‘chucky cheese!! chucky cheese!!’

thanksgiving with my family was awesome. it always is. here’s just a quick glimpse of some of the things i got to see while i was there:

a crooked wig on one family member who didn’t seem to care.

2 rollers in 1 grandmother’s hair…only 2…strategically placed rollers.

a 3 year-old stranger-child who yelled ‘chucky cheese!!’ every time my brother entered the room.

a grown woman, blaming the spilling of punch down my leg on a 1 yr old baby…for SHAME!!!

a ridiculous scene made by my brother and i while my granddad ate ‘chitlins’ in front of us…because we were both grossed out, we acted as if we were throwing up and choking to death…and in effect, almost choked him to death as he laughed at us.

someone (i shall not name names) who was ‘lady’ enough to wait until she was just outside the door of someone’s home before ripping the biggest poot i’ve ever heard by a human lady who clearly had no regard for my life or nasal passages during the act.

a really good high school football game…at least i think it was really good…as it was 37 degrees and windy, i cannot be sure about WHAT my eyes actually saw, because they were frozen & immobile by the end of the game.

…now, it’s almost Christmas…and i can’t wait to see what they show me next.

freakin’ cold.

sometimes, when the heat comes on, i feel myself sigh. sure–the warm air feels nice, because the house is chilly…but my summer’s over. it’s so cold outside at night lately, that i can already smell Christmas-time in the air. every time i’ve felt the cold wind cut through the light jacket i’m stubborn enough to keep wearing, i miss my weekends relaxing in the sun with a book.even.more. but alas, it’s just how it is.
halloween just passed and i officially participated for the first time in years…sure, i dressed as a drunk priest and my mom told me i’m going to hell on scholarship…but dressing up was pretty good fun. besides that, a good friend dressed as a nun and went with me–her reason: she couldn’t let me go to hell alone…you just don’t get any better than that.
fall time, then winter…aaack.  but it’s all okay…i get to wear layers, (which makes working out feel a little less like an emergency) i love wearing scarves, i don’t feel so ridiculous buying uncool non-iced coffee this time of year, and i got new boots…may not be too bad after all, this effin cold weather.

wasting time.

yesterday, i (yes EYE) went fishing.  i never really did anything like that when i was younger…i don’t think anybody in my family thought i’d be interested…worms and all i guess…yeah, they were right.  besides that, who’s got room in a small boat for a gangly, amazingly allergic kid and all the stuff she ‘needed’ to have with her at all times (i.e. inhalers, 4 books, lotion, 2 skin creams, an electronic game with plenty of batteries, a Rubik’s cube, and an etch-a-sketch)…WHO?  …nobody i knew. 

i actually did  hope to catch something yesterday, but i’m wondering what i would’ve done if i had…hmm…picture a quickly-rigged contraption where the fishing pole was tied to a chair/tree/small child, keeping my catch just far enough inside the edge of the water to stay alive while i run away screaming for help…and accolades.  i hope the folks that i was with didn’t actually expect me to touch anything i caught.  the bait was artificial, and i was careful not to let even a drop of water from the pond touch me…last thing i need is some gross infection…or fish bite…yet, somehow i still found the whole experience to be…relaxing.

the michael jackson cd someone had blasting from the house closest to the pond was pretty sweet too. 

yep…nothing like some good ol’ outdoorsey, all-natural fishin’ for this country girl.

lol

jus_nic

ok, sure, it’s definitely been a good, long minute since i put a complete thought out into the world, outside of  freakin’ twitter. i won’t get into how i gave in & addictified myself to yet another silly fad, just because it affords me a quick & creative way to purge the silly/dark/empty thoughts i’m known for conjuring when i’m left to my own devices–as opposed to collapsing into the naps i’m so fond of..not that i’ve given up napping…but now, i dream in tweets & chirps with celebs who take small breaks from their fabulosity for short meaningless conversations with the likes of me.
in my mind, i’ve miraculously awakened a latent humor or originality in every other thought i’ve had since creating that stupid account…and i continuously find justification in sharing said sparks of genius with millions of twits just like me, even as i read more & more that i’m eating away the last chunk of internet available to the free world with my open texts to the universe-at-large…but enough about that & back to the fact that it’s been so long since i’ve blogged that i actually forgot my username and password & was unable to log in tonight…it was pitiful.
i’m gonna get back on it though…soon. and it’s not even that i haven’t done anything worth capturing here–since my last post, i’ve returned safely (yet, sadly) from ohio, celebrated mother’s day with my very own, and traveled to atlanta to spend time with grands, complete with a trip to the one of the best aquariums i’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting.
for those of you who know i’ve begun writing a book, i haven’t stepped anywhere near that for quite awhile either…but again, i will. i hope to lay off the travelling for a minute & find my groove here at home again…so…tweet me luck!  =))

well…i know my strengths…and limitations.

…i’ve always suspected that i might be an impatient person…

the stanford marshmallow study: began in 1960—hungry 4-year-olds were offered a marshmallow, but were told that if they could wait for the experimenter to leave the room & then return, they would get 2 marshmallows instead of 1.  1/3 of the kids grabbed one immediately, a few more waited for awhile, and another 1/3 waited the entire 15-20 mins for the experimenter to get back.  this was a study about self discipline and said a lot about these children and the types of adults they would grow up to be. turns out that when checking on these kids years later, the ones who grabbed the 1 marshmallow quickly turned out to be impulsive, drug-addicted saps who were involved in unhappy relationships & were just all-around unhealthy people altogether. the ones who waited for 2 grew up to be successful, well-adjusted adults with happy, perfect kids & lives, and yachts & stuff…yeah right.
ok, first of all, who would be cruel enough to starve 4 year olds anyway?? and then only offer 1 OR 2 marshmallows??? and they could only get 2 if they voluntarily suffered longer than the others? can’t you just picture starved 4-year-old kids, crawling across the floor to a table with a single marshmallow for each of them? …no milk or anything…those poor dears. why weren’t these evil “interviewers” prosecuted? and why were the results so extreme? couldn’t there have been a happy medium…like, if you waited long enough to get 2, but rebelled and asked to be rewarded with a slice of cake…or $13 instead, couldn’t you have been viewed as..industrious…??  or if you only wanted 1 marshmallow in the first place, couldn’t you have been seen as mature or something?  …i dunno…i don’t have all the details of the study…i’m just saying.

the 2 people that i’m closest to are 2-marshmallow people…they are very patient folks who are able to pace themselves and they practice self control regularly…according to one of them, if i had participated in this study, i would’ve gobbled my 1 marshmallow immediately & then talked a couple of the patient kids into happily offering me the 2 marshmallows that they waited on so patiently…and i would’ve saved those for later. i don’t know what the study would say about that, but i’m thinking it would be something along the lines of ‘future millionaire’.

time with my family

**originally written after returning from Christmas break with my family, last year**

 hearing your grandmother laugh ’til she squeaks is sort of like when a baby gets tickled and laughs out loud for the first time…you just get all warm and it’s the sweetest, cutest, most delightful sound you’ve ever heard…and it makes you laugh…and love even more.

it’s like there’s a gas leak.  that’s what i say to myself when i feel it starting…the giggles.  that’s the only logical explanation when we begin…and can’t stop sometimes when we all get together.

it starts with just a few small chuckles at the silliest thing…then grows as we look around at each other with big goofy grins while we shake our heads.  i think at some point, it morphs…from a few of us laughing at something ridiculous…to a family reveling in the fact that we’re all content to sit with each other and tell stories of no importance and lean on the person who’s next to us…for support…and laugh ’til we’re tired & the tears come.  we save up for these conversations; it can be 3 of us or 9; and we can be in the house, car, or at the mall in a crowd that disappears completely when we start up for whatever reason…and it’s always appropriate…to us…

everybody who’s experienced some type of joyous…thing–large or small, would probably like to capture the feeling, or the smell, or the sound of that experience…to keep for themselves, or share with others, whatever the case may be…i would too.  i wouldn’t want to keep it though–i’d give a little to everybody if they asked…and i’d want to watch them hear…see their reaction to the cackles, chortles, chuckles, wheezes and such, following any silly thing we hear, say, and then rehash.

it really is just laughter…merriment…mirth…glee…a simple thing, not a requirement to the livelihood of some…but effortless and true…without malice or judgment…it’s a necessity for me.

the fact that the grands laugh just as hard the rest of us makes it sweeter…they’ve probably experienced things throughout their lifetimes that nobody should have, but they made us anyway & protected us for just these moments…

 i recharge my battery when i’m home with them & bring it all back to my life away from them…bottled up…sharing it all with everyone who amuses me…or needs amusing…and at some point, my mouth opens and they hear my family without knowing…and they laugh like us too.

fun

…you can find it anywhere you want. and your idea of fun doesn’t have to match anybody else’s, or stop or start when anyone else thinks it should; nor does it have to make sense to those lucky enough to witness it, or the poor saps who hear about it after-the-fact. there’s also no age limit, no proper time of day for it, and no explanation necessary in the first place.
the trick is: surround yourself with people who get that.
…then maybe you too can hold your own version of olympic-caliber synchronized silliness. (and for the record, the three tenths of a point deduction we suffered during this rotation was not because the one in the middle was out of formation…it was instead because the 2 on the ends were ahead of the music…i’m sure of it.)

hall of famer?? i think not!

so, i visited the rock & roll hall of fame in cleveland awhile back for the first time ever. it was one of the coolest things i’ve ever done. there was so much to see and take in! i thoroughly enjoyed all the famous trinkets, cars, musical factoids and such. i learned lots while being taken thru eras and hairstyles that i’d heard of or had nightmares about, and then immediately blacked out of my mind until i was old enough to handle the trauma of seeing my childhood school pictures with my hair in just…those…styles…all of them.

the colorfully hazy, amplified jimi hendrix displays were probably the most interesting and visually stimulating…at times, i could like, smell a hallucination coming on but sobered up in the end, and left the place with only a new fascination with the man…the legend…his fashion–which brings me to the single, most important thing i learned on that visit about pretty much everyone who had clothing displayed there: those famous folks were/are tiny!! some of that clothing displayed looked like outfits yanked right off some school kids in a wizard of oz production, or from a mini star trek movie set. there were tiny michael jackson glitter-things…itty-bitty madonna pointy-stuff—you know, if my bones and muscles were half the size of a normal adult, i could stand on my tippy-toes and moonwalk, or bend and twist and yoga myself into super-human ‘fit-dom‘ too!!
i now understand exactly why it is that i’ve not yet become famous: standing 5′10″ and weighing roughly none-of-your-business, i’m just too big to be a famous rock star…and i don’t play music. i soo wish i had figured this out sooner–i wouldn’t have wasted all this time waiting to be discovered as i yell the words ‘pour some sugar on meeeeee!!!’ louder than everyone else, while playing air guitar, standing on the table at—nevermind. i now know why i haven’t been discovered, and why i’ll never be a famous rock star…that’s what’s important.

my tv makes me do it…

so, i was watching tv last night and (probably due the nature of the show that had me so engrossed) i decided that i’d finally admit that…my taste is a little different.  my list of shows ranges from dark documentaries to freakin’ cartoons…
i do get ribbed for some of my choices, but…do you think i care?!
i found a new show last night that reminded me soo much of ‘MXC’ (most extreme elimination challenge) that’s shown from time to time on the Spike network. MXC was a japanese game show that was dubbed over in english by a comedy troupe called ‘the groundlings’ who are based out of LA. they were sooo funny–like, the voice overs were often the best parts of the shows, coupled with the expressions of the brave (really?) souls who didn’t mind risking the one drop of ‘cool’ they had left in them by participating in such a crazy, dangerous, senseless episode of japanese tv for my entertainment…and for what, exactly? anybody know? i don’t think i ever found out what the prize was…but anyway, the show ‘wipeout’ that debuted on abc last night is sort of the same thing, but filmed here in the U.S. this show again pits mere mortals against nearly impossible physical challenges and a ridiculous obstacle course at the end for those who are lucky enough to make it that far. some of the funniest parts are when you can hear the contestants as they struggle thru the thing…some curse, some mumble incoherently, others establish a spiritual bond they never found the use for, until they began their approach to the ‘big red balls’ (yeah, ew).
hosted by John Henson (E!’s Talk Soup) and John Anderson (ESPN’s Sportscenter), you seriously can’t help but laugh…especially when Jill Wagner (fellow NC hot girl, and 3rd host) is laughing so hard, she can’t utter a word because of something a contestant has grunted while being bounced 15 feet into the air unexpectedly. but i’ve said enough…haven’t seen it yet? have a peek at yet another simple pleasure of mine:

last night’s episode was waayyy funnier than this preview, so i’m actually excited about the rest of the season. yeah, maybe it’s rude or silly to laugh at a few random folks brave (unfortunate, maybe?) enough to put their bodies and reputations on the line for a mere $50,000…but…sssso??!! blame my mom for introducing me to ‘double dare’ on nickelodeon all those years ago…was apparently just a seed…

my tv does show me things that are more mentally stimulating…i promise. will chat about them later…

funnies

…every now & then somebody i know says something that makes me giggle, if not fall over laughing altogether, and i write it down in a book i keep with me at all times. i’m lucky enough to be surrounded by, and related to some of the funniest people in the world. i laugh often. i’ve listed examples below…

short conversation between my aunt, who was expressing interest in learning spanish, and my grandmother who either wants or provides an answer to everything:
aunt laura: boing boing (she was destroying the spanish phrase, “muy bien.”)
my grandmother: mm!! you need to get ‘Roberta Stone.’
aunt laura: uh, is that Rosetta’s sister?

later the same night:
me to grandmother: muy bien
grandmother: …what is that?
me: very good
grandmother: but, what is it?
me: spanish
grandmother (a little louder): but what is it?!
me: muy bien
grandmother, (after a minute, very quietly): but what IS that?
i stop the conversation here. grandmother later explains that she thought ‘muy bien‘ was a spanish food that i thought was very good, and that apparently, i just didn’t feel like telling her what was in it.

lesson in love from my grandmother:
grandmother: you should never go a day without talking to your husband.
aunt joanne: do you talk to yours everyday?
grandmother (chin raised, eyes closed, with an aura of wisdom about her): nope–we use ‘mental celebrithee’.
a couple of people witnessed this conversation with me, but personally, i know for a fact, that because of this incident, i will never say ‘mental telepathy’ again.

part of conversation between me and coworker/friend lissette:
me: i don’t use a blowdryer–i let my hair air dry.
lissette (who speaks very quickly, with a slight spanish accent): no, i can’t not dry my hair. seriously, i’ve tried–i look just like a broccoli.

my friend susan (the editor) and i…talking about fonts…and fruit?
susan: …you know–helvetica–you’re not familiar with that font??
me: no. are you familiar with papyrus??
susan (matter-of-factly): …well yeah, the fruit–not the font. papyrus is the plural for papaya.

friend susan was telling me about someone’s motto…and she drifted:
susan: “until i’m satisfied, you’re not done.” but that’s not my motto–when you’re satisfied, i’m done…or, when you’re done, i’m satisfied–either way, you’re gonna be done and satisfied!

anonymous friend to me: i’ve been snapping bras since you were just a ‘fetae‘.

a classic from my friend shonta, when discussing the fact that male college athletes often receive special treatment academically. (stated very passionately): i don’t think any of them should get ’special prefforations!!!”

one of my friend dee’s best quotes: it never ceases to fail.

…i’m sure i’ll add to this list as time…life goes on…

cracked me up!!

i dunno…some days, just about anything can be funny to me.  i believe i was at home, taking it easy on a saturday afternoon…maybe i was half asleep when i saw this, but i ended up in tears from laughing so hard.  my favorite parts are:

1) the older lady in the frackin’ cat suit showing off her ‘best model poses.’

2) the impersonation of the frackin ‘peeker’ behind Oprah.

play.jhtml?id=1589047&vid=239743