Meccanized

As I was practicing guitar at the edge of Lafayette Park on this beautiful if chilly day, a man walked by and tossed a dollar into my open guitar case.

You.  Are.  Kidding me.

I was stunned speechless for a few minutes, but then I actually started considering the possibilities.   Get better at guitar and earn a little extra money?  Abso-freaking-loutely!

I played for about another hour without any more tips, but I’m not giving up hope yet.

Terminator: Salvation sucked so much that I was rooting for Skynet.

I loathe McG (whose “name” irritates me to my very core) with every fiber of my being at the moment.  At one point, I actually leaned over to my movie buddy and asked if we could leave (and I NEVER leave movies — I sat through “The Unborn” for pete’s sake).  Do you have any idea how much I have to hate a movie (or a director) for me to want to leave it?  Imagine me making that gesture where you hold your arms apart really far.  Then imagine that my arms are as big and endless as McG’s ego.  That’s how much.

I love the Terminator series.  I even defended “Rise of the Machines” as a fun addition to the first two quality films.  And T4 could have been good.  It could have been good, that is, if McG didn’t make the colossal mistake of thinking that he was up for the task of directing it.  It’s like he fell into the classic “we’ll fix it in post” trap…only he forgot the part about fixing it in post.

McG makes me long for the explosions and ridiculous slow-motion sequences of Michael Bay — at least good ‘ol Mikey doesn’t try to do anything other than mindless action.

It goes without saying who is Meccanized in this post.

I, Lindsay Mecca, accept that I have a problem…with Robert Pattinson.

Two problems, actually.

1)    I can’t get enough of him.  Those eyebrows.  The charisma.  And, oh, that hair.
2)    I can’t decide if I love him or hate him.

The first problem seems to resolve itself (or make itself worse, depending on your perspective) because HE IS EVERYWHERE.  You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a Rob Pattinson likeness in some form.

The second…well, that’s a tougher issue.  On the one hand, he’s maybe the biggest tool in Hollywood (in and of itself a veritable toolbox) and I feel like I lose brain cells when I listen to him in interviews.  (Though he’s not as bad as Kristen Stewart, who I liken to a gaping whole on the screen where an actress should be.)  On the other…yum.  To elaborate, Twilight was scarily engaging, largely due to him and his Brando-esque charisma.  (Somewhere, Marlon Brando is rolling over in his grave…metaphorically, of course.  He’s too fat to turn over fully in that tiny wooden box.)

Yikes, I am being mean in this post.  For those of you who have never seen me mean, this is what it looks like.

Anyway, I see the faux-brooding and the questionable personal hygiene of the lanky, handsome Brit in question and think he is just asking for Meccanization.  Then my heart flutters a bit and I find myself shelling out $3.95 for a copy of US Weekly (ok, fine, $19.95 for US, People, OK!, Life and Style and Teen Beat) and I am suddenly struck by a strong urge to self-Meccanize.

Opinions?

Gentlemen, take note.

Lesson #1: If you are going to propose to a girl on a street corner with a Cheerio (I know my hands are small, but that is a little overboard), you can not throw the box at her when she walks past and ignores you.

Fortunately, Cheerios don’t stain. Awkward, however, leaves a lasting mark. And there are few things more awkward than getting hit with a cardboard box in the middle of the Mission and then having to crunch over pieces of cereal as you walk away…head held high.

This city’s endless supply of crazy, you are Meccanized.

For the past month or so, I have been uncharacteristically un-peevable, hence the stalling of Meccanized.  Fear not, dear readers, the happy spell has passed. Today, I experienced extreme rudeness that really ground my gears.

I was sitting in my usual seat on the bus home (by the front door) when a middle-aged woman with a cane approached the bus.  Before she even got on the first step (and before anyone sitting had the chance to get up), the woman rudely and angrily looked right at me and yelled “Jesus, you people are so selfish.  Is someone going to get up?”  Now, I am usually the first person to give up my seat (and I very much relish the moral superiority that goes along with that), but today I froze.  My reasons:

- There were 10 other people sitting nearby that could have gotten up.

- I had several bags with me, so standing and holding them all would have been challenging.  The other 10 people nearby had less in hand.

- This woman’s approach was really rude (and that rudeness was for some reason immediately directed at me), and I was partly stunned and partly unwilling to validate that behavior.

Was it worth the Karma points to let her win, stand up and deal with holding my heavy bags and not being able to reach the stability bar (ironically, being the bigger person)?  Would I go to hell if I stayed the course, kept my butt in the seat and waited for someone else to crack under the pressure?

I’m curious to know what you would have done.  I decided that no one has the right to talk to me that way and that someone else could give up their seat.  For about 10 seconds.  Where no one else got up.  At which point my moral strength (or pressure weakness) took over and I yielded my seat to the woman.   She didn’t say thank you and, actually, rolled her eyes at me as I stood there with all my bags.  I fumed silently and mentally composed this blog post to Meccanize her.

Maybe this is what I get for needing to sit near the front of the bus.