Meccanized

Ever since I was hit by a crazy person outside of my apartment, I have been noticeably jumpy around people who look…well…crazy.  Whenever someone lurches towards me on the sidewalk — a move that is often accompanied by one or more of the following: arm flailing, screaming, urinating, swearing or throwing things — I tense up.  In writing, that actually sounds pretty normal.  That said, I often just get nervous when I walk alone and see someone in my path who looks even remotely shady. 

This morning, I was out for a stroll in the gray, wet mist of an SF September, and I found myself in the gaze of  a homeless person lounging at the edge of Lafayette Park.  When he got up and started moving towards me, fight or flight kicked in.  I’m all flight, so I got ready to run and reached for my giant whistle, which until this point has only been used (very successfully, I might add) to herd friends at birthday bar crawls.  

But then…

In a move that truly surprised me (and I’m not easily surprised)…

The man told me I was very pretty as he handed me a flower that he had picked from a nearby bush.  It almost had the sweet feel of a mid-80′s John Cusack movie (“Say Anything” comes to mind), if I were Ione Skye and John Cusack were a grizzled homeless guy named Barry.  

Just when I am ready to give up on this city, something like this happens.  Seriously, made my weekend.

Someone reminded me today that my birthday is around the corner — I’m roaring towards my late-20′s at an alarming speed.  And I think I’ve officially hit an age where each birthday is preceded by weeks worth of sentences starting with “I’ve been thinking a lot about…”

There was a time when I willingly risked broken toes to KY Jelly wrestling (explaining that to my parents was my first foray into public relations).  When I crawled through steam tunnels.  When the drummer from Guster saved me from being accosted by a homeless person outside of the Warfield.  When I ate an entire Vermonster from Ben and Jerry’s by myself.

I was a wild woman.  And though I’ve had my fair share of idiotic adventures in San Francisco, I’ve mellowed in my old age.

I’m pretty happy with life at the moment.  I have a job I love (and the start of a career I am really excited about), fantastic, incredibly supportive friends and family and the energy and time to work on hobbies that really make me happy (writing, kicking ass at bar trivia…and uh…something more substantive and socially acceptable than that last one).

Especially with regards to writing, I see this being a big part of my future — that’s something that has become abundantly clear to me over the past few months.  I’m not sure I have the wherewithal to make a career out of it (which is really just my way of saying I am insecure about my ability to be creative, ambitious and…well…crazy enough to go for it), but  I can’t imagine being happy if I couldn’t write in some creative, opinionated and maybe vaguely snarky capacity.  That’s part of the reason I love this blog.

Not really sure what the point of this post is.  I guess this is what happens when you combine two days of fever with three episodes of Dexter and way too much orange Jello.

I guess I should Meccanize navel-gazing..

In college, I was privileged to be a part of a small group of innovative, enthusiastic students who purchased a deep fat fryer on eBay and went to town on any food we could find in the dorm. Twinkies, Oreos, cheddar Goldfish (surprisingly, delicious) — you name it, we probably fried it up and chowed it down.

I wouldn’t say I’m a pinnacle of healthy eating now — anyone who has ever been lucky enough to have a weekend breakfast in my apartment (wink, wink) knows my favorite Saturday morning meal is a ham/cheese/tomato omelette, cooked to excess, rolled in a tortilla and smothered with apple sauce — but I care a little more about maintaining a healthy lifestyle than I used to. That said, I love fat as much as the next person.  Probably more.

Which is why when I saw this, I was caught somewhere between revulsion and glee.

I can’t decide what makes me happier: the possibility of grape-flavored fried butter or this quote:

“An order of fried butter will get you three or four pieces of piping-hot dough in a little cardboard boat.  ‘Any more than that and I think it would be a little bit too much,’ Gonzales said. ‘A little bit too rich.’”

Oh, Gonzales, your sincerity and seeming lack of irony makes my tiny heart go ‘a pitter patter.  [Insert obvious joke about arteries here.]

I’ve never been one of those “rules are made to be broken” types, and I understand that sometimes it is necessary to follow rules to a T. You bet your butt I’m the first person to turn off my electronics before takeoff and landing, and I return my library books on time. However, I think there is a time and a place for thinking for oneself even in the face of rules.  That time was this week, and that place was a Bank of America in Tampa.

As a former B of A patron myself (’twas a glorious year where I flirted with the cute bank teller each month when I went to deposit my rent checks into our apartment’s joint account), I am very familiar with their regulations and requirements.  That said, I’m pretty sure having no real thumbs (by way of having no arms) is just about the best possible excuse for not being able to provide a fingerprint.

This guy’s life is likely challenging enough without having some mid-level staffer hassle him about fingerprints after he was clearly able to prove his identity.  And I know, I know, it’s a dangerous precedent to set to say that “differently abeled” (urge…to…make…offensive comment…so…strong…) should get special treatment, but it’s not like he was asking for a unicorn. He proved his identity — all he asked was for someone to think for himself and realize that sometimes the word of the law fits a little too snuggly for comfort.

I bet my cute B of A teller would have let an armless man cash a check.

B of A, Meccanized.

Once again, my blogging hiatus is coming to an end.  I plan to post consistently from now on, especially since there is a whole new crop of supremely irritating things I can cover.

First up: swine flu really grinds my gears.  Until recently, the only direct effects I have felt from the ailment is the glares I get on the bus whenever I sneeze or cough.  I have allergies.  I can’t help it.  That said, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like the extra space I get as people edge away from me.

Today, swine flu has been elevated to more than mere muni bother. Why?  A dear, darling friend of mine was recently diagnosed with it.  I was informed only minutes ago, and I (rarely speechless) didn’t know what to say.  Torn between laying down a hugely inappropriate and tasteless joke and being sympathetic and mature… well, you can probably guess which route I took.  I’ll give you a hint: the former, followed by a guilt-driven latter.

Now, maybe everyone else already knows people who have been afflicted.  Maybe I have just been fortunate enough to have been blessed with a friend group with exceptionally strong immune systems.  But the news of said ailment caught me off guard.  And it wasn’t just me.  When he prompted his girlfriend with “I’m sick.  Guess what I have?” the responses were (in order of descending absurdity): The Plague, Polio, Swine Flu.

He’ll be fine, but I want to dedicate this post to him.  Be brave, dear boy.  In the mean time, I am going to finish masticating  this giant ham sandwich as a silent, delicious protest of the disease.

When I first moved to SF, I was a victim of a bird attack.  

A vicious little Magpie flew into me, dug its little Magpie claws into my head and pecked me with its little Magpie beak, drawing blood.  Painful and embarrassing .  

When I called the urgent care center to ask if I needed to get any shots in the wake of the avian assault, a doctor informed me that during the Spring, Magpies often get territorial and attack “dogs and other small animals” that get too close to their nests.  I waited for the doctor to add “and humans” to his list of Magpie targets, but, sadly, he did not.  Painful and embarrassing, part 2.

For the past two days, a Magpie has been attacking unsuspecting pedestrians outside of my office building.  CNN even aired video footage this morning.

Here is where Meccanization comes in.  Instead of offering warning, people in the know simply stand around taking pictures on their cell phone cameras, pointing and laughing.  Knowing the emotional scars that accompany being dive-bombed by a bird in public, I feel the need to Meccanize the dozens of people who are standing outside right now, waiting to be entertained by these violent encounters.  

Then again, maybe it is just human nature, and can I really Meccanize that?  Thousands of years ago, it was the Romans being entertained by gladiators fighting to the death.  (I learned a lot from Russell Crowe.)  Today, it is a bunch of suit-clad corporate types giggling like children  as their peers are harassed by a bird.  Is this just a modern manifestation of an ever-present cultural affinity for violence and humiliation?  My pretentious meter just spiked big time, but it’s an interesting question.

Meccanizable or not, yesterday I had a ‘Nam-quality flashback of that horrifying day two years ago when I was pecked outside of Safeway.  And I will continue to walk 2 blocks out of my way every day to get to my office until these senseless attacks stop.

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.