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402 days. 402 (plus or minus… mostly minus) posts.

Month: December, 2012

December 21, 2012

Day 27: Call for Content

Since the world is still here, I will continue my plan to blog every day until it ends (or until December 31, 2013).

In January, I am taking a trip to see my favorite outdoor enthusiast in Australia. I may not have Internet access each day I’m there, so I’ll have to pre-plan some posts. The concept of pre-planning is a pretty big paradigm shift for this particular writer, because I’ve been flying by the seat of my pants so far.

Thus, I need some help.

Call for Content

Do you have a great blog post idea? Please, please (please) share it with me (unless you are saving it for your bad blogging self, which I completely understand). Here is what I’m looking for:

  • Interesting people to profile
  • Interesting philosophies to ponder
  • Interesting personal quirks to discuss (yours, someone else’s, etc.)
  • Interesting questions to probably not answer
  • Interesting books to discover
  • Un-interesting stuff of all ilk

I’ll take whatever you’ve got. Leave your best, worst and everything-in-between nuggets in the comments section below.

America thanks you.

Also, here is a picture of Brian Boitano wearing his Girl Scout sash. He does a good turn daily.

Brian Boitano

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December 20, 2012

Day 26: What day is it?

As a not-purveyor of apocalyptic information, I thought the end of the world was on 12/12/12. My bad.

Since I’ve been informed that it’s actually tomorrow, I came up with a list of items I will take with me into the imaginary bunker I imaginarily built in the basement of my apartment building. Then, I will imaginarily emerge from my bunker on 12/22/12 to find peace and happiness abounding. That’s how apocalypses work, right?

Items:

At least three pillows of varying sizes. There’s no point in lounging around in an imaginary bunker if it’s not comfortable.

Raspberry licorice. It’s way better than the regular kind.

My George Winston December CD and the discman I’ve been keeping in my desk drawer for just such an occasion. It will be comforting to hear the skip-whir of the disc under the sweet piano tunes, and the odds are that my iPhone won’t be working because I wasted the battery refreshing Facebook.

Thin Mint-flavored Girl Scout Lip Smaker. I ran out of cookies like six months ago, so the waxy lip stuff will have to do.

More pillows, in case someone visits me and wants to borrow one.

The Company Store catalog. Obviously.

“The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat,” by Oliver Sacks. It’s interesting, touching, funny and much scarier than an apocalypse.

Brian Boitano. He’s very resilient (most recently, he survived a flip and a flop in my sink when I accidentally poured him out of his bowl), but I’d prefer not to leave him alone above ground.

A roll of quarters. If money loses its value entirely, at least I can play more games with quarters than I can with a ten dollar bill.

Which reminds me… Pogs. I need to find my Pogs.

Pogs

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December 19, 2012

Day 25: What is that smell?

And here I thought I didn’t have anything to write about today.

In the midst of a very hard, tragic and thought-provoking week for everyone across America, today I lament something mundane.

Here goes.

Last night, my landlord installed a holiday plug-in air freshener in the laundry room. I found it this morning. It’s full of shiny red liquid and smells like some kind of powerful cinnamon toxin that could crawl up your nose and maniacally domesticate your brain.

It’s pretty smelly.

Why are we (the giant society “we”) so against smelling the actual smells of our environments? What are we afraid of? Especially in the laundry room, where things are clean and fluffy? I realize many people use perfumed and dyed detergents, but most of my neighbors use the au-natural stuff and the room smells delightful! I’d much rather know if my space is dirty than mask it with a smell that reeks (literally) of chemical intervention.

Perhaps you’re thinking, “Listen. I have three cats and a stinky kid. I need my air fresheners.” I understand. I really do. But how grossed out are you by the Febreze commercials where people unknowingly sit in filth and smell scents like “lilac, “citrus” and “wispy white curtains?” (Also… What?) Unsuspecting people wearing blindfolds bury their noses in dirty couch cushions and are pleased to smell Febreze. The whole thing feels terribly wrong.

That said, at least Febreze is being honest about what they offer. They’re basically saying, “Don’t worry if your home is disgusting. Just spray our product and blindfold your guests. They’ll think they’re sitting in a botanical garden and you’ll be the best host ever.”

Sigh. One day, my heroic effort to unplug every air freshener in the building will pay off.

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December 18, 2012

Day 24: Reading Rain

For obvious reasons, many us have been thinking about children this week.

Side note: If you missed President Obama’s moving, loving, funny and horribly sad remarks on Sunday evening, you can watch them in full at Gawker.com.

In memory of the beautiful kids who are no longer with us and the beautiful future kids residing in many of my friends’ bellies, here is a list of children’s books I continue to love:

A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams
After a fire destroys their home, Rosa, her mother and her grandmother save all their coins in a jar until they can purchase a big, cozy chair together. Family love trumps all.

A-chair-for-my-mother

Imogene’s Antlers by David Small
Easy-going Imogene wakes up one morning to find she has sprouted antlers. The story is funny and sweet, and illustrates children’s abilities to persevere smilingly, even when their respective adults lose their cool.

imogene

Stone Soup by Marcia Brown
It’s an old, enduring, sneaky story about feeding a town with a soup made of stones. Once everyone adds a little “garnish”—a carrot here, a potato there—a stone soup becomes a delicious and nourishing meal. When we all work together, we all eat together.

Stone_Soup

Mousekin’s Golden House by Edna Miller
It’s not about ghosts, candy or costumes, but there is a Halloween pumpkin. A mouse finds an abandoned jack-o-lantern and makes it into a home for the winter. Whether in a squash or an apartment, home is what you make it.

Mouskin's Golden House

The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown
Who doesn’t love this book? Clement Hurd’s artwork gorgeously illustrates a story of a mother who will always be there for her bunny, even when he runs.

The Runaway Bunny

Ivy Cottage (Biscuit, Buttons & Pickles) by E.J. Taylor
Miss Biscuit, a retired nanny, moves to the countryside with Violet Pickles, an adorable anthropomorphized rag doll who is unhappy about the move. Luckily, Miss Biscuit is a brilliant seamstress and creates Ruby Buttons, a new rag doll friend for Violet. It’s a lovely story about creating your own happiness.

Ivy Cottage

I could go on forever about great children’s books. For more current stories, check out TurtleAndRobot.com. And read this great New York Times opinion article about what kids should be reading these days.

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December 17, 2012

Day 23: Not About Dating, Part 2

After last week’s post about how much I hate online dating, one of my BFFs (yeah, I said it) encouraged me to buck up and “actually try.”

Here is a collection of conversations she and I have had since then. Her husband (someone I lovingly refer to as one of my Blunt Ones) also participated.

_______________

BFF: “Your profile photo looks great!”
BFF’s husband: “What? No it doesn’t. What is that, your LinkedIn photo? You look too professional. And old.”

Action taken: A new photograph has been installed as my profile photo. I did not remove my original photo; I just made it a secondary image. (I like that photo! However, most of the gentlemen who also expressed an affinity for it were admittedly about a decade older than my preferred mate.)

_______________

Me: “Seriously, I’m done with Match. I emailed two guys and neither of them wrote back.”
BFF: “What did you say?”
Me: “Something about how I hate emailing back and forth with strangers. And how everything in Lowertown has either ‘bull’ or ‘dog’ in the name.”
BFF: “We need to work on your emails.”

Action taken: I agreed to tone down the awkwardness of my emails. I also decided to pick less normal guys.

 _______________

Me: “My favorite photo is the one I posted of the gingerbread house my family and I made a couple of years ago. It’s sitting outside in the snow, sort of askew. And it’s on fire.”
BFF: (silence)
BFF’s husband: “That photo makes you seem creepy and weird.”

Action taken: I added a caption: “My family makes the best gingerbread houses.” We do.

_______________

BFF: (looking at matches on my account) “That guy looks nice! And he cooks! It says here he’s a really good chef, and he even has some pictures of his dishes… a fancy beet salad, some tuna crostini things… You should message him.”
Me: “What would I say?”
BFF’s husband: “How about, ‘Do crostinis make you feel like a giant because they’re so small?’”

Action taken: I laughed until pink champagne stung the inside of my nose. And then BFF (who is quite pregnant) asked if husband and I were going to drink the entire bottle of champagne by ourselves. We said yes.

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BFF: (still looking at matches on my account) “I think you’re being too picky.”
Me: “Why, because I won’t date a smoker who thinks college is an ‘evil empire?’ And that last guy you picked for me had really big wrists.”
BFF’s husband: “Man. It’s a good thing I’m married. I would have cleaned up on Match.”

Action taken: Two sets of eye-rolls.

  _______________

So. I’ll keep you posted every once in a while. Even though it pains me to blog about dating, it pains me even more to admit that it’s sort of therapeutic.

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