Category Archives: Daily Weirdness

Day Drinking with the Elderly

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So this blog used to be about humor, But now it’s a spot to post my writing assignments. Please descend on this piece like a pack of hungry jackals.

Introduction to Storytelling

Write about a time you tried something new and it surprised you. Now take what you’ve written and make it exactly a hundred words – not ninety-nine or a hundred and one. Think about what can be cut and why. What choices do you make and how do you create priorities when editing your work? Now take the hundred word story and write it in six words.

It was nine am on a Sunday. I’d been up for an hour and it would be at least two more hours until my sister Diana woke up. The clock ticked slowly. I wished I had brought a book.

At home, I go to church. But I wasn’t at home. I was somewhere in a metropolis. Even when I’m somewhere new, I still go to church. I once sang hymns while accompanied by a minister who played his trombone. The minister’s young son spent the entire service tugging on his leg and asking when it was going to be over. To date that was the smallest, most unusual church service I’d ever been to.

I looked at the clock again. Nine oh two.

At once, I decided that I was going to find a church. There had to be one around. Leaving Diana a note, I walked out of the apartment. Before I saw the sign, I heard the bells. A church.

An Anglican church, I’m United, but as far as I’m concerned, in the same way that love is love is love, God is God is God. How bad could it be? I’m guessing they’d have a piano which already put the service a cut above the outdoor one I attended with the trombone playing minister.

God is absolutely God. And love is absolutely love but Anglicans have their own agenda and it looks nothing like any that I’ve known.

The entire sermon, they were reading from a book that I didn’t have. I was one of six parishioners so I even pew hopped to look for the missing scripture. No dice. Apparently it was BYOB- bring your own bible.

Being the only person under eighty jumping from one pew to the next would have been enough embarrassment for the day but it was also communion.

In the United church, we have individual, tiny glasses and individual wafers. I’m not crazy about the plastic waste but I go along with it.

Apparently the Anglicans are hardcore environmentalists. They shared a cup.

One cup.

For all the old people.

I would have opted out, but everyone rose from their seats and formed a line at the front of the church. I was in line behind a centenarian before I realized what was happening.

Once again they were reading from the book I didn’t have so I was extra confused and a little grossed out. But all the same, I knelt down on the cushion and drank from the same cup that the minister had thoughtfully wiped with a towel after the man before me finished. It tasted like wine and the 1918 Spanish Flu that the gentleman before me had survived.

Afterwards I walked home and thought about how my soul felt lighter even if my lungs were now heavy with liquid tuberculosis or some other old person ailment.

479 words

While visiting my sister, I went to an Anglican church. I am a United Christian but ‘How different could it be?’ I naively thought.

It was very different. They spent the entire sermon reading out of a book I didn’t have. It was BYOB – bring your own bible.

The worst was yet to come. It was communion. Instead of the individual, plastic glasses at the United church, all the parishioners lined up to drink from the same cup. I was kneeling at the front of the sanctuary before I realized what was happening. By then it was too late. Ugh.

100 words

Anglicans read secret books and share cups.

7 words

We Need To Talk About Bunnies

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Not these bunnies.

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They are cute though. (Photo Credit : yogadork.com)

This man’s bunnies.

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(Photo Credit : montecito-realestate.com)

I have a long running history of, let’s call them intense interests. Normally my obsessions are understandable. For a while there I would only talk about a certain type of fuzzy collectible.

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They’re like Pokemon- gotta catch’em all. (Photo Credit : live-av.info.com)

But I was twelve so that was developmentally appropriate. Although talking about Beanie Babies all day, every day for two years might have been a little much for my parents.

And of course there’s my long running fascination and love of anything to do with this celebrity.

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Not being obsessed with Mickey and his empire is like hating unicorns and drinking their blood, so essentially not loving Disney transforms someone into a unicorn hunting mutant, that’s right Voldemort got that way because he didn’t worship all things Disney. Take heed my Unwashed public. (Photo Credit : en.wikipedia.org)

For a short period of time I watched this woman everyday while eating my steel cut oats.

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This makes more sense in the context of learning French. (Photo Credit: http://www.renaud-bray.com)

But then, somewhere around 2010, something strange happened. When I say strange I mean strange for me, it wasn’t just your run-of-the-mill homeless man setting a fire in public, or threatening your upstairs neighbor, or starting a frog pond in your basement kind of above average occurrence.

In 2010 I became obsessed with these women.

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This would be easier to explain if I were a dude. (Photo Credit flickr.com)

It started out innocuously, in the way that these things do; I began watching their television show “The Girls Next Door”. But then my interest took on a life of its own, first I bought the box set of their series. Then I watched the whole thing start to finish. When I was done I watched it again.

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Down the Rabbit Hole indeed Holly. (Photo Credit : amazon.com)

And I kept watching it.

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I can’t tear my eyes away. (Photo Credit : janetcharltonhollywood.com)

And reading about them.

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Have you ever seen a group of more interesting ladies? (Photo Credit : fanpop.com)

And acquiring Playboy related paraphernalia- come sleep on my red satin Playboy sheets; they’re super slippery!

I followed them on Twitter, which was quite remarkable considering that I barely know how to use Microsoft Word most days.

The obsession grew and I kept watching and re-watching their ditzy antics. My mother was ashamed, my father was amused, Sula was bewildered. I would proudly trot out my Playboy magazines at dinner parties. “Look at them” I’d exclaim, “Aren’t they beautiful?” My favourite part was when male guests would take the opportunity to spend twenty minutes perusing the magazine at the table.

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The perfect addition to any social gathering. (Photo Credit : amazon.com)

This bizarre preoccupation with all things Playboy was still going strong when I met Tex. But somewhere around the time that I moved to live with Tex, my passionate, undying love of the bunnies began to diminish. Instead of watching them every day, it was once a week. And rather than discussing their latest exploits at length (Holly had a baby! Kendra is contemplating divorce!) I talked about work, or books I was reading. Gradually as my life became my own personal fairy tale, including a tall, dark handsome cowboy and adorable baby, my interest in these women’s laughable exploits shrank, and I put away the DVDs and their scrapbook, rather than sitting open on the table or couch moved to the book shelf.

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Yes, they published a scrapbook and yes I have spent hundreds of hours reading it. (Photo Credit : amazon.com)

I even contemplated selling my Playboys back to the used bookstore. (We won’t discuss how grossed out my mother was that I bought second hand nudie magazines.)  Now, the girls have returned to their rightful place in the world, I think of them as often as I ponder the Kardashians or string theory, which is to say rarely, although it must be said that I never turn down a trashy magazine or book which mentions the lovely trio.

Daily Weirdness Wednesday: The Mucus Edition

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  1. Despite my small stature I have an unparalleled ability to sneeze broadly. This is to say that if someone is standing within two feet of me when I sneeze, they will get wet. I am strangely proud of this. In other unrelated news, my social circle has rapidly decreased since the start of cold and flu season.
  2. The only thing I enjoy more than sneezing on people is watching others sneeze on innocent passersby. The most notable example being at a children’s concert when a boy in the back row stopped singing just long enough to cover part of the second and first row in a mixture of snot and saliva. The only person alarmed by this was the small girl standing next to him, who caught some gooey flak as well. I laughed for about five minutes. The kind of laughter where your eyes tear up and you can’t breathe. I am a horrible person, not just for this but also for my third weirdness of the day.
  3. I don’t believe in Kleenex. Being an environmentalist, I believe in reusable handkerchiefs. The difference between me and other environmentalists is that my arm is my hanky. It’s disgusting and I will confess that my arm hair gets crackly when I’m sick but I feel good about my green choice.
  4. Onto less snotty pastures, when I owned a car, I would puppeteer at stop lights. This would have been less noticeable if I didn’t have multiple sets of puppet eyes stored in the ash tray of my car for such occasions. And if I didn’t sing and flail my limbs at the same time. I frequently received thumbs up and awkward amused smiles from other drivers.
  5. Tragically none of my New Year’s resolutions are about changing the aforementioned behaviours.

Daily Weirdness Wednesdays: Me and My Candy Pants

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  1. I have an obsession with twenty-five cent candy machines. It’s getting a little out of hand actually; when my pockets turn up only dimes, I’ve debated busking next to the cheerful metal and glass containers full of jelly bean goodness. Tragically, whenever this happens the only song I can think of is invariably the Advantix flea jingle.
  2. Because of the aforementioned sugar fixation, I often store loose candy and occasionally cookies in my pockets. Surreptitiously eating one Skittle at a time out of my jacket while studying in the library brings me immense joy. As does returning home from church, having pocketed a Peek Freans chocolate cookie and whipping it out of my sweater, then waving my baked bounty in the air for Meredith*, my roommate, to see. A nicer person might swipe two cookies; however I question how well my offer of “Sweater cookie?” would go over with other people.
  3. A character from a show I adore, “Cougar Town” also does this, but with crackers. In one episode she is attacked by birds who want her “sweater crackers”. I live in fear of this, but with sugar crazed five year olds instead of sea gulls. I have no doubt that at some point, I will pass a birthday party, remove an M&M from my hoodie and then have to run for my life while icing coated children chase me with looks of murder and diabetes in their eyes.

    I would run exactly like this only with twenty small people right behind me. (Photo Credit: dailymail.co.uk)

    I would run exactly like this only with twenty small people right behind me. (Photo Credit: dailymail.co.uk)

  4. At one point, I held a job that required me to keep candy in my pant pockets (bought in bulk, not from those lovely red metal and glass machines). Once I was visiting Sula** after work and had forgotten to remove the candy from my pants beforehand. Emptying my back pocket, I offered some to her “Swedish Fish?” She took it and then commented “Ooh it’s warm.” This memory of my beloved friend never ceases to make me laugh.
  5. Again, it isn’t Wednesday. Is it weird if you lose all track of the days of the week? Or is it only weird if you claim to have fallen into a space time warp and that an alien probed you? Whichever of those excuses is more acceptable- I’m going to go with that one.

*Names have been changed to protect the identities of people who have yet to use a cross bow but in whose ability I’m slightly afraid of.

**Names have been changed to protect the identities of those who eat food out of my pants. Because I feel like that kind of things shouldn’t get around.