Tag Archives: humor

May 23 2012
19 Comments
Ethiopia, Humorous, Travelling

I’m Back From Ethiopia and Peeling

Yeah I roll pretty deep.

I’m back from Ethiopia and probably DON’T have fleas.* Family, get ready for some hugs.

Only two nights ago I was an entire world away, sleeping at 3000 meters above sea level under a Milky-Way-dominated sky in the Simien Mountains, a place that was both completely remote and completely habited by the local population. For the four nights we were in the mountains, I kept thinking about writing a blog post titled, “Ethiopia—stars like whoa” but I didn’t know what else I would say besides “The stars are pretty. There are a lot. Some are bigger than others. They are far away.”

So I probably won’t write that blog post. Now I’m in Cairo and the sky is brown again.

I don’t think I’ve been somewhere before that felt so far away. While I was in the mountains I considered the fact that I was supposed to be heading back to the states in less than a week and the left hemisphere of my brain exploded. No way, I thought. Going to America from a place where I’ve seen shoeless ten-year-old boys plowing the mountainside with pairs of oxen should take at least a month. It’s hard to appreciate distances anymore. Geographical distances can be crossed so quickly, you don’t have time to get used to the cultural and historical gaps between peoples.

I was only in Ethiopia for about six days, which was definitely not long enough. We flew into Addis Ababa at the ungodly hour of 3:30 am last Wednesday and flew out at the even more ungodly hour of 4:30 am today. The entire time I was there I couldn’t believe it. “Wow….I’m in Ethiopia.” I thought, because sometimes interior monologues don’t get more creative than that.

After arriving at Bole International Airport, I exchanged my dollars for birr in the most satisfying money changing transaction I have ever made. I handed over my five thin $100 bills and in return I was given a thick stack of 100 birr bills that made me feel like a real baller. I proceeded to bleed those birr with astonishing speed.

Epic. Yes.

We hung out at the unfortunately named café, “Yellow Spot,” and did some rat watching from the second story (more on this later) before heading to the domestic terminal where we lucked into a 7:00 am flight to Lalibela, the city of the famous rock churches.

In another 36 hours we would be at a castle in Gondar and in 48 hours we would be accompanied by a rifle-shouldering scout while trekking through some of the most epic landscapes either of us had ever seen,  Nega, a guy we met at the airport, arranged the entire trip. After completing the deal, we noticed that his business cards said he organized tours of the Semen Mountains, and I confess that did make me a little nervous.

We were awesomely unprepared as the van trundled off towards our high-altitude adventure at 5:30 am last Friday, but we didn’t know it yet. Oh how our bodies would suffer.

On the whole, was an incrediblamaztastic trip and my coverage of it shall continue tomorrow and forever.

*Someone in a travel forum said that fleas sometimes happen.

P.S. Yes we saw crazy animals.

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May 17 2012
33 Comments
Travelling, Two minute read

The Ethiopian Adventure Begins

I will get a baboon fang.

At 20:45 GMT on Wednesday, May 16th, an Egyptair flight left from Cairo, Egypt to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Both of these countries are in Africa, by the way. Why does this matter, you ask? Who’s asking, I ask. I am, you say. Big deal, I say. Well can you just tell me why, you ask? Yes, I say. It matters because yours truly was on that flight, probably.

And I probably landed in Ethiopia at the most comfortable hour of 1:30 am GMT, where I was greeted by a crowd of friendly Ethiopians before riding a giraffe named Dorothy to a flea-free safari lodge where I fell asleep. After hours of delicious slumber, I likely woke up to the most wonderful all-day breakfast spread I have ever seen. I may or may not have spent the whole day in the dining room, finally leaving only when I was forced to because Dorothy was getting impatient and we needed to begin the journey to Lalibela.

That was a paragraph of lies. The one true thing is that I am probably in Ethiopia right now, breathing in the sweet Addis Ababa and/or Lalibela air and counting down the hours to drinking my next coffee. I will be in this country for about a week and have left compy at home, making sure to set out some food and water for it and my blog. No, I will not be blogging during my Ethiopian adventure, but I do plan on harvesting a good crop of blog fodder that I will use for upcoming posts. This trip will be a much needed rotating of the mind crops.

There is a slight chance that I won’t return at all, due to kidnapping by the organized baboon gangs of the Simien mountain or because I will have willingly joined these gangs. I also might be overcome with the Simien madness and feel that I have become “one” with the landscape and refuse to leave, clinging to the neck of the mule that we have rented and annoying the mule handler with my incessant weeping.

But, if everything goes well, I should be coming back next Wednesday with a baboon tooth necklace, as few flea bites as possible, mild digestive problems, and priceless memories.

Expected highlights of the trip are:

1. Not being in Cairo.

2. Seeing churches carved out of the living rock in Lalibela.

3. Using the phrase “living rock” as much as possible.

4. Seeing castles in Gondar.

5. Making countless Lord of the Ring references to Gondor.

6. Trekking in the Simien mountains and seeing baboons.

7. Claiming to see family members in and among the baboon herds: “Mom? Is that you!?”

8. Eating in a country that doesn’t have an endless culinary winter.

It should be a good trip, and I’ll probably write stuff about it when I get back. As usual, it will be fact-poor and reveal very little about what I actually did. See you later!

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May 16 2012
24 Comments
Humorous, Two minute read

Today I Wear Underpants

This photo is only half staged.

Warning: much exaggerated complaining followed by lighthearted ending. Use this information well.

It’s the last week of school and I am a disheveled shadow of a human. My aspirations of being fluent in Arabic have turned into the desire to live through the final day of my program, which is today.  Monday was not good. I woke up eight minutes before class feeling like death incarnate and rushed out of the house pen-less and still wearing my bed hair.

I had ten minutes to prepare for a presentation that was 20% of my grade. Luckily for me, I decided earlier this semester  that I don’t believe in grades. I ate 14 raw almonds for breakfast during class and afterwards wolfed down a falafel sandwich before taking a four hour nap, waking up just in time to skype with mother who silently judged me for my apparent sloth.

I felt defeated as usual here in Cairo, and I’ve come to realize that this city has utterly wiped me out and used me like a plaything.

My program ends today and I return to the states in a mere 2 weeks. I should be happy, but ahead of me looms a formidable job hunt in one of the most expensive cities in the world. This life-consuming job hunt must take place in the same month that I plan and attend a bachelorette party, a bridal shower, an afterglow brunch (ew), a  boyfriend’s visit, and a family vacation in which I’ll be forced to leave my mountain grove and actually socialize.

I’m looking from a place of exhaustion forward to months of exhaustion with no apparent end.  I’m staring from a position of defeat towards a future me curled on the ground with HR representatives kicking me in the stomach while chewing up my resume and spitting it at me. Things look grim.

In times like this, I can only do one thing. I take out my planner and write down the secret that will give me the strength to go on and conquer my fears and climb the mountains and brush the hair. At the very top of my to-do list I write “wear underwear.”

Can two words change a life? Yes.

After donning my underthings, I cross off the first task on my to-do list and breathe deeply while I look at the twenty things I have left, my rear end carefully caressed by a familiar pair of unmentionables. Yes, today is my day. I’m beginning the rest of my life and I’m wearing underpants.

You, world, may be tough and you may have well dressed people who don’t want to hire me and you may have chatty cousins that distract me from the book I want to read but I, dear world, am wearing underpants and anything is possible.

Who wears the underpants? I DO! Who’s not afraid? I’M NOT! Who’s going to stop crying and leave her mother’s closet today? ME!

WHAT TIME IS IT? UNDERPANTS TIME! WHO ARE WE? UNDERPANTERS! WHAT DO WE DO? WIN!

P.S. Things really aren’t that bad. I’m going on vacation to Ethiopia today. Yay!

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May 15 2012
15 Comments
Fiction, Humorous, Three minute read

The Secret World of the Early Bird (With a Twist)

Glasses: Coming Soon!

As an greasy adolescent, I loved pop tarts and staying up late, savoring the hours between the famfam’s bedtime and first period, a time in which the house became my own and I could watch Conan O’Brien and throw things at the dog when she snored too loudly. Because of my bizarre sleep schedule, I was always exhausted yet I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I felt like there was something special and mysterious about the nighttime and it evaporated when the sun came up.

I continued in my nighttime ways in college for about two years but then, somewhere around my junior year, things began changing. I lost my night owl hoot and my predatory ability to spot small rodents hiding under ferns, exchanging them for a bright chirp and a pair of metaphorical study glasses, which is the standard uniform of early birds.

I actually began to enjoy the mornings and….

“Excuse me?”

….I would make myself breakfast, which was usually yoghurt and granola. I especially liked a local brand…

“Um….excuse me, Emily?”

…that was called Harvest Gold or something like that. I think it cost 3.99 a box but sometimes it was on sale for forty cents less and on those days I bought two of them…

“EXCUSE ME!”

“What? Yes? Can I help you? Actually, could you wait a second, I’m trying to write a blog post.”

“Yeah, I can see that. I just wanted to let you know that it’s a little boring. Like, so far all you’ve said is that you used to be a night owl but then you turned into an early bird. Big whoop. I used to wipe my butt with Charmin’ toilet paper but then I moved out of my parents’ house and had to buy generic. Is that interesting? No. That’s why I don’t blog about it. And when I stopped you, you were just going on and on about what kind of granola you used to get in college. I mean, really? Do you tell everyone about your breakfast fixations with such detail, or just the people want to torture?”

“…..well eventually I was going to get to a funny part about all of the other things that early birds get in addition to the worm. I was going to say that all of us high-five Obama and get morning massages and free lattes—isn’t that kind of creative? I mean, just picture a bunch of reading-glasses-wearing early birds high fiving Obama.”

“I’m not even going to comment on the syntax of the last sentence. And no, that’s not that funny. Besides, there’s no way those meager hahas outweigh the pain I had to endure when you were telling the whole world about your favorite collegiate granola. And do I even need to mention the fact that the concept of this entire blog post is quite similar to the post you did last week on how your blog became self-aware?”

“That’s true, but there are some pretty significant differences. For example, you’re clearly my better self and not the self-aware version of my blog.”

“And as your better self, it’s my job to tell you when you’re just doing your best, which is not nearly good enough. You’re welcome. Anyways, I’ve got to go. I’ve already worked out today but I’m just about to go run and buy some local produce to make a delicious, healthy meal for myself. I need to be in top shape for my job as a high flying writer thing.”

“Yeah, I get it.”

“No, you don’t. But that’s okay. Maybe one day you will. Good luck with the post—here’s a tip: make it interesting and funny.”

“Gee, thanks.”

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May 10 2012
20 Comments
Humorous, One minute read

Cats Are Attacking My Mind

The keeper of the gate to hell.

I was going to write a blog post, but instead I spent three hours looking at pictures of cats licking their paws. For one hundred and eighty minutes I was spun through various levels of cat-lover-heaven, which is most other people’s hell, as I saw photo after photo of Patches delicately cleaning himself with all the poise and precision of the Mother Queen. It was terribly mesmerizing and I lost track of time and self.

But the saga doesn’t end there.

Hours later, I found myself waking up from some kind of stupor and realized that I was surrounded by horrible, bizarre, and altogether disturbing drawings of—what else?—cats licking their paws. It looked like a crazed zookeeper had escaped from a lifelong prison sentence and gone on a grotesque artistic binge.

The obvious, though terrifying, conclusion was that I had perpetrated these awful depictions, depictions that could only be used to cause human torment. I had been taken by cuteness-madness. What does this mean? Is my mind so fragile that something harmless like a few hours spent enjoying pictures of cats cleaning themselves could cause me to lose consciousness and perform acts of unspeakable horror?

Does this mean I’m unfit to live in this society? What if I’m walking through a park and see too many babies, puppies, or volleyball players and the madness takes me again? How will I explain my sickness to my family? How will I hide the monstrosity that is me?  I can only burn so many pictures before I start trying to sell them on the internet and then how will I explain myself? I certainly can’t blog about it.

Maybe I will find healing in twitter, and through tweeting the disfigured demons of my own creation to my small following I will be able to purge myself.

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