Working For The Weekend [refrain]

Every few weeks on a Friday afternoon Postmodern Sass quits work early to thank her readers for reading, and shares some of their email messages and other tidbits with you.

Today's mantra:

I WILL finish this chapter of my thesis this weekend so I can send it to my advisors on Monday.

I WILL.

Yessir, I absofuckinlutely WILL.

But in between writing my thesis — sometimes you have to take a break from writing to write — I will check on the comments here, because I really do want your advice, Gentle Readers. Especially those of you who are members of that other species. This week Postmodernes Sprachspielen has been like a reverse-angle Ann Landers.

Of course, all the well-intentioned and helpful advice in the world couldn't have helped me last night when I discovered that, goddamn it, I still blush when I get embarassed and what the fuck is up with that when I haven't been fifteen for more than fifteen years?

Sheesh.

What happened was, I was in the suburbs with The Viking at this pub where they don't give you wooden spoons to take your order but they do hold a semi-annual karaoke contest which neither of us has a hope of winning, even though we're both pretty good, The Viking especially, but it's fun, and we're both karaoke sluts, so we go every time.

(Oh, come on, get over it, Gentle Reader, I told you The Viking and I are friends and, besides, I almost never feel like a dork anymore when he's around. Hardly ever. Really.)

When I arrive The Viking is sitting with another karaoke contestant we both know named John. John is writing something in Roman numerals on a request slip. I sit down on the other side of John, and hang my coat on the back of my chair. John shows us what he's written:

XXI-XII
and says, "This is the license plate of a car I pulled up behind yesterday."

"Who was in it, Alex Lifeson?"

"Don't tell me it was Neil Peart?"

The Viking and I say in unison.

"That's what I like about you guys," says John. "You get it, about music. Sometimes when I'm talking to my friends I get a lot of blank stares. None of them would have gotten the Rush reference." Then he sniffs, and says to me, "Did you just take that coat out of storage?"

"Yes, why?" And then I realize, it's because it smells like mothballs.

"Yeah, I can smell it over here," adds The Viking.

Laugh it up, fuzzball.

* * *

You can see now, can't you, why I prefer email conversations? Speaking of which, here are snippets from some recent ones I've had with my readers:

Blundering American, in explaining his species to me, says, "It's easy. Think about the easiest answer (answer that requires the least amount of thought) or the answer that we think will likely get us in the sack. Nine times out of ten, that's it. Don't overthink us."

I'd love to not only not overthink you, but not even think you, but the thing is, you guys don't give us much to go on, so all we can do is think on it. I think, anyway.

Operaman wrote to chat about Yorkshire pudding and says he was miffed by my assessment of men in their twenties: "I feel that I may have more than just the 'tall, maybe' going for me...luckily, I know you speak in generalizations here, and therefore I will cut you some slack."

See what good friends men in their twenties make?

In response to my poppadoms post Norm writes, "What do you call the flat, crunchy, sesame seed laced bread-cum-crackers that they serve with your meal in Indian restaurants?"

Me, I just call them those flat, crunchy, sesame seed thingies.

And finally, I had the nicest ever email from a reader named Andrew. No, not Andrew the bartender at The Banknote — this Andrew lives in Washington state. He wrote:

"There are two types of days, one where Postmodern Sass posts something new and one where she doesn't. I just wanted to let you know that the former is always better than latter."

There I go, blushing again.

* * *
Click here to sing the next chorus of Working For The Weekend.