Tensing up

Hello and welcome once more to another installment of UOPTA. I hope my electronic words find you well on this penultimate day of February. (I really like using "penultimate" every chance I get, because it's just cool to me that the word exists. Is there a word for the thing before the thing before the last? If so, I'd use that too. Let's make one up in case it doesn't yet exist. How about "tripenultimate?" Or would "prepenultimate" get the job done by itself? I may never know.) Ready for some additional random stuff? Excellent.

I had a strange dream during the week, and I recounted it in the office the next day. I went up to my boss and said, "In my dream last night, you handed me some dog treats. I think you should explain yourself." Without missing a beat, he asked, "Were they cookies?" "No, they were jerky treats. And I knew somehow that they were for me and not for my dog." "Is your subconscious telling you that I treat you like a dog?" he asked. "Maybe it's telling me that you respect my fierce loyalty to you and the company, best personified by a dog," I said. "Yeah, that's totally what I meant," he replied.

While that story and interaction didn't come up again for the rest of the week, typing it brought up a few questions I have. First, I understand that "dreamed" and "dreamt" are both acceptable past tenses of "to dream," but I don't know which one I use. I think I need to be caught next time I say it by someone who can then report back to me about me. I'm pretty sure it's "dreamed," but if I were writing a poem, I'd totally opt for "dreamt." Doesn't it sound more poetic? What about "leaped" and "leapt" then? I think I use "leapt" more often, which means I'm wildly inconsistent in my past-tense choosings.

A bigger problem (to me at least) is that I'm now questioning whether other words have two acceptable past tenses or not. Can I say that someone "creeped around the corner" or is "crept" the only right way? I can hear myself saying that I "kneeled down" somewhere instead of "knelt," (which looks like a completely made-up word to me right now), so I think that fits the pattern. You know what clearly doesn't though? The past tense of "to sleep." If someone said, "I sleeped for nine hours last night," s/he would get more than a few weird looks. I believe the same is true with "to mean." "I meaned to get there in time for the opening band" just doesn't get the job done. Interestingly enough, thinking about this past tense stuff is getting me tense, so I'll stop for now.

Time for a little more word stuff. My friend Dusty sent me a link to comedian Demetri Martin's 224-word palindrome poem. It's quite impressive: http://www.neatorama.com/2009/02/18/a-224-word-palindrome/. Two things struck me upon reading it. First, it's amazing how little syntax and flow matter in free-verse poetry. Second, I never knew that "deified" was a palindrome by itself. I like that a lot. I'm amazed by Mr. Martin's piece of work here because as much as I fancy words and thoroughly enjoy playing with them, palindromes seem incredibly difficult to create. I never know where to start and always end up with something that completely misses the point like, "Racecar and Hannah kayak. Kayak, Hannah DNA! Racecar." That said, I did come up with a brief (only three-word) palindrome two days ago after looking at a word backwards for the first time. The word was "golfer," which is "reflog" backwards. You know, as in "to flog again." Therefore, "Reflog a golfer" becomes the same frontwards and backwards. Now if I could just get my spellchecker to acknowledge "reflog" as a word, we'd be in business.

One more little word thing for now: on the radio earlier this week, the announcer said, "Our bonus word is 'fun dip.' 'Fun dip.' That's f-u-n, space, d-i-p. Once again, our bonus word is 'fun dip.'" I was already making my "You've got to be kidding me!" face after the first time he said that the bonus WORD was actually two words. I tried giving him the benefit of the doubt by wondering to myself if the Fun Dip candy was one or two words, but then he ruined it by spelling it with the frickin' space in the middle of the "word." Then he went back and reminded us again that those two words were the bonus word, and I pulled out my phone to text myself about that error.

Earlier this week, my co-worker Rob was trying to get a female co-worker to sign up for online dating. "Peter will write your profile for you, and he and I will screen all of the guys so you only see the good ones," he offered. She eventually acquiesced, created a login with a couple of pictures on a free-trial account, and motioned for me to plop down and write. The prompt was something like, "Describe yourself and what you look for in your perfect match," and there was a minimum of 200 characters. (I'm guessing the minimum is there so people don't just write, "Cool. Sex.") "First off, what are you actually looking for?" I asked. "Just...keep it simple and don't make me sound desperate," she said. I thought for a minute, and then I wrote the following:

My co-worker thinks I should say that my perfect match is "three inches tall, highly combustible, with a phosphorous tip, and can light my way during my darkest hours." I think he's a moron. Fortunately, it's much simpler than that: I'm fun and down to earth, and I'm looking for the same in my match. See how easy that was?

She loved it (even though I made it all about me) and clicked to submit it. Within literally five minutes, she had three emails and one person trying to IM her. I took pride in this at first, thinking that they must have really liked what I wrote. Then I realized that they probably preferred her keywords of, "18-25," "blonde," and "Los Angeles" to anything I could've written. The onslaught of attention and apparent low quality of her potential suitors confirmed her earlier suspicions that this just wasn't for her (at least for now), and she deleted the profile later that night. Well, I had fun at least.

Those who know me well at all know that I love burritos. They're just wonderful. There's a Chipotle near my work, and two relatively close to my home, so when I can cajole someone else into going there for lunch or dinner with me, I'm a happy Klein. Last week, I went by myself to bring home a burrito for dinner, and the line was especially long. I had no problem waiting though, because I knew the payoff would be an exceptional one. It was only about thirty seconds of waiting before I pulled out my phone and began emailing myself about the interactions of the people in line ahead of me. Here are the highlights:

1. An employee was making a burrito for a woman who asked for sour cream. She didn't say, "Just a little" or any other qualifying phrase, just, "Sour cream." The next thing she said was, "No, no, no! Too much, too much, too much!" She then made the Chipotle worker scrape off what she deemed to be extra sour cream. I felt bad for the employee, but he took it in stride and didn't make any of the faces I would have in that same situation.

2. Another woman walked up to the counter and said very seriously, "This is not a joke. I want guacamole on the side and mild salsa on the side." It honestly sounded like a stick-up instead of a burrito order. More importantly, why would someone think that was a joke? Has she been laughed at and completely disregarded when making that same request before? I don't know, but I'd like something to explain her order's bizarre preface.

3. A woman two people in front of me in line asked her young son where his nose was, and he got it right. "Where are your cheeks?" she asked next, and the kid quickly reached out and grabbed the mom's breasts. Well played, kid.

4. I considered using my Blackberry to order online and then step into the empty "Pick Up" line, but eventually abandoned that idea. (Yes, that was a highlight. Leave me alone.)

5. The man in front of the breast-grabbing kid said to the mom, "Look at his red hair!" "It's strawberry blond," she replied defensively. Sore subject?

6. It eventually got to my turn, and the result was as glorious as I'd anticipated.

With that, let's wrap our tortillas on over to the Car Watch. That sounded way dirtier than I meaned.

My homey Rockabye sent me this plate that he spied: "HWYENDS." Yes, I'm sure every one does, eventually. I wonder if this has ever freaked somebody out. Some dude's from a small town and in L.A. on business. He's already a little on edge driving on our big and crowded streets, but the freeway is scaring the crap out of him. He misses his exit and starts to panic, wondering how in the world he's going to get where he needs to be. Then, in front of him, a car warns him of impending doom: Highway Ends, it says. "Ends? But how?" Convinced that he's about to drive into the ocean, he pulls over and breathes shallow breaths into a paper bag he kept in his suit's jacket pocket just in case something like this happened.

That same homey Rockabye saw this plate: "NINJA (Heart)R." It must be very difficult to be in a relationship with a ninja. One minute you're alone and getting ready for an evening out, and then - POOF! - he's right behind you. On the plus side, I bet they're masters of leaving quietly in the morning after a one-night stand. I've always wondered how they can remain so silent with all of those metal ninja stars bouncing around somewhere in their pockets or secret ninja pouches. (By the way, The Secret Ninja Pouches is immediately in the running for my next band's name.)

Lastly, I saw a license plate frame on my way home from work a little while back. It read, "Without a Doubt...World's Greatest Mom." I believe that's what statisticians call "an insignificant sample size," because I have to think that this unscientific poll questioned somewhere between one and three people. No offense to that lady, but I doubt that she holds that title, so I alone invalidate the poll's conclusion. I'm just sayin'.

Ok, I'm not making any more sense, even to myself. That is a clear indication that it's time to stop typing. But first, let me address a plight that affects millions of Americans - most of them completely unaware. It's a silent attacker, much like hypertension. Or a ninja. My friend Ceil's birthday is August 30th. Therefore, her half-birthday should be February 30th, but we all know that she's never going to get the chance to celebrate that. Oh sure, once every four years she gets within one day of her half-birthday, but that's hardly a consolation prize. Every other year, the closest she gets is the tripenultimate day, which is already the saddest time I've ever used that word. I mentioned this last late April when I noticed that our dog (whose birthday is Halloween) shares in this same plight, but it never gets any easier. Today is my two-thirds birthday, and my joy is dampened by a hefty dollop of half-birthday guilt. Be brave for me, friends, and please join me in wishing Ceil the closest thing she can experience to a half-birthday. I'll be back next Friday, as we boldly march into...whatever that next month is. As always, please feel free to write me at ptklein@gmail.com, and have a happy and healthy weekend and week. Shaloha.