i have that disease

What's the name of that disease where you think all doors are swinging doors? You know, that thing where you end up running into doors all the time, becuase you think they'll open without you having to actually twist the knob?

What's that called?  i have it.

9:36 PM - 12 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment

My Sub-Conscious is a Cave Man

The other night I dreamt of my sub-conscious.  It was a shadowy, dark,
large round cloud.  It tranported a little girl down the block and she
screamed in terror.  So then it transported me down the block and I screamed
in terror. But then I realized it was just my sub-conscious and there
was nothing to be afraid of.  Then it sent me monosyllabic text
messages that said things that let me know it was utterly harmless,
just really dumb.  I named it Chunk or Chug or something
"cave-mannish" like that.

How see-through is that?  Could I get any more obvious?  I'm totally
serious, the above was my dream 2 nights ago.  My own mind turned out
NOT to be a monster that scares little girls, but a harmless, dumb
shadow who sends me text messages to try and make friends.

2:24 PM - 8 Comments - 16 Kudos - Add Comment

Dear Shel Silverstein

Today my fingers smell like toes

And I can't stop shoving them up my nose

And I'm trying to remember that song that goes "Today my fingers smell like toes"

My teeth are slightly feverish today

They itch and they swell in a pneumonic way

What's that one book where the children all say "My teeth are slightly feverish today"?

Last night I dreamt of a better eye

That was made of glass and couldn't cry

And rolled so smooth across the sky

And rolled so smooth across the sky

7:35 AM - 13 Comments - 21 Kudos - Add Comment

Yesterday’s conversation with a 19 year old boy

David:  How good are you at movies from the 70's?

Me:  Hmmm, well I was born in 74, so I wasn't really watching movies until the 80's…

David: I'm trying to think of this movie from the 70's but all I know is that it's about dancing and it has that one chick from Sex and the City.  And some other famous guy.  But I don't know the guy.

Me: I never saw the show Sex and the City, so if it's not Sarah Jessica Parker I don't know her.

David: Who's Sarah Jessica Parker?

Me: Looks like a horse, but a pretty horse? (I make motions with hands to demonstrate "horsey" face.)

David: That's her!  Yeah, it has Sarah Jessica Parker and it's from the 70's.  And some famous guy.

Me: Hmmm…That's not sounding familiar. (I immediately admit defeat and start pulling up imdb.com.)

Jean:  What are you trying to figure out?

David: It's a movie from the 60's or 70's with Sarah Jessica Parker and dancing.

Me: (to Jean) He keeps saying 70's, so I bet he probably means 80's.

David: No, it's old.  And it's about dancing.

Me: (looking at imdb.com) Not Girls Just Wanna Have Fun? (I almost have brain hemorrhage trying to remember what the heck that movie was about.)

David: No, scroll down, scroll down…FOOTLOOSE!  That's it!

Me: David, that came out in 1984. (I get a faraway look in my eyes.)  I was in 5^th grade.  I loved that movie.

David:  Well, whatever.  (runs off to tell friends)

Me:  And it was Kevin Bacon.

Jean:  (gets a dreamy look in her eyes) I loved Kenny Loggins.

10:15 AM - 20 Comments - 16 Kudos - Add Comment

Articulate 3 year old

This was too good not to share.  Enjoy:

A 3-year-old tells all from his mother's restroom
stall.

By Shannon Popkin

My little guy, Cade, is quite a talker. He loves
to communicate and does it quite well. He talks to
people constantly, whether we're in the library,the
grocery store or at a drive-thru window.

People often comment on how clearly he speaks for a
just-turned-3-year-old. And you never have to ask him to turn up the
volume. It's always fully cranked.
There've been several embarrassing times that I've
wished the meaning of his words would have been masked
by a not-so-audible voice, but never have I wished
this more than last week at Costco.

Halfway, through our shopping trip, nature called,
so I took Cade with me into the restroom. If you'd
been one of the ladies in the restroom that evening,
this is what you would have heard coming from the
second to the last stall:

'Mommy, are you gonna go potty? Oh! Why are you
putting toiwet paper on the potty, Mommy? Oh! You
gonna sit down on DA toiwet paper now?

Mommy, what are you doing? Mommy, are you gonna
go stinkies on the potty?'

At this point I started mentally counting how many
women had been in the bathroom when I walked in.
Several stalls were full ... 4? 5? Maybe we could
wait until they all left before I had to make my
debut out of this stall and reveal my identity.

Cade continued, 'Mommy, you ARE going stinkies aren't
you? Oh, dats a good girl, Mommy! Are you
gonna get some candy for going stinkies on the
potty? Let me see doze stinkies,Mommy! Oh ... Mommy!
I'm trying to see in dere. Oh! I see dem. Dat is a
very good girl,Mommy. You are gonna get some candy!'

I heard a few faint chuckles coming from the stalls
on either side of me. Where is a screaming new born
when you need her? Good grief. This was really getting embarrassing. I
was definitely waiting a long time before exiting.

Trying to divert him, I said, 'Why don't you look
in Mommy's purse and see if you can find some candy
We'll both have some!' 'No, I'm trying to see doze
more stinkies. Oh! Mommy!' He started to gag at this
point.

'Uh oh, Mommy. I fink I'm gonna frow up. Mommy,
doze stinkies are making me frow up!! Dat is so
gross!!'

As the gags became louder, so did the chuckles
outside my stall. I quickly flushed the toilet in
hopes of changing the subject. I began to reason with
myself: OK. There are four other toilets.

If I count four flushes, I can be reasonably assured
that those who overheard this embarrassing monologue
will be long gone.

'Mommy! Would you get off the potty, now? I want you
to be done going stinkies!Get up! Get up!' He
grunted as he tried to pull me off. Now I could
hear full-blown laughter. I bent down to count the
feet outside my door. 'Oh, are you wooking under
dere, Mommy? You wooking under DA door? What are you
wooking at, Mommy? You wooking at
the wady's feet?'

More laughter. I stood inside the locked door and
tried to assess the situation. 'Mommy,it's time
to wash our hands, now. We have to go out now,
Mommy.' He started pounding on the door.'Mommy, don't
you want to wash your hands? I want to go out!!'

I saw that my 'wait 'em out' plan was unraveling I
sheepishly opened the door, and found standing
outside my stall, twenty to thirty ladies crowded
around the stall, all smiling and starting to applaud.
My first thought was complete embarrassment, then I
thought, 'Where's the fine print on the'motherhood
contract' where I signed away every bit of my dignity
and privacy?' But as my little boy gave me a big,
cheeky grin while he rubbed bubbly soap between his
chubby little hands, I thought, I'd sign it all away
again, just to be known as Mommy to this little
fellow.

(Shannon Popkin is a freelance writer and mother of
three. She lives with her family in Grand Rapids,
Michigan, where she no longer uses public restrooms)

5:34 PM - 4 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

The Face in the Taco

You told me a story once about when we were little girls.  I was 3 which means you would have been 4.  Mommy had fed us tacos and I couldn't get my taco fixin's to stay in the shell (it was the 70's.  We were eating hard shell tacos.)  I was crying.  The taco would fall apart and I would cry and Mommy would just put the ingredients back in the shell for me and I'd take another couple of bites and it would fall and I would cry again and she'd help me again.

You said how you just kept thinking what a baby I was.  You were quite annoyed in that older sister way.

When you told me the story I had two thoughts.  First, I wondered what all else had happened that day that I was too emotionally exhausted to even feed myself.  Second, I thought "I know how the little girl in the story feels.  I feel that way some days, too.  Like my life is a bunch of taco ingredients that keep falling out of my shell no matter what I do.  Sometimes I wish Mommy was there, so I could just cry and she could just help me."

Last night I dreamt of a large, gray clay face that I had sculpted.  I was carrying it around.  I dropped it and the face smashed, so that now it looked dumb and clumsy and close-eyed.  And Mommy was there and she wouldn't help me fix it, this giant, stupid, embarrassing clay face.  And I wanted to cry and have her fix it like I was her little baby, wanted her to just make it all better while I cried about how stupid and ugly I felt.  But she wouldn't.

I woke up feeling really emotionally exhausted.

7:55 AM - 15 Comments - 16 Kudos - Add Comment

2 dumb 2 read this

I learned to read at a very young age.  In fact, I don't remember not being able to read.  Those symbols we call letter, strings of which make up words?  I don't remember a time when they didn't make sense to me, effortlessy translating themselves in my head from letter and word to idea and thought.

My theory is that this is the fundamental difference between kids who like to read and kids who don't enjoy reading:  the ones that don't enjoy it have to work at translating from the symbol to the thought, they have to think about it, it doesn't just happen automatically or instantaneously.

Ever since the popularization of truncated writing such as we use in text messages, I've gotten a taste of what it feels like to be one of those kids who doesn't like to read.  I hate to read text messages or half the ads on Myspace or any other form of advertising aimed at the demographic fluent in Truncated English.  It requires effort, I have to DECIPHER it.  I have to stare at the word, say it out loud and think about it.

For instance, if I see the phrase "2 late 4 me", my brain understands quantities where the numbers are, not the words "too" and "for".  See, to me, "2", that symbol that sort of resembles a backwards 5, is a quantity, it's what you get when then there's exactly one more than one and exactly one less than 3. It doesn't mean "to" and it doesn't mean "also". To me, anyway.  2 doesn't mean "to" or "too" to me, but a symbol only means what the society using that symbol agrees it means, it doesn't have any inherent meaning outside of that meaning upon which we all agree, therefore meaning that "2" is beginning to change in its meaning, as more and more of society agree that it can mean "also".

Another example of how I'm too dumb to catch onto to the dumbing down phenomenon:

An incident with my drug dealer.

My drug dealer is a sweetheart.  She delivers.  She'll meet you in a parking lot at lunch, at your house before work, at your friend's house after work, she doesn't care.  And she texts you if you she hasn't heard from you in a couple of days, just to make sure you've got everything you need, or to let you know when she's just gotten a fresh supply.  So one day after arranging, through text, to meet, I ended my final text with "Thanks so much."  She texted back "Netime."

Netime?  (In my head I was pronouncing it "Knee-time.")  What could this mean?  I became convinced that it was some sort of code, alerting me to the fact that she had just been busted, and if I could only unlock the mystery of Netime, I could save her from certain peril.  I wracked my brains, but could not figure out what Netime was.  I'd never been good with riddles.

Finally, in a fit of desperation, I texted her back, asking the meaning of Netime.

N-E-T-I-M-E.

N-E-time.

In-ee-time.

Anytime.  (I had said thanks and she was saying "Anytime!")

I'm a moron.  She got a good laugh out of that one, and now I try to truncate all my text messages to her (a process which takes longer than spelling the words "properly") and she spells everything out for me, lest I be confused by this hip generation and it's mystifying technology that has altered the way we spell.

8:11 AM - 20 Comments - 20 Kudos - Add Comment

Sihya’s coming to see me!
Current mood: ecstatic

She's almost here! She's almost here! She's almost here!

Look upon this blog with jealousy, all you who know her, for soon she shall be here, in my apartment.  Spending the night with me.  Drinking beer and eating sushi and we'll probably be talking about you.

3:49 PM - 8 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment

Giant

i once giant strode the land

my legs spread wide would cover room

My voice came taunting from the clouds

has faded now to misty gloom

withered shoulders arch and ache

a spasm of propriety

i was never fit to live

amongst polite society

watch the wheel spin round but slow!

this witch's wisdom sheds my pain

i'll molt into a startling creature

and, Phoenix-like, shall rise again

1:31 PM - 16 Comments - 25 Kudos - Add Comment

Mini mad-lib (funny, not depressing)

It was an IM chat that was too good not to share with the rest of the world.  It was a conversation that started about Clinton, but turned into hilarity.  Please.  Add your own: