1984 Los Angeles to NYC / 2010 Northampton, MA to NYC



11/29/10

100 mundane sentences without punctuation beginning with “I” of things that I did between 6:15 am and 2:30 pm on November 29

On Facebook there are lists circulating asking details about a person’s interests, reading habits, memories, etc. with a request that they tag others to participate. Does anyone read the lists of anyone? Maybe someone they have a crush on for clues, but otherwise? I like questionnaires. I think they’re fun and ego gratifying to fill out but I don’t participate in the Facebook lists because afterward I feel like, “why did I do that?”

I like making lists. Here is my list of 100 mundane sentences without punctuation beginning with “I” of things that I did between 6:15 am and 2:30 pm on November 29.

  1. I woke at 6:15 am
  2. I leaned way off the bed to turn off the humidifier
  3. I can take only so much of the humidifier noise
  4. I know a humidifier is good for my complexion
  5. I pet the dogs
  6. I pulled my nightgown from beneath Roxy
  7. I poured coffee
  8. I use a Mr. Coffee-style automatic programmable coffee maker
  9. I don’t care that there are advances in coffee-making techniques
  10. I think Mr. Coffee is like having a servant
  11. I got back into bed
  12. I read a few wedding announcements in the Sunday New York Times
  13. I decided the gay marriage might last because they’re identical
  14. I read the entire article about Coty buying OPI nail polish
  15. I read this because I have a keen interest in nail polish and I was half asleep
  16. I turned back to the part where it said it was for 1 billion dollars CASH
  17. I learned that OPI was a dental product company Odontorium Products Inc
  18. I read a chapter from a friend’s book
  19. I turned on my office computer
  20. I got more coffee
  21. I made a mental note to water the plants
  22. I read email
  23. I responded to a writer who wants references for me as an editor
  24. I played Lexulous
  25. I went into my bedroom
  26. I stared at my workout clothes
  27. I got my client book and gym bag together
  28. I walked past the barking dogs
  29. I forgot my iPhone
  30. I walked two blocks to the F/G trains
  31. I had to wait through two F trains before the G train arrived
  32. I noticed the train was unusually packed with post-Thanksgivingers
  33. I got hit in the shoulder by a woman’s large bag swinging over me
  34. I told her to move her bag
  35. I said please
  36. I tripped off the train at Fulton Street
  37. I got my foot caught in a man’s suitcase handle
  38. I yelled “Jesus Christ!”
  39. I walked the two blocks to David’s house
  40. I was 5 minutes late when I buzzed his buzzer
  41. I walked past the dog statue and unpainted canvases
  42. I turned on the lights in his gym and inspected my flyaway hair
  43. I took weights off the bench press while waiting for him to come down
  44. I had a conversation with him about the Baldessari show
  45. I asked questions about who was at his Thanksgiving
  46. I told him I saw Tiny Furniture and what Theo said about it
  47. I listened to him describe an article about a 91-year-old woman athlete
  48. I admired his pecs and triceps
  49. I take the credit for how good they look
  50. I took the G train
  51. I got off at 4th Avenue and 9th Street by habit to go to the gym
  52. I went to the gym before I had time to talk myself out of it
  53. I read the article whilst on the Lifecycle about the 91-year-old woman athlete
  54. I ran on the treadmill and almost skipped over Amoreena by Elton John
  55. I then remembered Piper asking me when I knew I was a writer
  56. I listened to Elton sing “living like a lusty flower” and “…puppy child”
  57. I thought to tell Piper that words that hooked me made me write
  58. I pushed myself harder on abs and upper body
  59. I want to be an athlete at 91
  60. I walked home taking big steps and not stepping on cracks
  61. I walk faster that way if I make it a game
  62. I said hi to my upstairs person on the stoop and the dogs barked
  63. I put on the happy dogs’ leashes and we went out the gate
  64. I walked alongside a man the size of a tree in a suit
  65. I wanted to get ahead of him but the dogs stopped to pee
  66. I thought he didn’t see me behind him on the narrow sidewalk
  67. I texted Jenny a philosophical question about sex
  68. I read her reply that it’s not that simple and she was on a conference call
  69. I brushed the dogs teeth and gave them treats
  70. I took a shower
  71. I leaned against the shower tiles and several were loose
  72. I thought of Young Frankenstein when Gene Wilder spun around in the wall
  73. I didn’t put on eye makeup
  74. I am only going out again to walk the dogs later
  75. I put on lipstick because I can’t not wear lipstick once I start my day
  76. I wore stay-at-home rather than hit-by-car panties
  77. I don’t know if #76 makes sense to anyone
  78. I looked at my ass in the mirror to see if it is heading further south
  79. I made oatmeal with pecans, cranberries, and ginger syrup
  80. I read another chapter from another friend’s book
  81. I read a review of Steve Martin’s book but I don’t know
  82. I thought apropos of nothing that I hate the concept of flash mobs
  83. I think they are fascistic and conformist and militaristic
  84. I told Theo that idea last night while we ate at Romans and he said hmmm
  85. I paid ConEd and At&T bills
  86. I debated whether to buy gloves online that let you use an iPhone in winter
  87. I compared dog food prices online
  88. I looked at artsy candlesticks that I want
  89. I don’t use candles but maybe I would one day
  90. I screwed around on Facebook
  91. I wrote out a schedule for the rest of the day
  92. I do this so that I will schedule writing and then stick to it
  93. I sat down to write this list
  94. I should be writing my book
  95. I wrote “write 1-2pm”
  96. I am writing but not what I’m supposed to be writing
  97. I am bad at enforcing my own rules
  98. I made coffee
  99. I think this list is pretentious
  100. I will ask Jenny

4 comments:

  1. I read that article and was bolstered by the fact that she started exercising way late in life I like flashmobs but not when they are doing conformist, non-get-you-kicked-out-of-the-mall things. Having a very fat ass, I can't imagine what I would look for as a sign that it was going South. Is it "selling out" when a dental devices company that makes all the nail polish at my nail place sells itself for a cool billion to a company that makes cheap junior high school perfume? Did anyone explain how dental products led to nail polish? Should I be creeped out?

    Pretention is in the eye of the beholder, or rather, the reflection of the eye in the nail polish made by the people who bring you dental dams.

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  2. I love you whomever you may be. Keeping my ass north is a fitness goal. It's about working out harder. My least-hardest workout is harder now than it was when I was in my 40s. I want to workout harder than that because it makes my body feel good. But on to the more important topic:

    The dental guy realized that his products made for very hard nail polish. The article didn't explain this leap. Maybe he's a drag queen? He marketed it to salons under the same company name OPI, and it took off. Not a sell out but like me, someone who does two unrelated things (though no one is buying my personal training nor freelance editing businesses for a billion bucks)

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  3. Ok ladies, can we find another metaphor for drooping body parts? Some of us are Southerners and mildly irritated at the implication that "going South" is undesirable.

    I don't think the list is pretentious; in fact, I found it an interesting read. And I found the "selling out" characterization in the foregoing comment interesting also.

    Per Business 2.0 article (Sept. 2004),Odontorium Products Inc. originally produced false teeth using a very hard acrylic lacquer. The company, based in Los Angeles (where else, given the success of its next product line?), was purchased in 1981 by a very clever fellow who recognized how much women would pay for pretty white teeth (especially, I suppose, when the alternative is to have no teeth--pretty, white or otherwise). The entrepreneurial leap from hard white lacquer for false teeth and hard colored laquer for false nails does not seem olympian to me. (I don't use nail polish and, personally, would find the case for spending money on teeth, when one does not have any, more compelling than the case for coloring one's nails, but I realize that there are hard core femmes out there for whom the choice, if budgetary constraints required it, would be agonizing. One wonders if, despite all the speculation in other directions, such a choice could have been behind the famous Mona Lisa smile; hard to say, as her finger nails, only two of which are visible in the painting, are too obscured in shadow to make a definitive judgment on whether she chose the nail polish. She unquestionably was a femme, however, so the theory might deserve further exploration.) Getting back to OPI,I do think an inspired leap was the innovative naming of the company's new product shades. Per 2004 Business 2.0 article, the names included: "Melon of Troy", "Not So Bora-Bora-ing Pink", and my personal favorite, "I'm Not Really a Waitress" (not that there's anything wrong with being a waitress). If any of you femmes out there would indulge me, I would love to hear the names of your favorite OPI shades.
    Returning to my original point, however, I note that Mr. Clever bought the company in 1981 in order to make money; usually, "selling out" to a larger concern is the ultimate goal of such undertakings. I realize, however, that to those of you for whom having no (or inferior) nail polish would be a much greater poverty than having nothing to eat, Mr. Clever ranks right up there with Mother Teresa. After all, she did say (supposedly): "Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies." I am not sure that by "small things" she meant nail polish, lipstick, eye-makeup and hit-by-car panties, but speaking as one who has a deep, abiding appreciation of beautiful women, I would not argue the point if you cared to make it.

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  4. Oh, pardon, Anonymous Southerner. Good point.

    Thank you for the details about OPI. I wear "I'm Really Not A Waitress." If I wasn't in the great FREEZING North right now instead of Boogie-down Brooklyn (what color would that be?) I'd tell you, with pleasure, the names of my other OPI colors.

    Mother Teresa ... lol.

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