3 things that made me laugh today

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbguqax49IM

2. From overheardinnewyork.com:

Cashier: How are you?
Customer: Do you want the honest answer?
Cashier: Yes.
Customer: I feel like the business end of a donkey. I am extremely hungover and did a mountain of cocaine last night. Now I have to make dinner for a 68-year-old gay artist who is trying to fuck me.
Cashier: I’m… sorry.
Customer: And the woman I love is in another state pregnant with her ex-boyfriend’s baby, and I wish the baby was mine. And I’m sleeping with a dominatrix. And it’s all true.

–Whole Foods

3. http://forums.phishhook.com/viewtopic.php?t=664613

OK, I need to start telling people I “feel like the business end of a donkey.” For reals.

I <3 public trans

I wish I lived somewhere that had something resembling functional public transportation. Not just because it’s a pain owning a car or because it’s more environmentally and economically conscious, but because it’s highly entertaining, too. Whenever I travel somewhere I try to use the preferred mode of public trans instead of renting a car or taking cabs, and these experiences have almost always provided some good stories. Most recent trip was to San Diego.

I took an afternoon off from the neuroscience conference and walked from the convention center to the San Diego Zoo. I spent a few hours there wandering around and decided I was too tired to walk the 10ish miles back to the hotel, so I caught the bus. Even though the bus was almost empty, I went to the back and sat down a few seats away from a couple of guys. I wasn’t trying to make friends or anything, I just thought it was bus etiquette to head to the back regardless. One of the guys moved closer to me and started chatting about where I was from, what I was doing in San Diego, etc. He told me I was “beautiful like his mom.” Great. I gave polite but short answers, not trying to encourage a long conversation. He wasn’t scary looking, but he didn’t look, um, professional? either. We soon moved from chitchat to religion. I told him, yes, I was raised in a Christian family but that I didn’t attend church very frequently anymore. Bad idea. He got kind of agitated and then asked me to guess where he was from. He was clearly from somewhere in Africa and had a strong accent, but I had no idea what country. I figured I had a small chance of guessing correctly and any wrong answer would be offensive so I said I was sorry, I really had no idea. He kept asking, I kept saying I didn’t know, then he started yelling “HAVEN’T YOU EVER MET A PERSON FROM AFRICA BEFORE!!?? HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW I AM FROM LIBERIA??” Liberia. That would have been my first guess. I decided maybe I wasn’t so tired after all even though I had about 5 miles left, and got up to get off at the next stop. This agitated my new friend further, and he asked for my phone number. I said, no, sorry, and got off the bus and briskly started walking. The two guys got off the bus and started following me, but I had enough of a head start to make a couple turns without them seeing where I was going. I am glad I am a fast walker.

That was one of the scarier times. Others are just funny. The girl with the banana phone in Ann Arbor, the masturbator on the train in Chicago, the crazy-drunk German girl in Seattle…I could go on and on. People on buses love me! Hey, maybe I’ll start a blog just for public trans stories. It couldn’t really be any more boring than the other stuff I write about, right?

Too much free time

This sort of thing was all I did in high school and college. Instead of paying attention (particularly in organic chemistry), I would doodle like crazy. Haven’t had much of an opportunity since 2003, so this was kind of fun. I found my old Moleskine notebook full of ideas for paintings and stuff from forever ago and decided it is my new doodle book.

Loving my new water bottle

 

I have a problem with buying water bottles. I certainly do not need any more, but I love them. Something about the shiny plastic and the pretty colors, mmm. I got a different kind, made by Camelbak instead of my usual Nalgene and it is pretty awesome. It has the same kind of bitey tip on it that the Camelbak reservoirs have and it is definitely satisfying my oral fixation. I have found myself grinding my teeth a lot lately and having something soft and rubbery to gnaw on is probably a better option.

Oddly disturbing, yet hilarious

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1789086 

I do not like Rachel Ray.

I think Rachel Ray is obnoxious. Her voice is like nails on a chalkboard to me.

You know who else I don’t like? Giada DeLaurentiis. She has a weird rectangle mouth when she smiles and nothing she cooks ever looks good to me.

Look at that!  Ugh!  I need to stop watching the Food Network and get a hobby or something.

Retail therapy

I’m apparently trying to see how much money I can spend this weekend.  I’m on a roll!  I bought a new camera and new laptop, both of which I love.  I’ve been trying to get better at photography and I have been wanting a digital SLR camera for a long time now.  It’s so hard to learn what to do when working with a film camera…I want that instant gratification.  I was looking on craigslist a couple days ago and saw a guy selling a brand new Canon Rebel XTi with a lens for a really good price.  Apparently he won some sort of a drawing at Circuit City but doesn’t give a crap about photography, so he was trying to get rid of his prize.  There is nothing I love more than a good deal, so I took it off his hands.  I’ve been playing with it all weekend and I love it.

As for the laptop, I have needed a new one for about 6 months.  Even though I HATE HATE HATE all that Black Friday crap, there was a computer store having a really good sale, so I braved the crowds and got me a new one.  I was contemplating getting a Macbook pretty seriously but decided paying more than twice for a sexier machine was kind of silly.  I got a perfectly acceptable Compaq Presario which is basically just a nice upgrade from my current laptop and I am very pleased with it.  I know this should not be a deal breaker for me, but I decided on this one because of how the keyboard felt.  I like a nice, crisp keyboard with a nice click to the keys.  Something about that sound is very pleasing to me.  I’m nuts.

God, back to Black Friday…I hate people.  I hate this consumer-whore filled society and I hate how people throw all pretense of politeness out the window when it comes to saving a whopping 10% on some crap they are claiming as gifts.  Ha, that’s a joke, too…I bet almost everything purchased yesterday was for the person buying it, not for gifts.  All of a sudden it’s totally ok to drive like crap and to be crazy rude to salespeople and to become physically violent because someone got to what you wanted first.  I can’t say enough bad things about this whole situation and I am ashamed to have been involved in the frenzy.

Boondoggle

As far as I know, every family has a set of inside jokes that become part of the family vocabulary. I feel like my family’s is more extensive than others, and I kind of like it. One of these words is “boondoggle” and just the sound of it makes me laugh. I think my uncle Keith came up with it, or at least stole it from somewhere, and we used to go on many a boondoggle when all of us would go on a vacation together. Our definition of a boondoggle is basically a pointless trip, some sort of detour looking for an adventure or just driving around to see what you can find.

Boondoggles are not limited to vacations, though. They can be ill-fated missions in any location. My mom loves this kind. She loves going on a 3am run to Meijer to hopefully find a particular type of cake mix which we will then bake and eat in the middle of the night, or driving across town to look for one special item that is likely sold out. I think it’s partially the thrill of the hunt that she loves, but mostly she just loves spending time with my brother and I while doing something silly and impractical. Actually, the more I think about it the more I realize that is the biggest part: showing us that it can be fun to be impractical. She is normally a very logical and organized person, but she has a huge silly streak. My dad is almost always serious and sensible and can’t understand doing something ridiculous just for fun. She has always tried to balance that with some good doses of wackiness, and I’m very thankful for that. I realize more and more that so much of my sense of humor comes from my mom and this pleases me a lot.

EDIT: OK, so Uncle Keith totally did not come up with the word. Shouldn’t have given him so much credit! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boondoggle_%28project%29

Giving thanks

I think I’m pretty good at being thankful for what I have.  I know I am lucky to have a family that loves me, a good job, wonderful friends, and enough financial security to do pretty much whatever I want (within reason).  I try not to take anything for granted.  But one thing I am NOT good at is being thankful for things I used to have.  I have a really hard time dealing with change, especially change I did not solicit, and I almost always remember things I have lost with some level of sadness.

For the first 23 year of my life there was a woman who lived down the street from me named Jewel Cooke.  This woman was incredible.  She was an avid swimmer, went to the Olympics, winning medals and beating records.  She continued to beat her own Senior Olympic records until she was into her 80s.  She and her husband traveled everywhere, and when her husband died (she was 63) she continued to go places on her own and with her friends.  She would bring my brother and I souvenirs from exotic places, and I still have several of them.  When I was tiny I loved my “H-Wheels” from Alaska, which was, you guessed it, a wooden letter H on wheels.  She lived alone in a little house with very little assistance (my brother and I used to walk her dog for her, but that was about it) until she was 95.  She fell and broke her hip and her daughter decided it was time for her to be in assisted living in Chicago, nearer to her family.  After she moved we went to visit her and she was so happy to see us.  She said she missed her house and her friends and her backyard and her dog, but she was thankful to have had those things for as long as she did.  I think about that one statement often, and it makes me tear up a little sometimes.  Instead of complaining about how she hurt or how she was lonely, she was thankful for all the good things she had had in her life and that was enough comfort for her.  She died a few years later and stayed sharp until the end, sending notes fairly regularly and asking about our family, books, music and science.  I only hope that I can age as gracefully, and that as I lose things I love I can remember the good and not dwell on the bad.

That was long!  The point is, Thanksgiving should be every day and should not always involve a turkey.  I’m working on it.