Read Only

I think I am just going to spend all of 2015 reading. I am doing this challenge from PopSugar:

Of course, I intend to cheat. I just don't have the drive to read 52 books in a year, mostly because I read really slowly and the whole reading-induced narcolepsy. So, again, with the resolve to cheat, I started before 2015, and I read "The Scarlet Letter," which covers like 5-8 of the checkboxes above. It was one of the books I was supposed to read in high school but never actually read. No, not true... I started reading it my 9th grade year and got to the description of the roses beside the jail's door and stopped. Having finished it, I am not terribly forlorn that I didn't read this book sooner. It wasn't nearly as awful as I had assumed but it certainly wouldn't have enriched my teenaged life.

With this challenge, I am taking this opportunity to read books I have meant to read for a long time. Right now, I am reading "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote, and I have "To Kill a Mockingbird" on my list, and "You" by Caroline Kepnes, and of course all the books Stephen King will have written by the time I get to them. You are more than welcome to follow my progress on Goodreads if you'd like. 

Last year was a terrible year for reading. I read 4 books. FOUR WHOLE BOOKS (not counting The Scarlet Letter... which doesn't count because I said so). It was "Game of Thrones" that killed my usually much higher average. Between finishing writing the first in a series of a kickass science fiction mystery thriller novels in 3 months and editing it, then trying to get an agent to represent that novel (still looking!), and having my body totally freak out where my hands didn't work for a few months (which seriously makes typing a novel difficult, let me tell you), and my liver and pancreas freaking out from all my horrible medications trying to fix my hands (most of which I am no longer on for the sake of not dying), and having my gallbladder removed, it took me SEVEN months to read the damned book. Just the first book. And it only translates into like the first 10 episodes of the series. I can't read them all. I just can't... until I run out of other things to read and write. I loved it. It was great... but holy crap. It's like the black hole of series. That's not an insult, I promise. It is just SO dense with information. It is wonderful, and I loved it... I really did, but, yeah, I'm abstaining from reading more of the series for the time being as long as I want to do other things in my life.

Thankfully now, my hands are working with just one medication and they no longer feel like they have been beaten with a hammer (as long as I remember to take my meds on time) so I can easily hold a kindle or an actual book (since Klout sent me an hard copy of "You" to read) without crying or whining or needing to train Stevie to press the side buttons on my Kindle to change the page for me.

So, if you need me, I'll be reading. 

If you want to join in on this reading challenge, I would totally be interested in hearing about the books you're reading, too!

January Sticker Sale- It's a Trap(tor) Color Sticker

Hi there.

I have been thinking for days, "Damn it JRose, you should post something... just post SOMETHING!" but the problem is, everything I draw or try to write comes out like poop. Not out of my butt, I mean it looks like/reads like crap. There are reasons, but never mind that now, never mind that. As soon as I can produce something worth looking at/reading, you guys will be the first to know. In the meantime:

New year, new sticker, old image, because really, my drawing ability is broken...not kidding, but the picture is different, at least. As are the rules. There are only 50 of these limited edition stickers, but I will sell them until they are gone. Each is about 3.75" x 3.7".  Printed on sticker paper, by me. Cut by hand (that means it might not be Stakenblochen). Sent first class via USPS (shipping is included).

[no longer available] For those outside the US, please choose the outside US option for the first sticker, and $3.50 for any additional sticker in the same order. If you have a problem with Paypal but would like to buy a sticker, let me know and I can provide other payment sources, as well as accepting cash and candy.

Why should this year be any different?

It was silly of me to think I could get through a holiday without any sort of ridiculous issue.  For years now, I manage to have some sort of illness that totally screws up the holiday season.

Last year, I had a virus syndrome that lasted two weeks, during which time I was bed ridden, that spanned from two days before the premier of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1, so I couldn't go to the midnight showing, through Thanksgiving.  I'd had a big fancy menu picked out and went shopping well ahead of time, but when Thanksgiving came around, I couldn't get out of bed without coughing so hard it caused my back to go out. But still, I was going to get up, for my husband's sake.  When I got into the kitchen to start the turkey, my mother had already started cooking the food I bought.

"What did you put on the turkey?" I inquired.  I had planned an orange and sage butter rub.

"Butter spray, salt and pepper."

Butter spray? Didn't they stop selling that in the 80s? Apparently not, but she had not sprayed the turkey with butter or liquidized margarine, she had sprayed it with butter flavored generic Pam, which sent me over the edge into a coughing yelling rage.  Which was, in actuality, because of my stupid jerk allergies that cause me to have to pay more to get food that everyone else can buy for reasonable prices to avoid becoming extremely sick, hence my unreasonable reaction to defiling the poor, very expensive bird with cooking spray. And I can be a total jerk sometimes...plus that sucker was just coated in pepper.  Thankfully, I had no appetite anyway from being sick, so I rubbed the turkey with a stick of butter and squeezed an orange over it, had some can-shaped cranberry sauce, and went back to bed.

This year, I thought it was smooth sailing. I've managed to avoid getting my nephew's cold, I have been diligent about washing my hands to avoid germs from strangers... and then this morning at 6 am, I woke up unable to move my neck without excruciating pain. When I got up, I realized it extended all the way down to my shoulder blades. So I have two options, I can either make our Thanksgiving feast while doing a Quasimodo impersonation, or I can take a muscle relaxer and relive the wedding scene from Sixteen Candles.

OR

(there is a video here, non-page viewers)

And many more...

Tomorrow is my husband's 44th birthday.  I want to share with you the story of how I almost lost my husband two years ago to celebrate still having him today, so that maybe it can help someone else.

Me and my husband at my art show on 5/15/09

On the morning of May 9th 2009, I woke up to a crashing sound. I was notorious for leaving my shoes in inappropriate places and they were notorious for trying to murder people, so when I jumped up and found my husband on the floor at the end of the bed where I had left my shoes, I immediately began apologizing for being a total butthole and helped him up. When he took a few more steps into the bathroom and fell down again, I started to realize that the problem clearly wasn't me and my homicidal shoes.  I asked him what was wrong, he said he was fine. I asked him if it concerned him that he was falling down repeatedly, he replied, "Not really." And even though he doesn't drink, I asked him if he was drunk, just in case. He wasn't.

On his way back from the bathroom, he looked like someone walking on a moving bus.  I was terrified and told him I wanted to call an ambulance and he told me he was fine, this had happened before and had resolved itself and he just needed to lie down and rest.  He was sure it was just an inner ear infection and he would be fine.  I immediately turned on my computer and googled strokes. I roused him and made him go through the steps to tell if someone was having a stroke.  F.A.S.T.  -He could smile just fine.  His arms stayed up perfectly. His speech wasn't slurred or strange, he didn't even have a headache, so I didn't force him to go to the ER and I just stayed beside him, checking on him as he slept to make sure he was still breathing.  When he woke up, he complained that the room was too bright.  He was having double vision and sitting up made him so dizzy he threw up. When he went to reach for things, he would miss them, grabbing a few inches in front of where they were. I kept having to ask him to loosen his grip because he was crushing my hand without realizing it, as I lay next to him in the dark holding his hand.
I should have forced him to go to the emergency room, but I didn't. I'm used to people wanting me to go the ER when I know I don't need to, so I stupidly listened to him and didn't force him to go, and thankfully he didn't die.

My husband had in fact had a stroke.  The doctor called it a TIA (transient ischemic attack ), which is the technical name for a mini-stroke, which means  a stroke that resolves itself and doesn't show changes to the brain on an MRI.

Unfortunately, F.A.S.T. doesn't cover every kind of stroke.  He was having a Cerebellar Stroke, which means that there was a bleed or clot somewhere in his cerebellum.  That is the part of the brain that controls walking, and fear, and sensory input, and coordination.
For a Cerebellar Stroke/ TIA the test you need to do is “W.T.F? :P”

W- Walking -Is the person falling down repeatedly or unable to walk?
T- Touching- Are they able to reach out and touch something easily- is their grip too tight?
F- Focusing- Are they having trouble focusing their vision, or having other visual disturbances?
P- Puking- Does moving make them throw up?

If I had had this list of tests, I would have immediately dragged his ass to the nearest doctor. Like I said, thankfully, he lived.

He is mostly recovered now. It took quite some time and a lot of walking with a cane to get his coordination back.  For some time, I couldn't get him to go places with me because he was afraid people would think he was drunk. His gait is still a little off, but I doubt other people notice much. His vision is permanently damaged, it seems, as he has to wear sunglasses inside if there is a lot of light, which makes him seem like a cool guy, or a Corey Hart impersonator.
 I've asked him about it since. It was, in fact, the stroke that made him think he was fine.  His fear reaction was broken and he just felt happy and at peace.  It was up to me to take care of him and I didn't have enough information to do so, which is a big reason why I want to share our story.  Now he knows that he needs to go to the doctor if I say so, though he is probably pretty tired of me neurotically assuming he has had a stroke again.  He broke his toe last week jumping up to turn off the fire alarm at 4 am and I keep forgetting and spaz out when I notice his limp has worsened.  But he has since been heavily medicated with 2 types of cholesterol pills and as many blood pressure meds, and he has regular checkups, so his chance of having another stroke is greatly diminished.

On a walk to take photos 5/23/09

So I ask you, in honor of his birthday, please share our story with someone to let them know that thinking "W.T.F? :P" could well save a loved one's life when someone is acting like they're drunk when they've not had a thing to drink. It is not what we usually are warned about but it could be a stroke.

"WTF? :P" FTW!

Disclaimer-- I am not a doctor, clearly, I am a humor writer, and while I have spent a lot of time researching cerebellar strokes since my husband had his, I am not an expert.  My initialism (WTF? :P) is meant to help but if you think someone needs a doctor, please, call 911 or your local medical expert and stop reading a humor blarg.

Don't Get Attached.

This morning, I tried to convince my mom to stop using crapo.com for her email service after talking her through the set up for a gmail account.  She pays 10 dollars a year for crapo-mail and has been using it since 1997.   It won't attach more than one item at a time. It sends forwards as attachments.  It takes up to two hours to send emails to my hotmail account at peak hours. It is, in fact, a piece of crap, especially for a paid service. She thinks it is fine.

I think that there is a fundamental difference in the way my generation uses computers compared to that of my mother's generation.   When I use a computer, having had access to them the majority of my life, I want the process to be completely efficient. I want to avoid erroneous clicking and mouse movements and downloading anything, ever. If I am forwarded something, the last thing I want to do is download a file to my computer that I have to open with another program to read a joke about a cheeky octogenarian ordering milk for a bath.  We don't even have milkmen anymore! And who the hell sells unpasteurized milk!?

My mom, on the other hand, is used to reading mail the conventional (read:old fashioned) way.  She expects to open an envelope, unfold a letter, and flip through the 6 different attached Sunday Funnies clipped from the newspaper, so she has no qualms about having to click 4 different things to get a stupid joke forward to open.  If she could do eBay via postcard, she would.  She won't, however, click links that I send her in emails.  Somehow she has learned that downloading things on her computer is fine, but links are super dangerous, especially those sent by your computer savvy daughter. Or maybe it is because crapo-mail doesn't generate clickable links in their incoming emails and she doesn't know how to copy and paste them...

Out of the frying pan...

Sometimes I need to vent.  Especially when I have oil burns on my neck and  face.

The Craptacular Day

I have several obnoxious and rather icky chronic diseases, which is why I am now trying to make a living by writing funny stories and drawing silly pictures on the internet instead of working "a real job."  Sometimes these diseases all gang up on me and make me not want to do a damned thing, which includes entertaining other people.  Sometimes, I force myself to do it anyway, and sometimes, those posts aren't very amusing because my heart is not behind them.  Today is one of those days.  Not that I mean my heart isn't behind this post, I just mean, I feel like crap and this probably won't be very entertaining.  And I don't mean, my darling readers, that you should to try to guess where I wasn't feeling very well in my blarg archive and let me know, because it might just insult me when you guess that a post I loved and thought was my best was crap but you know it's only because I was sick and you were just trying to be supportive by pointing out that I am not funny, and nevermind, let's just pretend like all of my posts are fried gold.

Anyway, when I am having one of these days, distraction is the best remedy for wanting to dig a hole and never come out. It helps me not to feel so guilty for not wanting to do my job, and for not getting out of bed, except to go to the bathroom 7500 times (this may be a slight exaggeration, which is clearly a symptom of my illnesses too, both the exaggerating and the bathroom trips, that is).

These are the things that are serving as my distractors today:

MTV's Teen Wolf
Yes, I know this is a show made for teens and I am roughly twice the age of the target demographic, but as a fan of the original Teen Wolf movie, I had to check it out, and since I feel about 14 years old most of the time, it appealed to me.  It is absolutely nothing like the movie though there are nods here and there, and it is ridiculously melodramatic, and I freaking love it. There. I said it. I'm a dork. Plus, Stiles... duh.

Looking up candies
I could have sworn that Whatchamacallits had marshmallow in them once upon a time. Apparently, I am completely wrong.  But there was some candy bar when I was a kid in the early 80s that had a wafer and chocolate cream and peanuts and marshmallow in the center, and damn it, I want to know what it was, because in my nostalgic memory, that was THE most delicious confection in the entire world.

And may I say, as a collector of Pez, I am really disappointed that there are no official Harry Potter Pez Dispensers.

Movie Clips on Youtube
UHF is one of my favorite movies from my youth. Weird Al is a comic genius. This clip never fails to amuse me.

By the way, "twinkie wiener sandwiches?" They're terrible. Please believe me.  It is a horrible waste of a twinkie, a hot dog, and easy cheese.

Reading

    

I'm currently reading an actual copy of  "City of Glass- The Mortal Instruments" by Cassandra Clare and "Spiderwork- A Post Apocapunk Fantasy Romance" by LK Rigel on my kindle. I don't usually like to be engaged with two books at the same time because it feels like I am cheating on one with the other, but I was reading "Spiderwork," which is the sequel to "Space Junque," both of which I downloaded for free from Amazon and am enjoying very much, when my friend loaned me the final book of the Mortal Instrument series (I mean, I think it is the final book... I guess I could research that, but I am afraid of spoilers, so I'll just not care instead) and since it is borrowed, I have set aside the other. But reading, of course, has the added benefit of making me sleep which helps with healing so I can write actual posts and not be a grumpy asshole.

Checking my emails a billion times and crying.
(I have no emails, hence the crying)
(except my mom, she writes)
(hi mom)

And that's about it.  Have anything you think might amuse me? Wanna tell me what you do to make yourself feel better when you're having a craptacular day?  I would love the distraction.

The Wrong Number

Yesterday, as I was jazzercising*, my crappy borrowed cellphone rang.  Since I am currently out of the service area and it costs like 2 dollars a minute to take a call, I just checked the number, realized it was no one I knew and went back to my squatting jazz hip thrusts, ignoring the ringing, which is more of an ephemeral ghostly wailing than a ringing, but you probably wouldn't have known what the hell I was talking about if I said I ignored the ephemeral ghostly wailing without letting you know that that is my ringtone. I only chose it because it was the least aurally offensive of all the rings available, and because I was unable to program Hedwig's theme into this phone by hand, since I am certainly not going to pay for a ringtone for a phone I hardly ever use.

Anyway, the phone then made a tinkling shooting star sound, which is the sound it makes when I get a message of the textual persuasion, which I always get when I ignore a call or miss one by accident, which I also usually ignore if I am doing something else, but then... I got another tinkling shooting star sound and I wondered, 'well, what the hell was that?!' So I checked and the person who I did not know had left a message.  And curiosity beat out. My logic being, if it was actually an important call for me from a number I didn't recognize I should know what it was, or if it was something important for someone else like "Billy, it's Devon, mama's being mauled by a snow leopard, you have to come home from the bar RIGHT NOW!" I might wanna let them know that they dialed the wrong number, for mama's sake.

But it wasn't for me, and it wasn't Devon calling for Billy, it was Ron, calling for Josh.

Hey Josh, it's Ron.  I'm in Montana for a few more days so give me a call when you get off work, dude, okay?! I wanna hang out. See ya man!

I can only assume that Ron was in town for something having to with a medical marijuana convention because this was the rest of the exchange when I texted to let him know that Josh was not getting his messages:

Me: Wrong number- sorry!

4:40pm Ron: What is the #

Me (thinking, doesn't your phone have that feature where you can see who you dialed? I thought that was standard, but fine, whatever...): XXX-XXX-XXXX (only I put my phone number instead of Xs, obviously, although I can't see that it would have made a difference had I not used numbers).

5:09pm Ron: Got it dude thanx when u off work

Are you fucking kidding me?! You were asking me, the person on the receiving end of the wrong phone call, what Josh's actual number is... *facepalm*

Me: This really isnt josh. XXX-XXX-XXXX has never had a male owner. (Screw capitalization and punctuation for wrong numbers, let them think I am dumb, what do I care?)

5:59pm  Ron: Cool send me a pic so I know this aint josh

FFS... really?! Now I have to sext you to get you to stop calling? But I would have sent a picture if I had had the capability to send pictures just to get him to go away. It would have looked a lot like this:

Yes,  I would have hired a skywriter for the occasion.

But instead, I just ignored him, while being annoyed and partially amused. Until 8:46 pm when I received yet another call from Ron, which again, I ignored. And again, he left a message... and again, I was too curious and had to listen to it.

Josh- Ron. Dude, give me a call.

*blink*


If he calls again, I am texting him a link to this post.


 *fine, I wasn't really jazzercising, but that is more pleasant than what I was really doing, just trust me on this one.

Bring out your dead!

I tried to fix my camera and ended up killing it.
I am usually good at everything and can fix anything given basic instructions, but, I might as well have had hammers for hands when attempting this repair.

I have a newfound respect for camera repair people because, while I did manage to avoid breaking down into to tears while trying, for 30 minutes, to get the 3rd of 5 orange cables back into its tiny silver toothed home after possibly successfully replacing the LCD screen (that I broke by dropping it), I did not avoid yelling "GET IN YOUR HOME!!!!!!!!!!!! AUGH!!!" or wishing everything and everyone dead in exchange for it JUST GETTING IN THERE, about the time when the black bar that snuggly holds the evil orange cable in place snapped off in my hand (or well, at the end of my finger because it was not even as wide as my finger and about the width of three hairs- and it was the biggest of the 5) and then snapped in half after that, as I delicately tried to put in back in to the almost microscopic hole it popped out of on my 40th attempt to get the damned cable back in.

So my adorable pink camera who served me well for almost 5 years is caput.  My friend was kind enough to procure me a new one so I could continue the photographic work I was doing with the now-dead one (see my cooking site), but I would like to be able to pay him back for it, so if anyone needs some llamas drawn for them (and is willing to exchange monetary credits for said drawing), let me know.


AND, a challenge.  Peep horror movie scenes… see Cheeseblarg’s Facebook Page for details!

Limitations

I learned today, while sitting in front of my computer, that I do not have the ability to eat a chicken soft taco using only one hand.

House Stalking

Every once in a while, I become convinced that I am going to win the lottery so I begin detailed plans for investments and other extravagant purchases.

Part of that, recently, has been house hunting.  And hunting is precisely what I have been doing, because unless you live here in my city, you probably have no idea that the people who did the street planning in this town either had severe ADHD OR they were heavily intoxicated. Probably the latter since this is the wild west and cowboys are always drunk as hell on whiskey in westerns, right?

See, my town has a Cheese Drive*, a Cheese Lane, and 2 Cheese Avenues, and the address on the website just said "900 Cheese."

After three tries, I became convinced that expensive houses for sale in my town have some sort of cloaking device that makes them only visible to people who actually HAVE the money to even consider buying the house...

Today's hunt was made on account of a search for another house that I decided against (in my imaginary search for a house to buy). Even though the pictures of it were beautiful, and amazing, and perfectly the design I wanted, it was up a mountain, on a road that was at grade of approximately 30 degrees.  It was hard enough getting my car to agree to go up the street when the roads were clear, but I would have had to refrain from leave my house for 8 months out of the year when snow was on the ground, so my car didn't slide down the super steep hill, killing myself (and a lovely neighborhood full of frolicking children and rich folk who like jogging up ridiculously steep roads) in a spectacular fiery crash, because that is what happens when you slide down an ice covered incline, right?

But, actually, I couldn't find that house.  I found where it SHOULD be, but it wasn't really there, as far as I could see.

I did find the house today, on the fourth try.  On the second Cheese Avenue, that I didn't know existed, that was about 8 blocks away from the normal Cheese Avenue, down a one way street...

For the record, I do not waste any relator's time being shown the insides of houses I want to "imaginary buy", I just stalk the houses, driving by, looking at them longingly while playing Journey songs for them on my car stereo.

*The name of the street has been changed in case I really do win the lottery and buy said house, though living on Cheese Ave. would be pretty boss.

It's late, do you know where your stomach is?

It has come to my attention that many people don't actually know where their stomach is. Most people who complain of having a stomach ache are not at all talking about their stomachs, but are having intestinal pain (see It's a Gas, Gas, Gas!).  I happen to be an expert on gut pain, so here is a handy dandy graphic for you, so you can identify what part is involved in case you are having pain in your belly area. Of course I am not a doctor, but I spend enough time googling, and hearing about my guts in doctors' offices, that you can trust my anatomical knowledge:

(All of my pictures are bigafiable by clicking them, if you didn't know- and this has been edited to be less funny and more accurate, in case someone decided to refer to a humor blarg in a real emergency. Note, stomach is cartoonized for cuteness.)

I hope that helps.  

But most of all, your guts are not a laughing matter, okay maybe a little bit, but if things start getting weird in there, please see a doctor. And tweet about it, people love hearing about intestinal distress on Twitter.

Hungry Mungry

I've never actually seen it happen, but I am fairly certain that my husband turns into some sort of a monster when he is excessively hungry.  I see the warning signs all the time, and the aftermath, but I've never seen the actual transition.  The following is an artist's rendition of the likely transformation:

Daylight Normal Husband- moderately hungry

Late-Night Monster Husband- clearly starving

I've surmised that this must be the case because:
a) he is incapable of remembering directions when hungry, especially of what he is NOT supposed to eat.
b) during the stages between hungry and starving, he becomes incredibly unpleasant to be around, although he is usually pretty nice to be around, otherwise.
and
c) he keeps blaming disappearing food on "damned kitchen gnomes" so he is clearly blacking out during these times as he would NEVER pass the blame unfairly onto imaginary creatures.

Now, my husband is not a big guy, muscley yet petite, but in the past, I have gone to work and come home to find 2 pounds of chili gone, entire blueberry loaf cakes, full packages of sausages, all the leftover Thanksgiving turkey. There was also the "leftover incident" in which we woke to find that he had eaten the entire box of leftovers from our roommate's family dinner.  Turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole-- ate every last bit of it. The monster seems to favor turkey.  I also have learned that I either need to hide batches of cookies or face making more when baking for the holidays because the monster likes to get together with the kitchen gnomes and steal them when I leave them on the table to cool before sending them out as presents.

And I've figured out the monster can't read, because leaving notes on things, like "DO NOT EAT THESE, I MEAN IT!!!" doesn't work.  The only plan of action that has worked is to make sure that the man is regularly fed so I don't have to go all squirrelly, hiding things so I can have them when I want them.  Though, I have found that neither my husband NOR the monster is capable of finding things if I put them behind or underneath something else.  It is like an special refrigerator/pantry invisibility cloak.

When gadgets attack!

I love my husband a lot but he has a tendency to go a little overboard when we get new gadgets, to the point that I now have to map out exactly how each new purchase can be misused before buying it.

Like there was a time when we were given a paper shredder, though I had specifically avoided getting a shredder, and he stayed up all night to shred all of the paper in the house. ALL OF THE PAPER. No really, all of it... not only old documents we needed to get rid of but newspapers and printer paper, as well as the drawing my friend's daughter had drawn for me of Ron Weasely... that he took off my bulletin board and shredded when he ran out of other papers to shred.

And then there was the time, when we first moved in together and I got him a vacuum sealer.  At first it was just all of the things in the refrigerator, including making individual packages of salad dressing from the large bottle to take to work with me. That was handy. But then, I came home from work one day and everything in the house that would fit in the plastic sleeves was vacuum sealed. My toy collection, my art supplies... anything he could fit... no matter how inconvenient or ridiculous it was. For weeks after, I would go to look for something and find, oh look, there is my watch... carefully sealed in a little plastic pouch. Ah, the spare dental floss.

Clonerator 3000

During my childhood, we moved around a lot.  I started school in California, moved to Arizona, then to Florida in 2nd grade.  I went to two different elementary schools, a magnet school that was an hour away for middle school, and a different magnet school for high school. That should explain why it is that it wasn't until college, again, that I realized that people look pretty much the same when they are kids as they do when they're adults. College was a big time for discoveries for me.

I realize now, that everyone else knows this, but I had never seen anyone consistently while they were growing up and it wasn't until I ran into a kid from my 2nd grade class in college, who looked exactly the same only taller and with facial hair, that it clicked.  My only frame of reference for aging before that moment was movies and TV. Well, and my sister, but maybe it was just really good casting.  Okay, fine, I have no explanation.

I have a solution though; I think this confusion could be avoided for other people if we just had actors keep a collection of clones of themselves at different ages, just in case their movie requires a scene that flashes back to childhood.

Something in the Pipes 2 (w/ video)

As an addendum, here is the actual sound the shower makes.

This is the sound of the water being turned on in the basement as heard in my bedroom.  Seriously. It actually shakes the walls. Terrifying when you don't know it is coming... like at 4am when you were sleeping soundly and it goes on with its jackhammering racket combined with your husband screaming from the basement because it scared him too. 

 If you would like to draw your own version of my pipe monster, please, feel free!

OCD Robot

I would never make it as a robot because I cannot stand my hands smelling like metal.

A mouse is not an option.

I hate my scrollbar SO much.  I don't know if it is supposed to act this way or if it is totally defective, but it acts like it is totally defective.
Here I am, reading my pages of social media... la la la, happily reading Facebook or LJ and KAPOW! It decides, YOU'VE READ ENOUGH! BACK TO THE TOP! HOORAY!

Now, I am left handed and that may be what is causing its grudge against me... I mean it all started with scissors... goddamned scissors... it seems to go against physics that tilting the cutting surface slightly to the left should make them NOT WORK AT ALL... but I really should be used to this treatment from office supplies by now.

But yes, my fingerpad laptop scrolly-wheelbar-- it hates me and doesn't want me to keep in touch with my friends and family. And it isn't even consistent.  Sometimes it skips up, sometimes we are transported to the bottom of the page.  I shudder to think if it could scroll me side to side.