A is for Abraham

(A is also for the only post I actually managed to finish, so this will probably be the only A-Z Challenge for 2016...)

Most of you probably know the story of Abraham and Isaac. (If not, brief summary: God promised Abraham he'd be the father of his peoples, but Abraham had no kids. But then MIRACLE, even though Abe and his wife Sarah are like 100 years old, Sarah has a son and they call him Isaac.

Some years letter, to test Abraham's faith, God tells Abe to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice. So Abraham sets off on a camping trip with his son and when they get to the campsite, he prepares to murder Isaac and offer him as a sacrifice to God. Thankfully, God sends an angel to stop him at the last minute and congratulate him on his faithfulness.

I always wonder about their trip back home.

It must have been kind of awkward....

Have a good weekend, y'all!

Some Motivational Books Written by my Mother.

.....Mumsy's actually not as bad anymore. Except for that last one.^

I'm bored at work. I'm getting paid to sit here and eff around on MS Paint. 

I'm thinking of doing the A - Z Challenge this year, but I'm torn between themes: a second round of I'm Going to Complain Now, or Bible Stories as Told by Mich (with MS Paint). What say ye? I'm willing to let y'all vote. 

Z is for Zits

I thankfully did not have much of a problem with acne as a teenager. But I still had this notion that once I reached adulthood, I would magically never get zits again.

I get more zits now than I ever did in high school. And they are no longer limited to my face. I've gotten random tiny ones on my arms and chest. I've gotten the shoulder ones (usually in summer) and every time one of those pops up, I go into a blind panic, Viking Roomie's words ringing in my ears from the times she got pimples on her shoulder ("ONLY FAT PEOPLE GET BACNE!!").

The zits seem partial to my jawline. You know what happens when a person with no willpower gets a zit on their neck? That person MUST pop it (sewing needles work best), and because zits are assholes, that person will end up looking like they got bitten by a vampire.

Do y'all know how hard it is to cover up little scabs with foundation? And do y'all know how impossible it is to NOT pick those scabs?? 

Ugh.

Y is for Your Personal Space and My Personal Space Being Separate Things

We've probably all experienced this at some point in our lives. You're at the supermarket and waiting on line, and you get this feeling that something is not right. Then you feel this faint warm breeze on the back of your neck.

Someone is standing behind you, and standing absurdly close to you.

You try to move up a little without crowding the person in front of you, but the creeper behind you just moves up as well. Stepping a little bit to the side doesn't work either; the creeper can get even closer to you if you do that.

What do you do? Social etiquette makes it difficult for you to turn around and address the issue directly with the weirdo who is occupying your very personal space. Do you just grit your teeth and try to ignore it until it's your turn at the register? If you're anything like me, you can't.

I have invented a number of solutions for this situation, all of them designed to not only get the creeper out of your space, but to impart upon them the lesson that one should not stand that close to complete strangers in the supermarket.

1. Sneezing

Fake a sneeze. And not some little pansy sneeze. A BIG, booming sneeze. One that racks your whole body. This allows you to jerk your body in the creeper's direction. No one likes getting sneezed on.

2. Foot stomping

Pretend to slightly lose your balance. (If you're me, you don't even have to pretend.) Step backwards, directly onto the creeper's foot. And not a light step. A good hard stomp that can crack bones.

3. Elbow to the gut

You need to get your cell phone out of your purse. Naturally, this leads to a good hard elbow to the stomach for the person behind you.

4. Long hair to the face

Have nice long hair? Give it a good dramatic sweep over your shoulder. I have never done this because I can't pull it off without looking like I'm having a seizure, but I've seen others do it.

What about the rest of you? I'm always open to suggestions for new tactics.

V is for Video Games

You have probably heard of Candy Crush by now. If you have never played it, DON'T START. I'm on level 370-something. When I started, I never thought I would get this far. Then I downloaded it onto my mother's ipad and connected it to her facebook account, so I could send myself lives. Lil Sis made fun of me a lot for this. She is now on level 128, and has downloaded Candy Crush onto her boyfriend's phone so she can send herself lives.

This bothers me because I was never a big video gamer. I mean yeah I loved video games as a kid, but not to the extremes I've seen some people love video games (like Lil Bro#1, who can sit and play those war games for up to 12 hours at a time; or the lads in my friend C's family, who once played Zelda for LITERALLY 18 HOURS NON-STOP because it was raining and we couldn't go to the beach).

I grew up on the original Nintendo and Sega Megadrive, and later Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64.

swear it works

With pretty much all the games I had, you could only move forward and jump. My brain has trouble with 3D (although I did love Knights on Sega Saturn, that game was brilliant). I can kick anyone's arse in Mortal Kombat, but beyond that I am abysmal at video games. When we were playing Zelda down the shore, I was the one who started out with the controller and after half an hour of grief, I declared defeat because I couldn't find my way out of the first village.

I don't mind watching other people play video games, though. I will keep up a running commentary, and be merciless with my insults.  

....update since I composed this post: I have stopped the relentless playing of Candy Crush. Because I am currently a slave to Pokemon Yellow. 

I HAVE THE MERMAID DOG NOW

Don't judge me.

U is for Understanding the Use of Punctuation

When my mother texts me, pretty much every sentence ends in an exclamation point.

We had this conversation a while back:

[A few back and forth texts regarding a car issue I had]

Me: Bro-in-law brought the car back to my house.

Mum: Did he charge you?!

Me: Big Sis#2 said not to worry about it.

Mum: Then don't!

Me: Lol why are you yelling?

Mum: When was I yelling?!

Me: The exclamation points make me read it in a yelling voice.

Mum: Then you're the one yelling!

Me: -___________-

I shall just have to add this to the long long list of things Mum cannot understand because she refuses to do so. 

T is for Toddlers

For the most part I like children. I don't really think they're that much different than adults, except they're shorter (and when you're only 5' tall, shorter doesn't really make a difference in your opinion of other people).

I like babies, too. I don't think they're cute or anything (seriously newborns all look like freaking aliens I am not going to oooo and aaahhh over your newborn sorry just not doing it), but when it comes to looking after babies, that is the easiest thing ever.

(The first response I usually get to that is "Wait until you have to get up and feed them 4 times a night!" I promise, getting up and feeding something 4+ times a night is not a big deal when you don't sleep in the first place. I have done it when others were too sick to do it, for weeks at a time.)

Babies cry and shit and need feeding. That's it. They cannot talk back to you and they cannot run away.

Which leads to why I am never having children.

I don't like toddlers. They hit that magical age of being able to talk in sentences and run at the same time, and now you will truly come to know the meaning of suffering. Because they can talk and run, but they cannot yet reason. And also at that age, they're like puppies. You can't leave them alone to entertain themselves yet. They need constant attention, and they have limitless energy. Just thinking about taking care of a toddler makes me tired.

NOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPE 

S is for Swearing

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R is for Retarded

I have mixed feelings regarding the use of the word "retard" as slang. I've used it myself on occasion. To me, the word doesn't have anything to do with people who have actual mental disabilities. Its use in slang phrases has changed its connotation.

The word itself, as defined in the dictionary, means slow, or to slow down. That is what we mean when we say something is retarded--we mean that it's stupid (i.e., slow). We don't mean that people with mental disabilities are stupid, and we're not saying "retarded" to insult them.

Downs Syndrome runs in my family. My cousin, C., now 20 years old, has it, and I have never treated her any differently than I treated the rest of my cousins. I've seen how other people react, so I know the difficulties she'll have to face for the rest of her life. She lives life as normally as she can. She's in a theater club (and is apparently a very good actress!), loves to watch TV (especially Coronation Street), works at a daycare center and is very good with small children, and wants to one day be a midwife. She actually goes down the pub now with her friends and with Anorexic Auntie (her mum).

A couple years ago, when a school counselor somehow brought up the fact that she has Downs, C came home in tears and asked Anorexic Auntie, "is there really something wrong with me!??"

If that counselor survived Anorexic Auntie's wrath, I would be very surprised.

Why do we need politically correct words for things that make us uncomfortable? Remember when it was still ok to call someone "handicapped?" But then that changed to "disabled." "Handicapped" used to be ok, though--it replaced "crippled," which was not ok. So how long before "disabled" becomes a bad word, and we come up with another term? We used to also refer to crippled people as "lame" way back when until someone decided that was offensive and so now it's generally only used for animals. We still use "lame" as slang and no one seems to care.

It's retarded.  

P is for Panties

Why is that word still being used?

It is a horrific word. Think about it.

You can't use it in a sentence without sounding like a pedophile. I promise.

Ladies, do any of you actually use that word? Because I don't know any ladies who do. In fact, all the ladies with whom I am acquainted feel the same way I do.

There are so many alternatives:

knickers

underwear

undies

pants

underpants

or get specific, i.e. thongs, boy shorts, etc.

THERE IS NO NEED FOR THE WORD PANTIES. None. At all.

O is for Old Soul

Ever been told you have an "old soul?" I get that a lot. I don't believe in reincarnation. Even in my spiritualist/idealist college days when a bunch of my friends went through their Buddhist phases, I did not believe in reincarnation. Because no benevolent force would ever allow something so horrific. Living another life over and over and over after you die? As far as I'm concerned, that is the definition of Hell.

I know a number of other people who get the "old soul" comments, too. I noticed that we all have something in common: we spent a huge chunk of our childhoods surrounded by adults, without other children for company. After a while, you get used to this to the point where you prefer to hang around the adults even when there is a group of other kids to play with. I presume this is why I got along so well with the parents of some of my friends in high school...

Recently someone pointed out to me that some of my friendships are abnormal. I was reminiscing about the trips to Atlantic City I used to take with my friend Ch. (who is a huge hippie btw). I was stopped mid-story with a "....wait, you're friends with Ch.? I thought you were friends with her daughter?"

Lol.

Ch. has a daughter my age. We were bff's from like age 6 through age 14. We're not friends anymore--we just grew apart, and then the last time I saw her I realized I don't really like her anymore. But now I'm friends with her mother.

I have two other friends like this--I used to be friends with their kids, but now I hang out with the moms instead. Is that weird? I never thought it was. Age differences mean nothing to me. Biologically, we all stop maturing in our late teens. I know people who use their age to talk down to younger people--even if that younger person is in their 30s or 40s--and basically treat them like they're children (i.e., "You're only ##, you're a baby!"). I don't really understand that. Yes, I know there are 10 years between myself and my youngest siblings, and yes I remember changing their diapers and feeding them in the middle of the night, but they're still like my best friends now. You reach a certain age, and the age difference doesn't matter anymore.

I'm also really really awful at determining someone else's age. I hate when people ask me how old I think they look, because honestly I have no freaking clue how old you are. 20? 30? 55? 90? No idea. Perhaps this is payback for the confusion I apparently cause others--according to a number of acquaintances, I come off as much older than I am, but I look much younger than I am (yay!), and this is perplexing.

Everyone keeps telling me I'm going to be upset when I turn 30 in September. Are y'all kidding?? I can't wait. My 20s SUCKED ASS. Bring it on.

N is for Nothing

I had a vlog planned for "N," but for a number of reasons, the vlog was never made. 

(As y'all may have noticed from the vast number of vlogs I have made in the past, I clearly am totally awesome at vlogging.*)

I had hoped to get an alternate post done in the event that I did not actually finish the vlog, but that never happened either. 

Apologies in advance for getting overly serious from this point on.

The middle of April (and spring in general) marks a number of death anniversaries, two of which have not really gotten any easier to deal with than when those individuals died. So my ability to function has suffered, and it eventually ground to a halt on Sunday night. Monday marked a death that continues to haunt me, and so I was kind of a huge mess on Monday. Consumption of booze has tripled since then, so I'm still feeling kind of brittle and raw. 

Which brings me to today's post. 

For N, we shall be having a virtual moment of silence. A moment of silence for those we have all lost to the Long Silence.  ♥

*sarcasm

M is for Math

From like third grade onward, most of my teachers and peers thought I was a moron. Because I can't do math.

Numbers just don't make sense to me. Even I thought I was stupid, because numbers seem to make perfect sense to everyone else. Both of my parents are accountants, for feck's sake. Mumsy even once admitted to me that she dreams in numbers.

I can barely count to ten.

Not kidding--when I used to exercise and tried counting my sit-ups and push-ups and whatnot, I apparently almost always screwed up the counting at some point. I never noticed this--my sister and a few of my friends did, on a number of separate occasions.

I screw up taking down people's phone numbers all the time at work. My boss used to yell at me for this, but now--like most of my bosses before him--if the number is wrong the first time, he'll reverse the 6's and 9's (as in, change all 6's in the phone number to 9's, or vice versa), and usually once he does that, he ends up with the correct number.

::convulses on the floor::

Whoever came up with 6 and 9 should be tortured. 3 as well--it always takes me a sec to make sure it's not an 'E.' And to make sure the 4 isn't "H."

I have trouble telling time, too. Most people look at a clock and see the time, but I see:

unless I sit there and stare at it for a full minute.

AND WTF IS UP WITH THOSE WATCHES WITH NO NUMBERS JUST HANDS YOU'RE POSSESSED BY DEMONS IF YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS.

L is for Looking Both Ways Before Crossing the Street

There is a plague on motorists everywhere, and it is this:

I have noticed a growing trend with pedestrians--they no longer look before they cross the street. It baffles me. It makes me terrified of driving through towns. For reals, I will take the most ass-backwards way to the post office or the supermarket on my lunch breaks just so I can avoid driving through the town in which I work. People dart out into the street with no warning. They even dart out from behind parked cars, and then give you filthy looks when you slam on your brakes and swerve into the middle of the road to avoid them.

I would love to take these people and drop them into the middle of Broad Street in Philadelphia, where I learned the correct way to be a pedestrian. In Philadelphia, you look both ways even when the sign tells you it's ok to walk. Because Philly drivers will absolutely not stop for pedestrians in the middle of the road. Even the bus drivers won't stop. (Not kidding, I saw five pedestrians and one bicyclist get hit by cars and/or buses in the three years I lived there. I was even in the car for one of those collisions.)

People have somehow gotten it into their heads that the Yield to Pedestrians law means that they no longer have to look both ways because it's illegal for us not to yield to them in a crosswalk.

IN THE CROSSWALK, PEOPLE.

Newsflash: it's still a good idea to look both ways.

K is for Klutz

You know what really ticks me off? When people try to say that a girl being a klutz is cute.

It's not cute. It's a fecking pain in the arse.

Mostly I can blame it on the vertigo. I have no balance, and even when I think I can manage standing upright without a problem, sometimes my brain likes to play Let's Go Sailing Now and

I used to love shoes. I still love shoes. But I can no longer wear high heels. I have finally reached a point where I can accept this. I used to enjoy haunted houses on Halloween as well, but then a couple years ago after going through one of those spinning rooms

I spent the next 6 hours vomiting and fighting a raging headache, and the next two days in bed because I couldn't even stand up.

Part of it may also be a lack of hand-eye coordination. Lots of people complain that they have some issues with that. That they have *bad* hand-eye coordination.

Try having almost NONE.

A good chunk of the time, when I go to pick something up, I end up hurling it across the room. I have injured people doing this. I have broken windows and walls. I have lost things forever.

And a big problem resulting from vertigo + lack of hand-eye coordination: carrying things. 

Just carrying anything in general. If I need both hands to carry something, my balance goes out the effing window. Like seriously I have almost died on several occasions because I needed to carry a box from one side of the room to the other.

Some people try to tell me this can be a good thing. I can play the damsel in distress, right?

NO.

I never look like the damsel in distress. I just look like a fool.

J is for John Malkovich

I won't usually shut off a tv show or a film if I dislike one of the actors in it. Hell, I can [usually] watch Kevin Bacon films without too much of a problem.

However

If we sit down to watch something on the telly and I happen to catch even a hint of John Malkovich, we will be promptly changing the channel.

He never shuts up. I feel like he makes up triple the lines they actually give him in the script of every single film in which he has ever acted.

The biggest insult to my soul by far was the film Dangerous Liaisons. They have turned that book (despite being written way back when, it's actually a very good book) into three different films: Valmont, which had a great cast but kind of butchered the story; Cruel Intentions, which even though it's set in the 90's instead of the 1700's is probably the truest to the book; and the 1988 film Dangerous Liaisons. John Malkovich was cast as the main character, Valmont. The same character played by Ryan Philllllipppppe in Cruel Intentions. The guy who is supposed to be this major man-whore, who is so charming and gorgeous that he gets to screw around with pretty much everyone without making much of an effort.

Let that sink in. They cast John Malkovich as this guy.

John Malkovich is like the opposite of the charming gorgeous man that women find irresistible.

That is all.

I is for Inch Worms

Spring should be a time of flowers and new life and sneezing fits. But for me, spring is a time of terror. A time of becoming a total shut-in. Of never leaving the house without a massive umbrella even when it's sunny.

Especially when it's sunny.

Why, you may ask?

Because in spring, inchworms start falling out of the trees.
[I tried finding photos of this, but the google image search made me feel a bit nauseous so sorry but no]

Guys seriously. You don't understand how awful this is. I have a worm phobia, and it is ten times worse than all of my other weird phobias and pet peeves. In spring I have to deal with WORMS RAINING FROM THE F*CKING SKY. And this can go on for half of the summer.

I would rather it rained spiders. I would rather it rained cheese. I would rather it rained fecking Kevin Bacon if that meant it would stop raining worms.

So cheers to staying indoors for the next 4 months.

H is for Hippies

A disclaimer: I wrote the following post while extremely drunk. I do not endorse this sort of behaviour. 
(I am, however, quite impressed with the general level of coherency I managed to achieve.)


I don't even know where to start this.

Back in high school, everyone fit neatly into their labels. There were the trendy kids (I guess what would be the stereotypical *popular* kids?), the nerds, the jocks, and the freaks. And each of those had subcategories. I have no idea what sort of subcategorizations there were among the trendy, jock, and nerdy kids; but in the freak group, there were the goths, the hippies, the punks, and the metalheads. In general, everyone within the Freaks got along with everyone else. Clashes usually arose from one place.

Metalheads vs. Hippies.

....I was about to apologize for possibly offending anyone from this point onward but seriously if you've been reading this blog for this long you should know to never ever take me seriously.

A friend and I just had a long conversation about this. We realized that this conflict--Metalheads vs. Hippies--has defined our entire lives.

Hippies and Metalheads are like complete polar opposites. People accuse me of being a hippie a lot, and my instinctive reaction is to take offense. I never questioned this, and I should because I have some good friends who are definitely hippies, and I don't hold that against them (usually....... ok fine I make fun of them for it but we're still good friends). Like seriously, in high school the biggest insult my friends and I could hurl at each other was "F*CKING HIPPIE!!!"

M and I still use that as an insult. So yeah, when people accuse me of being a hippie because of the way I dress, I get offended.

I think it might be because I'm like a redneck-metalhead hybrid. I guess on the surface level we can appear very similar, but there is a large difference between hippies and rednecks. I shall illustrate this with a chart:

G is for Grocery Shopping

I think everyone who hates grocery shopping hates it for the same reasons, so instead of rambling on in the normal fashion, I shall now attempt some poetry:

I actually kind of like grocery shopping.

It highlights all of my most efficient qualities,

like writing the list in the order of the aisles in the shop

and then never using the list because I memorized it,

and of course when I get home,

carrying all twelve bags in at once

because I don't feel like making more than one trip.

But seriously people

can you not leave your shopping cart across the aisle

completely blocking my way

and then get pissed at me for moving it

when you ignored my polite attempts at

"EXCUSE ME."

Your filthy ill-mannered children

should be strapped into the shopping cart,

or perhaps you could just leave them at home.

I know you have a nanny.

No one with three screaming children

wears Gucci spike heels

and spotless white Dior pant suits

unless they have a nanny.

You know how when you approach an intersection

in your car or on foot,

you stop and look both ways

to make sure you don't get hit by an oncoming truck?

One would think that rule might also apply

to the end of the aisles in the supermarket.

YES, I am in fact quiet short.

And I would appreciate it if you didn't judge me

when I need to climb the shelves

because of course the item I want

is always on the top shelf.

Unless there is something legitimately wrong with you

I don't understand

why you can't

just bag your own effing groceries.

People like you will die first

when the zombies come.

Why the hell don't any of these supermarkets

stock parsnips.

Some of us eat those.

It's Sunday afternoon.

Everyone does their food shopping on Sunday afternoon.

So why are there only two cashiers working?

That's right.

My life is not exciting.

And I know that you know

because the only things I'm buying

are vodka and cat food.

F is for Fruit

I used to get scolded for not eating my fruit as a child. My parents or nanny would serve me an apple or orange or grapes or a banana, and I would flatly refuse to eat it.

Because fruit is disgusting.

I get sensitive with certain textures in foods, and I cannot handle food that is slimy and/or mushy. Like pretty much all fruit. Believe me, I have tried conquering this with oranges (sour ones--they don't taste bad if they're sour), but the mushiness actually makes me gag, and I don't even have a gag reflex.

The only fruit I can handle is apples (sour ones), but for whatever reason, despite consuming ridiculous amounts of apple pie, if I eat more than half of an actual apple, I will vomit. My stomach just refuses to digest it.

With some fruits, I can't even stand the smell without gagging. Bananas and all types of melons cause me a lot grief. Plus aside from the smell, bananas always make me think of Granny's odd eating habits: using a fork to smash her banana into mush, then smushing like 4 tablespoons of butter in with it and eating it out of a bowl. 

Just typing that made me gag.

Pears upset me a lot, too. Like if you even think about pears near me, I may vomit. They're the worst; I can't even look at pears.

Somehow, after nearly 30 years of this behavior, I have managed NOT to get scurvy.