Starring Sponge Mom and Square Me

I'm on lunch right now and what I've elected to do with my time is eat a giant sandwich and write about topic #41. Ideal co-stars. It took me approximately 52 minutes to consume said sandwich as it was VERY large, procured from Big Daddy's Pizza just across the street. Big Daddy's Pizza is the only place near (enough) work to get a decent lunch but it comes at a price and I don't mean monetarily. First, whatever you order requires tremendous upper body strength to schlepp overhead across a heavily trafficked Western Ave and into my building. Then, as all BD sandwiches are for some reason twice-wrapped and stuffed with manhands into the narrowest possible tube of a paper bag, it takes several minutes just to get to the sandwich. I realize it took me a couple of minutes just to tell you that so the latter part of my lunch hour into which I've elected to squeeze my blog entry for today has now become severely compromised. I have mere seconds to tell you what I think about "ideal co-stars" so here it is: if you're anything like me you spend the better part of each day wondering why the heck you aren't in a major motion picture of some kind right now. Not because my life is just that fascinating but moreso because whenever I see a movie and watch the actors at work I think, how hard can that be, really? Owen Wilson in Midnight in Paris sealed it for me. I can't imagine doing a worse job of bumbling through a Wood Allen script than he did, and even though I'm a chick and me playing that character would certainly change the story a bit, I feel like I could grow my hair out a little, punch myself in the nose, do two shots of Jameson and basically become Owen Wilson. No one would be the wiser. But my point is, I could easily be in a movie and so could you. If I were in a movie, I would want certain people flanking me to A.) make me look good and B.) whisper my lines to me when I get too drunk to remember and C.) hold anything I buy along the way because I hate carrying stuff. There are several Hollywood types that qualify for these positions - A.) Amy Poehler because she did it for Tina Fey and B.) that sexy black guy from Criminal Minds because it seems like he would be a good whisperer and C.) Sylvester Stallone because he can carry a lot of stuff and I would enjoy hearing him mumble about it in his slack-jawed, subtly bewildered way . Other candidates include: A.) Phyllis Diller (is she still around? If not, Joan Rivers. B.) Gilbert Gottfried C.) Kate Moss. The truth is, though, if I ever did make it in a movie about me starring me revolving around all things me, it would only make sense to co-star my real life peeps. Ideally, my mom for sure. Trouble with that is I'm fairly certain the movie, after a really catchy intro with me laughing and smiling gayly around the credits, would shift immediately to being about her. She is way more interesting due to being a "spongeface." A spongeface is someone who absorbs the sob stories of strangers in line at the grocery store, at a party, at a restaurant, etc. It's especially prevelant in situations that involve service people or frazzled mothers with all their kids (and several others they've magnetically attracted) hanging off them. My mother and my sister Tess are guilty of having kind faces and making way too much eye contact; hence, they invite epic confessions and surprising confidences from the oddest balls on the planet. I, too, inherited the sponge, but with a little more of my dad in me, I understand that with great power comes great responsibility and have learned to discourage small talk up front so the big talk never comes. Consequently, a movie about me might end quicker, but at least you know it's going to end. Put my Dad in it with me and you've got two characters sitting in an airport waiting for a flight saying nothing. Enter my Mom and sister, followed by two Hari Krishnas, a guy on a segue, a toddler pulling her own Barbie rollerboard, a pregnant teenager, an elderly couple each holding a small poodle, four Hispanic fellas and a widower.

Mom (to Dad): "Here's your sandwich."

Dad: "Who are all these people?" (takes a bite, looks around)

Mom: "Oh, they're on our flight."

(Tess accepts a poodle, hugs it and says something that makes the elderly couple laugh.)

Me: "You were only gone for 5 minutes."

Mom: "I'm worried about that pregnant girl. Should she be flying?"

(Walks toward pregnant teen.)

Me (to Dad): "Is that turkey?"

Dad (nods, says nothing)

Me (sits back, closes eyes, folds arms)

Hope you got popcorn. We might have a mini-series on our hands.

The IQ of the Beholder

What is considered a decent IQ? I think 200 is genius or something, so probably 100 would be average. Or half a genius. Depending on how you look at it. I supposed if I had a high IQ, I would know how to look at it. Truth is, I do have a high IQ but it has gotten me absolutely nowhere so far. In grade school, it was sort of important. It carried some weight. Not with other kids, of course. Unless you were looking to whoop some ass or get yours whooped. "She has the highest number...let's get her!!" And then I made everyone tackle Maureen Podlewski. I'm kidding. No one tackled Maureen. She punched me once. I was not going to mess with her no matter how high her number was. I think adults were way more into IQ's back then. Adults and Maureen. They would get all atwitter about a kid scoring higher than 160 but what did it really mean? Somewhere along the line I'd heard those tests were based on a curve, so big deal. You're smarter than the rest of us hanging out closer to the top of the bell. Good luck with that. Straight to Jeopardy! Although Jeopardy is way harder than an IQ test (unless you yell your answers really loud at the TV in a roomful of people and "sound" right all the time). If you've ever taken an IQ test, you probably know that it's just a lot of patterns and numbers and funny math. And dare I say, the more often you take the test, the "smarter" you get. You can take one on the internet right now and score a 12. Go ahead, take it again... I bet you get a 146. Then enter your cell phone for some really great offers! Things like free ballroom dance lessons and a commercial airline ticket to anywhere in the continental U.S. It's sort of sad, what's happened to the IQ, or "intelligence quotient" as we 146-ers like to call it. It's gone the way of the dodo (irony...) and vanished as a reliable measurement of one's thinker. I excel at patterns and funny math, but rarely am I challenged in real life to fill in the missing number from a series of numbers. Or count the number of boxes within a diagram. Or determine which shape comes next in a row of shapes that have been progressively altered. It's nice to get the answers right, but I still can't dial my parents' full phone number from memory, neatly pack a suitcase or hang a picture without a level. I love puzzles, I really do. Sudoku is singularly responsible for settling my nerves in any seat on an airplane. Added bonus: no one talks to me. (Unfortunate shortcoming: it does not stop babies from crying). As a kid, I read the book on how to solve Rubik's cube and then proceeded to solve every Rubik's cube in Meijer's on the weekends as my mom shopped for groceries. I enjoy colors and shapes and numbers and patterns and how everything fits together, but I still wash reds with whites, end up with pinks and throw things in the dryer that don't belong. It's really great that I can read assembly instructions and diagrams better than most (thanks to years with Legos), but I have a drawer full of extra screws, plastic nubs, tiny dowels and nuts (no bolts) that much of my furniture survives without. I'm skeptical about my IQ. If the number is high, I don't think it means you're smart. I think it means you did a good job answering some brain teasers that maybe other people could give two shits about. I like that I'm good at little challenges, tricky questions, story problems. But I hate that I have no idea how to take apart a car and put it back together again. It bugs me that I don't know much about Mars. And I could kick myself for not paying more attention during the botany unit in school. I am killing yet another beautiful plant as I sit here. It's on my window sill. The Sun Star. I think it's South African. Knowing that most South Africans visiting America do not drop dead upon arrival due to drastic climate changes, I'm thinking the demise of this plant is surely my fault. My IQ is no help with how often to water this thing. I started out giving it as much as I would need, but then again, I pee. I thought I would get smarter with age. It would seem smarts are directly related to effort at this point. If I want to be more intelligent, my pursuits must shift from idly playing games on my niece's Webkins account (Cash Cow is awesome because it's all about colors and patterns!!) to actually reading something informative. Actually retaining that information is another story, but I'm not going to put down my cocktail to pick up a book. I've got two good hands for a reason. I'm capable (and smart) enough to sip and absorb at the same time. I might even let you know what I find out...