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.

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     B. Spell Checkers are totally out of date.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.

They get me EVERY time.

Things That are Always Terrifying:

in order of amount of terror caused

                                                             created from this image

                                                                                        created from this video

From Russia with Love

When I was in college, I took Russian to fulfill my foreign language requirement.  In fact, my college transcripts say that I attended "МГУ" (pronounced "Em- Gay- Oo"), which would stand for Moscow State University.

background source

I did not go to Moscow State University.

I wanted to go to МГУ, but alas, I missed a lot of class and my teacher wouldn't give me the recommendation to be an exchange student, and I graduated as a surprise that semester anyway, which was kind of fine with me because I learned that I had to get an assload of vaccinations and stuff to go, and that was a point in my life where my fear of needles overpowered good sense. Little did I know that many years later, I would be allowing doctors to stick needles in my face.

Anyway, my choice of Russian, instead of a standard foreign language, like Spanish or French, was on account of the book "A Clockwork Orange," and also because the challenge of having to learn  a new alphabet appealed to me. I had tried to teach myself Russian my senior year of high school, but I was reading from a book and it had no pronunciation guide, so I didn't learn much.

Despite having taken about 2 solid years of Russian (over many semesters), while I can still read cyrillic, I can only remember how to say a few phrases/words and none of them are very helpful, unless I ever find myself writing bad Russian airport porn.

Here is the Russian and the phonetics for you, just in case you want to look it up yourself!
здравствуйте - zdravstvuyte - Hello
Извините за беспокойства - Izvinite za bespokoystva - Sorry for the trouble (said when one calls a wrong number)
Какой большой чемодан!  - Kakoy bolʹshoy chemodan!- What a big suitcase!
Да, это очень большой!  - Da, eto ochenʹ bolʹshoy!- Yes, it is very big!
Я хочу твой большой чемодан! - Ya khochu t'voy bol'shoy chemodan!- I want your big suitcase!
четыре! chetyre!

Just as an aside, this porn script has been a running joke since I was in college, when my classmates and I, who had a crush on our teacher, would go to lunch and laugh about having to talk about his BIG suitcase repeatedly.

That Unfunny, Un-illustrated, TMI Post.

So, I have this medical procedure on Thursday morning that I have been waiting for for 4 months now, and I've hinted at it, but I haven't really written about it, mostly because I don't feel like illustrating it, and also because it is not terribly funny.

My bladder and its bad behavior has been a subject of this blarg before, and I have been waiting all this time for an appointment to have it looked at to make sure that the bad thing it is doing is not cancer.  This is honestly the first time that doctors have ever actually said to me, without my input, "Well, it could well be cancer. We're checking for bladder cancer."

(I'm going into details here so you might want to just skip to the bottom if you get squeamish...)

I am guessing it isn't. My hunch is that I have another chronic disease and that it isn't life threatening and will just be a painful annoyance for the rest of my life. Better, but not by a huge margin.

But they want to do more than just looking inside my bladder.  When I went to my first appointment with the urologist, the very nice nurse was tasked with catheterizing me to get an unadulterated sample of my pee to test it, once again, to make sure the problem wasn't an infection. She very kindly told me everything that she was doing before she even touched me.

She calmly let me know. "I'm inserting the catheter now. I'm not going to hurt you."
To which I laughed and replied "I think you're a damned liar!" because she was a damned liar and she scraped half the length of my urethra with the catheter. I peed a lot of blood for the rest of the day. It was like paying someone to give me the worst UTI of my life.
She was still a lovely person though. Then she exclaimed, "Your urethra is TINY! The doctor will dilate that for you when he does the cystoscope."
And I said, "Okay" because I didn't have access to the internet while I was in the office to find out exactly what "Urethral Dilation" entails.

Remember how freaked out I was at having my eyeballs touched?  Yeah, I am at least 600% less pleased about having graduated tubes inserted into my pee hole to make it bigger.  I figure it is just fine how it is.  She said it would help me pee better, but I think I have been peeing in an efficient and frequent manner for almost 36 years and I am of the opinion that they should leave well enough alone.

Also, everything I have read says that patients are usually put out for cystoscopes, yet, my doctor plans on doing it while I am completely awake and aware, and seeing as my guts betray me when I am nervous, and I have fibromyalgia, so my nerves are like super mega-ly more sensitive to pain than other people's, I am afraid that there is a chance that I am going to poop on the doctor. I would be afraid of kicking someone too, to stop the pain, because I am a kicker, but I have seen the table they are going to do the procedure on, and it has straps to immobilize my legs, which means they KNOW that I am going to want to kick them in the faces.

And I assume (but don't know if) they are going to somehow anesthetize the parts of my pee system that they will be futzing with, but OMG, what if they need to do biopsies!? I just want them to put me to sleep for this.

And then there is the bladder stretching, which might be on the docket also, because they made me measure my urinary habits with a pilgrim's hat, and it seems the most my bladder holds is 8-10 ounces, where the normal person's bladder holds double that. And I read that they sometimes do that to treat overactive bladder stuff... and I also read that some people who have had urethral dilation, and bladder stretching are in pain for the rest of their lives.

Anyway, I am not entirely sure what will happen to my bladder, and not knowing things I want to know stresses me out. Not knowing, for 4 months, whether the bleeding in my bladder is cancer has made me much less jovial and desirous of writing and illustrating. Though they keep trying to reschedule on me (it has been moved twice now- they tried to cancel again today, but agreed to just do it an hour and a half earlier- and I had to wait two months for my first visit knowing that my general practitioner wanted me seen right away, also concerned about cancer) I am hoping there will be some sort of KNOWN by the end of this week, and I can stop worrying all the time and go back to seeing funny things everywhere, all the time.

In all, this has been going on for almost a year, if not longer. I'm scared, and I'm nervous, and I don't want to endure more pain. I want my normal life back. I don't want to worry about this any more, so no matter how scared I am, I need to go through with it and get it over with so I can have an answer and start treating my stupid jerk bladder. But I am not looking forward to it, and it sucks, and I want to magically be better so I can go back to just being funny.


P.S. I want kittens and hamsters and goats to hug. I think that would make me feel better. Please send a petting zoo immediately.

One-Uppers and Grief Shamers

While writing my post about Suffering Magnets, I came to the realization that I may be a One-Upper.

You know, those people who tell you something of equal or greater horror when you tell them something bad that happened to you?


I don't mean to be a One-Upper, it is just that people tell me something has happened to them and then, in an effort to relate, I tell a story about something similar that has happened to me, which usually tends to be a bit more terrible because, as we have established, things are always bafflingly fucked up in my life. So I hear the words just flowing out of my head and I think, 'SHUT UP, JUST SHUT UP. They think you are playing the Grief Olympics.. they think you are an asshole, just shut the hell up'... but OMG it just feels so good to share grief, to remove it from your stupid jerk head and let it out into the world like a little grief dragon, to let it stretch and spread its wings after keeping it cooped up in your belfry of a brain ALL THE TIME.

I'd like to quietly listen and say, "Oh jeepers! That is just so awful, you poor person, what can I do?" but it is rarely what ends up happening. Even though I try... really really hard.

 But in no way am I trying to be a Grief Shamer.

Grief Shamers are the type of people who won't let you have a second of complaining without reminding you that no matter what you are are upset about, other people have it 7 billion times worse so you should just STFU and be glad your grandpa was eaten by a tiger because your ENTIRE FAMILY could have been eaten by A STREAK OF TIGERS EQUIPPED WITH LASERS!

I don't even believe in shaming "First World Problems."  I think sharing suffering make it suck less and there is no shame in that. So, if people wanna complain to me about Bravo's Twitter team spoiling the winner of Top Chef for every time zone other than Eastern, like a bunch of assholes, or finding that their bag of chips is lacking in delicious powdered flavor, I have no problem with that. I just have a problem if you don't want to hear about the time my Chili Cheese Fritos were kinda flavorless, too, and were full of bees that stung my throat and I had to go to the emergency room, but I couldn't get in because it was full of wolves... with lasers.

All things pass into the night.

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.

Happy New Year!

Many years ago, I made a resolution not to make any more resolutions, and I've stuck to it since.  It is a shame, because I am really good at sticking to resolutions.  For example, I resolved, after breaking up with Evil Mike never to date anyone, ever again, who I did not find at least reasonably attractive upon first seeing them. That worked out well for me since my husband is pretty cute.

I think if I were to make resolutions, it would only be right for them to be ridiculous and super easy.  Like:

or perhaps:

I resolve to annoy celebrities on twitter until one of them finally acknowledges me as awesome OR blocks me.


Resolving not to do things seems like a drag. I have enough opportunities to be disappointed in myself naturally (still neurotic), I don't need to manufacture any more that I then declare publicly, giving other people the opportunity to be disappointed in me too. I think if you are gonna set up rules for yourself, they should make you happy, not miserable. So if you are still into resolving stuff, go easy on yourself, and please consider making at least one funny/easy resolution so you can feel like a success and add some laughter to your life... and then tell me about it so I can laugh too.

And hey, because I am a nerd and can't help myself, SEE YOU NEXT YEAR! =P

How to Ensure a Prosperous New Year.

Everyone in my family is pretty damned funny.  My sister likes to start traditions in our family, and 14 years ago, shortly before she had our First Annual Christmas Weenie Roast (I don't know that we had more than one), she created the tradition of The Christmas Snake.

It goes thusly:
If you wake up Christmas morning with a bed full of snakes, you will have a prosperous and happy New Year... if you don't die of fright, from waking up with a bed full of (rubber) snakes.

And this is probably why non-Christian funny people shouldn't be trusted to come up with Christmas traditions.

Another time I thought I had cancer.

I learned yesterday that I don't like having needles stuck into my face.  I had an inkling before that it was the sort of thing that I would not be in to, but having it done totally cemented in my mind that I REALLY don't like it. I probably like it more than the prospect of having cancer though, which is why I allowed my doctor to put a needle into my face.  If he had just been like, "You know what would be fun? Stabbing you in the face with a needle!" and then he'd come at me all:

 I would have had to use my Hamster Style on him.

But why was a doctor sticking a needle into your face, JRose?

Funny you should ask.

On Friday, my face went all Volcano-mode and the mole by my nose did a dramatic recreation of the movie 2012.

I thought, eh, pimple, whatevs, because I like to talk to myself like I am cool and hep, as the kids say. I kept screwing with it 'til it popped because if I have a giant "end of the world" sort of face sore, I cannot do anything but poke and prod until it goes away or I pass out from pain.
I am not sure what it was, I don't think it was actually a pimple, but it had its sights on my signature mole which is now gone completely because it fell off.  PART OF MY FACE FELL OFF! One of my favorite parts of my face, too. I mean, I would miss my eyelids more, but I really liked that damned mole.

Of course, by "fell off" I mean I kept messing with the little flappy part that was threatening to fall off until it ripped off, but the results are the same, a bloody gross face hole that I was pretty sure was the deadliest kind of cancer, because I always think everything is the worst thing it could ever be... and obviously, my inane expectation that I'm going to die eminently led me to the doctor's office where I allowed him to inject shots into my face to do a biopsy because while it probably isn't cancer, he says, it would super suck to be wrong.

And now I feel sorry for strangers who have to look at my post-biopsy face because I am sure they must feel uncomfortable looking at me. It kind of looks like someone put a cigarette out on my face, which should totally be my story if anyone breaks social code and asks why I am so horribly disfigured.

It's all brown to me!

For quite some time, I thought my husband was just difficult, intermittently.  Yesterday, I was driving him to a business in the next town over.  He had been there before and I hadn't.  Remembering that I am neurotic, I get a little anxious when I don't know exactly where I am going.  Remembering that I live in Montana (which is code for The Wild West), we went from being on a modern paved road to a scary dirt/rock road in the matter of a turn. I asked him where it was and he said "It's the green building." And so I looked around, passed a few buildings, and kept driving down the rocky road at which point I asked "Which green building?!" because there were no more buildings.
"The one BACK THERE!"

It was then that I remembered that my husband is colorblind.

I didn't find out my husband was colorblind until we had been married for 10 years.  He didn't know he was colorblind either, in fact. We were out together and he needed to make a call on the cell phone. He is not great with technologies, and so I was coaching him through it.  "Just press the green button once and choose the number you need to call, and then press the green button again."  And then, suddenly, he was greatly annoyed with me. "THERE IS NO GREEN BUTTON!"
"Uh, yes there is... it is opposite of the red button."
"THERE IS NO RED BUTTON!!!"
"Wha? Here! It's right here."
"That's green?"

I've learned many interesting things about color blindness.  For example, he can see traffic light colors just fine but he cannot see light colors on a phone.  He can't see that he has red hair in a mirror but can see it in photographs. And of course, he thinks that tan and gray buildings are green, which they totally aren't.

In case you happen to be colorblind, the words in the bubble are the title of this image.

As Promised.

This is only funny if you read yesterday's post.

In fact, I did cry briefly today.  The love of my life died. Not my husband, he is fine.  Not bacon. It is presumably good, too.

I plugged my Kindle in last night to charge, because it was super dead when I went to read and when I remembered it was still plugged in this afternoon, it had somehow met an untimely demise.  I called Amazon (which I just typoed Amazin, probably not by coincidence) and after explaining in a panicky way that I had been depending upon reading on the plane to keep me from having a panic attack (haven't mentioned I don't like flying, have I?), Kyle the Awesome, told me that a brand spanking new Kindle would be over-nighted to me since mine was still in warranty. It should be here tomorrow in time to take with me. *crosses fingers*

So yeah, I love Amazon, and my Kindle... and while this is not a sponsored post, and is written of my own volition because I am really happy with the customer service I received, Amazon, I love free things and you are welcome to send me anything you like.

Cheeseblarg Takes Manhattan

So, you know how I am awesome and everyone loves me and thinks I'm great?  This now extends to a certain, equally awesome, red-headed late night host... or well, maybe his staff of art/marketing people who he never talks to, but damn it, someone thinks I rule, and they're right.

I got an email Thursday morning letting me know that my piece from the post "Be Cool, My Llamas" was chosen to be shown in an official art show in NYC from the 24th of October until the 3rd of November at the Time Warner Center in New York City. And then I had to wrestle with my computer AND a printer (and you should know how I feel about printers) to get the stuff turned in, since it needed to be in by the next day, and because I am super eager (read:desperate) I may have actually injured myself getting it all in within two hours of getting the email (again, I blame it on the printer wrestling, which should be some sort of official sport).


So, I should have my VERY FIRST show in NEW YORK CITY at the end of this month, which is one of my life goals. Unfortunately, since I have an income of $25 a month (yeah, totally not kidding) I should be missing my very first art showing in New York City.

I think at this point there are only two viable solutions (since robbing a bank or something similar is not viable- I'm too nice for prison):

Either that late night show that is going to be showing my art should take pity on me and fly me out there,
OR
Someone should sponsor me to get me to New York for the show.

Reasons to send me to NYC:

RSS readers, there is a video here. Please visit the actual blarg to view a special message from me! 

I am not responsible for alcohol poisoning or liver failure if a drinking game is made regarding the amount of times I say UM in my video. I'm an artist/writer, not an on air talent. =P

So, let's make it happen. Just think of the wealth of art and hilarious posts that you could contribute to!

See more info on funding this project and the rewards you get for helping here at Kickstarter.com, where the pledges have already started to roll in!

Please, feel free to share this on your blog. It really could help!

Evil Mike: A Cautionary Tale

The summer before my 10th grade year, I met my first boyfriend, Evil Mike*, over the phone while at my friend Veronica’s house.  Because I was awkward and weird and had REALLY low self-esteem, I immediately agreed when Evil Mike, after talking to me for a week or so, asked me to be his girlfriend.  This happened over the phone, of course, and I had not actually seen him yet, as the internet didn‘t exist so I couldn‘t force him to send me a picture before I accepted. I thought he was funny enough though, in a fart joke sort of way, and his voice was very attractive, which, you should know, is never indicative of how someone actually looks, but Veronica had assured me that he was “totally fine” so I figured I was good.

Yes, Clint Eastwood is my ultimate measure of sexiness, thank you.

I was still 14 when I agreed to his proposal of datitude, even though I was forbidden from actually dating, so our first date required the “best friend secret rendezvous” maneuver, wherein I’d spend the night at my friend Katriya’s house (because she was the friend my family liked/trusted the most) so I could do things my parents didn’t want me to do because they were bad bad ideas.  I got all dressed up in my sexiest acid wash mom jeans and an off-the-shoulder tube shirt with a horrendous flower pattern and applied my iridescent tan lipstick and off we went to meet him and his friend at Loehmann’s Plaza, where we were going to see Child’s Play III.

Katriya and I sat outside on a planter that doubled for an ashtray, nervously waiting for him to make his first appearance.  “Over there, that’s him!” Her voice was not kind  as she pointed at the pair of heshers coming out of the arcade.  “Veronica LIED!” I hissed at her as she began to laugh. Please let it be the blonde, please let it be the blonde, fuck, of course it’s not the blonde.  His friend was fairly attractive.  He, on the other hand, totally wasn’t.  He wasn’t much taller than I was, fancied himself a body builder, but his frame didn’t support it well so he just looked a bit like a tall little person. Beyond that, he had a mullet, but not just any mullet, it was a super mexi-mullet. And he was wearing a fitted jean jacket with Eddie Van Halen air brushed on the back of it. I wanted to flee. To pretend it wasn’t me, but it was too late. He had spotted me.

We bought tickets.  I can’t remember if he bought my ticket for me or if I had to buy my own. I spent the whole movie alternating between chastising myself for my desire to dump him on the spot because he was so repulsive to me and thinking how incredibly awful the movie was.  Really, have you seen Child’s Play III?! Serious crap! He spent the whole movie trying to touch my boobs and making me very uncomfortable by actually acting like he was my boyfriend. The only high point was that he smelled of Drakkar, which he might have bathed in.

Afterwards, we broke off from our friends and walked around the deserted outdoor mall. “So, what do you think?” I somehow realized he was asking me to assess his attractiveness. “Oh, yeah. You’re as fine they said.” I’m a liar, a dirty liar. Which should pay off right? Flattery and what not…  “And what about you?” Of course, he didn’t hold to the same principles that I did as his response was not flattering in the least. “Well, you’re not the beautiful flower they said you were, but you’re okay.”  He was entirely wrong.  I was an AMAZINGLY beautiful flower, and he was a jackass.

When I got back to Kat’s house, I called Veronica and informed her that she was a lying jerk, and she told me I was shallow (which I took to be a confession that she knew damned well that her pants were on fire) and she convinced me that I should give him a chance, which was a really bad suggestion, but somehow when you are 14 and you have really low self-esteem, you make really bad decisions, and instead of dumping him, like a sane person, I dated him for approximately two years.

Those were not two consecutive years, of course, because he would break up with me every couple of months/weeks/days because he was convinced I was either cheating on him at that moment, or was planning on cheating on him at any second, and I would cry and  plead with him not to dump me and he would declare that I just wanted to be with him because he was “sooooo fine.” Each time this declaration would come and each time it was really hard not to guffaw the moment he’d say it, but I somehow managed not to laugh openly at him and would assure him of all the stupid reasons I didn’t want him to break up with me, my level of attraction to him had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with it.




* Evil Mike's name was coined after I started dating my husband, who is "good Mike" or just Mike.  But evil Mike was evil... or compared to all other Mikes who did not make my life miserable for 2+ years... Come to think of it, he wasn't really clever enough to be evil, I guess... he was really just a dick.. but Evil Mike has a better ring to it than "Dick Mike." 

_____________________________________________________

Remember, tomorrow is the last day to buy your Limited Edition September Sticker! 

http://cheeseblarg.blogspot.com/2011/09/september-sticker-sale-t-rex-wants-ice.html

The Tribute

You're flipping through the channel guide:

All Adam Sandler movies?! OH NO!!!


You immediately google:

Adam Sandler Dead?!

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 Value of Pie

There are a few books from my early childhood that really influenced who I am as a person (and a writer, I suppose). Each taught me things that formed my personality and sense of humor.

The King Who Rained by Fred Gwynne

One of my very favorite books EVER.  Beautiful illustrations, and very funny. The King Who Rained is full of homophone humor that instilled in me a love of word play and of picturing things in the funniest way possible. I guess I stole my whole schtick from this book, looking back at it.

Tikki Tikki Tembo by Arlene Mosel

This book appealed to me because it had such beautiful stylized illustrations and a cute story based on repetition. I remember it being read to us in the library, possibly by my mom, possibly by the librarian;  It was a long time ago. I learned from it to be succinct in my writing and speech, to get my point across when it was most important.

Where the Sidewalk Ends 

So many people love this book by Shel Silverstein, so I do not really have to expound upon its appeal. I did learn from it, though, that poems are better funny than serious, and dear lord, if I had only remembered that lesson in my mopey high school and college years when I wrote terrible embarrassing beat poetry that I, at least, had the decency to avoid reading aloud at the many awful and painful poetry readings I attended.

Amelia Bedilia by Peggy Parish

I never actually read this book, but it taught me a very important lesson.  And that lesson is, some people are total jerks and suck at their jobs and will shirk their own professional responsibilities off onto first graders instead of actually taking responsibilities for their own mistakes.

Obviously, there is more to this story.

When I was in first grade at Maryland Elementary School in Phoenix, Arizona, I loved reading and I utilized the school library as much as I was allowed.  Being the nerdpants I have always been, I was very respectful of the rules and always made sure I got my books back on time, because that was the rule of checking things out in the library, and you're supposed to follow rules.

Now this was a time when computers were things that took up entire rooms and were not available for frivolous things like library catalogs, and so everything was done by hand. You would write your name on the book's call card and the librarian would take the card out of the little pocket in the back and she would replace the card with a brightly colored piece of paper that was covered in rows of date stamps, and you would look at the last stamp on the page and that would be when you had to have your book back by... or else!

And so it happened one day, when the library sent their little slips to the teachers that kindly reminded the students that they had clearly not paid close enough attention to the OR ELSE caveat of borrowing books, and imparted to them that in their joy of reading, they had forgotten to bring back their books on time, that I found myself totally confused at receiving a slip that called for me to return "Amelia Bedilia" immediately.  I had never heard of this woman nor the book telling of her, and so I may have just ignored it, knowing it was quite obviously a mistake.

Until I went to check out another book.

The head librarian at Maryland Elementary was not the nicest lady in the world which is a nice way of saying, she was kind of a heinous bitch.  She was, in fact, the very same librarian who had been a terrible ogre when my dad had attended Maryland Elementary school 20 years earlier  And the problem was, she seemed to hate children, which is not the greatest personality trait for someone who works almost entirely with children, but these things happen.

Standing there with a book in my little hands, I pushed it over the checkout desk, eager to devour its story, only to have the crotchety old librarian cruelly tell me that I was banned from checking out books. I stood looking at her bewildered and then, she pulled out a call card. "Amelia Bedilia" she said, waving it in front of my face. I screwed up my face not understanding how this happened.

"But I never checked that book out.  I wouldn't know Amelia Bedilia if I fell over her!"

"Well, here is your name, in your handwriting on the card!"  And it was, it really was.

"But I didn't check that book out! The wrong card must have been put in the back of the book I checked out. I meant to sign for that one, and I returned that one, on time. I really did!"

And she looked at me, only considering what I said for a split second before she told me that it was my responsibility to check the call cards in books I checked out and that I would have to pay to replace Amelia Bedilia before I could check out any other books because I had signed for it, which seemed ridiculously unfair to me.  Even at that young age, I recognized that it was her responsibility, as the adult and the librarian, to make sure her library was in order, and her mistake was now costing me actual money (that is hard to come by when you are six) and was denying me the ability to fill my head with fanciful stories and beautiful illustrations and important information about narwhals that I would need later in life.


For many years, I held a grudge against Ms. Bedilia, which is a shame, because it was just the sort of silliness that I should have loved- a series based around a maid who had no grasp of idioms and so did exactly as told "dress the turkey for dinner, draw the curtains, etc." And THEN she manages not to get fired each time by making a super tasty pie.  Imagine the life lessons I could have learned from that!