Horrible and/or Funny

I ran over a squirrel on my bike yesterday. It was funny and horrible all at once. ...Mostly funny. Horribly funny, maybe. I suppose the most accurate explanation would be it was hilarious to me (he was okay), but there was a pedestrian near-by (one I had been trying to avoid hitting; thereby precipitating the hitting of the squirrel) and I thought maybe I should pause and show some concern for the poor creature instead of just riding on.

Which I really didn't mean to hit; I just thought he would move, but the poor thing panicked, I guess, and went right under my front wheel--making a little chittering/squeaking sound as he went under--and right up a tree a little behind me beside the trail. And then he was obviously fine so I just wanted to completely crack up. But there was the pedestrian jogging along a little behind me now; hence the slowing and demonstrating that I really had been concerned for the squirrel (I just knew he was okay already). Silliness, I'm fairly sure.

'Minds me of some commenting on another blog a few weeks back about finding the humor in the painful things in life; or the relationship between painful things and funny. Does this qualify? The squirrel would probably not appreciate my sense of humor on this.

The Hairy Eyeball

I don't know if this is original to my family or not, but my dad has a unique expression for the squinty-eyed glare people get sometimes when they're angry or suspicious. You know, the "you're going to pay for that" look. Kinda like what Clint Eastwood does sometimes in his movies, though maybe that was just all that dust in his eyes.

Yeah, my dad calls that the hairy eyeball. (You know--'cos of your eyelashes.)

I have fairly long lashes, but they go from brown to blond pretty quick, so about half of them aren't visible without mascara. Even when I put mascara on, I rarely like to darken them all the way.

Today I did, for fun, and you know what? The only thing scarier than the hairy eyeball is the mascarily hairy eyeball.

The Moral of Pink

DC and I both actually wore pink today, so you can all officially have heart attacks. :)

Actually, it's funny 'cos she wears pink once a week (?) or something for her club and I own two articles of pink clothing (and don't wear either), but it seemed like a bigger deal for her to wear it than it for me. Guess 'cos I have been changing my opinions of that whole range of colors over the past few months, and have even been wishing for a few more in the warmer range of things lately. Which, so far, has only resulted in my sporadic digging through my mess of clothes, looking for something that will work. At least twice during this ordeal I will run across one of the aforementioned pink articles that I don't like, stare at it dolefully, and go look somewhere else.

It did seem odd that after all my hew and cry and posturing on the subject over the past few years, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to this morning to put it on and go. I pondered this later and thought maybe the reason for the apparent contradiction in our reactions was that DC wears her weekly pink with rebellion in her heart. Whereas I have been gradually wearing more pink in my heart now for weeks.

Wow.

I'll have you know I am sacrificing my dignity in writing that sentence, all for the sake of amusing you with my sense of humor. Feel honored.

And the moral of the story is...be careful with pink. Or only wear it in your heart, instead of rebellion. Keep your rebellion in your eyes, where it's useful. "You are never fully dressed without pink." (What?? That's not how it goes...)

Uh, DC? Help me out here?

Sometimes I Feel Like a Mac...

I'm like a mac computer; I don't get sick often, but for the sake of the people around me, maybe I should try not to carry around so many germs.

Wahah. Now you can all construct hideous stereotypes about me, just from that one statement.

Question

What does hunky dorie even mean?

Utterly Depraved vs Totally Depraved...

That was just awesome.

Even if the rest of it was slightly painful.
(If it won't let you get back to the original post, it's "Of Cows and Men".)

cherished memory

I never got to posting about my Thanksgiving (and here it is Christmas) and since I probably shouldn't even be posting right now I thought I'd sneak in a really short one. Possibly most hilarious memory of Thanksgiving:

My brother (a couple years younger than me), flipping around to get away from me (rough-housing), turning smack into a pole. Face first. Just like a cartoon character. It was awesome.

The good thing about being an artist

is no one thinks you're weird for carrying around knives. Well, I mean, except for thinking you're weird in the normal ways... They don't think you're weird because of that. Or, well, maybe they do, but...shut up.

Time for

an obligatory halloween pun to make you hate me:

I'ma scare up some ghosts

Yes, it is my honor and duty to annoy you to the point of pain and agony (or at least death) with puns. It's a tough job but the pay is good.

I am, possibly, a little over-the-top silly today. Must be something to do with that whole sleep thing who needs it.

Gem of Wisdom

I have been saving this gem for weeks, maybe more than a month now and so, since I have little time to write and much I want to write about, I thought I'd pull this nugget of wisdom out of my treasure...pocket...and share it with you. A bit of stock postography, if you will. Oh, I'm so clever, clever indeed...

Enjoy.

Lita's Gem of Wisdom for the Day:

"You look tired. You need to either sleep or knit an afghan, because creativity is good."

Yes, I actually said this, weeks ago, to DC; nevermind why. The depths of my wisdom are really too much for you to plumb.

Metaphorical Philosophy

Tonight was so cool--so good that I don't even know what to say about it.

At one point, I was walking back down the street, the sky all glimmery-yellow and gold-like, musing about my place in God; accepting it and--not confusing his limitlessness with my own (ehem) lack thereof. I was sort of picturing the idea of myself small and--well--"simple" like a child or a pet, and I thought, "I'm just your little duck." Yeah. I know. Scary, isn't it? Actually my mind was grasping for images and went more like

duck--
kitten? (picturing my own)
duck???

The scary thing is I didn't even have to make any of this up. My brain is pretty--('hem)--amazing sometimes. I don't think I'm usually that girly in real life...er...whatever. Just a momentary weakness.

Come on, you know I had to. It was just too good to pass up.

Funeral home ad:

Buy our 50% off, economy-size tomb and we'll throw in this duck for free.

Found this old email from someone who will remain nameless who also, conveniently, has no memory of it, either:

A special note for a special sister.  Pass this on to everyone you've ever meet or else a fly will attend your funeral in the future with a cricket and his pet cow and also you will get a duck.

It's all about the ducks*, isn't it?

The disturbing thing about all this is why would you want an economy-size tomb? 'Less you're planning to take a whole lot of people with you when you go?

Poor duck.



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*No, I am not calling him a duck. Look under "Another Brick in the Wall."

Flame-retardant Fish

I guess they don't have to worry about catching fire, anyway, right? Oh, right. They live in...water.

"Farmed salmon, already found to carry higher levels than wild salmon of chemicals such as PCBs, may also contain higher levels of flame-retardants, environmental researchers said on Wednesday."

Flame-retardant, eh? This could have potential. Maybe it's time we all started eating more salmon--farmed salmon, that is.

On the other hand, there's argument about whether these same chemicals--called PBDEs--cause cancer.

"If you're a chemist and you draw the structure, they look a lot like PCBs."

Well, thanks a lot, mister! Get my hopes up, why don't you?

Archaic Offices and Bad Puns

"I am a national fool now. It is the best thing a man can be." I think I like that.

England has reinstated the office of court jester after a 355-year break--er, gap. Hmm. If you ask me, it's all just an excuse for people to crank out a load of bad puns. "Has head for the job" indeed.

Also, if you want to know how the whole jester thing got started in the first place, you might be interested to know that, according to Chambers' Book of Days, "the female official fool had precedence of the male court and household jester." (Scroll down to "A Supplementary Chapter to the 'History of Court Fools.'") Hmm. I'm not sure whether to be insulted or pleased.

Note: I should have mentioned that The Book of Days, according to the people who undertook to put it online, is a "must-read for anyone aspiring to understand history as our forefathers saw it." In other words, without having delved into it much, I don't personally know how accurate any given part of it is. Probably the people who run the site could tell you that.

I have the One Ring.

Wah!* I just thought you should know.

No, my younger sis and I saw Lord of the Rings Risk at Wal-mart a few months back. Well. I like Risk. And I like Lord of the Rings! So. We bought it. :D Plus, I like maps--I'm not quite sure why. Maybe just because I love the natural world...? Anyway, we've only actually played it once in two months. (Well, I've only played it once.) But she likes to keep it in her room to look at the map. Which I don't mind. I can look at the map later. But it comes with the One Ring. (Okay, okay--of a million other cheap manufactured ones.)

Actually, when I first saw it, I was a little dissapointed that it looked sort of, well, um, crummy. (I know, I know--a million cheap and manufactured.) I think the main thing I wasn't expecting was to see the Elvish letters on there--I guess I was expecting it to take more its usual form of a simple gold ring. Although, having the letters on there can be cool, too. What--do I want a real-life version you can take and throw into the fire and the letters show up?

And, yes, for those of you silently (or not so silently) laughing at me from the other side of the screen, I do actually know from experience that mass-produced plastic or whatever mystery meat of the manufacturing world they use just simply does not do justice to the people of our imaginations. I mean, I saw Luke from Star Wars Monopoly. Maybe seeing it on-screen for so long made it a bit of a shock to me to see this mass-produced version.

But: I have the Ring of Power. And I've been wearing it on my right thumb (because it fits there about perfectly) and slowly wooing people to their destruction all day. Well. Okay, maybe not about that last part.


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*As in "Wahaha!" (Or, alternately, "Whahaha!") Not as in "Wah!" like a baby crying. You're just going to have to use your context clues here because I don't know any better way to spell them.

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(LUDICROUS) UPDATE (3/27/04): Upon further consideration of the first meaning of "Wah!" (as a shortening of "Wahaha!" that is), it is possible that it is evolving into a more general exclamation for me--as of excitement or surprise, for instance--and less an onomatopoeia of evil mirth. As opposed to one of righteous mirth, I suppose. ("Go use your powers for good and not for evil." Hm..I never quite thought of laughter as a weapon before.)

Yes, I am something of a "wordphile" or whatever the latest way to associate yourself with obsessive tendencies is. Hm. That could be an interesting endeavor--finding a better term, that is. I will let you know if I find something better.