Characters

A good character has a bit of his author in him (or her, of course). I’m not saying that the person who invented The Joker is an insane supercriminal, or anything dumb like that. But if you’re going to write a dynamic character, one the audience is interested in, it has to have something of you in it or else it will be flat.

So I’ve been thinking about my characters lately. I’m learning about myself as I learn about them. It was a weird epiphany I had in between English classes. Not that anyone’s really familiar with these characters, but I’m still going to write about them.

Phena Kysta
She’s young and pretty and tall, and she doesn’t really register any of this. She is intelligent and loyal, she knows what she wants from the universe and she gets it. She’s great with languages and she went for–and got–a position on a space ship as a communications specialist. She’s personable, flirts a little, and makes friends easily, although her traveling lifestyle keeps her away from many lasting bonds. So I suppose Phena is the lady I’d like to be someday, although the relationship thing is not ideal. She has close friends though, so that’s a good thing.

She’s also an empath. She both broadcasts and receives emotions, similar to the way a telepath is supposed to receive and send thoughts. In the OCT I’ve entered her in, she lost control over the ability. She’s never understood it and it came to her very late, so she’s always had trouble understanding what can be considered either gift or curse. That part of her would be my own emotional mess. I tend to roller-coaster. I’ve been trying to stay stable lately, and it exploded in my face again. Phena’s control came back, but I still have to figure out how to get mine.

Captain Farrell
Captain Farrell would like to be a hero, even though he’s essentially just the same as everyone else. The more he tries to be a hero, the bigger ass he makes of himself. He’s intelligent, well read, a good leader, and a compassionate man, but he keeps letting the concept of who he wants to be, who he thinks he should be, get in the way of who he is. He also hides a lot of himself from the world, most easily seen in the collection of origami models locked in his desk and the fact that nobody knows his first name is Fergus.

He hasn’t realized it yet, but the less he tries to be heroic, the more heroic he becomes. Perhaps I’m trying too hard to be something I’m not. I’m trying to figure out who I am and who I’m supposed to be. I do know I have a hero complex of my own, trying to help everyone around me even when there’s nothing I can do. I think we both need to let things go and be more comfortable with who we are.

Rua
Rua is brand new, not being used for anything yet. It is a cyborg unicorn. It doesn’t know who it is or where it came from, but it wants to know. It tries to interface with anyone it meets in an attempt to find that information. Usually it results in mimicking what that other person thinks Rua should be, not what it truly is.

I do that too. I’d love to know who I am, why I’m here. I end up social-butterflying a bit though.

This ended up being quite a bit more depressing than I intended. Perhaps I need to find some more upbeat comparisons between myself and my characters. But in my defense, a lot of people who do know them tell me they are good characters. So I guess, in a sense, that helps me feel like I’m a good person. After all, part of me is in them.

Things that make me happy

The past few entries have been about me complaining. That’s dumb, who wants to read what upsets other people when they’ve got enough bothering them on their own? So once I read something from Scott Adams’ blog (actually, the book he made by compiling a year’s worth of those blog entries) and there was one really great entry about the little things that made his life wonderful. So I’ll share some of the little things that make me thrilled. You really should appreciate all those things, even if life feels pointless and you’re not sure why you’re bothering with anything. It might actually help. Maybe.

The sleeping kid
I think kids who spent all of their energy running about and enjoying life and just pass out in the stroller, be they at Disneyland or anywhere else, are really cute.

That Friendly Hug
If I’m comfortable enough with someone to give a hug as a means of salutation, I love it.

Fancy designer drinks
Despite having the doctor tell me I need to back off on the caffeine, I do love getting fancy drinks at coffee shops. Especially when they’re made well and taste so good. There’s a cherry-chocolate-vanilla-coffee thing my school’s coffee shop sells, love that to death. And the holiday peppermint hot chocolate at Christmas time from It’s A Grind. Ooh, hot chocolate in general is amazing.

Stupid jokes
Stupid, not dirty. Stupid as in, “what’s red and goes up and down? A cranberry in an elevator!” Also, rick-rolling people in my car is funny, and pretty much anything done by the Muppets. Or any of those things that make me laugh uncontrollably without warning as they pop up in my head again throughout the day.

Stupid/nerdy
Actually, I’m really happy with anything stupid or nerdy. I just bought a mini donut maker off thinkgeek.com. I’m thrilled. And Robot Unicorn Attack makes me happy. Also talking about Star Trek and discovering I’m not the only person who saw TOS and knows there are errors in the reboot but still loves it. (Don’t touch Vulcans! Uhura can’t speak Klingon in her 40s, so how does she know it in her 20s? Nobody knew what Romulans looked like until ten years after that film took place! Where are all the other Federation races, like the Andorians and the Tellarites and the Caitians? Why the hell is Chekov there at all? And so on…)

Falling asleep next to the pool
So long as I don’t get burned, it’s amazing.

Cleaning my room and finding a ton of money I never knew I had
I leave change everywhere. When it gets back together it’s wonderful. I can go use it for the next thing on the list.

Buying myself treasures
Ice cream on a whim. A new book for no reason. I’m an impulse buyer, but I hardly ever get buyer’s remorse. It’s great.

What makes you happy? Share with me, we’ll make a huge list of happiness!

More peeves

There were a few things I remembered I hate today. Just for the heck of it, I’ll add onto the collection:

“Smile”
I despise people who assume that, because I don’t have the giant toothy grin of the type that is often worn by addicts, small children, and cartoons, that I am not smiling. There are degrees of smiling, and people need to respect that. I most especially hate a guest passing me when I either let the smile fade a little because things are getting insane for the seventeenth time in an hour and yelling, “Do it with a smile!” One: You’re a large part of the reason I’m not smiling, because 90% of the time you’re part of the group upsetting me; Two: It’s not required that I smile to the degree you choose, especially in high-stress situations. At those times, all I have to do is get the job done. Three: I am not a dog, do not give me stupid commands and expect me to perform. I don’t know you, and I don’t see any treats.
That sounds bitchy, but it really gets me angry, especially because half the time I am smiling when they say it.

Asking Questions While Walking
People do this all the time. They see me walking, they come up from a different direction, ask a question without addressing me at any point, and expect me to give a full answer. Seriously, I’m not following you to tell you what you want to know. You have a question, make sure I know you have one so I stop. It will get you a better answer anyway, I promise. I’m more likely to say, “The parade steps off at 3:30, but won’t get down here until 4:00,” if you talk to me than I will if you ask me as you pass by. Passers-by usually get an answer like, “3:30,” and me carrying about my business at a pace drastically different than theirs.

Interrupting
Everyone is important. In fact, Walt Disney wanted his guests to all feel like VIPs so he originally intended the entryway to be covered in red carpet, but because that’s unfeasible the Imagineering team convinced him instead to use red bricks which are still used today. That means everyone is as special as everyone else. People who interrupt me when I’m talking to someone else are stupid and rude. They’re usually asking the same question as the one I was answering for the people in front of them, and this is always the case when I’m spieling to a large group. Wait your turn.

ECV Rudeness
Hey, guess what? That ECV you rented for way too much money doesn’t actually give you the right to run through me or anyone else at Disneyland. If it’s your own property, remember to charge it before you leave the house because you can’t charge it while in Disneyland. No, I don’t need your key to move it, because I know how to put it in neutral, a setting you were unaware you had. And the ADA laws make you equal to everyone else, they don’t give you the right to push people around and demand preferential treatment. If you don’t get on a ride instantly through the Guest Assistance Line, get over it. Everyone else had to wait in line. Like I said in the above complaint, you may be a VIP, but so is everyone else at Disneyland.

Politics
This usually only comes up at Opera House, but for the love of whatever you hold dear, do not talk to me about your political views. I don’t care if you hate Obama, or whether Lincoln really was the greatest president, or the article you wrote and had published in the editorial section of your local free online paper or whatever. Seriously I don’t. It’s not a comfortable subject for me, especially when I’m working, and it’s often totally inappropriate. Please don’t do this. Also, please don’t drag Walt Disney into whatever you’re unhappy about. He’s been dead for a long time, and I’m pretty sure you don’t know him, so why are you telling me what he thinks about anything? Technically I consider this to be politics as well.

There are still more, but they’re a bit less straight-forward.

What about you? Have any pet peeves you’d like to share? They can be anything, work related, home life, general peeves, they’re all welcome here.

Extra Stupid in the Disney Water

This last weekend, and in fact quite a lot of the time I’m at work, I see really stupid people. This weekend was amazing, however. My friend Alex put it well when he said, “They must have put extra stupid in the Disney Water.” So I decided to tell some of my favorite dumb guest stories. I admit, some of the miscommmunication occurs because Cast Members live in the Disney universe and think in a completely different manner than regular humans, but these people are stupid.

Walt Junior
This is the best one I’ve had in a long time. I’m in the Opera House, home of Great Moments with Mister Lincoln. Billy and I are both standing under a large but generally unnoticed sign that reads “Great Moments With Mister Lincoln,” but because there’s a Disney museum in our front lobby, complete with the horrendous video featuring stupid Steve Martin and Donald Duck and a few highlights of the first fifty years of Disneyland history, many people get confused. A man came up and started this conversation:

Guest: “What is this show?”
Me: “It’s called ‘Great Moments with Mister Lincoln,’ sir.”
Guest: “…What’s it about?”
Me (trying not to exchange glances with Billy): “It’s about President Lincoln.”
Guest: “Ooh! Does he talk about Disneyland?”
Me (now exchanging that glance): No, he speaks about himself and the war. It’s–”
Guest: “Oh.”

He turned back to the Steve Martin video he’d been watching in the first place. After a couple of minutes, he announced that he had a question, loud enough for everyone in the building to hear him.

Guest: “I have a question!”
Me: “Yes?”
Guest: “What do you get if you’re born on Walt’s birthday?”
Me: “…A smile and some applause?”
Guest: “AW MAN! I thought I was, like, gonna get the keys to the Kingdom, and meet Walt Junior…”

Considering that Mister Disney only had daughters and that the family is hardly tied to the park at all any more, I opted to smile weakly and retreat. Does he think he’s the only person born on December 5th? Or that everyone else wanted to hear him? Yikes.

Ambiguous
Another Opera House story. This kind of thing happens a lot, and it bugs the hell out of me. A woman walked up to me, gestured with a broad sweep of her hand to the back half of the building, and asked, “What is it?” There is a lot that she could be referencing. There is another room, a beautiful hand-carved model of the Capitol building, a lot of paintings, the entrance to the theater (seen as a huge bank of doors), a set of maquettes from it’s a small world and the Country Bear Jamboree, and a display case of attractions from past, present, and future. Also included in the sweep of her hand was the Steve Martin video and the sign that I mentioned before reading “Great Moments with Mister Lincoln.”

I’m sorry, this is a stupid question. I don’t read minds, and considering that there are several good contenders for “it” I really don’t know how to answer. I made the assumption she was talking about the show. I guessed right, but this happened:

Me: “It’s a show called Great Moments with Mister Lincoln, ma’am. It starts in about twelve minutes.”
Lady: “I know that. What IS it?”
Me: “It’s a recreation of the show we originally had in 1965. The first half is a short movie, and after that the President stands up gives a short speech. It’s ninety-five percent the same show Mister Disney saw. The biggest difference is that Lincoln is now the most advanced audio-animatronic figure in the world” (By the way, I always try to lure people in by making it sound like the coolest thing since Pokemon. Doesn’t always work, but I always do it.)
Lady: “What about the other Presidents?”
Me: “You’re thinking of The Hall of Presidents, in Florida.”
Lady: “But it used to be here.”
Me: “No, it was built in Liberty Square. Ours is the original.”
Lady: “No, they had all the presidents here. I remember.”
Me: “No, this has always been Mister Lincoln.”
Lady: “Are you sure?”
Me: “Very. I’ve worked in both parks.”
Lady: “Uh-huh…so it’s just Lincoln?”
Me: “Just President Lincoln.”
Lady: “I’m sure there was another show. Wasn’t the Lincoln thing in the back of the park or something?”
Me: “No, it’s always been right here.”
Lady: “That show with the presidents is pretty good.”

I can’t quite remember how this ended. I’m pretty sure I smiled and nodded before drifting off or got interrupted by a kid trying to pin-trade, much to my relief.

Food, Drink, and Strollers
One last Opera House story. We allow food, drinks, and strollers only in the front lobby. In part this is because the carpet in the rear lobby is a custom designed and brand new carpet, partly because, like any other attraction in the park, we don’t want you spilling your stuff everywhere. Strollers don’t fit well, take up space people could be using, and destroy carpet quite nicely. Besides, nobody wants dents in the doorframes or to be clocked in the head by a clumsy folded stroller-wielding parent. Anyways, I usually stand on the border between the two lobbies as we call the guests back to watch the prologue for the Lincoln show to make sure nobody does bring “contraband” into the back room. A family came up, all with mostly-full boxes of popcorn. I spoke to the woman in front.

Me: “Excuse me, ma’am. Unfortunately we don’t allow food past this point. You can either finish it outside or fold over the top so it doesn’t spill.”
Woman: “But I just bought it!”
Me: “I’m sorry ma’am. You can fold the top over if you want to go in, or you can leave it outside.”
Woman: “So the popcorn can’t come inside like this?”
Me: “No.”

She turns away angrily, talking to her family. Several others have popcorn boxes as well. Literally two minutes later, a man I assume was her son comes up to me with his popcorn box and that of the woman.
“Could we come in if we fold the tops down?” he asked. He wasn’t even joking, he honestly thought this was his idea.

I just nodded. The woman gave me a dirty look as she went past and muttered something about, “why didn’t she say we could do that in the first place?” as she went into the theater.

Fireworks
This one occurred when I was doing Guest Service Operations (aka Guest Control) in the Plaza area. A guest came up to me, family in tow, and started looking from me to the viewing area on Main Street as it filled up with people waiting to see the fireworks show.

Man: “Excuse me, is there a parade or fireworks?”
Me (wondering where the parade would go with everyone sitting in the street): “We’re having a fireworks show at 9:25, weather permitting.”
The man looked from me to the viewing area again. He’s clearly confused.
Man: “Will the fireworks be down here or in the sky?”
Me: “Er, the fireworks will be in the skies above the castle, sir.”
Man: “…Then why are all the people down here?”
Me (speaking a bit more slowly): “…This is the viewing area.”

The answers that could have been used included: “Because we don’t actually want to launch them AT people,” “Because this is neither the Fourth of July nor your Uncle Harry’s front yard,” or, “Because the kind that don’t go off in the sky are usually illegal.” I am so proud I didn’t say any of these.

Swimming at the Jungle
I was standing at the rear load position at Jungle Cruise. I frequently get the same questions over and over there, so the responses I give are silly and somewhat standardized now. Every once in a while, someone is too thick to understand what is going on. This was the case with one woman’s teenage daughter. The mother got it, but the girl was clueless.

Mother: “How deep is the water?”
Me: “Want to find out?”
Mother (chuckling): “No, no.”
Me: “Good, neither do I!”
Teenager: “It’s not deep though, right?”
Me: “You tell me.”
Teenager: “Huh?”
Mother (still laughing): “Has anyone ever fallen in?”
Me: “Sure.”
Teenager: “But you said it wasn’t deep!”
Me: “I did?”
Teenager: “It can’t be deep!”
Me: “Why not? It’s a Jungle.”
Teenager: “But how deep is it?”
Me: “I don’t really want to find out.”
The mother is trying not to laugh at her daughter again.
Teenager: “Why not?”
Me: “I’m not going in there to find out!”
Teenager: “Huh? Why don’t you ask?”
Me: “The last guy who asked went in and never came back. I think the crocodiles got him. Plus I can’t swim.”
Teenager: “Huh?”
The boat finally arrived and I put her and her mother on the boat. Lucky lady, with a brilliant kid like that.

Not So Dumb
I’m going to end with a little boy who did not have a dumb question. As I launched into the exit spiel at the end of a fairly good Jungle Cruise trip, a little boy, probably about five, looked at me and said, “That was really cool. I have a question.” After I got through the required bit about watching steps and heads, I turned to him and said he could ask away.

“Can you die on this ride?”
“I-I’ll answer that in a second,” I said.

I continued running the exit spiel on automatic, and then, right when I was about to say something glib about hippos, he looked up at me again and said, “Nevermind. I already know the answer. Goodbye!”

I want to know his answer. The best I came up with was, “Sure, a little bit on the inside each time.” But that’s not appropriate, and at his age he wouldn’t have understood. I was just happy I came up with something witty even if I didn’t say it.

Sometimes I wish we had this sign up at Disneyland. Then I remember that we would make no money if we did something like this.

More People on the Bus

Today, to my surprise, seemed to be National Be Awesome To Your Fellow Human On The Bus Day. People were polite, nobody yelled or preached or swore profusely. When the bus got crowded, people stood up to make room for people who needed the seats more than them. Apparently I’m in that category, because both coming and going I had someone give me their seat. One set was a bunch of teenage boys.

You read that right. Teenage boys. Acting not only politely, but chivalrously towards the ladies on the bus.

It was kind of awesome.

In other news, I couldn’t find a picture for this. Instead I found this nice thing:

This picture is full of win. Whoever made this is a winner.

People you meet on the bus

I use public transportation. I’d like to think of myself as an average commuter. I just want to get from point A to point B with as little hassle as possible. I don’t have a car, but some people ride it because it’s cheaper or they’re “going green” or because, in one case, the person is lazy. Riding the bus makes it very clear to me just how strange people are. Perhaps it is just that they are not in a private arena that I notice them more, but I’m pretty sure people on the bus are the strangest I’ve ever seen. There are also a lot of jerks and morons on the bus. I’ve decided to document a few of my favorites (the ones that made me cringe inside).

1.) The Homeless Woman
Now, by no means am I stereotyping. This is a specific homeless woman. She is thin and usually clean, and she doesn’t have a lot of belongings that get carried along with her on the bus. She’s probably not homeless, but doesn’t live in a house, if that makes sense. She does, however, stink of cigarette smoke. A lot of cigarettes. To be clear, I’m talking about a pack or two immediately before getting on the bus. Not only that, but she is opinionated and wants to share this with the world. Nothing in the world will stop her from starting a conversation with you. You can stick your nose in a book, blast your mp3 player, even start a conversation with somebody else, and she’ll start talking to you. The key is not to look at her, but few people know that. She’s not really that bad a conversationalist, even if she only talks about trivial things like where you work. Her opinions change though, and quickly. She once went from asking me to borrow my cellphone (which had no air time, but did have texting because I use pay-as-you-go) to telling me not to point that thing at her for fear of the evil radiation that was coming from it and that I was going to Hell for having it. She’s also gone from being a God-fearing woman to a to-the-death atheist in seconds when a Biblethumper came after her. Very odd, but a regular on the bus.

The Redneck Friend of the Busdriver
There is a man who I have thankfully not seen a good long while. He’s in his late forties, scruffy looking beard, unkept and ugly clothing, and is one of the most uncouth people I’ve had the misfortune to see. He stands at the front of the bus, blocking the entrance and having a conversation with one particular female busdriver. The driver is an unpleasant woman, very rude to her passengers and likely to zip past a stop if you aren’t jumping up and down in front of the vehicle. He is far worse. If we weren’t in Southern California, I would say this man was probably married to his cousin and probably is the offspring of two siblings. Yes, he’s a massive redneck, except he seems to indicate he has a job.
He begins a bus trip by voicing his opinions on everything. These opinions are usually full of swearing and bigotry. If people are not white, stupid, employed, and work the same hours as he does, they are either worthless or just plain stupid. “It’s funny when the $*%@ fare goes up. All these mother$#(%s are gonna fergit an be #%@!ed off!” Very cute. Also enjoyed him telling the driver how they should stop running the buses at night. After all, he didn’t ride it after 6:00pm and therefore nobody else of worth could possibly need it after then. Therefore, the OCTA was losing money operating. I happen to ride it later than 6:00, and it is always in use.
As I mentioned, he also abuses other passengers. The problem is, the driver not only doesn’t tell him to stop, but supports him. If she voices an opinion about someone, he will agree (even if he just said the exact opposite) and go after them. He once started insulting an older woman who was having trouble finding the correct change in her bag. The driver made a rude comment about throwing her off, and she frantically started digging for the rest of her money. The redneck started yelling at her. Every word out of his mouth was rude. I offered to pay for her, but she didn’t want to accept that. When she finally found the missing change she made the mistake of standing up and trying to put it into the farebox. The redneck started snarling that she needed to shower (she didn’t smell when she sat next me, but I could smell him from where I sat) and to watch where she was going. He also claimed she stepped on his shoes. Considering the condition they were in, it hardly seemed a problem. He was also at least twice her size, so how she could have hurt him is beyond me. The driver allowed this. I’m still totally disgusted with them, and I’m very glad that driver got taken off my route. I think the redneck may have followed her.

Obnoxious Teenager
This is a more generalized person, but I’m thinking of a few in particular. I’m thinking about the girl who comes on the bus, iPod turned up loud enough that you can hear the lyrics and chewing gum with her mouth open. She’s got a trendy outfit on: a pair of false sheepskin boots and shorts cut off so high they are practically underpants, and a bright pink backpack. In her eyes is the dull look usually found in beef cattle. Usually this person gets on the bus at a school. She is the only important person on Earth. She doesn’t care about courtesy, the rules, or anyone else around her.
There was one girl (but this happens frequently) who took over two seats in the front of a rather crowded bus. My sister had the fortune of getting on the same bus. The girl ignored all the people standing around her, a veritable sea of rear ends floating around her face. Although nobody begrudged her the seat she claimed for herself, the thought of moving her backpack onto her lap or even the floor never crossed her mind. Glares and snide comments did nothing to convince her she was in the wrong. Thankfully everyone around her was young and able to stand.
Another example of this creature also bothered my sister. This was the rare male version. Again, a crowded bus, and no seats anywhere to be found. The teenager and my sister were both, once again, sitting in the front seats. On the LBT, these are reserved for the elderly and disabled. An old woman came on the bus, but she could not find a seat. Being a bit proud, she did not ask for help. It seems chivalry truly is dead. The teenager saw her clinging to the pole as the bus lurched, but never bothered to offer her a seat. My sister glared at him, then tried significant looks from him to the old woman. Finally she said something about standing up, which he ignored. A sarcastic comment probably followed; I can’t be sure, I wasn’t there. She ended up giving up her own seat to the old woman. At least somebody has a little bit of class.

Scary Crazy Guy
This one is not from the bus, but from the Metro system. A small group of friends who met supposedly to have a Bible study decided to go to Hollywood. On the way home, one of the girls had a creep sit next to her and start hitting on her. Being sheltered, she didn’t know how to deal with this. We all moved to a different part of the train. Another man came on, and sat next to my sister and on top of me. I have a knack for not being noticed when I don’t want to be, but this was ridiculous. He was missing an eye, an arm, and his teeth. He smelled as though he’d spent a lot of money he didn’t have at a bar and the clothes he wore were in poor repair. He initially went after my sister, laughing at his own jokes and generally creeping everybody out.
“Do you have a quarter?”
“No,” Justine, the so far unnamed sister o’ mine, said.
“Will you marry me?” he said. “Ha ha, I got you! I got you!”
This kind of random insanity continued until he noticed our pretty young sheltered friend. She sat between the two eldest members of our group, the leaders of the Bible study. She was still upset from the weirdo bothering her before, and tears were streaming down her face. The crazy man immediately jumped to a conclusion. She must be crying because the man sitting next to her was abusive. He started asking the girl what was wrong, and she shook her head and refused to answer. The crazy guy was told to leave her alone by the man of our group, and the crazy guy immediately started abusing him. It escalated quickly. He was going to get his friends to help the girl and beat up the guy. Although I doubted the existence of these friends, he was becoming increasingly frightening. Finally a new stranger came onto the train. He had no time for the crazy guy’s rantings. He pointed out that our friend was probably crying because of “jerks like you” (the old crazy guy). We ended up getting off the train early, figuring Compton was safer than staying anywhere near him any longer. Interestingly, we all wanted to get off at the same time, but none of us discussed it beforehand. A very strange experience indeed.

The Fake Sleeper
I’m not innocent of pretending to be asleep to avoid speaking to people on the bus. I am not guilty of putting my feet on the seat next to me, leaning against the side of the bus, and pretending to sleep to keep a sense of personal space. I watched a man do just this. At first I thought he was an ass because he put his feet up before nodding off. Turned out I kept seeing him glance around to see if anyone noticed, and that’s just bad.

The Nude Model Cast Member
I’ve mentioned working for Disneyland before. There are a lot of rules about what you can and cannot do. For example, it’s undesirable to wear your costume (work uniform) out in public unless you have to, i.e. riding a bus to and from work. I’m not the only one who does it. However, if a cast member is wearing that costume, they are not to wear their nametag. What we do off property reflects on the company, and they are very protective of their image. One of the women I see regularly on the bus commute is a custodial cast member. We don’t take much notice of each other, unless something unusual is afoot.
I last saw her on the bus when she sat in the seat in front of me and started addressing envelopes. She held the envelopes up high enough that I could see what she was writing. Considering I was bored and it was right in front of me, I looked to see who was getting what I thought were greeting cards. I don’t remember the name, but I remember seeing an acronym and a P.O. Box address. Not really that interested, I turned away. She pulled something else out of her bag: a Kodak photo envelope. Still thinking nothing of it, I turned my attention to the window. She rifled through the photos and I saw it through the corner of my eye. Something about the pictures called me back. Something was wrong here, and the guy pretending to sleep across the aisle seemed to know too from the way he kept looking up at her before quickly shutting his eyes.
The pictures were not innocent. They were nude photos of that cast member. She made no effort to hide them. Several other people noticed them. This is not an attractive woman, and the photos didn’t make her look good at all. It was then that I noticed the woman was not only wearing her work costume, but had her nametag with the word “Disneyland” and the castle emblazoned above her bold-print name.
Although I thought I not be able to think her any stupider, I saw that same cast member at work while on the parade route. We had a lot of trouble with the foot traffic on Main Street. The fact that cast members in Town Square didn’t do their job is neither here nor there. I tried to get up to the top of Main Street to help take down the ropes. Traffic couldn’t move either way. Part of the problem was the aisle that we had cleared to keep things moving in two directions was blocked by a custodial cast member. The one from the bus. Standing there, doing nothing. The trash cans are along the curb behind the crowd watching the show. She had no business being there, but standing there with no intention of moving made the entire situation worse. That nametag means people will listen to her, and if she moved people would have followed her example. Standing in the middle of a traffic jam doing nothing only made people angry.

So generally, people who use public transportation are strange. I suppose, much as I don’t want to do it, I’d better include myself in that.

I've waited in this kind of line before. And I always end up next to someone "interesting"

Ducks

When I was stupid and just starting high school, my best friend, her brother, and my sister went to the El Dorado duck pond with a video camera with the intention of filming ourselves being stupid. There was a brief spat of someone, either my friend or her brother, “snapping” matched. The match would be struck and then, in the same movement, flung forward after being lit. The trouble with flinging things around at a duck pond is that the ducks, not knowing any better, immediately rush over and try to eat whatever is being flung at them. My friend cried out, “Ducky, no! Don’t eat the match!” The ducks ignored her, happily snapping up the extinguished matched from the green pond water.

Ducks are strange. They’re not really that bright, and they’re shaped strangely. They can’t even walk properly. I’ve never tried it, but I’m told duck meat is oily and not that good. But they’re cute, and generally I like them. I’d better, I see them all the time at work. Mostly we have mallards. There is, however, a wood duck named Sampson. He has a girlfriend, who is a mallard. There’s also a pair of mallards who nest backstage. Before the big refurbishment which came with a lot of safety poles being added to the skipper’s break area, the two mallards, Abigail and Porthos, used to come up and sit with us and sometimes bum food. Abigail would very rarely hop up on someone’s lap trying to get food when she was egg heavy. Those ducks I know and like. Most of the rest of them I either ignore or dislike. There’s one really obnoxious female mallard who spends all her time making loud, “come back” calls and attacking all the other ducks. I don’t like her one bit.

My biggest problem with ducks at work, apart from their obnoxious habit of sleeping in front of a sensor, is the fact that they are not sterile. They are quite happy to put their ducky love lives on display. It’s not just the “non-consensual sex” and the fights and all that. It’s ducklings I can’t stand. There is nothing in the world more distracting than a baby animal, especially one that you do not want to draw attention to. They get lost all the time and squeak for their mother, and people insist on pointing them out when a.) I’m trying to point out an elephant or b.) I’m driving and the morons swim right in front of the boat. They never get hit, but they hide so that the guests can’t see them and people think I did. It’s not fun.

Some ducks are too stupid to make it to the part where they raise their ducklings to be annoying. One comes to mind that laid an egg mid-air on a woman riding the Jungle Cruise. Others can’t stand a particular baby and abandon it. If we toss it to a family with ducklings of a similar age, the new mother will not notice that she has a new mouth to feed. We’ve had ducks with seventeen little ones chasing them. Ducks are evil around other families though and I’ve seen the mothers go after ducklings with the intent to kill. Of course, this is coming from the same species that participates in massive gang rapes despite supposedly being at least seasonally monogamous. Maybe I should expect all aspects of duck life to be violent and horrible.

Sampson and his unnamed girlfriend, who for simplicity’s sake we’ll call Delilah, have never had ducklings. This is part of why I like them. After some research I’ve found that the two species are compatible, but for some reason the pair never have had a flock of little brats squeaking like broken machinery and getting lost and distracting people. I’ve seen them have adventures on Main Street together, and once in the little pond in front of Frontierland. I think they’re cute together, which is why I was very dismayed today to find out that there is a jerkoff male mallard who is trying to break them up. Until now, Delilah has made it clear that she has a boyfriend, and Sampson has made sure they know exactly who that boyfriend is. Today it seems that the two allowed some other man to hang out with them and eventually the two mallards were seen sitting together and Sampson sat on the side glaring at them. I’m tempted to take matters into my own hands and shoot the slimy intruder. Stealing someone’s girlfriend is not cool, even if you’re a duck.

One last thing in my duck ramblings. Ducks have a very weird set-up for their genitalia, basically designed in order to either take what he wants by force or to avoid unwanted suitors from having their way. Ducks also don’t always find a mate, which causes them to get into these gangs and go after unwary females. The result is horrific to watch, especially considering children are often watching. It’s interesting that some of those lonely mallards decide that finding a girl isn’t all that important. Some of them just want somebody to love and go off in gay couples. There’s one this year who I’ve seen cuddling and swimming together. So far they haven’t shown themselves to be interested in anything further, but the major part of the mating season is yet to come. I like them. They need names too. If I find any good ones, I’ll let you know.

Jungle Duckies!

Light Pollution

It’s the holiday season. I love this time of year, with presents and deserts and pretty decorations everywhere. Christmas lights are the most common decoration I’ve seen. They light up at night, they come in all different colors, and they’re sometimes used as a weird decoration in the homes of teenagers and college-age people, so they don’t necessarily have to come down when the season is over. One person a few blocks from me keeps the Christmas decor out well into March. Although one of my friends decided this meant I lived in a white trash area, I beg to differ. It just means those people are lazy.

But December isn’t the only time of year you can go out and see pretty lights at night. The sky is dotted with thousands of stars and sometimes planets and satellites, all visible with the naked eye. More detail, and just more celestial bodies, can be seen with the aid of binoculars, telescopes, and those wonderful photographs with the different color filters put in. There are classes in colleges, clubs, magazines, and an entire hobby industry devoted to astronomy. Not to mention astrophotography and other specializations. Stargazing can be enjoyed any time of the year by anyone. Hardcore star geeks can enjoy a night watching the stars just as much as a bunch of kids going camping.

Well, not exactly. We live in a technological society. We have a love affair with electricity. Lights are left on all night to ward off potential thieves. Streetlights and stoplights shine through the darkness. Neon signs advertise the establishments they rest upon. The United States of America can be seen from space. It looks like someone has been playing with a LiteBrite board. Nowhere is safe. The dark skies above us are obscured.

I knew this was a problem, but it didn’t really sink in until someone on Facebook invited me to see the Leonids meteor shower earlier this month. I decided to put aside my novel-writing for a few hours and convinced the family to join me in staring at the sky. From home we could see maybe one or two of the brightest stars, and definitely no falling ones. We drove out to Seal Beach, just next to the Navy base. There were a few more stars when we parked the car. We decided to get away from a row of houses and their light trespass by stepping out onto the sand. About a hundred feet in, I could see about 200 stars, and I did see a couple of them falling. Within one hundred feet, the difference in the lighting made such a difference that I wanted to scream at everyone I knew to turn off their lights at night. I especially wanted to smash the eighty million useless lights lining the pathways at my condo complex. Nobody needs a light every four feet along the path in addition to streetlights and lampposts strewn all around. I have a telescope I have never been able to use because you simply cannot see the sky at night here.

I’m not saying you need to turn off all your Christmas lights or anything like that. I am saying it would be nice if people were more responsible with their lighting. There are options to create less glare and less light trespassing, both problems people deal with on a regular basis. Even adjusting the lights on those stupid ugly vehicles (SUVs) that are constantly on high beam and shine directly into the rearview mirrors of a regular car would help. There are plenty of websites out there with information on the subject. The International Dark Sky Association does a good job, but then again so do places like astronomy.com You could just put the words “light pollution” into Google, that would show you a lot.

Light pollution is everywhere. Observatories are put at high elevation to give them better views, but even their high powered machinery gets interference from all the light we put out. The famous “Dark Skies” of the Southwestern USA are affected. Some urban locations have no stars visible whatsoever. Humans are designed for light and dark, and with our obsession with light we are depriving ourselves of the most easily obtained resource in the world. Small wonder people can’t sleep at night and our circadian rhythms are all off kilter.

So go ahead and enjoy the Christmas lights. Leave them on, let them shine. Just remember that a lot of them represent the stars (well, one particular star in some cases) that they’re obscuring. Once the holidays are over, let’s make an effort to let those stars shine. I want my children to be able to make a wish on a shooting star. Heck, I want to make that wish. And wouldn’t it be a shame to change the nursery rhyme to “Star light, star bright, ONLY star I see tonight…”? Yes, yes it would.

Now go turn out that light.

Falling stars are endangered. Help protect them for future generations.

Sovereign Park Estates…

I had hoped to be writing a happy entry on reading and writing and books and so forth, but I think it might be better to address a growing problem in my passive-aggressive blogging manner. I know some of you will think down upon me, but I still live with and off my parents. While I was on an internship with Disney in Florida in early 2006, we were told that our home was being sold from under us to a friend of the owner. This came after we had offered to purchase the place for several years and had been assured that we would know if he ever decided to sell, but that is neither here nor there. After searching high and low throughout the city, we found a condominium that we (actually, that Mom) liked. This is where we live now, in a set of bland white buildings not far from my college called Sovereign Park Estates.

There is nothing “sovereign” about this place. Like most complexes, it features a homeowner’s association of sorts, and sports a shiny new management company. The complex was constructed and the charter established in the late fifties or early sixties, when it was legal to write in completely prejudiced rules for who can and cannot live here. Many of those rules haven’t been updated since that time, and many have been added that are just as inane or even worse. From observation, the average age of the residents is 320, and some may already be dead without knowing it. Seeing a fire truck or an ambulance show up is a regular occurence. Situated next to a flood control canal, it boasts a wide variety of fauna, including rats, cockroaches, and mosquitos, not to mention a rampant spider problem and the occasional ant infestation. There are at least five or six “For Sale” signs out front, and nobody moving in to the empty homes.

I mentioned the rules being ridiculous here. Let me give a few examples. In this complex, you may not use your garage as a storage space (despite the fact that, on paper, you own it) due to limited parking in the complex. However, there are only certain spots that residents may park in after 6:00pm. There’s also a set of parking permits and yellow stickers that both have to be on the car for it to be kosher. Tonight as I came home from work, getting in just past midnight, three cars were being towed from perfectly legitimate parking spots. I’m normally the last person home at night, so I can safely say that nobody would be deprived of a parking spot because of those three people. I’m guessing either they were people who were visiting or forgot to put both sticker and parking pass (some of which arrived late or not at all) on the car. It’s Saturday, by the way. That means those people probably won’t get to retrieve their cars until Monday and have therefore been screwed over twice.

That’s not the only thing that doesn’t really make sense around here. Two years ago, it was decided to repaint all the doors from a rather fun shade of light green to a dull brown. Everyone was required to have their doors open for the painters on the day their building was scheduled to be worked on. That ran late. Several months late. Eventually the painters did show up, yet again on a Saturday so as to be as inconvenient as humanly possible to anyone who wanted to leave home. The job was done poorly. The wood of the doorframes was warped, the weather stripping removed and usually destroyed instead of being replaced, flecks of tan paint were everywhere, and the paint began to come off almost immediately, having never been properly sealed for California weather. A second round of painting was deemed the best course, and the same exact painting company was hired. I’m sure either someone on the board is related to one of the idiots or they’re the cheapest painters in all of Southern California, and possibly both. Our door was never repainted.

One of the biggest reasons there are problems is because the homeowner’s association is actually composed of everyone in general, who can show up to certain meetings but have absolutely no clout, and the five Board Members. Who decided these five people were to be in charge of all of us is unclear, and all of them are well beyond retirement age. They have nothing better to do with their time than decide that it is somehow a high offense to use one of the five swimming pools in the complex if it is not the one closest to your own housing unit and to proclaim that while owning a dog and a cat is perfectly acceptable it is not okay to bring a pair of rather old lap dogs that have lived together for their entire lives into our community. Logic doesn’t seem to apply to their decisions. When the announcement that several of the parking spots, complete with painted lines on the ground and the same five foot white wall that the other spots boast, were not for overnight parking, my father had the nerve to ask one of them why that might be. The response?

“People were abusing the priviledge.”

Abusing what priveledge? If we live in this place, surely we have the right to park in a spot so long as we’re not blocking access for the biweekly paramedic run. For that matter, if people paid the absolutely mindless homeowner’s fees, shouldn’t they be allowed to use the facillities they are paying for and have them kept in good condition? One of our pools was so poorly cared for it literally gave people chemical burns if they were stupid enough to venture into it. I learned the hard way. After it stayed that way for the better part of six months, the pools were all drained into the street’s sewer system and refilled. Nobody put up a sign to alert us to this problem, even after we complained about this issue. The pool was never closed. We simply stopped using it after several of us had wonderful experiences. Another pool issue happened after the city changed the laws about filters. This meant they all had to be replaced, and the pools were all drained. However, for some reason our mainentance fees went up by four hundred dollars when the maintenance crew had less work, not more. At a meeting one of the residents questioned this, but a real answer wasn’t supplied. Those fees never went down either. The heater to the pool closest to me was broken and never repaired. When my sister and I decided to visit the next one over, we were confronted by one of those board members, who was clearly not going for a swim unless she intended to do so in high heels and a dress. After explaining the situation, she tested the water in the heated pool, told us the heater seemed to be working fine, and probably went off to put an entry in her community spying notebook so that she could make note of our evil desire not to get hypothermia by using a pool she wasn’t going to.

The management company is a new problem. Before Sovereign Park Estates decided to join up with Paragon Management, a rather foolish man had been in charge of running the place. We had troubles with the man, to be sure. In fact, at the end of the year he was kicked out, having upset so many people so many times that keeping him on was no longer valid. And so we traded a man who was available perhaps twice a week at awkward times with some very poor decision making skills for a company where the managers are constantly unavailable, new and more extravagant idiocy is implemented, and harrassment is common. Because they did not read the paperwork properly, they accused my family of using our garage for storage and threatened to evict us for noncompliance. The letters consistently stated that we were using a garage that was on the other end of the complex from the one we store my father’s car in every single night. The letters were rude, the woman writing them consistently went on vacation the day they arrived at our home, and it literally took us taking a day off work and having the woman show up, meet us in person, and be shown the garage that we use, complete with the electronic key that can only be used on our garage door, was not the one on their paperwork. She apologized and then sent one more letter regarding the same clerical error. The only way the company, which never sets foot on property unless it absolutely has to, would know if anyone was using a garage for storage would be to have reports sent in from residents. I feel safe saying this is probably supplied by the board members who have nothing better to do with their time.

I’m aware that moving into a condominum complex comes with rules. But shouldn’t these rules be of use to the community and make sense? Things like locking the laundry room are fine, but which of the pools I can use when nobody else in the complex is using any of them should be my choice. When we moved in, this was a temporary situation. Had the economy not gone barrelling into the bowels of Hell, we would have moved out again long ago. As it stands, we can’t afford to leave. We did, however, offer to sell it back to the management company, provided they give us the same amount of money we paid for it initially. So far they haven’t accepted, although with the extra money they’ve been stealing through raised fees for less service they could probably afford to do it. Maybe not in regards to their image. It would be like Flik standing up to Hopper in A Bug’s Life. Everyone else would link arms and launch them out of a cannon. Or eat them alive, whichever came first.

And if I weren’t paranoid and passive-aggressive, I would be howling my protest at the doorsteps of those board members every single day. Hey, Paragon Management and Board Members, you suck. I’m just afraid you’ll sic Thumper on me if I say it to your faces. I know you have him somewhere back there.

"You are mindless, soil-sucking losers!" --Paragon Management

That’s just stupid

I went people-watching before my shift a few days ago. Disneyland is the perfect place to watch people, especially when you are in plainclothes so nobody can tell you work there. My original intention was to try to get on the Haunted Mansion with the Nightmare Before Christmas overlay, and possibly to get on the Space Mansion: Ghost Galaxy overlay. What with all the hype, I actually felt a little interested. Turns out the wait for each one was over an hour. Even Indiana Jones had a shorter wait time. That’s right, the attraction responsible for a line that sometimes goes out the door, through the Jungle Cruise, and stretches down toward Main Street had a shorter wait than Mansion or Space.

My first thought was Well that’s just stupid! I rode the Disneyland Railroad instead. Twice, in fact. As I was heading up the ramp into the Tomorrowland station, I watched a family come up with a very large stroller. The thing was laden with the entire family’s belongings; I’m not sure there was room for a child in the thing. They may have been planning on saving on admission by camping out somewhere along the Rivers of America with all that stuff. At any rate, they came up the ramp without any regard for the turnstile at the top. The mother, of course, slammed the poor stroller into the turnstile at full speed. Her reaction surprised me, even if it was typical. “Ugh! That’s so stupid!”

Anything a person doesn’t understand or doesn’t agree with is stupid, have you noticed?

I’ve got more examples if you don’t believe me. When you’re stuck in traffic, I’m pretty sure you complain about how stupid the situation is. A referee who rules in favor of the rival team is stupid, isn’t he? That manager who doesn’t run things as well as you think she should is a stupid idiot, right? When you stub your toe on a rock, isn’t that stupid?

See, everything is stupid.

Why do we do that? Surely the entire population cannot be more stupid than you, right? The likelihood that you are the smartest person on the planet is very slim (even I don’t aspire to that title). And judging the intelligence of inanimate objects really is stupid. That rock you stubbed your toe on isn’t even alive, it can’t think, so how can it have intelligence (or a lack thereof)? In fact, without a lot of testing, some guessing and a dash of pure bull, there’s no way to tell how smart you are, never mind everything in the universe around you. Besides which, stupidity is relative.

Yeah, that’s right, I’m bringing Einstein into this. Not the way you think, mind you. While the man was a genius when it came to science, he was unable to tell a hairbrush from a rabid snake. That, my friends, is stupid. Similarly, while you could tell certain stupid people that 1+1=5 and they’d believe you, those same people could teach a “genius” like ol’ Albert a thing or two about fashion and style.

Of course, I’m being generous. Some people truly are stupid. I’m thinking of one or two young ladies in particular. Three, actually, but there’s one who especially demonstrates my point. While having a perfectly normal conversation with several people, this girl opens her mouth and the words, “Did you know cats are the only animal that can rape?” She paused a beat while all of us tried to figure out a.) where that came from and b.) how she could possibly believe that. People rape. Dolphins rape. Dogs go at it with anything that stands still. Heck, even she must have seen crowds of male ducks chasing after a single female when the mallard mating season came around. Disneyland has a healthy mallard population, and at least one gay couple of birds, but that is neither here nor there. Before any of us could correct her, she spoke again.

“Yeah, down in Mexico they have these things called Cabbits. Because cats are raping the rabbits.”

You’ll be happy to know I stepped in at this point and explained to her (briefly, with very short words) that cats and rabbits are not genetically compatible. They are from two different families, and the closest tie they have is under the “mammal” umbrella. It was her turn to stare at me in shock.

“But I saw it. There were pictures on the Internet!”

Yes, she did say that.

After someone else tried to explain photomanipulation with little success, I decided to give this up as a lost cause. In a subsequent conversation, a friend of mine tried to defend her, saying she’d had a rough childhood. Be that as it may, I’m pretty sure my IQ drops when I’m too close to her. The next day she interrupted a round of pointless girl-talk between about ten girls. Nothing intelligent, just chatting about boys and makeup in public so that everyone around had to hear and feel a little left out and uncomfortable. After putting her foot in her mouth even in this lax setting, the same girl burst out with, “I’m a very intelligent person.” I had to walk away before I laughed in her face.

Not really sure where I’m going with this. This is a stupid topic anyhow. Isn’t it?