Dead, dead, deadski.

My best friend of 14 years died in November. She was hilarious and smart and beautiful and a fantastic writer and it's really hard living without her. It's probably harder for her eight year old daughter who she left behind while she lingered in a coma for 6 months, while we all waited, some with more hope than others, to see if she would finally wake up. But damn it, it's hard for me.

When I think of her being gone, I think, "my Tracey is dead," but when I mention it elsewhere in the world, I change it to, "she passed away," or she "succumbed to her illness" or some other euphemism, not because I need to say it, but because I think people will somehow think I'm a jerk for plainly stating she is no longer alive.

I never hear anyone else using dead in conjunction with the death of a loved one. Does everyone else want to use it, but feel the same as I do? Like they have to make it into a poem to talk about it? Like other people might break, or think you just don't care if you plainly say, "Tracey died"?

Is it the proximity of the death? My previous best friend, Aimee, died 10 years ago, (I might add at this point, I'm a little afraid to claim another best friend as this seems to be a trend), and saying, "My friend died 10 years ago" doesn't feel quite as jarring. Does the fact that Tracey just fell through the veil (to borrow from the imagery of Harry Potter, which we both loved), make it seem that she could be right back if only I don't make it plain to others where she is? Is saying "she's dead" like a lock that keeps her trapped in the next world, where as "she passed away" allows for her to change her mind and pop back in, like she went out to smoke a cigarette with Jesus and changed her mind?

My Tracey is dead. She died because of the weird autoimmune disease we both have (had?) and I miss her every day. I miss her when I watch Seinfeld and when I read Stephen King books, and when I see the previews for the new Harry Potter movie that she'll never see unless a next world actually exists and has the same entertainment offerings as ours. I love her, and I always will, and I hate feeling that I have to compose a poem to lessen the sorrow of her loss for other people every time I want to mention that I had a friend and I don't any more.

Google Image Upgrade: Medical SafeSearch

I recently went to the doctor because I had to go off of my medications that quiet all of my crazy autoimmune diseases and I acquired a weird sore on my thumb that caused a volcano like hole that was fairly concerning to me.

He told me that if it got worse, I was to come back immediately, so of course, I went home and google imaged my diagnosis to see what "worse" would look like and then I immediately wanted to stab my eyes out with forks.

I appreciate that Google image has been proactive in filtering sexual content with their SafeSearch, which blocks out hardcore images (not that I ever use it, VIVA LA BOOBIES!), but what we really need is a search filter for medical images.

Without fail, every time you do a Google Image Search on a medical issue, there is one mild image showing what a normal case of the disease looks like, and EVERY OTHER IMAGE is like a 20 inch hole with gore and carnage exploding out of it.

Serious, no matter what it is. Hangnail? Stubbed Toe? Splinter? OMG!!! How the hell did someone get a log sized splinter in their eye!?

I'm not arguing that these images shouldn't be available, but dear lord, we need to be able to choose from mild, moderate and horrendous images when we're searching for actual medical images.

Someone ought to make a petition!

(^I did, that's a link to it right there^)

MAYDAY!

I was glad to find, after seeing commercials for the Mayday button for the new Kindle HDX, which brings up a live technician to help walk users through using their Kindle, that the tech is NOT able to see the person who has pressed the button.

I can't even imagine the kind of hazard pay they would need to pay their technicians otherwise.

Pintester Movement: DIY Vintage Inspired Bell Jar Ornaments

Sonja Foust, The Pintester, is having another Pintester Movement extravaganza for all of her Pintestes.

This time, since I am having my first family Christmas Tree (because, if you don't remember, I'm Jewish, so we never got to have one growing up) I'm starting early on making my own ornaments. I found a few discounted ornaments to go with my discounted faux tree that was bought for me after Christmas last year (THANKS, MOM!), but that sucker is 6 feet tall, and my 7 ornaments are not going to do it.

So I have pinned a buttload of ideas that tickle my fancy on my ORNAMENT-O-RAMA board on pinterest. But the one that I love the most, because I collect plastic snow globes, was this awesome ornament:

DIY Vintage Inspired Bell Jar Ornaments

from My So Called Crafty Life

Seriously, guys, look at that adorable fucking deer and those fancy trees! 

Unfortunately, Montana does not have adorable fucking anything... so I had to improvise.

I learned, on my wild quest through my way-too-small-for-the-capital-of-a-state city, that apparently, only very rich people ever do crafts here. There is no way I can afford most of the pins I want to try. Thank goodness for Amazon.com, but alas, having just ordered a bunch of stuff from Amazon, I knew that I wouldn't have time to have things shipped for cheap to try stuff and possibly fail, having nothing to show for this pin,  so I began my mostly fruitless quest to find things to assemble an attractive, or at least funny, Bell Jar Ornament. I didn't find much, and what I found is... decidedly Montanan.

I also learned that my mother has WAY too many craft things to not have a freaking glue gun.  Seriously, she has an ENTIRE room of craft shit, and no way to stick it all together in a giant stringy finger-burning lump. Now that I have a glue gun (that I went out and bought in the middle of this pin test, after calling my mother on vacation in Florida to ask her if there was a glue gun hiding anywhere in her house) I may just end up making some abstract craft art to surprise her with.

So, after having my husband go cut plastic wine glasses with a dremel tool (he was slightly annoyed with me for forcing him to stop something else he was doing to cut them for me, so they are kind of passive aggressively uneven) I spent about 20 minutes trying to attach a buffalo to another buffalo. I finally gave up after consulting the instructions for my pin (hadn't done that yet... there were pictures... that I apparently didn't pay very close attention to) and I realized that I would need a glue gun before I could go any further, so I also gave the buffalo task to my husband, since he told me that the super glue we did have was dangerous, and went to the store.

Once I got back from Walmart with a glue gun... AND glue sticks, and other things to stick in future ornaments, the progress on the pin went pretty quickly. I am very happy with it and can't wait to put it on my tree, though I am trying to figure out what to tell my nephew should he ask why the buffaloes are attached.

I call it:

Buffaloes in Love

or alternatively:

Buffaloes who Love Playing Leap Frog

Adorable fucking buffalo. 

See what I did there?

Want to make ornaments for my tree and send them to me to be featured on the blarg? Details coming next month!

In... er... never mind...

Everyone enjoys the pervy fun of adding "IN BED!" to fortune cookies, and it always works, because the more it doesn't make sense, the funnier it is.  I am convinced though, that there are fortunes where IN BED is probably going to make for some awkward after dinner conversation, as in the following:

Feel free to add your own.

Why I Should Not Be Given Comment Boxes.

I went to order delicious chicken wings last night because I am a fan of chicken wings because they are delicious, and I had the option to order online, which is like HEAVEN for someone who is socially awkward and hates talking on the phone, which would accurately describe me. The ordering form, however, was broken into three different pages, only, I had no idea it was broken into three different pages, hence my comment on the first page, but then each page had its own comment section. This is what the order ended up looking like:

This is not something I did to make a funny blarg post about how weird I am. This is how I am. It is an unfortunate way to be when people don't take it well, but thankfully the cashier assured me ("JRose, with all the comments"), that they heartily enjoyed laughing at my social ineptitude, which works for me (since I detected no spit in my meal at all).

And if you have a Wing Stop near you, I highly recommend the Garlic Parmesan wings. They are totally worth the money. Even though, apparently, chicken wings are one of the rarest food parts of all time for how much places charge for them.

Valentine's Cards: Set One: Smutty Foods

Valentine's day is coming up, and what better way to be incredibly forward than with inappropriate but adorable cards, made by me.

There will be more themed sets forthcoming, so check back.  Also, all cards are available in my Zazzle shop*, in case you want to express your desires offline.

*If you are trying to find the cards in the Zazzle shop, but they don't seem to be there, please click the "content filter" link in the left navigation strip (it is towards the bottom), and allow PG-13 items to be shown, and they will magically appear. 


Without further ado... SMUTTY FOODS WISHING YOU HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Feel free to share this, as you see fit!

How Outlines are Trying to Ruin My Life.

I am extremely mad at outlines, because I am fairly certain they are the only reason why my spell checker doesn't mark lower case "I"s as incorrect.

I will now outline all the reasons that outlines should go fuck themselves.

"Why Outlines Should Go Fuck Themselves"

I. They make me look stupid when I accidentally type "i" instead of "I" when typing quickly.
     A.  I am not dumb
               i. I have a college degree.
              ii. I graduated 8th in my high school class with a grade point average of 3.919.
             iii. I use big words and stuff.

     B. I should get kudos for typing quickly, instead of looking foolish.
               i. I learned to touch type by chatting for hours on end, which makes me cool.
              ii. I use more than one finger per hand to type, and am the only person in my household to do so.
             iii. I can type in the dark and while watching reality TV shows.

II.New outlines don't even use roman numeral support lists anymore.
     A. Apparently, kids today can't handle roman numerals.
               i. They're not being forced to conform to the stupid standards that we were, which is kinda unfair.
              ii. If I had to do that shit, they should have to also.

     B. Spell Checkers are totally out of date.
              i. In addition to not marking lower case "I"s as incorrect since Arabic numbers are now the
                standard, they don't know the word Wasabi.
                   1.Or internet. . .
                        a. But they do know the word shillelagh.

III. Conclusion.
     A. Outlines and Spell Checkers are acting in collusion to screw up my ability to look like the smarty pants I am.
            i. They should go fuck themselves, as a result.

Hanukkah 2012: 1st Night- Gangsta Hanukkah

HAPPY HANUKKAH, BITCHES!

I like you guys so much that I got you two videos to watch for this, the first night of the Festival of Lights.  They are verbally offensive, which makes for the best videos really... so unless you want your kids repeating  foul phrases for the in-laws, you should probably watch these sans kids (or people who get upset by the n-word). 

The Hanukkah Bush is a sensitive subject for me. Now, I grew up in Miami Beach, which means that pretty much everyone I knew was Jewish, and it also means that until I was a teenager and went to school in Greater Miami where they actually had Christians, I knew pretty much nothing about Christmas traditions... except for Christmas Trees, which I knew mostly, from "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas," because we didn't watch any other Christmas specials in my house. The Grinch, that was it. 

I didn't care about Santa, or wreaths, or stockings, but the idea of having a tree in your house that you got to decorate was of great interest to me. But my mom was having nothing of it.  My sister and I plead our case, but we were met with "There is no such thing as a Hanukkah Bush!" which I think was code for, "I'm not spending money to put a dead tree in our living room just so you can hang shit on it."

My first winter in my own apartment, I got my own Christmas Tree. It was totally worth it, too.

Don't forget... there will be a present every day for EIGHT WHOLE DAYS, so don't forget to come back after sunset each day!

Life Lessons: That's What She Said

"That's what she said!" is, somewhat unfortunately, one of my favorite jokes.

Although my mom is very smart and I got a good part of my sense of humor from her, she found my seemingly random outbursts of "That's what she said!" to be very confusing.

And then, I explained it to her... and then she said it in a doctor's office, and in front of my nephew.

And the lesson is: There's a time and a place for "That's what she said!" and some people just can't be trusted with it.

JRose in Wolf's Clothing

When I was a kid, I used to try to trick my mom into thinking I was dead. I would lay on the bedroom floor with my legs at weird angles and send my sister to go get my mom to report my untimely demise. I'd lie there, my tongue sticking out, giggling, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling as I waited for my sister to cross the expanse of our house to go get her. I don't think my sister was really selling it though because no one ever came running, it was always just a saunter in to the doorway, where she would look in, nod and then leave. She might have given me an "Oh no... JRose is dead." in a totally unconvincing voice... but I really wasn't that great of a thespian. I wouldn't bother with blood, or bones sticking out, or vacating my bowels. I pretty much stopped at not blinking and holding my breath, all the while grinning.

Some day, I fear, I will fall and end up dead on the floor and she will find me and think, once again, that I am kidding and I will lay there rotting until someone else notices.

_____________________________________________________

And once again, I am entered in an art contest that requires clicks to get me back to NYC. 

A click would be friggen awesome.

Just click COLLECT ME at the top to vote for my art to be shown in Times Square.

[link removed]

And tell your friends... tomorrow maybe, so they don't think it is an April Fools joke.

Operation: Mother May I?

Here I go being political again. If you think that we would be better off if the government controlled the lives of women, reading this will likely piss you right the hell off and your time would be better off spent elsewhere pretending I am just PMSing.





After reading more on proposed contraception bans and comments about how women should be at home taking care of children instead of working so we don't need things like Head Start, the following occurred to me:

I wonder how grating it would be to Republican politicians if hoards of women tweeted them every time we wanted to use our vaginas to see if it was okay with them.

Perhaps having to hear about tampons, and douches, and discharges, and masturbation, and kinky sex, or even conventional vanilla sex within church sanctioned marriages, 24 hours a day, would make them less interested in controlling our junk.

Think this might make a difference? Want to help make a point? Tweet your daily vaginal activities to your favorite Republican on twitter with the hashtag #MotherMayIGOP 

Don't have a republican in mind? 

You can start here:
@Senate_GOPs
@RoyBlunt
@RickSantorum
or do a search for your local GOP representative on the Google.

Don't have a vagina?

Be sure to share this post with your favorite vagina owner.

Disclaimer- One should never wait for a reply from someone to use their vagina. At this point, your vagina is yours and yours alone (unless you have figured some clever way to rent it out or are a conjoined twin)... take advantage of it while you still can!

Musical Interlude- Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me

This song keeps coming on the radio, though I had never heard it before, prior to last week.  Had no idea it was an Elton John song, but since it keeps coming on, I figured it wanted an illustration.

Oh, and also, I'm immature.

(click for pnsfw funny)