Everybody Blogs About the Weather...

...but nobody ever does anything about it.

I am, in the phraseology of Charles Dickens, an "eminently practical" woman. But today, a day in which I practically had to swim through the rain to get to work, your favorite Pocket Blogger:

1. Wore my hair down, thereby causing some sort of psychotic break in which my hair believes it belongs to Gidget-era Sally Field (there are schwoopy flippy ski-jump bits),

2. Wore jeans, patent leather shoes, and a leather jacket, all of which take on unholy amounts of water, and;

3. Left the fabulous houndstooth Wellies at home.

But, enough about me. Let's talk about people who annoy me. People with no sense of umbrella-quette. Please note that the standard umbrella is effectively an oversize, nylon ninja throwing star with pointy bits on all sides. That means you need to allow extra sidewalk space so you do not impale others in the eyeball.

Also, Lady at Au Bon Pain This Morning, this is not your personal rainstorm. It's not some little cartoon cloud, following you around like Pigpen's dirt cloud. Ergo, you are not the only person getting rained on. So do not walk into a cafe, stop just inside the door, and shake out and fiddle with your umbrella for several minutes. See that waterlogged short chick behind you? She's already closed her umbrella, and is standing there in the rain while you get everything just so. Move inside already like a civilized person.

Wow, I'm cranky today. Anybody else got a rainy-day gripe to share?

PS: The photo above is of the Nubrella, specially designed so people can use their Blackberries in the rain. I love the woman, who looks all sexy despite the fact she's wearing a bubble on her head...plus, that amount of makeup would just slide off on a day like today.

Alcohol Makes You Smarter and More Perceptive!

Frequent commenter Lemmonex, who shares my tragic love for redneck cuisine, recently said, “Gotta love the guys in bars who think they have you figured out. I once went on a date with a guy who said I had 'an obvious need to rebel.' When I asked him why he said that, it was because of my nose stud and dark grey nail polish. Man, he saw in to my SOUL.”

This got me thinking. Why does alcohol make some guys so darn perceptive? Over the years, I’ve had random drunk dudes tell me I’m a “force of nature,” I’m “unlikely to ever marry,” and that I have “obvious daddy issues.” Is a sixer of MGD a valid psychiatric credential?

I can’t figure out if it’s some sort of accelerated pickup technique, in which a lady is mocked and intruded upon until she spontaneously removes her underpants. Or it’s an unintentional lack of manners: as inhibitions get fuzzed with booze, guys start crossing lines and telling girls who they are.

Or, possibly, booze depresses testosterone production. I’ve never seen sober guys sit around psychoanalyzing and nitpicking the personalities of others, that’s mostly a girl thing. But some drunk guys will indulge in more unrepentant pop-psych than an eighth-grade mean girl.

Conclusion: Booze turns dudes into chicks. Tweener chicks.

In the comments section, tell me about that time you got pop-psyched in a bar. Or advance a cockamamie theory of your very own.

New Imaginary Friends

I've made two new imaginary friends, and they've joined the blogroll party to the right.

So go check out Darian the Vicenarian to learn about the Skittles color wheel, the "Girls at the Club," kids for breakfast, and other observations from a NoVa guy in his 20s.

And, while you're at it, learn about ED as "ethical sub-routine," the joy of cougars, and Facebook as pickup over at The New Form of Bachelor. I don't want to laugh, but...whatever, I want to laugh, it's funny. Enjoy.

Yo-Ho-Ho and a Bottle of Dumb

Sometimes, I miss Sarajevo. I miss having a functioning vocabulary of six words ("tomato," "beer," "half," "pleasure," "embassy," and "sh***y"). I miss not having the slightest clue as to what is happening or why.

Sunday, I relived the Bosnia magic by going sailing with Tim and his dad. It was worth it for the lingo alone. I swiped the Rigging Checklist Rainbow (no relation to Reading Rainbow) for your enjoyment. It's like the IRS wrote it, with the assistance of drunken NSA codebreaker monkeys:

One anchor and rode in lazarette
Lead outhaul back through grommet in clew of sail
Uncleat and clear main halyard
Locate luff wire or rope sewn in front edge of jib
Appaloosa

Whuh? So, while they put the boat together, I went off in search of a life jacket that wouldn't suffocate me. When you're about the size of a hiking boot, an "adult universal" life jacket feels like a full-body condom. No luck with finding a smaller jacket, but the captain guy was nice enough to apologize before he asked for my weight and age (he prefaced the whole thing by saying he normally knew better than to ask those things of a lady...uh, I'm no lady).

Fortunately, the guys had put the boat together (my scientific term) and pretty much had things under control. Once we got out on the water, my job consisted of:

Handing people things
Staying out of the way
Not pitching myself overboard
Not barfing

That last part was tricky. I've been known to get motion sickness just walking down the street. I take Dramamine like most people take vitamins. Most of my childhood family vacation memories involve roadside sagebrush, my mom holding my hair, and full-on heaving. In short, I don't travel well.

So I chose to focus on a horizon point: something on land, that wasn't moving, to allow my inner ear to adjust. Unfortunately, most of the "white houses" I chose to focus on, were, in fact, abnormally large boats. They were moving, I was moving, my breakfast was ready to move as well.

But it was OK. In fact, it was really fun. I should take this sailing thing more seriously. It's an excuse, after all, to try out a new look. Should I go pirate wench, and spend my weekends wearing corsets and forcibly boarding the yachts of Annapolis? Or should I wear cute little Sailor Moon getups like an anime freak? Or maybe I should wear yuppie Nautica clothes with anchors on them.

In the comments, tell me whether you'd rather be a pirate, an anime character, or a yuppie. Or tell me about a time you almost threw up, preferably in the presence of your significant other and at least one parental unit.

The Results Are In: Who Has It Worse?

Yesterday's post set off a veritable comment firestorm of gender complaints, a few defections (I'm lookin' at you, Jo, and your orgasm-related sellouts of the girl squad), and the introduction of my new favorite phrase, "underwear monkey." But none of you care about that. You'd like for me to get to the point before your lunch break ends.

So, here the results:

Men have a grand total of 395 life suckitude points. (I Have Thoughts, men dying earlier than women wound up as 80 points, plus 5 for your charming use of math, my least favorite subject.)

As for the Side of Gyn, we came in with a whopping 440 points! And, lest anyone claims the deck was stacked in any way...this was without anyone even MENTIONING or awarding points for labor pains.

So, ladies, we have it worse. It's been quantified, settled, determined once and for all. Awesome.

A Gender-riffic Pity Party

This has been quite a week for gender relations here in the blogosphere, with the latest volley courtesy of the sweet and awesome KassyK.

To get all Sex and the City on you, I couldn't help but wonder...who has it worse, men or women? Let's find out by having a gender-centric pity party/social experiment!

I need your help. I need you to add, in the comments section, ways in which men have it worse than women, and women have it worse than men. Then I'll assign point totals as objectively as possible (I am, after all, an unreasonable, irrational, and squishy-brained woman).

We'll total it all up, and the gender with the most points is the Queen (or King) of the Pity Prom. Points are assigned based on relative onerousness of the gender burden, recency (I care more about current divorce inequities than the hazards of 19th century coal mines), and other important factors I'm sure I'll think of later.

Here are a few to start us off:

Menstruation, 50 points for women.

Prostate Exams, 10 points for the men.

The Taliban, 25 points for women.

Preference for mothers in custody hearings, 30 points for the men.

The Ground Rules:

This being the Internet, you may grab virtually any statistic via Google, and use it to back whatever spurious claim comes to mind. Citing statistics, no matter how tangential, gets you an extra 5 points.

Commenters may not personally insult one another. However, this being the Internet, general insanity is welcome. And debate? Go for it.

Gender traitorism welcome and encouraged - women, sell out your team by claiming childbirth isn't so bad after all, men, come on, go ahead and say you're more likely to be imprisoned due to your own foolishness.

Here I am, saving the world and answering deep questions. Awesome. Voting closes at NOON FRIDAY.

Have at it, gang.

FAQ/About

Who are you?

I'm Shannon, I'm 33 years old, and I live in D.C. My sister and I form a two-person ethnic group, the Austrokees. I was born in Australia and grew up in assorted sections of America. I got most of my schooling in the redneck gangsta paradise of Woodbridge, Virginia, where I was a hot sauce salesgirl.

Perhaps the best description of me came from a recovering alcoholic/bipolar guy who tried to pick me up in a bar: "You're cute. But you're a force of nature and have a 50/50 chance of winding up in rehab."

Spot on, dude.

Anything I should know about commenting?

I love my commenters! They're the best part of having a blog, and I respond to as many comments as I possibly can.

I have a few ground rules: You are welcome to disagree with me, you are welcome to offer criticism, you can debate with other posters. You can even hit on me, be insane, or act a little bit creepy. However, you can't trade in personal insults and hostilities, you cannot assert that people who disagree with you are dumb and/or ignorant, and you really, really can't be rude to other commenters. Not in my house.

Also, as many of my commenters are fellow bloggers: Please don't pimp your blogs in the comment thread. If you wrote on a related topic, feel free to post a link. Straight-out directing people to your site is gauche, and it's not the way to build a readership. That comes from finding your voice, which takes time, talent and discipline.

When and why did you start blogging?

I started this site in December of 2002. I used to send snarky reviews of 7th Heaven to my sister, she used to send them to her friends, and somehow this site was born. Phase Two was a blow-by-blow account of my existence as a diplomat's wife, and my audience was made up mostly of the Foreign Service community, plus some lumberyard spammers.

Phase 3 began in 2006 and has been mostly social commentary, sarcasm and humor. I figure nobody cares about my innermost feelings, heck, I don't even care about my innermost feelings. We'd all much rather hear me riff about that time a bird pooped on my head.

What's a scanner jockey?

My first job when I came home from Sarajevo was as a temp file clerk at a government agency. I put documents through a scanner all day, followed by some hole punching.

I'm your friend. Hey....was that post about me?

Probably not. Sorry. I write a lot about social interactions, entertaining, and modern manners, and, yes, my friends are a big inspiration for me. But I only write about friends as a collective group, not as individuals. In other words, I didn't write about bad fashion because Suzy wore clogs last week. So please don't parse my blog for things to be offended about.

This is a humor blog? But you're not funny.

If this blog isn't to your taste, that's OK. I'm not much for meanness or fart jokes, and I'm sure not everyone wants to hear about that time I tried to get a job as a flight attendant.

You aren't mean? What are you, some kind of hippie?

I think there's a continuum of humor: irreverent, offensive, and cruel. Irreverent is tongue-in-cheek, where it's plain you're just kidding. Offensive would be picking on a group as a whole, like Mormons or women over 30. Cruel would be singling out individuals for ridicule. I stay away from offensive or cruel on this site, because I think it's lazy writing and a particularly cowardly form of bullying.

What's your real name?
Shannon Lee Stamey. Really. Other folks can be anonymous all they want, but that's not for me. I think Internet anonymity can bring out the Inner Meanie faster than the Metro during tourist season. I don't like my Inner Meanie, and I don't think she deserves a platform.

You were a diplomat's wife?

Yes. I was posted in Bogota, Colombia, and Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. We divorced amicably in 2006. All I'll say about that is that it's very difficult to live as an appendage of someone else, and coming home to start over was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Also, I would advise against lurching straight from a quarterlife crisis into a starter marriage.

Can we see a photo? What do you look like?

I hate having my picture taken, so, actually, very few photos of me exist. If it helps, sober guys tell me I look like Jennifer Jason Leigh, and drunk guys say I remind them of Juliette Lewis. So take a Breathalyzer and adjust your expectations accordingly.

You suck! Or, I love you! How do I tell you that?

Email scannerjockey@gmail.com. As part of my general "Don't Be a Jerk" philosophy of blogging, all emails are confidential unless you grant me permission to post them.