Fat Carson

My friend Emily has this thing about seeing our friend Carson as a fatty. Carson is pretty skinny and I can't see him getting fat any day soon. I also am not quite sure where the humor is in this, but just the thought of "Fat Carson" cracks Emily up. So one day I decided to draw some pictures of what my friends and I would look like if we weren't so good looking. Because my friends and I are all really really really good looking. But just in case we WEREN'T, well, I wanted to see what that would look like. I ended up only drawing a picture of "Fat Carson." Ok, I drew one of myself, too, but it didn't look horrifying enough. Without medical technology I would be scary: crazy teeth, lazy eye, crooked feet. The works. I'll rework it and see if I can draw a scarier picture. But in my mind, this is what "Fat Carson" looks like. Emily imagines him much fatter, but I don't want to scare myself that badly. "Fat Carson" is also missing some teeth. And of course "Fat Carson" is always shirtless.

Here's what Carson currently/really looks like, just in case you're wondering:

Playground Violence

One day at recess I was shooting some hoops. 

I was playing by myself, which was very unusual. Maybe all my friends were sick. Maybe my compadre had run to the restroom. Who knows? My memory's not that good. 

Anyway, one girl (the girl everyone in my class of 8 hated) sidled up to me. 

When the ball wandered away after I shot it, "Sarah" (only my friend Christine accurately remembers every person we went to elementary school with) retrieved it. Then she started taunting me with it. So I asked for it back...nicely.  

But she continued to taunt. So I asked more assertively. 

She still refused and continued her little taunting game. It got a little more serious. 

Ok, so maybe I didn't say that. Maybe I should have. Maybe I should have warned her. 

Instead I punched her in the nose, causing it to bleed, and ran away. 


I'm a yellow-bellied, lily-livered coward. I was so scared of getting in any real trouble. Plus, not only would I get in trouble at school, but, because my mom was a teacher there, I'd get in more trouble at home! So I hid from the teacher. 

I never got in trouble. My mom never even knew until I told her years later. 


A year or two later I was on that same playground jumping rope. 

I wasn't alone this time but a friend and I were using individual jump ropes instead of using one as a group. 

Psycho Jenifer-with-one-N approached us and told me to give her my jump rope. 

There was no way I was giving into that rude demand. 

The evil girl tried more than once!  

Then she did something really dumb. 

She put the jump rope around her neck. The ends of which I was holding.

I can't be responsible for her lack of common sense. 

And now for something unrelated. This was a random doodle I got distracted by while drawing Jenifer-with-one-N. 

Inn-N-Out

I love Inn-N-Out more than any person in the whole world. I could marry it and be happy forever. I could be fat and happy and never leave the house.

My Columbian coworker wanted something to love like I have...so she picked a dolphin.










Jk! This isn't my real post! Stay tuned for my REAL post soon!!!!!

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

I have some irrational fears. I know there are others with irrational fears, but I also know just how ridiculous my fears are.

One of my fears as a kid was childhood pregnancy. I would lay awake at night, just thinking in my bed, dreading the possibility that I could be pregnant.

(BTW: Snoopy and Woodstock are there to show that my comforter was a "Joe Cool" comforter with pictures of Snoopy and Woodstock. Not sure if that's clear or not. [Definitely not.])

No, I wasn’t one of those girls who got her period in 3^rd grade. That didn’t even happen until I was almost out of junior high. So I was not sexually mature. And the closest I’d ever been to a penis was when I crotch-kicked a ginger kid on the playground.

(Sorry if I offended any redheads out there by using the word “ginger.” One of my best friends is a redhead so I only use the word “ginger” for the creepy kid who grabbed me from behind and deserved to be penis-punted.)

Maybe I didn’t fully understand where babies came from. Maybe I had a general idea and I still thought that I could get pregnant from a toilet seat. I’m not sure. I just know I went through many worrisome nights thinking I could be pregnant.

Another recurring fear was gremlins. If I ever find out who exposed me to that movie...well, I don't know what I'll do. I'll probably just make them feel really guilty for giving a small girl terrible nightmares. I don’t even remember watching the movie. All I know is that I had nightmares for years andI imagined a huge, green, red-eyed gremlin waiting at the end of our freakishly long hallway.



The light switch for the hallway was all the way at the end, the dark end, that was scary. We had another light switch at the beginning of the hallway but the light didn’t reach far enough. So if I was leaving my room any time it was dark I would switch off the light (because you know my mom or dad would yell at me and tell me to go turn off the light anyway) and sprint as fast as I could down the hallway to the living room.

Did my parents ever wonder why I emerged from the hallway out of breath? Did they ever see me sprinting down the hall, getting my daily workout in?

When I was really young I imagined that someone resembling the Big Bad Wolf was loitering outside, under my window. It was the same window my bed was located under inside.

And yes, he was always wearing a fancy red zoot suit coat and fancy black pants. I know he looks friendly and fun in that pic…but he wasn’t. He was always crouching right outside my window. I just knew that if I peeked out of the shades he’d stand up and stare right back at me.

One of my lingering fears is the unfortunate fear of sharks. I know. Millions of people are scared of sharks. There aren’t very many people who would be excited to run into one in the wild. But I not only have a fear of sharks in the ocean (or even some rivers/creeks. Haven’t you ever watched Shark Week?!?! Those things go everywhere!!!! AND EAT PEOPLE!). No, my fear extends to pools and bathtubs. I told you: irrational. I can’t be in a pool alone at all. I don’t like taking baths (showers, please!).

When I was a kid we had a pool (technically it was my uncle’s and it was next door…but it was for us). That meant we swam daily. If I was ever the last one to get out of the pool I would swim to the side at warp speed and fling myself out. Usually I just rolled over the side and lay on the cement panting with fear and exertion. Sometimes it wasn’t a shark chasing me – it could be a killer whale, too.

(Not gonna lie. These shark drawings freak me out. Good thing I'm not taking a bath or going swimming any time soon.)

This isn’t the end of my list of fears. I can’t watch scary movies because of the rest of my fears. I can’t even listen to the plots of scary movies. My friends told me all about Paranormal Activity…I couldn’t sleep for days. I’ve never seen the movie. Thanks to a friend’s suggestion I got to sleep by taking a shot of vodka. Calmed me right down. Possessive and abusive spirit, who? It’s just me and Mr. (or Ms.) Smirnoff.

The rest of my adult fears are just as irrational as my childhood fears...so we’ll save those for another day.

My 1st Homecoming Dance

Okay, I couldn't hold it inside. I have to post this today. I was going to wait until tomorrow, to space out my well-developed posts but I just couldn't stand it. This one cracked me up so I'm hoping it makes you laugh. If it doesn't, I think you don't have a soul.

I love dancing. It's in the top five on my lists of things I love to do. (It's probably even in the top three.) And I'm actually not terrible for a knobby-elbowed white girl with extra long arms. But there was a time when I was horrible.

Fun fact #1: I didn't develop rhythm until I was a junior in college.

Fun fact #2: I danced enthusiastically my whole life - and I didn't know what rhythm was or that I didn't have it.

PS: I just realized that describing my dancing ability has really nothing to do with this post.

My first high school Homecoming Dance was held in my 8th grade gym (also where my mom taught second grade) because our gym floor was being repaired for water damage.

The main decorations were huge popcorn containers full of yellow balloons. We must have had a movie theme or something. They were pretty cool. Only because they were so large.

I spent most of the dance in a cluster of 9th grade girls. Half the time we were getting down and boogieing (and probably looking like convulsing monkeys).

The other half of the time was spent talking about whether or not certain boys were going to ask us to dance. It was during one of these times when I had a SCARY realization: I'd never slow-danced with anyone before.

So I did the most reasonable thing: I asked my classmate Kristy to teach me in the restroom. (The same restroom I used to change in for junior high P.E.)

After I had my lesson from Kristy I felt confident. I could do this. Now I just needed some practice. My friend Clint (who had also attended this school with me in 8th grade) was procrastinating on asking any girls to dance so I asked him. I wanted to try out this "slow dancing" thing on a safe subject. Clint was not an object of any of my affection so it was perfect. It went pretty well. Mostly uneventful.

Later on Clint asked me again. I guess while getting my own practice in I'd inadvertently boosted his confidence.

Then it happened. Louis asked me to dance. Well, he didn't really ask. He walked toward me, reached out his hand and nodded toward the dance floor and said, "Come on." I was terrified, thrilled, ecstatic, horrified, sweating. This was the most exciting moment in my 13 years of life. He *SIGH* held me closer than Clint had. We rarely looked each other in the eye. I stepped on his feet twice. It was SO romantical!

At one point he asked how my night was going and, in a moment of 9th grade passion and ecstasy, I said, "It's great...now."

I know. It's okay. You can cringe. I do every time I think about that wonderful moment. It was like a scene from a teen romance movie...only worse.

I try to tell people just how awkward I am...but anyone who didn't know me in high school never seems to believe me.



Boots

I get a little dramatic sometimes.

And for a girl who once calmly watched one of her kittens slowly die after it was bit by my dog when she was a child, I have crazy reactions and feelings about my animals, especially if I believe harm will befall them.

In 8th grade I had a black and white cat named Boots. I named him after a large TY stuffed cat he looked just like. [A little backwards?]

One day I opened the garage door for something. Then I closed it.

Boots was loitering at the garage door entrance, right where the door was going to close. I told him to get out.

I went into the house and ran outside to make sure boots moved. I didn't trust his English comprehension. When I rounded the corner of the house I saw Boots HADN'T moved and was just laying there under the garage door that began closing on him.

I screamed, "BOOTS!!!"

And with a crazy surge of adrenaline I grabbed the garage door handle and yanked up as hard as my adrenaline-packed muscles could.

I was able to yank the garage door up and off Boots. I grabbed him and held him tight, like a mother who had almost lost her baby. I was a bit shakey after the ordeal.

Boots didn't even know what was going on.

Later that day I journaled about the experience.9/17/00

"Today I went to church. I was very crabby because I went to bed at 12:00 P.M. [sic] and woke up at 7:00 A.M.

I had the scare of a life-time today! I had opened the garage to get something. Boots was laying by it. Then I shut it & ran out to see if Boots was in the way. And the garage door begun [sic] to squish him. I couldn't even think! I screamed, 'Boots!!' And I grabbed the garge [sic] handle & yanked up, hard. The garage went up a foot & stopped. Boots got out. I was shaking so much. I just held Boots for 3 minutes. I had been so scared. I thought for sure Boots was going to be crushed. Part of his body was in & part was out when it was closing. He's OK, though. I think I was more scared then [sic] he was because I knew what could happen to him & he didn't.

My cow pillow (which I got for my 8th or 9th birthday) is in the wash so it's kind of uncomfortable.

For the past few days it's been raining alot [sic] & our backyard is FLOODED with these tall, skinny flowers.

If you pull firm, gentle, & hard enough, you'll get the whole flower. Even the white part at the end. I feel like crying now, thinking back to how Boots looked. I didn't have time to cry at the time. I just had to think fast. I don't know what........

Oh I just can't think about it! Bye.

Alicia Foley (still trying to figure out my signature)"

And that is the saga of when my cat was almost crushed by the garage door.

How to Entertain Yourself - Don't Ask Me.

I'm a dramatic person. And it's all purely for my own entertainment. The more bored I am, the more dramatic I get.

I told this fact to my coworker the other day and it was again brought up recently while chatting with one of my best friends.

Everything seems like the end of the world to me. High school graduation. College graduation. Finding out a crush doesn't reciprocate my feelings. Not being famous by age 25. Quitting college track.

In reality, hardly any of those things matter anymore. Granted there are some things I'm still wallowing in pain from, but for the most part my expectations of life ending have all fallen short.

How do "normal" people occupy themselves without being dramatic? The trend among my college friends/peers and others my age is to get married. While I'd like to be married (and not in general, but to specific people - and no I'm not going to be a polygamist. This just means I have one or two people in my life that I would like to marry...though one of them may be James Franco), I know it would be a cop out for me right now. I want to be married RIGHT NOW only because I'm bored and lonely - not because I'm currently dating the man I want to spend my life with [I'm not sure how to win over the object of my desires...].

So the next thing on my list is to get my Master's degree. But in what? Right now I'm thinking creative writing...but 6 months from now that could change to journalism. Or magazine writing.

After that comes volunteering. That's a great way to spend my time. But with which organization? An all-cat shelter? A wild animal refuge? A varied-pet shelter? Working with underprivileged kids? Old people?

Ok, so I'll just fill my time with writing. What do I write about? My boring life? My unachievable dreams? My desire to adopt a guinea pig and a cat named Paul? Where do I write? My blog? My script? A shared blog? My journal?

Ok, forget that. I'll just do some crafts. Do I work on crocheting? Embroidering? Gluing those seashells to that frame? Taking pictures? Painting? Sewing? Jewelry making?

Alright. I've resigned to laying on my bed with my eyes closed because there are too many options out there and they all sound great! And feeling like my life is going nowhere and the world is ending because I have nothing to do, that boy won't date/marry me and I don't have a computer!!!

How do people CHOOSE? Everything I've mentioned I've at least dabbled in and loved it. I can't choose one thing over another because I want to do them all and I want to do them all right now.

Writing seems to stick out the most because it's the only thing on the list that could potentially make me famous (if I was able to hone in the skill well enough - ha).

You know who I want to be? The author of hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com. She can now afford to blog for a living. And she's hilarious.

Well, I'm off to entertain myself with some Hulu.com on my friend's computer while she's out of her apartment. I'll try not to think of those big life dilemmas for a couple of hours.