Kid Tested, Mother Approved

2010-05-06T20:46:00.000-07:00

Going Bad

I am the girlfriend with an expiration date.

Best if used by June 1.

I am a bottle of milk. A turkey sandwich.

That green stuff in the Tupperware behind the eggs.

I have a shelf life. A half-life.

I am only as good as time says I am.

2009-01-07T19:38:00.000-08:00

The Road Not Taken

I majored in English. When most people hear this, their immediate response is "oh, so you're an English teacher then, right?" No. I am not an English teacher, I have never been an English teacher and I am fairly certain that I will never be an English teacher. There was, however, a period of about three days in eighth grade where I thought that being a teacher sounded kind of fun. But then I stopped, looked around the classroom full of angsty preteens and decided that perhaps there was a better career out there for me where I wouldn't have to confiscate pogs and tell kids that snorting Pixie Sticks isn't good for their nasal cavities. Yet, I get this question almost daily and lately, I've started to wonder what I'd be like had I followed my eighth grade whim and become an English teacher. I'd probably wear lots of tweed and would suddenly become obsessed with elbow patches. I'd use a beat up yardstick to point to my slanted, cryptic writing on the blackboard and would be slightly offended every time a student mistook a lowercase "r" for a "v". I'd make my kids refer to their literature by saying the author's last name before they said the title of each book. Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. Paton's Cry the Beloved Country. Shakespeare's Othello. I'd speak of the literary canon in near religious terms. I'd own too many pencil sharpeners and would buy eight dollar pens every time I went to Office Depot. I would start adopting pets and would give them literary names: a cat named Dickins, a dog named Boo Radley and a hamster named Hamlet. Everything would be an archetype or a symbol for something else. I would read too much into everything. I'd eat a turkey sandwich on wheat with an apple for lunch everyday and would have a not-so-secret crush on the slightly nerdy music teacher. After 5 years of me turning red and saying things like "grood day" every time I saw him, we'd finally start dating. Some of our students would see us furniture shopping together and rumors would start to circulate. Eventually it would come out that he'd been married all along to someone I used to know growing up and I'd go back to my life of turkey sandwiches, tweed and Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. So no. I am not an English teacher.

2009-01-07T19:16:00.000-08:00

Unnecessary Plurals

The letter S has done many great things for humanity. It has allowed snakes to talk. It has even saved us from reading about the Adventure of Uperman. So why is it that some people feel the need to abuse the power(s) of the S. Is it that perhaps people think sticking an S on the end of a word will magically make that thing multiply like the loaves and fishes? Does it just roll off the tongue at such a rate that it can't be stopped? Seriously, what's with all the unnecessary S's? For instance, when you're going shopping at Safeway, don't say you're going to Safeways. You're not going to Safeways. You're going to one Safeway. One. There's no need to stop by all of them. They all have the same stuff. Also, if your child needs to use the restroom, please don't ask him or her if he or she needs to "go potties." And when you're out of coins for a wishing well, don't tell your children that you're "all out of monies." It may seem like cute baby talk, but it's actually extremely annoying and is only teaching your child bad grammar. That child will grow up and shop at Safeways.

2008-03-18T23:25:00.000-07:00

Some Thoughts on Giving Birth

The term “giving birth” is pretty bizarre when you think about it. Do we really give birth, like it was some sort of Christmas present? And if we’re giving birth, does that mean that infants are getting birth? Are they supposed to say “thanks for the birth” as they enter this world? Perhaps a nice card would suffice: “Dear Mom, thanks for the birth. I put it on my bookshelf next to the Dr. Seuss books Aunt Linda gave me.” And if it’s better to give than to receive, should we all feel ashamed that we’ve received birth and that we are, in fact, alive? And should men feel even worse knowing that they aren’t capable of giving birth; that they can’t say, “here, I got you some birth for our anniversary”? I suppose the phrase “giving birth” seems so strange to me because it all just sounds a little too simple when you put it like that, like we can all just go to Big Lots and pick out some babies: “I’ll take two of the redheads.” There’s a lot of effort in actually giving birth. Never, at least in my experience, has giving anything been accompanied by screams of pain, a string of expletives and bloody…stuff. We should all really rethink the phrase “giving birth.” It’s a bit misleading.

2007-11-16T02:01:00.000-08:00

The Boyfriend Patch

Choosing a boyfriend is a lot like going to a pumpkin patch. You spend so much time picking out the perfect one, but when you take it home, it turns out to be all rotten on the inside.

2006-09-06T22:47:00.000-07:00

The Eight Dollar Request

A few weeks ago some friends and I were walking around the U District in Seattle when we were approached by a homeless man asking for money. Nothing out of the ordinary there. But as we all reached for our coin purses in anticipation of "can you spare a quarter?" the man asked us if we could spare eight dollars for dinner. EIGHT DOLLARS! I don't spend eight dollars on dinner for myself. I realize that inflation affects us all, but come on! I have to work an entire hour to even make eight dollars and even then, some of that goes to taxes. Needless to say his request was denied. Had he not been so greedy, he probably would have gotten at least a couple of dollars out of us, but we were afraid that if we gave him a dollar he would look at us and say "where's the rest of my money?!?" And we were not up for a fight with a homeless man that day. We seldom are.

2006-09-02T21:24:00.000-07:00

It's All a Blur

Ever notice how when a movie is out of focus at the theater everyone will complain about it, but no one will ever go tell anyone to fix it? We all just sit there annoyed, occasionally throwing popcorn at the screen instead of leaving to fix the problem. It's a little like a staring contest. Who can go the longest without getting up. It gets a little tense as we wait for someone, anyone, get up. Our attention is diverted from the movie as we throw shifty glances around the room wondering why no one is doing anything about the fuzzy picture. It's as if we all assume there is one designated movie focuser in the crowd and we are pissed that he or she is not fulfilling his or her very important responsibility. We have an attitude of "I paid for this. I shouldn't have to get up," like we're all so worried about missing 3 minutes of a blurry film. The guy who finally gets up to tell someone about the problem usually gets applause. I always wanted to date that guy.

2006-08-09T21:09:00.000-07:00

What I Thought About Today

I am entirely convinced that the only way to solve a Rubik's Cube is to peel off the colored stickers and replace them on the correct sides.

I once knew a woman named Dee Day.

We have a stray cat that comes around and barfs on our back porch. We call him Ralph.

A part of the sun exploded on the day I was born.

The guy who works in the deli next to my work calls everyone from the Museum, Heather. This secretly makes me feel good.

I don't really know what toner does.

My father once knocked over a bowl of soy sauce at a sushi restaurant and it seeped into the white table cloth in the exact shape of Africa (Madagascar and all).

2006-08-07T21:51:00.000-07:00

The Old Switcheroo

When I was six, my older brother Chris told me that when people reached the age of ten, they changed genders. He supported his story with elaborate details about his former life as a girl. He showed me a rather feminine-looking cross stitch my mother's friend had made for him when he was born and he claimed that he'd made it right before he went through The Change. He said his name used to be Christina and that it took him over a year to get used to answering to Chris. I cried that day, not because I was afraid of becoming a boy, but because I hated the name Heath.

2006-08-06T15:23:00.000-07:00

The Darrin Divide

Growing up, I was a huge fan of the show Bewitched. My friends and I used to have Nick at Nite sleepovers so we could stay up late and watch reruns of the crazy antics of Samantha and Darrin Stephens. But something that really bothered me about the show was how Darrin was replaced by someone else after season 5. The same character, two different actors. How is that ok? You can't just change actors halfway through a show's run and hope nobody notices. The Great Darrin Switch even divided my group of friends in two. You had your Dick York fans (the original Darrin) and your Dick Sargent fans (the imposter). Naturally, I was a Dick York girl. But things got pretty heated. Eight-year-old girls can be mean.

2006-08-04T23:02:00.000-07:00

Night Bruises

Lately I've been waking up with huge bruises all over my arms and legs. I'm pretty sure I go to bed bruise-free, so I'm not exactly sure what happens the few hours I'm asleep. I did have this dream the other night where I got into a fight with Vince Vaughn, but I'm fairly certain I've never met Vince Vaughn, so the bruises can't be from that. Maybe I flail around while I sleep, but there aren't enough broken things in my room to support that theory. From the size of the bruise near my elbow I discovered this morning, there should be a good-sized hole in the wall next to my bed, or at least a broken lamp. I'm tempted to film myself sleeping to see exactly what happens every night, but the thought of watching myself sleep on camera creeps me out. I suppose there are some things I'd just rather not know.

2006-07-31T19:13:00.000-07:00

Errands

Running errands is the best. It makes me feel like I've done something with my day. It gives me tangible evidence that I did not sit on the couch and watch Celebrity Fit Club all day. I bought shampoo. I got gas. I can check "buy more dog food" off of my list (I'm a big list person.) It's one of the better feelings out there.

If I could make a decent living out of just running errands, I would. I know I could move to LA and become the self-deprecating personal assistant of some starlet, but I'd really just like to run errands when I want to run errands. I don't want Lindsay Lohan calling me in the middle of the night because she had a craving for blue M&M's. She can get her own M&M's. I just want to buy lightbulbs and face wash; and a new garbage can for the downstairs bathroom. Maybe a fan and a little hook for my keys to put by the back door. Yes, a hook would be nice.

2006-07-29T01:10:00.000-07:00

Hospital Side Effects

The worst thing about going to the hospital (besides the fact that you're sick enough to be in the hospital) is not the runny/shriveled up/bodily-function-inducing food, or even the backless gowns stained with someone else's blood. The worst thing, by far, is the sticky goo left behind on your skin from the industrial strength medical tape they use to hold down pretty much anything that's not naturally growing out of your arm: an IV, excess tubing, various pieces of gauze, cotton balls, and really anything else that might (Heaven forbid) succumb to the force of gravity. The tape itself is bad enough; all thick and itchy. Ripping it off gives you an instant rash, red bumps sprouting up where your arm hair used to be. If it stopped there, it might even be tolerable. Your arm might just heal and regenerate hair with no further problems. Not the case. A thin black residue forming a perfect outline of the tape will stay with you for about 3 more weeks. You can pick at it, but you honestly have a better chance of pulling out more of your already sparse arm hair than picking off the goo. Trying to rub it off only results in red skin (much like a sunburn) and a spreading of the goo to other, previously uneffected areas. The goo must be left alone to run its course. And it will get worse before it gets better. It will gather lint and dust. It will collect dog hair and carpet fuzz. Stray whisps of cotton ball will hang on for a while. It's just a part of you until it decides to leave. And it will, eventually. Just make sure to steer clear of the hospital after it's gone. No one wants a second outbreak of the goo.

2006-07-27T15:47:00.000-07:00

Bad Copy

Why is this Museum of Glass copy so difficult for me? I thought it would be easier than Re/Max for sure since it was a place I could experience, but nothing's coming out of me that I'm proud of. I even went and sat...for hours...in their Hot Shop hoping ideas would just seep into me by osmosis. But the best I've come up with is something similar to a cross between an episode of Barney and a list of side effects for a genital herpes drug. Even in 14 pt. font, it still reads like fine print. After re-reading what I had written yesterday, I actually involuntarily smacked myself on the forehead with the palm of my hand. Class should be fun tonight.

2006-07-26T00:26:00.000-07:00

Things I Wish I'd Known Before Fighting Cancer:

Eat as much as possible when hunger strikes because that'll only happen about twice.
A hot bath will do more good than most pain killers.
Well-wishers can be annoying and exhausting even though they mean well.
Don't expect everyone to know what you're going through even if they tell you they do.
It's not a good idea to take three Percosets and an Oxycontin at once, no matter how bad the pain is.
Pain killers stop working after a few months (see above).
Laughter is NOT the best medicine three hours after abdominal surgery.
Shaving your head is kind of nice; it's growing back the hair that sucks.
Wigs are made of real hair. They need washing too.
There is an art to throwing up.
Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream saves lives.
People are amazing.

2006-07-25T00:03:00.000-07:00

Tpynig Lsesnos

I remember taking typing classes in elementary school, but I never learned the "proper" way to type. I think it had to do with the computer program used to teach us. It was some program for the Apple IIE computer (you know, the green font, the overly spastic cursor) that would beep every time a mistake was made. And there were plenty of mistakes. Every computer in that room beeped at least every 3 seconds. It sounded a little like some of the electronic 80's music we were raised on. After a while, some of the kids in class started to get self conscious about how many times their computer was beeping, so most of us abandoned trying to learn the proper way to type and we resorted pecking at the keys with our index fingers. It took us around 5 minutes to type "Sally hit the ball", but we did it in perfect, beep-free silence. Then we rewarded ourselves with a rousing game of Oregon Trail. We eventually all died of dysentery.

2006-07-23T18:42:00.000-07:00

Cush for the Tush

I never really understood padded toilet seat covers. Are people really sitting down to do their business that hard that they need another inch or two of cushy protection? Can they not control the velocity at which they throw their bodies towards the toilet? Perhaps it's there to ease the pain of long bathroom visits, but if someone is sitting on the toilet long enough to require a cushion, they should really probably be seeing a doctor. I suppose padded toilet seat covers could provide a nice forehead rest for those tough nights after parties or bar-hopping, but this doesn't explain why they are so popular with grannies the world over. But who knows, maybe all of our grandmothers are having a lot more fun then they let on.

2006-07-21T22:14:00.000-07:00

The Ugly Sister

Tacoma is the Canada of Washington; the ugly sister. Tacoma suffers from a severe inferiority complex as well as a little bit of ADD. Seattle was prom queen. Tacoma didn't even have a date to the dance. Tacoma took to smoking pot under the bleachers during football games while Seattle cheered in the stands. Seattle went to an Ivy League college where she double majored in Psychology and Music Eduation. Tacoma took a few general ed classes at a community college before dropping out to work as a parking attendant. Tacoma has to listen to everyone gush about how fun Seattle is, how beautiful, how successful. But Tacoma is growing into herself. True, it took a little cosmetic surgery, but Tacoma's ugly awkward stage is almost over. And where Seattle can be a little distant and self-absorbed, Tacoma's been known to many as a loyal friend. So I raise my glass to you, Tacoma. You may smell a little funky every now and again, but it's worth having you around.

2006-07-21T01:09:00.000-07:00

New Science

I've spent the last two years of my life feeling like some sort of artifact dredged up from the Titanic or a new species of monkey or something. I'm walking science and doctors don't quite know what to do with that. They keep taking my blood and running tests, hoping that one day they'll run the right one and end up with a Nobel Prize in medicine. I actually wouldn't be surprised if another one of me is growing in a test tube somewhere in Seattle. Meanwhile, I'm injected with what I can only assume is some sort of vibrantly colored Kool-Aid while giant magnets are used to look at my insides. The skin above the vein in my arm has turned into cork board and the scars on my stomach and chest seem to provide convincing evidence for my wild stories about carjackings in New York and knife fights in Amsterdam (I've actually never been to either place). I suppose it's kind if ironic that I work in a museum, seeing how I'm always on display.

2006-07-19T00:52:00.000-07:00

My Humble Abode

I must admit I've been fumbling through this ReMax copy all week trying to think like the target audience and I'm finding it rather difficult. I've never been in the position of having enough income to even think about buying a house (let alone make a "lifestyle change"...unless that includes switching from regular to light cream cheese.) For fun I typed in my price limits on the ReMax online property search just to see how far $8 an hour would get me. Not very far. My search results showed me that with several loans and maybe another job or two on the side, I could be the proud owner of a trailer. And not even one of those nice trailers with flower boxes in the windows and porches with awnings. It was your stereotypical piss-yellow, small-windowed, rusty-hinged, Cletus-don't-make-me-get-the-hose trailer.

Behold, my future.

But I guess it's kind of nice that ReMax even gives listings for us poor folk. We've all gotta live somewhere, I suppose. And I guess ReMax has also given me motivation to work hard and perhaps make more than $8 an hour one day. And if not, hands off that trailer. I saw it first.

2006-07-18T02:45:00.000-07:00

Potluck Etiquette

Potlucks. What does one bring to a potluck anyway? Is there some sort of potluck etiquette you have to follow? Must it always be so random? Isn't there a way to make your dish fit with everyone else's? I guess there will always be a few staples you can gauge your potluck contributions off of. There will always be meatloaf. And Jello. And something in a crockpot. You can also count on some sort of "salad" made of mandarin oranges covered in white and pink fluffy stuff. These are the dishes that always show up, but no one can ever figure out who brought them. One of the most nerve-racking things about potlucks is being in line in front of someone when you don't know what dish they brought. A lot of people get really offended if you don't take some of their dish. You might get lucky and get in front of the chocolate chip cookie lady, but then again, you might end up in front of the mandarin fluff salad guy. You can feel his eyes watching you as you hesitate when you reach the salad. It's the moment of truth: do you pass on the fluff stuff and risk being pelted with a shuttlecock during the evening's badminton game, or do you just take a pity scoop and pray the salad guy doesn't see you throw it away later? It's a tough call. Most people opt for the pity scoops. Apparently nothing is worth getting hit by a shuttlecock.

2006-07-15T23:10:00.000-07:00

Magically Delicious

I have a sweet tooth that is out of control. I need sugar like Paris Hilton needs her T-Mobile Sidekick. It's a bit ridiculous, really. I blame it all on the fact that while growing up, I was never allowed sugar cereals except on certain holidays. I waited all year for St. Patrick's Day just so I could bust into a brand new box of Lucky Charms. I even liked those little wheat crunchy things shaped like awareness ribbons that accompanied the marshmallows by a ratio of 200 to 1. Even they were coated in sugar. But like most kids, I was more excited about the marshmallows. I waited until the very last second to eat those delicious little hearts, moons, and stars; until they were all bloated with pastel milk. There is a point, after roughly six minutes of milk soakage, when the marshmallows become "ripe". They develop a thin foam-like casing around the still-solid sugar core. Put one of those babies on your tongue and press it against the roof of your mouth. That, right there, is a little piece of Heaven. I've gotta say, there are very few things in life as satisfying as a good bowl of Lucky Charms. They truly are magically delicious.

2006-07-15T00:39:00.000-07:00

Homebody

Sometimes I get a little worried that I’m turning into the kind of person who will keep the blinds closed and tape pictures of the outdoors to the wall.