Me

Posts about me!

There Isn’t Enough Suffering in Christmas This Year

Posted by

4

So. it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. And I’m finally ok with that. Because now it’s actually December.*

*And all Americans, no matter what religion or creed they are, know that Christmas – and it’s more politically correct counterpart, ChristmaHannaKwanzikah – lasts for the entire month of December until the dawn of New Year’s Eve.

I understand that Thanksgiving came late this year. That’s hard on the wild world of commerce, I know. There’s less time for massive holiday profits. Which is really what American holidays are all about.**

**I’m not criticizing. I totally love getting stuff. I am a true American.

But that’s no excuse for having decorated for Christmas before Halloween.

Santa is supposed to be building toys on Halloween

I went to the mall on Halloween. In my costume. And this is what greeted me.
This is taking the Nightmare Before Christmas a little too far, guys.

Halloween is sacred to the youth of American. And Thanksgiving is a sacred, essential part of easing us all into overly crowded, stressful family gatherings in the name of love.*** So it’s pretty uncouth to skip right over those holidays and jam holly and mistletoe down our throats before the line of December is crossed.

***Don’t worry my family. I’m definitely not talking about us. We are, of course, special, and all love each other in a drama-free way. Definitely. Our family gatherings are the ideal model for Thomas Kincade paintings.

Bruce Campbell wasn't there

In case anyone was wondering, we celebrated Thanksgiving in the refurbished Evil Dead cabin.

But now it is finally December. The time for the crisp scent of Christmas-tree pine, and stressful holiday shopping in overcrowded stores. It’s a time for merry, multi-colored lights and egg nog****  In short, we have finally hit the holiday season, and I’m a hundred percent behind it.

****Or soy nog, for those of us with a stubborn hippy streak. Or lactose intolerance. Bonus!., if you’re a drinker of soy nog, NO ONE ever steals your glass. 

But lets get down to the true meaning of Christmas: The tree.

Christmas is not Christmas without a murdered tree shedding impossible-to-vacuum needles all over your carpet. Christmas is not Christmas without trekking out into the snow to sort through hundreds of trees to pick exactly the right one. Christmas is not Christmas without men swearing under their breath as they tie the tree to their cars, scratching the roof, while women try to entertain sticky children who are fighting in the parking lot.

We all know this to be true.

But I still helped decorate my parents’ totally fake tree yesterday.

Thousands and thousands of spider eggs

Seriously. Ever since that one time I picked a tree full of spider eggs, I don’t get a vote anymore.

The above image is pre-decorations, but I’m totally proud of my garland stringing skills.

I want to be mad about the plastic and the pre-packaged lights. But I have to be honest: This tree went up in less than 20 minutes, I didn’t have to untangle a single light, and absolutely zero spider babies tried to eat me. Also, no vacuuming was involved.

Convenience is taking the suffering out of Christmas, and I’m not sure how I feel about that.

This Is Why I Shouldn’t Have the Internet

Posted by

2

Google Hangouts brings me a lot of joy. It lets me keep in touch with my friends, and pick their brains for information I know nothing about (which often makes me seem smarter than I am while at work. Thanks, friends!)

On the other hand, it is also the devil.

I'm lying. I miss the 90s.

I am so over AOL Instant Messenger.

Conversation with H.W. and Mr. L*

(You will notice Mr. L spends a vast majority of this conversation not paying any attention at all, and only chips in to impart sage advice that does not come from Journey lyrics. This is, disturbingly, the norm.)

Me: Good morning gentlemen
The world is a terrible place: Charles Manson has a girlfriend even though he murdered people and is in jail.

(Seriously. It’s true. Click the link and lose all faith in other people.)

H.W:  http://www.agamenticus.org/index.php/mt-a-webcam
GUYS
GUYS
THERE IS A MOTHERSNEEZING* SNOWY OWL ON MT. AGATMENTICUS
AND ITS ON CAM

*Mothersneezing is DEFINITELY the word he used. Trust me.

Lookit the cute!

It looked much colder than this one. But still. Snowy Owl, y’all.
Wikipedia knows you want to know about Snowy Owls, too.

Me: I’m not clicking ANY link from you that includes the word “webcam.”

(This is a lesson I learned the hard way. Do not trust H.W., especially if he’s been Googling webcams.)

H.W.: A SNOWY OWL!!!!!!
Also
Mothersneezer
This is gorgeious

Me: CHARLES MANSON HAS A GIRLFRIEND
AND I AM SINGLE
I HAVE NOT KILLED EVEN ONE SINGLE PERSON, EVER**

**Totally true fact.

H.W.: #&%!@ DATING!
SNOWY OWL!  They are very rare and this is on the fringe of its habitat

Me: Stoppit. Stop finding beauty in the world
It’s an awful place
Where CHARLES MOTHERSNEEZING*** MANSON HAS A GIRLFRIEND

***I’m going to make this a real swear if it kills me.

H.W.: Did you click it?
^%!$ &^%!#$!****

****Censored to protect your fragile eyeballs from copious swears. You’re welcome.

Me: I did. It’s beautiful.
I hate you

H.W.: acquire snowy owl
LOOK AT DAH PLOOMAGE
what a mothersneezin’ bad ass

Me: ….
You’re missing the point here

H.W.:haha
DAT PLOOMAGE

Me: A serial killer psychopath has a 25 year old girlfriend, and you watch mountains with a webcam
The world is going to end and it’s all going to be your fault
…
Stop using up all the Internet. I want to watch the owl.

(2 hours later)

Mr. L: yo dawg
Chillax
Murderers are dark, mysterious, and alluring to the female persona
The lesson you should take from this, is that you’re pleased to learn that someone is dating a murderer, and it’s not you
Because you have better taste

The real lesson, y’all, is this:

My friends are really bad at paying attention to serial killers.

Give it up, Mr. Manson

See? No one is happy about this nonsense.

Here are some things about owls:

PBS says they’re totally magic. Really. But only the Snowy ones.

Owls can swivel their heads like that girl in The Exorcist. (Only it’s not as terrifying. And way more adorable.)

Apparently Snowy Owls only mate in May, so they’re totally my birthday owls. (That could be a thing. I’m making it a thing.)

Life Lesson: Giving Advice Is Super Hard

Posted by

4

Life Lesson 7,190: Quoting Journey songs in a serious tone of voice is not the same as imparting sage advice.

(Unless the person you’re talking to doesn’t catch on – then it’s totally the same as offering high-quality words of wisdom.)

Sorry Tom Cruise

How is this not the same thing as imparting sage wisdom?
I still haven’t learned my own life lesson.

I have an unhealthy relationship with Journey. Like, I really, truly love them. Their songs bring me joy rivaled only by small children on Christmas morning. I didn’t grow up listening to them – my Dad preferred the very essential musical education staples of Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd and Rush (which is probably why I have such excellent taste in music, and such an expansive knowledge about necrophilia-related lyrics.)

Sorry Mr. Cooper. I wasn't exactly an _artiste_. It was totally true love, y'all.

Sorry Mr. Cooper. I wasn’t exactly an _artiste_.
It was totally true love, y’all.

But one day, late in my high school days, I discovered them.

The dulcet tones of their quintessential hit, Don’t Stop Believin’, convinced me that I could dance for a week straight. It was a really confusing week. Confusing and amazing.

But even more importantly than discovering that there was, in fact, music that a rhythm-less girl could move to, was learning that their lyrics are totally deep and multipurpose. By sharing such key statements as any way YOU want it, that’s the way YOU need it, and just not to stop believing, Journey’s lyrics transformed my young, impressionable mind into a fount of wisdom.

Love, True Love

Those faces are just so trustworthy and knowledgeable.
Click for the original image, which is mercifully free of MS Paint.

Or at least that’s what i thought. I’d like to share a few times I used Journey in the real world.

  • I advised strangers on the BART train not to stop believing when they looked sad.
  • I soulfully gazed into the eyes of conflicted friends and told them “Well, try and make up your mind” (A sweet lyric from “You’re On Your Own.”).
  • I confess, I lashed out during a particularly ridiculous breakup with “You make me weep and wanna die. Just when you said we’d try!” (From “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin'”)*
  • I shrugged as I told a traveler friend “They say that the road ain’t no place to start a family” as she worked through a recent breakup.

*In my defense, I really just wanted to see if I could get away with it. If we were really meant to be together, OBVIOUSLY he would have recognized the sweet words of Journey, and trusted their wise advice. Needless to say, things were over.

I still think all of the above sound both applicable and wise. However, with the advent of Google, people started catching me in my words-of-advice-reapplication. And that is when I learned that you cannot simply reapply song lyrics – no matter how amazing – into sage life advice.

Apparently.

Here is a picture of a sunset to sooth your Friday woes:

Oops. I did it again.

Just remember: Love’s like a sunshower

This life lesson is old. In fact, it probably should be numbered somewhere in the 5,000s, but I learned it several times before I bothered to write it down.

The Brookstone Catalog Is My Favorite Part of the Middle of November

Posted by

1

It’s that time of year again. That wonderful, wonderful time of year. That amazing, life-changing time of year…when the Brookstone Catalog mysteriously shows up in my mail.

And they're exactly the same!

This year I got TWO of them! Bonus!

I don’t know how I got on this mailing list. I’ve moved a lot since this first started happening, and I have never once told Brookstone I was moving. In fact, I’m fairly positive I have never once told Brookstone where I live.

Because I don’t shop at Brookstone.

Don’t get me wrong. I would swim with sharks for one of those fancy massage chairs.* But I can only commit myself to one catalog for shopping, and I choose SkyMall every time.

*Please, Brookstone? Two dreams in one!!

AHHHHHHH

I’d even swim with this totally terrifying basking shark. No, wait, I’d ESPECIALLY swim with this totally terrifying, toothless filter-feeder shark…
(Image a la the WWF)

It’s not your fault, Brookstone. SkyMall and I have been together for a really long time. When I was a person-in-progress*, my dad worked for a major airline. We flew EVERYWHERE. All the time. SkyMall became more than a way to survive endless “flight safety briefings” – it became an obsession. (A totally HEALTHY obsession. Stop judging. My cat totally needs a ThunderSweater. It can’t be just for dogs, y’all.)

*small child

When you're on a flight is the perfect time to order wedding rings.

SkyMall is a rebel. Their holiday catalog doesn’t even picture the holidays. You show ’em, SkyMall.

The Brookstone Catalog is what happens to SkyMall when it grows up. I mean, it is clearly designed for people who once shopped at SkyMall (hi, friends!), but have since acquired a positively stupid amount of money.

But catalog-versus-catalog philosophical fights aside, Brookstone’s catalog is the ideal place for me to find all the most…astonishing…gift ideas of the season. For example:

Once again: AHHHHHHH

It’s definitely not terrifying at ALL, kids!

Instead of just selling you a robot, Brookstone encourages you to turn your Robot (phone) INTO a robot. Because, you know, Siri just isn’t realistic if she doesn’t have treads.

OR:

Seriously? AHHHHHHHHH

“Really? You want to eat THAT? Using ME? I don’t think so, buddy.”

A fork that criticizes your eating habits and makes you feel fat! The PERFECT gift for anyone you know!*

*And never, ever want to talk to again!

And, of course, Brookstone’s classic selection:

AhhhhhHhHHhHhh

Seriously. Just buy the chair.

Massage tools that look both uncomfortable and awkward, carefully posed with people making even more awkward faces. I’ll take 10.

And last but not least in our feature of delightful gift ideas from Brookstone, I bring you the very best gift of all:

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

For WHO, Brookstone? FOR WHO?!

I bet if you get the criticizing fork AND this delightful nose and ear trimmer for someone, you can be sure to never, ever see them again.

So, everyone, get a Brookstone Catalog of your own. Amaze you friends. Make endless enemies. Spend a shocking amount of money. Because in the end, there’s no better way to sabotage yourself through gift giving than to trust the advice of Brookstone.

I can’t wait for next year’s catalogs.

Dating in your 20s Is Completely Awful

Posted by

5

A friend of mine (you know who you are) recently asked me why I don’t blog about my dating experiences. As a single girl in my mid-late-20s, it seems like a natural topic to dive into. Especially since I’ve spent the last eight or so months dating like it was a second job.

There is one simple reason I don’t blog about my dating experiences.

They’re awful.

AHHHHHHH

I’m starting to think I should invent a Life Alert for bad dates.

No, seriously. Over the past eight or so months, I have found myself on dates with people who tell me, in depth, about how they would survive a zombie apocalypse by murdering everyone around them (graphic details were included). I have been on dates with people who gave me stacks of their garish business cards to “distribute to my friends.” (I’m still not sure why I would do that.) I have been on dates with people who legitimately used bad pickup lines in all seriousness. I have been stalked, stood up, proposed to, and propositioned.

At first, the horribleness of mid-late-20s dating was funny. Now it’s just dull, predictable, and sort of sad. So I don’t blog about the chronicles of my romantic life because I am seriously considering getting more cats and eating a chocolate cake.

Here is a picture to brighten your day:

Happier thoughts.

You’re welcome.

In case you think I’m just not putting effort into meeting proper guys, here are the ways I have scoured the world for happy dates:

OKCupid? Tried it. Got stalked.

Plenty of Fish? Tried it. Quit due to my aversion to being murdered.

Match? Tried it. …Ok, this one wasn’t totally hopeless.

Zoosk? Tried it. Hate it.

EHarmony? …Nope. Not doing it.

Totally meeting normal people and agreeing to dates? Nope. This is not something people do in the south. Because everyone is already married.