How come kids today use "get some ass" to mean "have sex"? I don't think I like that expression. It sounds like they slipped or took a wrong turn somewhere.
4/26/2010
4/24/2010
On Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax
Anyway, when we walked in, there was a guy kind of standing up on the sidewalk outside, looking like he was about to fall one way or the other. His eyes weren't focused on anything or particular. He was on drugs or very drunk or maybe very sick, but it wasn't normal. He was maybe in his forties or fifties, with ripped, dirty jeans, so he was probably homeless.
Most people see things like this and ignore it. But the guy could have fallen backwards and cracked his head open.
The cashier was debating whether to call, and then he did. I am glad he did that. He may have saved a life. And even if you think it was the guy's fault for being drunk/stoned/unemployed, whatever, think of the relatives who may have lost contact with him and wondered for years on end where he is. Or maybe the relatives right in the city who have been trying to push him to get help and be productive like he was when he was a kid.
Yes, this is conjecture, but why take the chance?
When the ambulance showed up, the cashier couldn't leave his post, so I showed the men in the ambulance where the guy was standing. One of the men said to me, "Did you ask him if he needs help?" I said, "No, but he's a danger to himself." The man kinda looked defeated, because that's one of the standards where you can force someone to get treatment. (He was also, as the cashier had said on the phone, a danger to others, because he was blocking the sidewalk.)
Anyway, I was glad the cashier called, because most people think "Ah, it's just a homeless guy" and ignore someone like that. But you know...everyone comes from two parents. Everyone has or had someone who loved them.
What spurred me to write about this was this story that's in today's New York Post:
(April 24) -- A homeless man who was stabbed while saving a woman from a knife-wielding attacker lay dying in a pool of his own blood for more than an hour while several New Yorkers walked past without calling for help.
Surveillance video obtained by the New York Post shows that some passers-by paused to gawk at Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax early Sunday morning and yet kept on walking.
Some guy even took a photo with his camera phone! Alfredo was only 31 years old.
Now, some of those who kept walking may have assumed help was on the way already. Still, if you're not sure, just call. It's free, you know. If you're afraid of getting involved, call 911, give the info on the location and occurrence, and walk away. You're not doing anything wrong.
4/23/2010
(I'm on the right end of the middle row, red pants. Click for larger.)
I was happy
(This story has an interesting visual ending, I promise, so stick with it...)
When I saw this photo on someone’s Facebook page in January, I nearly cried. I have only my kindergarten class photo in my possession, no others. But this one, second grade, was particularly near and dear to me, so I was thrilled when it popped up on the internet. For 30 years, I'd remembered people's names and how much I liked them, but had forgotten what some of them looked like -- particularly since I moved after that year and never saw most of them ever again.
At first I wasn't sure exactly why it struck me so much when I looked at it. But I have a good idea now: I look so genuinely happy.
Things weren’t good after that. I moved to a new school. I made a few friends, but I was an outcast. I didn’t really “get” the kids at my new school. I'm not saying it's their fault, at all. And it wasn’t as if they were from a different background than my previous year, or that my new town was demographically different. Maybe it was that everyone grew up between second and third grade, and I didn’t? Who knows?
I eventually reacted by getting even sillier. Sometimes I tried harder to fit in, with poor results.
Second grade, the one pictured on top of this entry, was the “Enrichment Program”; in other words, the kids with the highest test scores in the previous grade from all five of the district’s elementary schools were bused to one second grade classroom at this particular school. I was lucky because the program was based in the school I already attended, so I didn't have to switch.
In second grade, there were two big fads – the movie “Grease,” and the candy Pop Rocks. Each day at snack time, some lucky kid would bring in Pop Rocks and everyone would ask for some. One girl actually announced, “Okay, these people may have Pop Rocks” and listed the names on a blackboard. Then she had everyone line up to get a few in their hand.
One day, I was in the grocery store with my dad and asked if I could get some. To my surprise, he said yes. The next day in school, a boy saw me with them and he said to another boy, “Oh, she’ll give everyone.”
I overheard that and thought that was the nicest thing anyone had ever said about me, and I was especially moved that a boy had said it, because boys and girls kind of avoided each other then. Of course, he may have just meant I was a pushover, but it was rare insight into what a boy thought of me, and I liked that he thought I would share my Pop Rocks.
I wasn’t perfect. I won’t go into the stupid stuff I did. And my schoolwork was horribly sloppy, even if I always have done well on tests. But I was happy in second grade. Everyone was so nice in that class.
And then...
As I said...I moved. Before third grade.
The kids in my new school in Freehold were more, er, advanced. Some of them were already “going out” with each other. What was up with that? Some (NOT all, just a few) were kinda mean. They’d yell at you if you missed a ball in gym, wore the wrong clothes, just if you stood in the wrong place. They taunted the fat girl...typical stuff.
Did I change between second and third grade? Or did everyone else? Or was it the difference in towns? Or was there a big difference between being in a class of all smarty pantses and being in a "normal" class? I'm not sure.
There were a million things about me that I should have changed, too. But gosh, we were all young. Everyone gets off the hook for who they were in school.
So anyway...yesterday, some later photos popped up on someone's Facebook page of me in school in later years.
I was worried, and rightfully so.
One of them was the dreaded seventh grade, middle school. ACK!!!
I'm on the bottom row, third from left. Click for larger.
Okay, it wasn't so bad. I look normal enough. But then there was this other one they posted, of fifth grade.
At first, I was horribly, terribly embarrassed when I saw this.
Take a close look on the right end of the middle row (click to enlarge)...
And then I thought, you know...maybe I just knew how badly everything sucked.
4/21/2010
A great, detailed review of Carrie Pilby
Click here. "Constance Reader" really wrote a lot about my book on her wonderful blog! Looks like the other entries are worth reading, too.
The cover she has displayed is the cover of the new version coming out from Harlequin teen this summer, which you can order at Amazon now!
4/20/2010
4/16/2010
Copycats!
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (a Michael Cera movie coming this summer).
Can it hold a candle to
Carrie Pilby vs. The World? (The British version of my book.)
Go to www.carenlissner.com and decide!
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (a Michael Cera movie coming this summer).
Can it hold a candle to
Carrie Pilby vs. The World? (The British version of my book.)
Go to www.carenlissner.com and decide!
4/07/2010
4/06/2010
Annoyed again at the music industry
I'm annoyed again.
In the past, musicians waited 10 or so years to rip off a song. Now they just wait a year or two!
Love Song by Sara Bareilles (2007):
Seems ripped off by:
and
Seems ripped off by,
Hey Soul Sister by Train (wait a few beats)
Click and listen!
4/05/2010
10 great minor league ballparks
Some of these really sound neat! The article was in USA Today. (Hubby sent it to me.) They're real fields of dreams. Click here to read.
Poll
Does anyone have a right to call the brilliant cinematic masterpiece Sound of Music 'silly'?**
**You are not allowed to vote in this poll if you have a penis. Thank you kindly for your attention to this matter. Anyone with breasts and a vajayjay - in other words, people with superior taste and wit - can answer.
4/04/2010
The Carrie Pilby PR effort is in full force!
Three months until it comes out again. Catch the new cover on Amazon by clicking the image of the cover on my updated website.
4/02/2010
4/01/2010
Congratulations, Newark!!
"Newark has something to celebrate. The city today is recording its first homicide-free month in more than 40 years.
"In New Jersey's largest city, officials say 32 days without a murder is a major accomplishment. Since the 1967 riots, the city has been plagued by one of the highest violent crime rates in the country."
