Greeting Card Obsession

Squibknocket Cards: Brilliantly simple, wonderfully cute and memorably funny, but unfortunately no longer being made.

Another card, under Apologies, reads like this:

You Can't Squeeze The Toothpaste...

back into the tube.

What's said was said, and I deeply regret many of the things that came out of my mouth. Especially the part where I said you were only the second generation in your family to walk upright. Or wait, maybe that was another argument. Anyway, the point is that I was wrong. And I do apologize. I really don't much like being at odds with you.

This is a strange little thing to dwell on and I know this, but I think it might be because I thought I could easily get more and when I couldn't... well, obsess much? At first, I figured I couldn't find them because I wasn't trying hard enough. You can find anything on the web nowadays, right?

Surprisingly, I did find a few and a nice little update from the maker himself.

10/25/2007 Lane F. says: Sincere apologies for the winnowing supply of Squibnocket Cards. I've been a bit occupied over the past two years with a couple kids and an unexpected return to the advertising/design world. However, I'm not one to stand in the way of those who are Holy Grailing after a particular card. So if you were to let me know what card(s) you wanted, I suspect I could help you out. Send me an email at: lane.foard@mac.com. Oh, and thanks for doing your part to help further the Squibnocket Revolution there in your part of the world. -LANE FOARD, Squibnocket

Shattered in my hands

I'm a clumsy girl. On a normal day, you may find me stumbling over my own feet and then promptly scanning every direction to make sure no one saw me. I also may trip over words, drop items or slam unsuspecting body parts into doors. My fingers, hands, arms or feet carry the purplish blue battle wounds often.

This past week was rough and gravity was testing me. A few stumbles here and there, some dropped trinkets, followed by a miss aim of the doorway. I'm pretty sure the tall glass window next to the sliding glass door still has my face print on it.

Now mind you, the majority of these are sober moments. I don't fall this much when I'm intoxicated. Odd, I know.

So, the climax of the week was Sunday, when I was trying to take some dainty wine glasses back to their home on the wine shelf. Again, I was sober when this took place. Really, It's a short walk from the sink to the wine shelf and about two steps in, a glass begins to slip from my hand. I tried to make a quick gesture to prevent a tumble and when I did, the bulbous ends of the glasses met and shattered. They shattered in my hands.

It was a few cuts and stabs, nothing a couple of glow-in-the-dark Casper band-aids couldn't handle. Nothing to really complain about, but I'm excellent at complaining, even about minor boo-boos.

The walls are not very tall at all, my friend

The walls are not very tall and I can hear you.

Yes, I can hear you, you little potty-mouthed rooster. Fuck-a-doodle-doing from your cubicle at six in the a.m., almost daily.

It's a bit early and somewhat inappropriate for your dive-bar type of language. Your "Fuck this bitch," desktop cocktail with a "Sonofabitch," chaser.

My office is a typical Corporate American office. Grey fabric walls snapped together like Lego’s, placing desks back-to-back and side-by-side. The walls are tall enough to make you feel like you're in your own office, until someone walks by. If you are one of the lucky ones, who's cubicle resides in an area where there is minimal traffic, you can almost forget that other people are here. My cube is situated in one of those areas. I can see two other co-workers from my cubicle, but I'd have to turn around to do that. The other two co-workers can only be seen if I stand up. I rarely ever turn around or stand up, so I forget that they are there. I forget, until they make noise.

It's six a.m. and our system goes down, followed by a deep, elongated sigh and then foul language from the man sitting behind me. Mind you, our system goes down daily, so I can feel his frustration. Usually, he takes the words right out of my head, but I had always thought it was in bad taste to use such language in the workplace.

"We can hear you," grumbles the girl directly behind me, sharing the wall next to his.

"I'm sure you can, but this fucking thing never works!" Was his reply.

"I know you're frustrated, but try using your big boy words." I add to the conversation. He brushes me off with a wave of his had, without ever turning around.

Don't get me wrong I'm not offended. I've been known to throw a few colorful four-letter words around, but I do it outside of the office. Mostly in my car.

So, when did it become acceptable for corporate America to use curse words? Now, I'm not talking about curse words being exchanged in conversation between friends on break-time and it's not just this guy that sits behind me, it's being used in general work conversations on the floor. Outside of this small area that I sit in, I've heard others drop an S-bomb here or there and someone referred to themselves as a bitch during a meeting.

Did I just happen to get the most relaxed office in the world or do other offices work this way? I mean, why bother having us dress up and look uncomfortably professional, if we're going to talk as if we're waiting for our rounds at the bar.

Speak first, no time for thinking

Happiness is a warm cup, read the words on my coffee cup sleeve.

"Happiness is a warm cup, indeed," I agreed, out-loud.

"Pardon?" A quiet voice questioned over the gray, fabric, cubicle wall. Sometimes I forget that my desk doesn't have real walls.

"Oh, sorry, I was talking to my coffee." I said before thinking about how it would sound.

I tend to do this a lot. Speak first, think later. No harm has come of it yet, just minor embarrassing moments. Like, answering yes to my waiter when he asks "Soup or Salad?" After some thought my face flushes red as I realize there is no Super Salad, just my vague answer to a either or question.

Then there are the random moments where I plan to say one simple sentence and somehow the words get fused together. "Hey, same here," fumbles out of my mouth as “Hey'smear." There's no smooth way to play off an incoherent word jumble of a sentence. You just back that jumble train up and say it again, clearly, then wait for your friends to stop laughing at you.

Let us not forget the best of all: this bad little habit I have of repeating what I though I heard someone say, no matter how much it doesn't make sense.

Case in point.

I arrived at my friends’ apartment and she was on the phone, in the middle of what seemed to be an intense conversation. She motioned for me to come in and suddenly directed me to a jar of candy that she had sitting on her kitchen counter. Then she left the room.

I'm a bit of a sugar-junkie and knowing this, my friend kept a jar of candy in her apartment that she'd often use to lure me over, or in this case, keep me entertained while she was busy. I grabbed the jar and created a carpet-picnic of Smarties and Gobstoppers on her living-room floor.

Let me tell you, this was no brief conversation. She eventually ended the phone call and walked into the living room to find me sitting Indian-style, jar of candy tucked up against my body and a flock of candy wrappers circling my body.

"Christ-Almighty!" She exclaimed. She underestimated what I can do with a jar of candy in a matter of an hour.

"Crystal Nightie?" It didn't make sense, but I asked for clarification anyways.

"Crystal Nightie? What does that even mean? I said Christ-Almighty, you dork!" She said with a laugh.

We moved on past the incident, but "Crystal Nightie," still gets used in jest from time to time. That and the slew of other phrases I've blurted out, without thinking about how it sounded first.

I was starting to feel alone in this, because I am that one friend you know that does this. However, I was listening to the comedian Brian Regan, who had much to say about similar moments and felt the need to share:

Dogism

Rude Boy says so much cool shit and so much bullshit, that sometimes it's hard to decipher between the two. Oh, and he's a clever one with all his ism's and quips but now, right now the snarkiness in his tone was quickly modified into sullen seriousness.

"I've given up on trying to win her back." He said, throwing down the PlayStation controller.

"What?" I was only halfway listening. He was distracted, so I used this moment to put his Soul Calibur character into a head-lock position.

This was about seven months after his split from Renee Mallory, "the one," and the realization that he couldn't charm her back into his life had just sunk in. Frankly, every one to him was "the one," until he got bored with them. In my opinion, his efforts were intensified with Renee because she was smart and she bailed on him before he could say they were done.

"I'm winning." I stated, as his character's health bar reached it's end.

"I don't care. I'm talking about Renee," he explained, "I've given up on trying to date her again."

"Oh?"

"My new plan is to ruin her life."

"That's your new pan? Revenge?" I said, finally pausing the game and turning my gaze away from the TV screen.

"Yes."

"You've put in over a half of a year worth of effort, trying to get her back and now you're just giving up?"

"It's not giving up, it's simply revising my plan. I can't win with her. We were kinda' hooking up even though she dropped me and believe me, I was cool with that set up, but now all of a sudden she has an issue with that. She's not really returning my phone calls. She doesn't want anything to do with me."

"It sounds like she found someone else." I could tell that he didn't want to hear that, but I continued talking as I took the game from its unpaused state. "So, instead of finding a new girl and moving on, like you should do, you'd rather waste more time with Renee just so you could try to make her feel bad?"

"Yes. Dogism." He picked his controller back up and re-affixed his attention onto his flailing computerized ninja.

"Dogism? I'm not familiar with this one, please explain."

"If you can't eat it or fuck it . . . piss all over it. That's Dogism."

Rude Boy

The first time I met Chadwick Nieson Rude, we didn't quite fall into the rapport that we have now.

I was a small town bred girl stepping onto big city grounds for the first time and was nervous as hell. Poor little me, unusually dressed up in a lacy yellow sun-dress smothered in 70's style flower prints and white lined tights. I was dressed for the part, but a delicate young lady I was not. I had put up the biggest fight a third grade tom-boy of a girl could give with her mother, but lost.

The mood had already been set for the day, so after a brief but negative interaction with Rude Boy, as the school kids called him, I popped-off at the mouth. He then brought it upon himself to introduce his fist to my face. I was a mouthy little one, but had managed to never end up throwing blows, until now. They handled things a little differently out here in the city.

I was walking across the school yard, looking confused and fidgeting with my dress when Chad walked up to me. Politely, I said "excuse me" and tried to walk around him, but he side stepped in front of me again. I tried moving around him a couple of times, but when my movement was returned with him blocking me every time, I became frustrated.

"Move the fuck out of my way!" I barked. My father swore like a sailor when he drank, and he drank like a sailor drowning. Drowning in his own private vast ocean of whiskey. I picked up on some of his habits early.

The swearing, I mean. I wasn't a third grade alcoholic.

My verbal demands were met with a push, so I pushed back even harder and then that's when he swung at my face sending me off balance. Within seconds of me landing butt first in the gravel, I bounced back up and squared off face-to-face with Rude Boy, little hands puckered into fists.

As Rude Boy's expression changed from a smirk to mocking laughter, my balled up white-knuckled fists swung into action.

Right fist.

Left fist.

My anger fueled fists collided with his jaw and that was all it took to send him to the ground. Crying, I pounced on him like a threatened wild animal and unleashed my fury.

Was it extreme force, or was it catching him off guard that sent his stalky fourth grade frame into a backward cement dive? To this day I still don't know and Chad never put it into question.

As all good schoolyard fights go, I was pulled into the office by the yard duty officer who only happened to see the later half of the incident. That would be the part where I viciously attacked Chad. I was granted suspension on my first day of third grade without a question as to why. The office labeled me a troublemaker, both threatened and promised to keep an eye on me upon my return and Chad walked away with only a sore jaw and a bruised ego.

The second encounter with Chad was the very next time I set foot on school grounds. I had just finished getting the index-finger-in-the-face type of lecture by my mother, as I shifted uncomfortably on the plastic blue station-wagon seat.

I remember that it was a hot day and I was experiencing a whole new, very uncomfortable sensation from the seat that I had never felt before. Through all of her yelling, I had remained emotionless and somehow that bothered her. Was it that I had become numb to all of her yelling or could it have been that I was preoccupied with the strange sticking and peeling phenomenon that was happening between the faux-leather seat and the skin on the back of my legs? Perhaps, a bit of both.

"You're a horrible child," she barked and then came the WHOLE name.

It wasn't until Jr. High that I had teachers at role call and students refer to me as Bailey. I was embarrassed by my full name and this was due, in large part, to a comment made by some boy that I had a sweaty palm kind of crush on.

I believe his words were, "who's the girl with the unfortunate name?" Ouch, that hurt and I'm reminded of that every time I see or hear my name at length.

"... Bailson Zucker Sky Shabbari, I'm SO disappointed in you." Bailson is my grandmothers maiden name, Zucker is my mothers maiden name and Sky was the middle name of my fathers godmother. Confusing, I know. Lucky me, they promised everyone in our family with the oddest names that they'd honor them by naming their children after them. I'm not even going to get into my sisters name.

You know, one can really zone out in moments like these, when the parents are laying into you like a house pet that just diddled on the rug. Rub my face in my problems.

She continued her lament as I stuck and peeled myself off of the passenger side seat for the last time of the morning, with thoughts of less aggravating chairs on the horizon.

At that point her words traveled completely off-path into her usual detour of a verbal dirt-road ramble, saying "...where did I go wrong? I try so hard with you and your sister, but it's not easy seeing as how your father left me all alone..."

My father, as if I had the choice in who she wanted to marry. Leaving just her all alone, as if my sister and I were not affected by his abandonment.

I leaned my whole body into closing the door and in my distorted regression, it's remembered to be as big as a house door, creaking in it's agony as I struggled it to a close. I waved as she quickly pulled out from the curb, leaving me in a cloud of old station wagon exhaust and tire dust.

No longer than a minute afterward, I was pulled into an empty walkway offside some unused portable buildings. Chad was staring me dead in the face and asked me what I had to say for myself. The only thing I could think of was my mother's words to my father as he was heading for the front door for the last time.

"Kiss my ass!" I said, just like that, without hesitation.

Chad put his hands on either side of my face and pressed his lips to mine. It was my first kiss and I didn't know whether to be flattered or furious. He first punches me in the face and then kisses me after being told to press his lips to my backside.

My sister, Darrison, who's knowledge exceeded mine by three years, explained with a straight and serious face, "When you tell a boy to kiss your ass, you need to point at what part of the body that is." She twisted her hip and pointed to her butt cheek, finishing her thought she said, "...'cause, sometimes they just don't know."

In retrospect, this his how schoolyard love etiquette goes. The more you like someone, the more you taunt, tease, pull their hair and knock them down. So, in lieu of this theory, it must have been love at first sight for Chad to send my tiny third grade body skidding across the cement like I were on a slip-N-slide. For me, it was his persistence that eventually wore me down to friendship. Well, that and the candy out of his lunchbox.

Honeycombs and Caffeine

I'm an early morning Cereal killer
I find honeycombs to be the best stomach filler
a cup of coffee, is my sobering healer
and the Mercury funnies are a line for line thriller

The city streets are humming a low Sunday tune
and the Bay Area fog rolls in, even though it's June
I'm just waking up and it's well past noon
slowly joining in on the sultry city croon

Side corner coffee shop is calling my name
getting through traffic is a dangerous frogger game
I come here every day and my order's always the same
"Large quad shot eye opener," the others are too tame

Emo kid behind the counter, too depressed to give a smile
discontented youth, he says joy is overrated and vile
I have nothing to say to him proving life's worthwhile
so I compliment is hairdo and his dark eyeliner style

he says,"It's unfriendly here where people are so busy.
The taller the buildings the more lonely the city
but in the solitude, sadness can become pretty.
I'd rather step back and observe life intently."

I nod keeping my sunny disposition at bay
as I sip my hot cup of caffeine and scurry on my way
onto sunnier people, with much less to say
besides, my belly's way too full and it's been a good day.