Category Archives: Humorous

Jul 18 2012
20 Comments
Humorous, Modern Life, Two minute read

Watching Dogs Crap and Other Joys of Living in the City

Just out of sight, a baby is de-feathering a pigeon.

I am but a prairie lass, born and raised in the gated communities of Oklahoman suburbia, where everyone besides me got a car for their 16th birthday and our motto is “Free parking for all!” Now that I’m living in San Francisco, which is a bigger city, if not the biggest, I get to experience those subtle joys of urban life, the things that make living in the semi-tropical concrete jungle worthwhile.

Take yesterday, for example, when I was riding the MUNI (subway) and reading my NOOK (not as good as a kindle) while heading to the outer sunset (a neighborhood.) After a couple of stops, a rather vocal and drunk man across the aisle decided to direct his conversation to four other passengers scattered about in the car that were reading books, including me. “People used to f-ing talk!” he said. “Now look at them, with their f-ing tweetering and facebook…….(mumble)…there used to be CONVERSATIONS.” I smiled inwardly while staring determinedly at my NOOK. “This is great!” I thought. “City life!” Seconds later the man asked me for a cigarette and shortly after that I hopped off the train and skipped home.

In addition to the characters on public transport, part of city life in San Francisco is getting to watch people watch their dogs take a dump. At any given time in a dog park, 20% of the animals are crapping and 100% percent of their owners either staring in order to know the location of the turds, or pretending to ignore it while mentally mapping Fido’s mess. This bizarre kind of human-animal interaction is something only the urban could have come up with, and it’s just another reason I love living here!

Awkward secondary interactions with strangers are also an integral and precious part of city life. While in line at McDonald’s, a popular local joint, the man in front of me started berating the innocent employee because she had “lied” to him about the cost of honey mustard AND not given it to him. “I’m not here to argue with you!” the man yelled. “I’m here to do business!” After one of the more uncomfortable minutes of my and the employee’s day, the man grabbed his sauce, sat down, and proceeded to eat his gigantic meal alone.  This was business.

As if the city couldn’t get any better, yesterday I ran to the ocean (that’s right mom, I was exercising), and stood triumphally on top of a sand dune, having a spiritual moment as the sun sank red into the ocean. After about a minute, a man walked up to the dune on my left and and assumed a characteristic position that indicated he was about to be sick. Ah, nothing like enjoying the sunset with the promise of someone nearby blowing chunks. Unfortunately, I had to leave and could not stay to watch any bile-spewing, but maybe I’ll catch it next time!

Life in the city sure is fun! But seriously, it’s better than the suburbs. I’ll take the vomit and the weird human-animal and human-human interactions any day. The only thing I miss is my parent’s kitchen.

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Jul 13 2012
9 Comments
Humorous, Open Letters, Travelling

An Open Letter to My Reba McEntire and Brooks and Dunn T-Shirt

The real heroes.

We’ve come a long way haven’t we? I remember when you were all trussed up in wrapping paper beneath our tree. You were a Christmas gift from my big brother, and you were from a thrift store and a handful of sizes too big. When I ripped the paper off of you that sunny morning in December and saw those three pairs of eyes twinkling from the breast of the shirt, I knew I’d found a couple of buddies that would stick with me for a long while.

Oh Reba, oh Brooks and Dunn, we’ve had a lot of good times. You came with me up to Boston and we showed those people what real Americans are like. I wore you underneath a duck-patterned prairie dress to a formal party and we danced the night away, worrying only about when the music would stop, and not caring about pit stains. Life’s too short to worry about pit stains.

Now we’re here in San Francisco, another city on the bay. And I’ll be honest with you Reba, Brooks, and Dunn: I’m tired. My computer woke me up this morning at 6:30 because it was whirring so loudly, panting like a butcher on the 4th of July. A couple of hours later I went into “the city,” which is what the folks up here call “San Francisco,” and had an interview at 10 o’clock for a job that I’m not sure I even want. While on the way to the train station a young British hippy asked me if I wanted to buy an apple. He had two tiny apples in his hand and I said no and he said thanks for smiling and nice hoodie.

I wish you could have seen him. More strangers talk to me up here than most anywhere else I’ve been, but it’s not too bad. What would you do, Reba? Would you sing them a song and lift their spirits? How did you know what you wanted to do, and when you figured it out, how did you get it? Can you really have it all?

One day I’m going to have it all too, but right now I’m tired. I’m going to finish my coffee while staring at you three, your eyes sparkling back at me and then maybe I’ll get the big idea and we’ll all have to admit my brother is the genius we always knew he was.

You’re the real heroes, you the t-shirt dwellers, the silent inspirers. How many have you cheered on to victory with your never-ending mirth? No matter what the Californians say to you up here, no matter what they think of you or what kind of names they call you because you’re not from somewhere that has a San in front of it or some other liberal name, just remember that to me you are special. I love this t-shirt and am going to wear it more often so people around here can get some freaking cultural education.

I came not a moment too soon.

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Jul 12 2012
18 Comments
Humorous, Three minute read, Wedding

I Want to Have a Wedding but I Don’t Want to Get Married

You get to eat gobloads of dessert.

Roughly 11 days, six hours, fifteen minutes, and thirty three seconds ago, my sister was wed to the love of her life in an outdoor ceremony somewhere in the Oklahoman woods. Afterwards, the wedding guests successfully dined and danced, with minimal injuries and no deaths.

All in all, it was a wedding that will be hard for us siblings to beat in the future. Because like most things in life, this is a competition. You may have laid down the gauntlet, sister, but I’m hot on your trail.

I was standing about a foot to the left of the bride and groom during the ceremony, my bouquet at belly button level, my eyes trained on the happy husby and wifey to be, my heart pounding in time with theirs. From my front row position, it was such a joy to watch the happiness creep into the pits of the audience and dot their foreheads with glisten. When the kiss came, we cheered our well-wishings and rushed away as fast as possible, seeking out pockets of moving air and shade.

The eating of BBQ and various desserts was followed by two speeches (one given by me) and the breaking out of various grooves as the sun set behind the capital building and glow sticks illumined the night air, old fogeys watching from their tables in disbelief as the hip young things made fools of themselves.

Soon it was time to send the couple off. At the height of the gyration-induced ecstasy, a whisper went through the crowd that it was time to gather, and bring the glow sticks. We lined the pathway to the getaway car—a golden buick, a chariot most fitting– and we flapped and woo-ed and shouted them into the car and watched them drive away.

That’s when clean up began. The lights came on, food went into boxes, pre-trash became real trash, bottles were collected, and the magic was systematically stored and re-located to vehicles.

At that moment, something very important occurred to me. I realized that, if done correctly, my wedding day will be the best party of my life. It has all the elements of an incredible event from the outset: copious amounts of gifts, friends (and family) from all over the country, tasty treats, everyone’s favorite songs, and a reason to dance.

But in addition to all that, there are tons of bridal benefits that are simply not found in other parties.

The bride gets told she’s beautiful all day long. She could be wearing a sailboat covered snuggie and eating peanut butter with her hands straight out of a jar and people would still constantly swoon over her. Brides also are the guilt-free center of attention for the entire day, which is pretty much my dream come true.

I’ve also found that guests at weddings are unlike guests at other events. They’re more likely to be optimistic about everyone’s future and say what sound like meaningful things. The word love is thrown around more than a roll of toilet paper on a diarrhea-fraught camping trip. But, most importantly, the bride does not have to help clean up. In the middle of her dancing euphoria, she gets to leave with her lover while everyone else has to stay behind and put on rubber gloves.

If this isn’t the perfect party, I don’t know what is.

So the production of my sister’s wedding ended with me marveling at the bliss of her love and wondering how I could have a wedding without getting married. Any and all suggestions are accepted, as well as gifts and other tokens of appreciation/attention.

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Jul 02 2012
28 Comments
Humorous, One minute read, Open Letters

Dear Blog, I’ll Always Love You

Faces blurred to protect identity. Photo credit: Jen Dillender

Hey blog,

How’s it going? Did you hear my sister finally got married?! The wedding was stereotypically beautiful and all that crap. I should have stolen her wedding presents while I had the chance. Now I’m going to Colorado and then San Francisco and who knows when I’ll be back to use her new ice cream maker and name-brand kitchen ware.

I got blood on my bridesmaid dress. I’m pretty sure it was my own. It’s okay because I sucked it out—turns out saliva works pretty well on fresh blood stains. I’ll tell you how it happened later.

My stress-ear cleaning needs to stop. I gave myself another ear infection, but this time it’s on the other side. I sure hope these pills I found help. Do you crave human blood too?

Sorry I haven’t had time for you lately and won’t be around for the next week. It’s not because I don’t love you. I really do, but you see, sometimes I have to go places and hang out with family and be outdoors. You know I’d rather be spending that time with you in a cave, but other people just don’t understand me the way you do.

I’ll always be yours, and you”ll always be mine.

Love,

Emily

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Jun 29 2012
19 Comments
Humorous, Social Media, Three minute read

A Harrowing Trip through my Thought Process. Bring Your Galoshes.

This would have been the picture for the coffee post, even though it’s not completely relevant.

It’s 10:30 am and it’s time to blog. I’m running some raw ideas through the meat grinder of my brain.

My sister’s wedding is tomorrow, but I don’t want to blog about that because I’ve been talking about it constantly and I’m sure people are wondering if it’s even real. (It’s happening tomorrow, by the way.)

So I trashed wedding topics, and moved on and tried to think creatively. When I try to be “creative,” I tend to look around my room for inspiration, which often leads me to killer ideas such as “what if my clothes came alive and tried to kill me” or “what if my lotion came alive and tried to kill me” or “what if my bed came alive and tried to kill me.” You see, I mean killer in the literal sense of the word, not in the sense that any of these ideas are good. Room-based inspiration does not often work for me.

I discarded those killer ideas and transitioned to sweat-based ones as I considered blogging about the wedding guests’ sweat potential. The extreme heat at this outdoor wedding, the high amount of social interactions, the excitement, and the nervousness will create the mother of all perspiration-inducing cocktails. It’s going to be a moist one. But then I considered that not only is this pretty gross, but it’s also about the wedding, which I didn’t want to write about.

After I tossed that idea out, I looked to my right and saw my coffee mug, which appeared to be empty. I picked it up and found a different situation entirely. There were a few mouthfuls of lukewarm joe left, and I was a little happy about that, so I considered writing an overblown piece on how incredible and amazing and wonderful it is when there’s coffee left over in the mug that you didn’t know about. But then I thought, well I wasn’t that happy about it. This might be a little hard to do. So I didn’t do it.

I moved on to consider blogging about how I’ve been following a lot of people on twitter lately. But if you just read that last sentence, you know as well as I do that my twitter antics are likely a dead end. So I buried that one too.

At this point, I have roughly 5-15 bad ideas buried in little idea coffins in my idea graveyard, a place I visit regularly. Some of these little guys even become zombies and try to eat my brains and make it impossible for me to think of other ideas, or become ghosts that haunt me continually with false potential.

Just when I was about to despair, I stumbled upon the idea of writing about how to unleash my creative potential, which in my mind was literally about unleashing some kind of monster named “Creative Potential.” Seconds later, I realized that this very literal interpretation of creative potential and the word unleash is not actually creative. So I hung up my hat, downed a cold brew, sighed a great sigh, yearned for more in life, and then published my thought process for all to see.

You’re not alone if a good idea escapes you. Don’t be jealous of the people that do have awesome ideas, because that could be you someday.

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