Friday, June 10, 2005
Be cool
Last night, I was editing a story for my freelance job on how Birmingham has formed a task force in order to learn how it can be cooler. No, really. Is it just me, or is forming a task force on how to be cool really freaking uncool?
The article was accompanied by a sidebar listing the top 10 coolest cities in the U.S. I wasn't too surprised to find that I have friends who currently live in six of these 10 cities. Often, when I go to visit friends in other cities, I am struck by the thought that the places they live are so much cooler than the place where I live. However, I always thought this was simply because these cities were unfamiliar to me, and were therefore primarily cool because of their newness. But no, apparently there is actual semi-scientific evidence to back this up.
So Scott, Kate, Dave, Diana, Kella (temporarily), Heather, Amber, Adrian, and Nikki--congratulations, you all live in certifiably cool cities. As for the rest of us--I think it might be time to move. Actually, if this whole cool task force thing doesn't pan out and my city doesn't get its act together soon, I'm seriously considering it. And it just so happens that one of my top destinations (San Francisco) is actually the number-one cool city in the U.S. I guess that means I'm cool.
Things you should not do before bed
-Think about a comment you meant to leave on Kristin’s blog
-Read part of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood
Otherwise, you may have a dream in which you and Kristin plot to rob an IKEA. (Of what, I’m not sure. But since we didn’t leave carrying any cheap, ready-to-assemble Swedish furniture, I assume it was money.) Your plan will go off swimmingly, thanks in part to your ingenious costumes—Kristin dresses as Mickey Mouse, and you dress as something you can’t remember (Mighty Mouse, maybe? Or Modest Mouse? They were on The O.C., which is where this whole mouse leitmotif may have come from), and then you shed your costumes in the ladies’ room after the robbery, allowing you to waltz right by the security guards on your way out. Everything is going great—you’re speeding away as the guards continue to search for you inside the store—except that Kristin has developed an unnatural attachment to her Mickey Mouse costume and wants to go back to get it. You tell her repeatedly that it is not a good idea to go back to the scene of the crime when you’ve made such a clean exit, but she argues that the guards will not have caught on yet, and she can just run in, stuff the costume in her backpack, and run back out. This seems to go fine, except that you run into a previously unencountered security checkpoint on the way to the parking garage. As you near the front of the line, you realize they are looking inside all purses and backpacks, and you turn around to whisper this frantically to Kristin. She tries to play dumb and walk past the security guard with her backpack, but it is to no avail. He looks inside and sees the Mickey Mouse costume, and the jig is up. Suddenly, the two of you are awaiting interrogation, facing the possibility of hard time, and wondering which one of you is going to be the other’s prison bitch…but fortunately, you wake up before such a question has to be resolved.
I’m just glad Katie Holmes wasn’t there.
Last night, I was editing a story for my freelance job on how Birmingham has formed a task force in order to learn how it can be cooler. No, really. Is it just me, or is forming a task force on how to be cool really freaking uncool?
The article was accompanied by a sidebar listing the top 10 coolest cities in the U.S. I wasn't too surprised to find that I have friends who currently live in six of these 10 cities. Often, when I go to visit friends in other cities, I am struck by the thought that the places they live are so much cooler than the place where I live. However, I always thought this was simply because these cities were unfamiliar to me, and were therefore primarily cool because of their newness. But no, apparently there is actual semi-scientific evidence to back this up.
So Scott, Kate, Dave, Diana, Kella (temporarily), Heather, Amber, Adrian, and Nikki--congratulations, you all live in certifiably cool cities. As for the rest of us--I think it might be time to move. Actually, if this whole cool task force thing doesn't pan out and my city doesn't get its act together soon, I'm seriously considering it. And it just so happens that one of my top destinations (San Francisco) is actually the number-one cool city in the U.S. I guess that means I'm cool.
Things you should not do before bed
-Think about a comment you meant to leave on Kristin’s blog
-Read part of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood
Otherwise, you may have a dream in which you and Kristin plot to rob an IKEA. (Of what, I’m not sure. But since we didn’t leave carrying any cheap, ready-to-assemble Swedish furniture, I assume it was money.) Your plan will go off swimmingly, thanks in part to your ingenious costumes—Kristin dresses as Mickey Mouse, and you dress as something you can’t remember (Mighty Mouse, maybe? Or Modest Mouse? They were on The O.C., which is where this whole mouse leitmotif may have come from), and then you shed your costumes in the ladies’ room after the robbery, allowing you to waltz right by the security guards on your way out. Everything is going great—you’re speeding away as the guards continue to search for you inside the store—except that Kristin has developed an unnatural attachment to her Mickey Mouse costume and wants to go back to get it. You tell her repeatedly that it is not a good idea to go back to the scene of the crime when you’ve made such a clean exit, but she argues that the guards will not have caught on yet, and she can just run in, stuff the costume in her backpack, and run back out. This seems to go fine, except that you run into a previously unencountered security checkpoint on the way to the parking garage. As you near the front of the line, you realize they are looking inside all purses and backpacks, and you turn around to whisper this frantically to Kristin. She tries to play dumb and walk past the security guard with her backpack, but it is to no avail. He looks inside and sees the Mickey Mouse costume, and the jig is up. Suddenly, the two of you are awaiting interrogation, facing the possibility of hard time, and wondering which one of you is going to be the other’s prison bitch…but fortunately, you wake up before such a question has to be resolved.
I’m just glad Katie Holmes wasn’t there.
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]