Black, Brown or Polar

A note to writers and editors everywhere:

When something is disgusting, bloody, disturbing, it's grisly.

Grizzly is a bear.

Why Do You Ask?

One of the questions I dread getting most contains these five words – “What are you doing tonight?”

Why should that bother me? It’s a perfectly innocuous question. But it’s a loaded one at the same time.

My first response is, “Why?” That’s because the asker is leaving you very few options. The asker either needs your help with something you might not be interested in, or to attend a function that may not be up your alley.

So you have two options. You can ask, “Why?” right off the bat, which gives you some leeway in dissembling should you not have any urge to sit through a three-hour dance recital of children you don’t know just to keep a friend company. But it also makes you sound like a suspicious grump.

That’s okay, I can live with being a suspicious grump. Because your other option is to say “Nothing, why?” and then have to be bluntly honest when you’re asked to volunteer/attend/do whatever. “I’m not interested,” has come out of my mouth more than once during this ambush, leaving me feeling bad for being blunt and shooting down my friend’s proposal, when I could have spared their feelings or politely gotten out of said obligation by claiming a prior engagement.

If you don’t think fast, of course, next thing you know, you’re standing on the sidelines of a half-marathon, in the rain, handing out little cups of water and soaked to the bone when you’d rather be home under a warm blanket drinking raspberry tea and reading a good book.

You could always lie right off the bat, of course. “I’m meeting up with a friend,” is a safe one, but what if the proposal is something that DOES interest you? Now you’ve locked yourself out of doing this thing, and really all you’re going to do is sit at home and watch reruns of “Bones.”

You could also be wildly creative to buy yourself some time. "I'm taking the chickens to the cinema to see 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'. They all want to know if they can go back to the egg." Or, "Aunt Mabel's socks need washing again in vinegar and pomegranate juice, so I've got my work cut out for me." Or, "Hey, the last time somebody asked me to jump out of a plane wearing a tutu, I had to say no."

Hopefully the asker will be so busy chuckling or looking puzzled that you can insert a merry, "What's up?" and get the information you need without committing yourself.

The better approach is this: “I’m doing a fundraising walk on such-and-such a date. Would you be interested in joining me?” That gives you, the respondent, the option to say, “I’m sorry, I can’t make it.” So next time you feel the urge to tackle a friend with, “What are you doing tonight?” resist – or don’t be surprised if the answer has something to do with chickens and tutus.

The Optimist

A tiny little spider has made an invisible web between my soap dish and my face wash. I'm not sure what he thinks he's going to catch besides splashes from the sink, but he persists. He's been there for at least a week and doesn't seem the least bit discouraged. I'm not sure how to explain to him that he'd be better off with other real estate but I'm not sure he'd believe me anyway.

Old Age Starts Here

I finally caved and bought one of those days-of-the-week pill containers. That's right, kids. I have so many pills that my purse rattled when I walked. I had to do something better.

*sigh*

Has anyone seen my Metamucil?

Splash

There's a pothole in our parking lot next to one of the Dumpsters that is so big, I keep seeing ducks swimming in it.

Might be time to patch 'em up, hey, folks?

Regifting

In reading a CNN article today, I wondered, just how many people actually regift things?

I ask because I never do it. Sure, I have parted with things people have given me. But I've always been up front about it, and it's never in lieu of another gift - one I either bought or made. I've done it in the sense of, "I can't use this, or it doesn't fit, or I no longer use this - can you get some use out of it?"

I'm not counting white elephant gift exchanges in this, because by it's very definition white elephant is regifting. I'm talking about passing off a gift someone gave you as new for someone else. Maybe I carry too much guilt, but I just couldn't do it.

Invention

Someone needs to be enterprising and solve one of my winter health problems.

I bundle up in layers of cotton and wool and something vaguely plasticky - in the form of a pair of old warmup pants that double as snowpants when I have to dig my car out in the office parking lot. I wind a scarf around my neck and jam a hat on my hair, flattening it for the rest of the day. What I cannot seem to stop is my nose from running.

It doesn't do you any good to blow it. It's not that kind of 'run'. Just a drip, drip, drip, so that you're either sniffling repeatedly and obnoxiously, or you're digging in your pocket (with gloves on so you can't feel a damn thing) to find a Kleenex.

Somebody ought to invent the nose tampon.

Why not? You ever had a cold so bad that you actually rolled up two pieces of tissue and rammed one up each nostril to catch the drips? Come on, you know you have. I know I have. If you have a cold, after a while each nostril is so sore from blowing that you don't want to touch it anymore, but medication doesn't stop your eyes from watering and thus the tears from heading into your nasal passages. Then you end up looking like poor Steve in that episode of 'Sex and the City' where he had half a tampon jammed up each nostril to stop his nose from bleeding. The string hung out one side. He looked mortified. Might have been because he caught his ex sleeping with the hot doctor and then walked into a wall and banged up his sniffer, but I'm guessing it was the Tampax decorating his schnozz.

Look, I know it wouldn't be pretty. But it might be safer than trying to dig out a tissue while driving along a snowy Michigan road, right? And you wouldn't have to sniff, annoying your cubicle mates the entire day.

Think I'd get a patent on this one?

Television Motivation

I was watching an episode of Clean House and eating my lunch, and before I knew it, I was picking things up during every commercial break.

It's when you look at one of your own rooms and realize it's very close to resembling one on an episode that spurs you to get moving. The last thing you want is to realize you're a 'before' picture instead of an 'after.'

'Not Catching the Bouquet' Good

Can we start a new wedding reception rule? If you're 35 or over and still single, you do not have to stand up for the bouquet toss. No wildly amused family member or mischievous friend can drag you out to stand among the 17-year-olds in their sky-high pumps and short skirts to grab for a bedraggled bouquet that nobody actually really wants to catch. If you find out that's what's coming up next, you can - with your dignity perfectly intact - leave the dance floor, and hide in the bathroom if necessary without the DJ heckling you or sending the seven-year-old flower girl to peer under the door of your stall to pull you out of there.

Why is this rite of passage so entertaining for older married members of the crowd? Why do they think this is FUN? They cheer and clap as you're being dragged - and I mean physically dragged - onto the dance floor. They will actually put hands on you to shove you out there, even if you profess offense. Brides think this is hilarious. They're secretly thinking, "I don't have to do this anymore! But you do!"

You know what it says? LOSER. It says YOU SUCK. It says YOU SLEEP ALONE AND WE'RE RUBBING IT IN. So the fact that everybody else thinks it's HIGH-larious to force you to stand out on the dance floor behind the bridesmaids when you could easily have given birth to them is humiliating on a grand scale.

If you're in the wedding party, I get that that's part of the protocol. That, I wearily accept. But when you're the only bridesmaid still single, that adds to the humiliation. But there are means of coping. I've taken to standing behind somebody really tall who seems eager to catch the bouquet, even if it means some frightened lad or very drunk groomsman is later going to stuff the garter up her dress. I figure I might show my support for the bride by standing there in my bridesmaid dress, but I refuse to leap for the flowers.

But I've had about enough of this gross humiliation. I'm already the only singleton in the family and as time goes on, my friends quickly succumb too. Sooner or later their kids will be getting hitched, and I'll still be out there. So I'm taking action, and it isn't going to be pretty. I'm quickly getting to the point where I'm going to start telling people to shove the taffeta-wrapped, wilted-rose-and-baby's-breath concoction far up their asses, if they try to herd me onto the dance floor with kids half my age to catch a reminder of loneliness.

Spring Cleaning

I'm once again reminded I have far too much stuff for one human being. I know my sister-in-law is having a garage sale in two weeks but I just don't have time to get everything together right now - but there are things I could definitely take to the sale. And I have a ton of scrapbook stuff that I haven't used - yet. Where does the time go? And how do we end up with so much stuff? And where do I put it??

I want to take a long weekend in June - originally I was going to travel but I just don't have the money for that - not with gas at $4 a gallon. (I got it for $3.88 yesterday in Kalamazoo and was thrilled!) Maybe it's time to pare down and do all those craft projects and home projects that I never seem to get around to. Do you have that list too? All those things you should do in the evenings after work but you don't have the energy? Or those things you should do on the weekends but you don't have the time?

I Am a Slacker

I've been reminded I have been terrible about updating this blog - only it was said a lot nicer than that, that's just me admitting my slackerness. Maybe I should have made that one of my goals for the year - keep up with my blog! I have a second, more specialized, blog, and I've been working on that one for a while. When it rains it pours though; I'll start posting and then post a LOT in a short time.

Things have been crazy - weddings, accidents, relationship drama (none of it mine), friendship drama (some of it mine), writing, scrapbooking, television - I don't know where my time goes, but I have to say, if I was in a relationship I don't know how I'd fit it in!! Plus I've been keeping up with a lot of podcasts on TV and entertainment, and car racing, and horse racing, and who knows what else. That's not an excuse for being a slacker - it's just my lame explanation for not posting lately. I know I have one reader still! Thanks for being so dedicated, Heather!! hee hee

On an up note, the weather is spectacular - but I know it won't last - and gas prices are horrific - and I KNOW they're going to last. Guess you can't have it all, can you? :-D