Category Archives: Best blog posts

Feb 07 2012
16 Comments
Best blog posts, Humorous, Two minute read

Bathroom Reading Rocks

Warning: this post discusses something so incredibly awesome your eyeballs are likely to explode on monitors and other electronic equipment. Consider yourself warned.

Some things are hard to say. Words choke in the throat. Cold fingers trip over keys. Sleepiness robs the mind of its sharpness. Synapses are replaced with teddy bear stuffing.

Yet it must be said.

The words must be forced out. They will be squeezed slowly and with purpose, zit-like. The entirety of meaning and expression, the enthusiasm and despair of everything will be pressed and molded into a loaf, a delicious loaf of meaning. Then the loaf will be eaten and everyone will know.

Emotion wells up within me. I cannot bear to hold it in any longer. The naked truth will burst out of me like 10 o’clock secrets at a cocktail party. Oh God here it comes. There is no stopping it! Reality is nigh upon us!

I LOVE BATHROOM READING!

Oh sweet bathroom reading! Is there anything more delicious than reposing on the commode whilst leafing through a Spring 2010 LL Bean catalog? Or the William’s Sonoma quarterly left in your parents’ bathroom? Or the ancient Wal-Mart receipt found in a newly discovered jean pocket?

Could there be anything better than taking the extra 3-5 minutes to finish the chapter in one’s current book or lingering over the pictures in a coffee table affair on the beauty of the Rocky Mountains?

Once upon a time I was afraid of the people’s opinions. I felt suspicious glances when I went off the restroom and imagined others silently taking notice of my absence and judging me for any delays and marking down the state of my return. Shamefully and hurriedly I would perform the bathroom functions with machine-like efficiency. I did not enjoy the time I spent in the pooper.

But no longer.

Bathroom time is me time, and I’m going to take a freaking Dickens novel in there if I feel like it. I might not even be going using the toilet. Maybe I just wanted a quiet place where I don’t have to wear pants.

Let the masses think what they will, but make no mistake, the stack of reading next to my toilet is for exactly what they think it is, and if they’re human—as they claim to be–they best avail themselves of it as well.

I’ve read too many shampoo bottles in my lifetime to be subjected to that monotony in the comfort of my own home.

Therefore I say: may peace reign over the earth, and may every man, woman, and child read while taking a dump.

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Feb 06 2012
17 Comments
Best blog posts, Humorous, Three minute read

Sperry Top-Siders Are a Lie

They also don’t have very much support

Months ago, I wrote about an adventure sandal known as the Chaco. As a piece of footwear, the Chaco has never disappointed me. I’ve worn it eating in fancy restaurants, hiking in the mountains, trudging through deserts, striding on the bottom of the ocean, and creeping through strangers’ bedrooms. With each new task, the sandal proved itself and revealed astonishing layers of durability as well as a gentility unknown to most footwear.

Allow me to now introduce the Sperry, my other pair of shoes. A mainstay of New England preps in the North and sorority sisses and fraternity bros in the South, the Sperry is a boat shoe. Placed on the feet, it goes well with white pants, pearl earrings, and brightly colored popped collars. As a piece of footwear, it has the laid back attitude of an undergrad at Ole Miss who will never fear unemployment because he attends class in a building named after his family.

Unfortunately, I don’t look for such a laissez faire attitude in my foowear, which is why the Sperry sucks.Unlike my faithful, industrious Chaco, I often find my Sperry lacking. According to Sperry Top-Sider Shoes’ website, the first Sperry boat shoe was invented after Paul Sperry looked at his dog’s paw after watching him run on ice. While gazing at Prince’s paw, Paul was taken by the grooves that allowed his collie companion to sprint without fear of falling down. Shortly after this mystical experience, he used a penknife to carve lines in a shoe so sailors could walk as fearlessly as Prince.

Thus the Sperry Top-Sider was invented as a boat shoe, a shoe with purpose and function. This noble and well intended beginning stands in sharp contrast to the pitiful depths to which the shoe has now fallen. My complaints against the shoe are numerous, but allow me to begin with the ridiculous leather shoelaces that function as laces only slightly better than Twizzlers. Any shoelace with this many edges and in the shape of a long skinny cube is clearly flawed. I am constantly forced to  re-tie the shoe, exposing myself and my rear end to God knows what dangers.

Furthermore, though the shoe is advertised as a boat shoe, the sorry examples of footwear currently adorning my feet nearly dissolve in water. Even after waterproofing them, their performance was mediocre at best and nauseating at worst. Have you ever slogged around a city for hours dreaming only of a warm, crackling fireplace to throw your shoes into while shouting profanities?

Last of all, the Sperry Top-Sider is not a durable shoe. After a year of solid wear, the soles are almost completely worn through and the leather is so soft it could be thrown in a crockpot and turned into a toothsome winter stew. I do enjoy a good stew, but that is not why I bought the Sperry. I bought it to wear on my feet.

Right about now, I’m wondering: why do I even bother buying these shoes if I hate them so much? Unfortunately this is a question that will have to wait for another time. Let me say, for now, that my own stupidity and stubbornness compels me to wear these travesties year after year.

Some people once said inspirational things that when combined sound kind of like this: “be the change in the world because it begins in yourself today.” That may be true, but I can still put off buying different shoes until tomorrow.

Nota Bene: The company does make “performance” shoes, but if you’re marketing yourself as a boat shoe company and the shoe handles water more poorly than a scrap of paper towel, are you really any better than a common criminal?

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Jan 23 2012
13 Comments
Anecdotes, Best blog posts, Serious-ish, Three minute read

Dear Log, Life is Beautiful

one lucky girl and two moochers

Dear Log,

I guess it’s about that time again. I can see my suitcase over there resting near the fireplace. Wait a second…no I can’t. I just remembered I put it in the hallway. But I can see my backpack over there. Next to it are big orange bags of peanut butter M&Ms stuffed in tin cups, waiting their turn to hop in and pile onto the baking mixes I bought after a hungry trip to Wal-Mart. I didn’t know how much I wanted biscuits until I was hungry at Wal-Mart and thought about not having the option of eating biscuits for 4 months and then I realized I would do almost anything for a biscuit. This translated into purchasing the mix.

Mother gave me the peanut butter M&Ms but she doesn’t know I’m taking the tin cups. It doesn’t matter anyways since we never go camping anymore. I’m also taking a ziplock container that my family does use regularly, but what she doesn’t know until I’m thousands of feet in the air can’t hurt me.

Soon I’ll be getting into a big airplane, flying across the pond and then the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea before arriving in Egypt, my dear Egypt, mother of the earth. I don’t believe in the Mayan prophesy of the apocalypse in 2012, but if tiny dinosaurs do flood the earth and devour all living creatures like a plague of adorable but lethal locusts, then I hope they’ll come in late May, when I’ll have returned to America and could see my family one last time. They are good, kind-hearted people, simple prairie folk that enjoy a football game and a cold beer or lemonade. They also hate being referred to as simple people, and it’s adorable when they get mad.

Log, I’ve sure learned a lot over the break. I learned that some people ask you questions about Egypt even though they don’t really care. I learned that my parents sometimes care more about making me feel loved than my complexion so they give me things like peanut butter M&Ms and lactation cookies. I learned that it’s important to force your family to go to breakfast at IHOP at 6:30 in the morning on the day you leave because sometimes there’s a beautiful sunrise and eventually people forget about what an inconvenience the whole thing was.

Most importantly, Log, I learned that relationships are the most worthwhile and exciting thing we have on this earth. Rather, I re-learned this. One bright day I was out run-walking with my two sisters, and I imagined someone driving by and seeing us,  a perfect picture of sisterhood, two blonde ponytails and one brown one swishing in time. In that moment I felt like I was the luckiest girl in the world. I felt so blessed to be outside under the sky with sisters I love so much. Maybe this is just the sleep deprivation talking, but I feel like my travelling has brought me to a place of appreciating what I’ve always had and recognizing it as beautiful.

Log, I’m excited about the future and I’m excited about going back to Egypt because I have family and friends that support me and that my least favorite option for post-Egypt, coming back to Oklahoma and living with my family, is still wonderful.

Drevets out

P.S. I realized while writing this that none of us were wearing ponytails that day. I just remembered it like that in my head. Must be the old age.

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Jan 20 2012
4 Comments
Best blog posts, Humorous, Wedding

Minimizing Bridal Threat

will she ruin her own wedding day?

Dear Sister,

Last night I finished The Bridesmaid Guide and Maid of Honor as per your request and am now ready to assume full powers as co-maid of honor/bridesmaid. Please prepare yourself to have the house and every pre-wedding party filled with “sassy bridesmaid giggles.”

The books were fascinating. I learned much about women, that we live for lingerie and high heels, that we love fabulous gifts like leopard print sheets and seashell soaps, and above all, that should anything be sublime, beautiful, or worthy, the best adjective to describe it is “fabulous,” which means “being loyal, enthusiastic, faithful, fun, gorgeous, and true” (TBG 13).  And so we shall be fabulous, dear sister.

As sweat soaks our underarms in the Oklahoma summer heat, hinting at our humanity, as family surrounds us and threatens to choke out our very existence, as we yearn to make off-color jokes and mock the world, we shall bite our tongues, stuff tissues in our armpits, and laugh it all away. We will all be fabulous, but only your fabulousness will be the talk of the wedding. That is our purpose.

But I am worried, sweet sister. I worry for you. As I delved deeper into the books, I learned of a terrible change that is going to come over you as the wedding date approaches. You, bride sister, are likely going to turn into a monster, someone even you would have despised from your pre-wedding mindset.

I found that, as a Leo bride, you are going to have moments of “arrogance and vanity,” and we as bridesmaids must appease you by throwing you a fabulous night on the town (do you even like going on the town?), and our bridesmaid motto must be “keep your eyes on the bride.” Dear God what is going to happen to you??

They say you will turn into a pile of nerves with the mental faculties of a cupcake. As the wedding day approaches, you will descend further into a continual state of hysteria, fueling irrational decision making. You might attempt anything from getting a Mohawk to having your bellybutton pierced and then running away to Omaha. You will likely scream at us in your distress, and should any one of your bridesmaids so much as hint at a problem that is not your concern, you may well go permanently insane, ruining the wedding.

I will still love you, sister, and I will protect the fragile matchsticks of sanity that remain inside your frenzied bridal head until the wedding mania passes. However, you should know that in my capacity as co-maid of honor, I can and will have you removed from the wedding should you present too great a threat to the production. Other sister will take your place as your identical body double, and the ceremony will proceed as planned. You will be put somewhere comfortable but secure, where you do not need to be afraid. I hope you can understand why this might need to happen, and that I’m only doing it for your good.

Thank you for the honor of asking me be your maid of honor, and I promise, dearest sister, that I will not let you down or let you let yourself down.

With fabulous love,

Emily

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Dec 28 2011
5 Comments
Best blog posts, Fiction, Humorous, Two minute read

The Shopper’s Eye: A Tale of Desperation

My sight grew numb. I didn’t even know that could happen.

An excerpt from the Drevets Log:

“Target: The Shopper’s Eye”

27 December 2011: 15:55

Very tired. Need coffee and Digestive Biscuit.

I wander a vast retail wasteland. Memories of my life before Target fade.  Numbers, letters blend together. Nothing has meaning.

Sister has developed discount psychosis. I fear for her safety. The damage may not be reversible.

Humanoids pace the aisles, eyes glazed, drool tracks on their cheeks. The management has used the color red to hypnotize its prey. Mutters emanate breathily from their mouths. They cannot understand they say nothing. Meaningless. All meaningless.

My humanity burns within me. I must leave this place. The cardigan I search for is not here. Long sleeve crew neck tees choke my being. Everything has a cost, and still the danger grows. We will not sacrifice our souls in order to fulfill our quest. My sister weakens. My own resolve becomes faint.

I have contracted the dreaded shopper’s eye. Items are indistinguishable from one another. I sense my thinking grow clouded. I clutch ill fitting shirts of garish colors. Perhaps I will wear them to parties where glasses will clink and muffled laughter will sound from the other room where a rabbit plays the piano.

I better try on just five, no six, no eight more. Eight more blouses. These jeans don’t look like the cardigan I need. I need to try them on.

Dressing room attendants, here’s a number thank you, walk left right left slam, fluorescent lights, mirror, action. I cannot recognize myself. This is the only reality. Everything is a box, beginning here in this box in the Target box in a boxy suburb, in the box city, in the universe box.

My cell phone goes off. “Mother” is calling. What is mother? Memories stir in the deep. I remember mountains, dancing, Christmas lights on snow.

ESCAPE!

I tear out of the dressing rooms. Sister stands, mesmerized by a promotion display, her consciousness wasting away. I slap her. “WAKE.” I say. “WHAT THE CRAP.” Says she. “RUN.” I say. I grab her hand. She’s irritated. I know this. She cannot understand I seek only her good. I will receive her thanks later.

We sprint up the aisles, burst into sunshine. Winter rays warm our mortal flesh.

“I need to pay for this, Emily,” sister says. She holds a pair of jeans.

“You were taking SO LONG.” I insist. “I have saved you.”

“No, Emily. You haven’t. Wait here. I’m going back inside.”

I watch her re-enter. She will thank me yet.

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