s client and generally has been very well taken care of. In this crisis, Wall Street professionals, through carelessness or errors, lost a lot more money than Main Street did, and probably more, proportionately, lost their jobs too. Wall Street didn’t benefit from the market declines, and only in the past few months has it recovered some of what it lost.

Word, yo. Don’t be haters.

A writer at Sports Illustrated named My Boyfriend Brian Roberts captain of his All Underrated Team–the best players at each position who didn’t make the All-Star Team. Nick Markakis also made it, though the writer–after naming Nick the representative right fielder–keeps referring to him as playing left field. Bizarre, but I’m obviously not going to hold it against him. Not when he writes nice things like this:

How underrated has Roberts been this year? He has more home runs (15) and RBIs (73) than reigning AL MVP Dustin Pedroia and more hits (164) than Chase Utley. He has a higher on-base percentage (.355) than Robinson Cano, and a higher slugging percentage (.463) than Dan Uggla despite the fact that Uggla has almost twice as many home runs. Roberts is also going to finish the season with over 30 stolen bases, is currently tied for the most runs scored (100) by a second baseman and will likely lead the league in doubles.

Hearts, Brian!

(For the record, my boy Brian Matusz is duking it out with Jeff Fiorentino for Reserve Oriole Boyfriend. Matty [which is my nickname for Matusz] has the brighter future, but I have a soft spot for Screech.)

So today’s the 70th anniversary of the beginning of World War II, the invasion of Poland. That seems like an insanely long time, doesn’t it? I’ve been following a blog done by the Orwell Prize, which is run by by the Media Standards Trust, the Orwell Trust and Political Quarterly, posting the diaries of George Orwell. It started about a year ago and will go, presumably, until 2012, when Orwell’s diary ends. For a long, long time it was just him wandering around and had a lot about eggs. Seriously. A lot. But lately it’s gotten more interesting as he chronicles the political maneuverings that led to World War II. They’re also including newspaper images from those days. The beginning of today’s entry?

Invasion of Poland began this morning. Warsaw bombed. General mobilization proclaimed in England, ditto in France plus martial law.

It’s just kind of neat to see a firsthand account of it. Also, fewer mentions of eggs.

In other news, September 1 means September callups for baseball. Huzzah! Jeff Fiorentino, a.k.a. Screech, was called up from AAA Norfolk and that made me happy. He’s been doing really well. He was first called up in the middle of 2005, which probably didn’t help (he was only 22, was called up from AA, and probably was just not ready, though he did OK then [.640 OPS] and in 2006 [.683 OPS] in very limited at-bats). Anyway, yay, Screech! I admit I’m partial to him, too, because he bats lefty, has super nice blue eyes, and I have a cute picture of him from photo day back in 2005:

Screech and me

He looks OK, but it’s actually a great picture of me. Yay! (I have one with Javy Lopez from that same day, and I look wretched.) Anyway, I went to a game at Bowie last year or the year before, and the players were signing autographs before the game. I went up to Jeff and got his, and said that I was bummed I didn’t realize it was autograph day, because I had this great picture of the two of us, and bless his heart, he looked bummed and was like, “Man, that does suck!” Aww, Jeff.

(In mixed news, it looks like he actually may get a decent amount of playing time, due to Adam Jones spraining his ankle in tonight’s game. Good things never happen to Orioles in September games against the Yankees.)

Did you know that even though we refer to him a lot as “Farmer Ted,” Anthony Michael Hall’s character in Sixteen Candles was officially “The Geek”? That popped into my mind when I read an article about girl geeks on Jezebel. It made me think about different types of geeks. (And David Tennant.)

For example, why is it more socially acceptable to know random trivia about baseball (e.g., name the starting lineup of the 1961 Yankees) than to know random trivia about the Civil War or Star Trek or role-playing games? And there really are so many types of geeks about there, it’s hard to lump us all together.

I did like the notion that being a geek doesn’t make you superior. I understand that the sense of superiority comes from being pushed down or ignored in school–it’s a defense mechanism, the “When we’re older, they’ll see!” thought. But, as Ronnie on Big Brother this summer showed us, being a geek doesn’t make a person smart, much less better than anyone else. (Though he would disagree.) Because you know what? Being geeky about sports isn’t inferior to being a geek about more traditionally geeky things.

…You know, I meant to be more put together here, have more of a thesis. But then I started searches for David Tennant pictures, and it was all just downhill from there.

Overall, I’m pleased with how President Obama is doing. Sure, I’m not happy with the whole “Don’t ask, don’t tell” thing, but for the most part, he’s doing OK. However, I was not pleased to see this headline in the Washington Post the other day: “Obama signs bill to create Reagan centennial panel.” I’m sorry, what? No no no no no.

From the article:

Obama invoked the 40th president’s trademark optimism, calling him a leader who understood that the bonds that unite Americans are stronger than the disagreements that divide them, the political parties included. He also said Reagan’s sunny outlook was sorely needed during a difficult time of economic and global challenges.

OK, no. Optimism is no reason to salute the guy. Obama should in no way give any encouragement to that group of whack jobs who want to rename everything in the world for Ronald Reagan. (I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with “Reagan” Airport. It’s “National Airport.”) He doesn’t need a SECOND $1 coin; he’s getting one along with all the other presidents. Good Lord. I guess I should be happy that they’re not trying to give him the $20 or something (though I’m sure someone somewhere is). Dude was not that good a president. Kudos to Obama for the whole bipartisan thing, but…no. Stop it.

And while I’m being vaguely political, I recommend checking out the op-ed Richard Clarke wrote for the Post last week. And then watching this clip from the Daily Show:

While you wait impatiently for an entry with actual, you know, substance, why don’t you enjoy these cute pictures from the early days of the Obama administration?

There was a sweet article in the Post today about students in a 4th grade class sending nice notes to people who work at AIG. It’s really easy for people who’ve lost a lot of money to get mad at companies like AIG, but it’s gone a bit far. I mean, the teacher of the class in the story–who does a daily economics lesson in her school near Houston–wouldn’t give the name of the school because she was afraid people would be upset with her. And I don’t blame her. This whole downturn has been incredibly convoluted; I certainly have problems grasping what happened. So when people see that AIG has gotten a lot of money even after some, um, risky behavior, it’s really easy to blame them. And everyone who works there. Which just totally isn’t fair. For one thing, a lot of people who work there now had nothing to do with the problems before. And it’s not like everyone who worked there was doing something wrong. Seriously, this was just incredibly sweet. I mean, really:

The children adorned their messages with peace symbols and smiley faces, rainbows and vivid red hearts. “Hi AIG. Not all of USA hates you,” wrote one student. “We know you’re not villains,” wrote another. “Keep working hard, dudes! Keep eating your vegatabos!” advised a third.