Summer Hours For Me

A few weeks ago, some of us were sitting around talking about movies and somehow “Slackers” came up. J mentioned he’d never seen it and I said, “Oh my god! I can’t believe you’ve never seen ‘Slackers!’ Are you serious?” Then Krista said she’d never seen it either and I ran to put it on our Netflix list, astounded that they had somehow missed this landmark movie.

“Is it the one with computers?” J asked.
“No! That’s ‘Hackers.’”

They asked me what it was about and I was at a loss for a second, because it had been such a long time since I’d last seen it. Right? We got the movie right away, but it sat around for several weeks before we got around to watching it last night. And I have to say, I have no idea what this movie is. I had definitely never seen it before, and the premise wasn’t even vaguely familiar. Jason Schwartzman? So what the hell movie was I thinking of? In my head, I’d placed it squarely between “Clerks” and “Reality Bites,” some angsty 90s flick possibly starring Ethan Hawke. I know people sometimes incorporate movie and television moments into their own memories, but what about just inventing memories of movies?

* * *

I got a call at work the other day from a woman who worked for a genealogical society, wanting some information about one of our clients. The person she really needed to talk to is in a bigger office in California, and I gave her the information about contacting him. But she was worried her call would be lost at the bigger office and asked if there was something particular she should say to catch their attention. “No,” I said, “There shouldn’t be any problems. Just tell them where you’re from and that the client sent you.” She agreed to this, but I could tell she was still anxious about having to call.

“It’s just that, on top of everything else, I’m always afraid I’m going to say ‘gynecological’ instead of ‘genealogical!’”

Which made me really glad I don’t have to say “genealogical” on any sort of regular basis, because that is exactly something I would do. And that’s an odd flub to back out of gracefully.

* * *

On a shared computer in Ohio, in the search history, I came across what might be the most misguided search term ever: “pictures of me.” It was put in several times with different phrasing, and I can’t tell you how much it tickles me to think of someone desperately trying do a vanity Google and not understanding why these random people keep showing up. Then again, there were also searches for “Rachael Ray n*ked” and “s*xy Rachael Ray,” so this may have been part of a bigger, dirtier search.