Month: February 2012

How Hard Can It Be?

ME Overly simple thoughts , , ,

I think it would be really, really cool to get to give myself stitches. Don’t throw up yet. I don’t want to get anything amputated by mistake and then have to sew my own arm back on with some spider silk or anything Bear Grylls-ey like that and I really don’t want to have to do my own emergency appendectomy in the middle of the desert and sew my stomach closed. I’m not a complete weirdo. But if I were just a little bit hurt, like I’d cut myself a little bit on something that was sharp but still really clean and it wasn’t all covered in tetanus and then the cut was already numb because they’d given me a shot, it would be neat to get to put in a stitch or two with proper supervision to make sure I didn’t go crooked.

But when you ask the doctor if you can try out the liquid nitrogen blow torch that she’s about to spray onto your face growth, she looks at you funny and tells you no. And that’s just bogarting that blow torch.

The blowtorch looked a lot like this, only it was purse-sized and cuter.

I’m a teacher and I would never be stingy with my teacher stuff like that. I would absolutely let you jump up and come to the board to show the class how to work that problem. I don’t have to be selfish with the chalk just to prove that I went to college to do this and you didn’t.

But the doctor who was freezing the thing on my face wouldn’t even let me hold the mini-blowtorch and I don’t think it was because I’m not qualified to do it. It could be because I asked before she started if my nose would come apart if she held it on there long enough like in those videos where they drop a mouse in liquid nitrogen and then drop it on the ground and make it shatter. Maybe I sounded too excited by that idea. She was also both impressed and a little bit alarmed that I had a picture of my nose-growth in my camera phone. When she asked me why I had taken a picture of my own nose, I blew my chances of ever playing with the blowtorch by saying, “I blogged about it and let people vote on what it is.”

I still think she’s hoarding her toys because she wants to look super professional and important. Why else would she wear that white coat ALL THE TIME? I get it already, you have a coat, you’re a doctor. Maybe she was actually a little bit insecure, like she thought I might do a better job than she could. Or it’s possible she never learned to share back in kindergarten. She was probably in a really strict academic program for little kids who were going to grow up to be doctors, so grew up knowing only cutthroat competition and her parents made her neurotic and gave her an eating disorder by riding her case all the time to be valedictorian of the preschool. Poor Dr. Stingy-Pants. Now I feel bad for her, and I’m the one who didn’t get to use the blowtorch.

The Rocket Scientist Behind Oral Sex

ME Overly simple thoughts , , ,
This is an artist's depiction of Planet X hitting something. Kind of like all those real artist's depictions of Big Foot.
This is an artist’s depiction of Planet X hitting something. Kind of like all those real artist’s depictions of Big Foot.

I think everyone is pretty much in agreement that I cannot be serious for more than five minutes. I’m the idiot who had to walk out of my grandfather’s funeral because I started laughing. And no, I was not laughing because my grandfather was dead, thank you very much. I started laughing because the Grim Reapers of Kentucky motor cycle gang came to the funeral. They just walked on in wearing their leather-and-chains motor cycle clothes and lined up to sign the guest book. No, my grandfather wasn’t in a motor cycle gang and we still kind of don’t know why those people came. Ditto my ex-sister-in-law coming, but I’m glad she did. Then three women who were literally at the wrong funeral showed up, only they didn’t have the good sense to leave. It all just got to be too much funny at one time and I had to step out to the parking lot and laugh it off for a while.

But someone at work decided I would be the most excellent choice of reporter to interview a real live NASA rocket scientist. I think he’s actually an engineer or something, but that is nowhere near as funny as calling him a rocket scientist. Rocket engineer doesn’t work for me. It makes me think he’s going to wear a striped cap and blow the whistle while driving the rocket.

Believe it or not, I can actually pretend to be a grown-up professional person for as many as five minutes at a time, but sadly, this interview took eight minutes and that left me three minutes to turn stupid on him. I really was okay for those first few minutes, but then he told me about the book he had written on being prepared for emergency situations like earthquakes and terrorist attacks.

ME: Does your book tell me how to be prepared for the zombie apocalypse everyone keeps talking about? Should I have really good shoes on, for example?

NASA PhD: No, it doesn’t. Because my book is actually very serious and zombies are not serious.

ME: (that’s-what-you-think eye rolling) Oh. What about how everyone’s saying our planet is going to slam into Planet X and blow us up? Are there any guidelines in your book for being ready for a planetary impact?

NASA PhD: The things you read on the Internet about Planet X aren’t real.

ME: How would you know?

NASA PhD: I work for NASA.

ME: (extra-effort eye rolling) I answered telephones at an escort service back in college, but that doesn’t make me a blow job expert.

NASA PhD: You did?

ME: Well, no. But if I had been the girl who just answered the phone, I still wouldn’t know diddly about actually diddling anyone. Forget it. What about how we’re all gonna die when the Mayan calendar expires?

NASA PhD: No, I don’t talk about that either.

ME: So what exactly does the price of your book help me live through?

NASA PhD: Well, earthquakes…

ME: Did it.

NASA PhD: Tornadoes…

ME: This is Alabama. Our babies are born with the tornado siren ringing in their tiny ears.

NASA PhD: A cruise ship capsizing…

ME: I can swim.

NASA PhD: Forest fire.

ME: Duh, I just told you I can swim.

NASA PhD: What?

ME: Nothing. So pretty much your book just tells me how to survive stuff that people have been surviving for a long time. And there’s nothing new like how to remove your own alien probe device and use it as a weapon to fight off the alien guard and get off the mother ship?

NASA PhD: Which news outlet do you write for again?

ME: Don’t worry about that. Trust me, you’ll sound way smart when I type this up.

NASA PhD: I was way smart before we started this interview. After spending eight minutes talking to you, I’m not so sure about that anymore.

ME: You’re the one who said it, not me, buddy.

Since he really was trying to be a professional and not lose his temper with the idiot who was interviewing him, he did offer to send me a copy of his book so I could read it and understand more about what it is he’s trying to do with this book of his but all I heard was, “I’m gonna send you a free book.” Cha-ching! I know he’s only being nice because he secretly hopes I really do know a lot about blow jobs.

UPDATE: Sadly, the whole Planet X thing has now been debunked. Thanks for sucking the fun out of conspiracy theories, NASA.

UPDATE: In Which I Seriously Make You Look at a Commercial

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UPDATE: My book-book is ready, too! The ebook is available and people have taken to it like flies on poop, for which I thank you (if for no other reason than I just got to use the phrase, “flies on poop.”) But now, the promised print edition is also available! Or, the roach-smashing edition, as I like to call it. It’s available if you click HERE to get it from Amazon.

If I can pull off being serious for just a minute (I swear I feel like I should change my font, or something…this part isn’t funny), I’ve had more than a couple of people tell me they wish they could have given my autism book to someone they know who has a kid like my daughter. There are two ways to do that: first, the autism book also has a book-book edition right HERE, but what about that pretty link over on the right of your screen? Yeah, the second way to share that with someone is to either a) “gift” them a copy of the ebook and help them read it on the free Kindle app on their computers, or you can actually give your Kindle copy away once you’ve read it. I set it up that way on purpose. I really do want a lot of people to know about autism so they stop rolling their eyes at my daughter in the grocery store. Thanks!

*********************************************************************************************************************************

So all along, my goal has been to be a writer. Since no one really thinks I’m that good at it and since I’m always a little surprised when people tell me they read my book (and I start thinking, “Wow, let me buy you a different one at the store so you have something good to read”), I started this blog so that I actually can write about things that make me giggle and not worry about the fact that the reader just wasted an entire 99cents on the Kindle edition of something I wrote. That 99cents could have paid for one-tenth of an eyebrow waxing, or something important like that.

I went ahead and wrote another book just to give people an option. At least now when they say they read my book, I can reply with, “Oh, you didn’t like it? Yeah, you totally should have bought the other book. It was way better.” It doesn’t matter which book they bought in the first place, I can always use that line. If they happened to have bought both books, I’ll just fake having a stroke until they go away.

Having said all of that, my second book is now available on Amazon. Yup. You totally should have bought this one instead of the first one. Actually, if Amazon will let you, you only really need to buy maybe a third of it because (depending on how long you’ve been reading this blog) it’s mostly a compilation of a lot of the funnier posts that appeared here, with a bunch of extra stuff thrown in and some new content. It’s like you had secret backstage access to the book before everyone else in the whole world! Cool, right?

Pretty sweet cover, if I do say so myself. Good grief, if I'm this unhumble now, wait 'til someone actually buys a copy.

Now for a commercial break: If you would like to purchase the ebook of It Was Like That When I Found It, click right here. The book-book will be available in March, but it’s heavier than the ebook. You can use it to prop open windows or to kill roaches. Either one works.

In case you didn’t know, my first book is available as an ebook and as a book-book now, but it’s not funny. It’s a really mean book where I yell at you for being a completely inept parent. I’m just kidding. I would never yell at you. It’s really about working with autistic kids and some things that I know have worked with our kid. The ebook is HERE and the book-book is HERE.

I feel like one of those timeshare breakfasts where they feed you and offer you a free television but first you have to sit through an eight-hour presentation and then all the other people who got suckered into it develop Stockholm Syndrome and they start pressuring you to buy a vacation week in Omaha for the rest of your life. The only difference is I didn’t hold your children hostage during this commercial. Like I need extra children running around.

True Love is a Real Bitch That Way

ME Overly simple thoughts , ,

Here's a photo of the growth on my face.

A few blog posts ago I let my readers decide for the doctor whether or not the thing on my face is cancer. I am pleased to share with you the results of the poll. While only one asshat voted for it to actually be cancer (and I’m pretty sure that voter was my brother who still hasn’t gotten over the fact that I lost one of his Matchbox cars in 1976), it was just a little weird that a large number of voters actually wanted this red, irregularly shaped splotch to be Mitt Romney. I was uber-pleased by the number of commenters who said, “I voted for it to be Mitt Romney because that will be the only time I ever vote for that man.” Basically, I’m taking one for the team and agreeing to have Mitt Romney growing out of control on my face so you can be responsible and save America. It’s an even trade.

But now the clock is actually ticking and I’m supposed to go see the doctor in a few days to decide if it’s cancer or Mitt Romney, and if those are my only two choices I’m going to have to mull it over and get back to you. I can’t really bring myself to say, “Oh sure, doc, let’s call this thing cancer!” but I also can’t commit to being stuck with Mitt Romney even for four years, let alone for the rest of my life. (note: I could be willing to agree to it being Mitt Romney if I get to hear the doctor say, “I know how to fix this. We’re going to freeze Mitt, burn Mitt with these hot zappy little electrodes, pour chemicals on Mitt, then finally scrape him off with this putty knife. There won’t be anything left of Mitt Romney when we’re through with him!”) (different note: I think I’m going to be put on some watch list now for saying that I want a presidential candidate frozen, zapped, poisoned, and scraped.)

While I’ve been walking around with this cancerous Mitt Romney stuck to my face, my husband has been amazingly supportive, saying things like, “Oh, it’s hardly noticeable. I wouldn’t even bother with the doctor if I were you. Have you tried some Neosporin?” Because you know they make Neosporin in chemotherapy-strength now.

But last night when we discussed the potential for cancer, he said the most romantic-yet-stupid-assed thing I’ve ever heard: “If you lose your nose to cancer, I won’t leave you.”

Um. Yeah. I wasn’t really thinking about the possibility of a) losing my entire nose or b) my marriage crumbling and my children being fatherless because of a Mitt Romney growing on my face. But it’s good to know that he won’t abandon our entire family if I become deformedly ugly. Thanks a pantsload, Mitt Romney.

Beer and Condoms Make It the Most Magical Place on Earth

ME Overly simple thoughts , , ,

See? This creeped you out. I'm not just overreacting.

I just returned from a whirlwind three-day jet set down to Orlando to take the kids to DisneyWorld. This was actually their Christmas present, but it’s one of those things I had to take some time to mentally prepare for. Luckily, this ain’t your Uncle Walt’s DisneyWorld anymore.

For example, they sell condoms in their gift shops.

Yes, my friends, re-read that. You can buy condoms next to the Mouse Ear hats. While, not actually like RIGHT next to the hats. They’re not perverts. I think. Does selling condoms in the gift shops of kiddie Mecca make you a pervert?

Sadly, I’m such a weirdo that it wasn’t the condoms that were the strangest thing I saw. (Incidentally, I bought some condoms just to check them out and no, not everything in DisneyWorld has Mickey Mouse’s face plastered on it. They were just regular Trojans, which was a relief. And now I’m registered on some list somewhere for actually buying condoms in DisneyWorld.) No, the weirdest thing to me was the amount of alcohol just ambling around the park. C’mon, reader, keep up…the alcohol wasn’t wandering around, it was in a glass carried by a bleary-eyed parent. The parent was wandering around, usually towing a screaming child.

The best thing was you could spot the parents from a mile away who were drinking. They were the park guests who were towing a screaming child but WEREN’T losing it themselves. Every time a pint-sized tantrum-beast would get another lungful of air for a great screaming blast, the drinking parents would just turn up that clear plastic cup and drown their sorrows. Since my children are perfect and since I happen to adore all things DisneyWorld, I didn’t feel the need to walk around Epcot with a beer in my little fist; however, my husband kept plying me with Guiness from the Great Britain pavilion just so I would quit running from attraction to attraction, screaming, “Hurry up! This one has a short line!”

I have to freely admit that there are a lot of things in life that are made better by just a smidgeon of $6-per-glass beer. Your child’s second grade school play would go a lot smoother (at least in your mind) if there was an open bar, and ditto PTO meetings. Beer improved things so much in the line for Space Mountain that I think Disney cast members should be rolling you joints just to get you on It’s A Small World.

All in all and every bit of depravity aside, it was a good trip. I had just enough beer to make it all that much more fun, and thanks to the condoms from the gift shop my husband and I won’t be having a surprise baby and naming it Walt.

Gay Time Traveling Puppies Are Running for Public Office. And They Have Rabies.

ME Overly simple thoughts , , ,

Forget my influentialness for a minute...THIS photo is now indelibly burned somewhere on my hard drive just so I could make you laugh. I hope you're worthy.
Forget my influentialness for a minute…THIS photo is now indelibly burned somewhere on my hard drive just so I could make you laugh. I hope you’re worthy.

I thank the social media gods every day for the engineering school drop outs who left college to start a multi-bazillion dollar company called Klout. It’s the most awesome source of humor fodder I can find. Today’s surprise was the notification I received that Klout had decided I am influential about seventeen topics, the newest of which is puppies.

I can add puppies to a lofty list of my expert topics that includes LGBT, Time Travel, Rabies, Politicians, Mustard, and Terrorism.

The amazing thing about this is I don’t have to actually know anything about any of those topics, I just have to tell you that I do. And that makes me influential. It’s now time to write a blog post about Republicans strapping bombs to mustard-covered rabid dogs and setting them loose on an unsuspecting public. Oh, and the Republicans are gay. Or maybe the dogs are gay. I’m not real clear on that part.

Either way, half the battle is knowing the limits of the scope of my knowledge and influence. Apparently, there is no limit. I can be influential about anything I want. Stay tuned for my next newsworthy post.

IN UNRELATED NEWS: I’m headed to Orlando tomorrow so I won’t be posting over the weekend. You’re welcome. Take these few days to reflect on your own life and enjoy the quiet that comes from me not showing you a picture of a dog wearing a cape made out of condoms.

One Man’s Secret Admirer is Another Man’s Stalker

ME Overly simple thoughts , , ,
Even this guy can't survive a Valentine's Day on the outside.

I survived another Valentine’s Day without a) over spending or b) taking out a restraining order. It’s not that I’m so unbelievably attractive that I have to fight stalkers off with a legal document and a taser, but the whole concept of secretly mailing someone a package and signing the card as “Your Secret Admirer” makes my blood run cold.

The unfair thing is it’s considered lovely and romantic to sign a card, “Your Secret Admirer.” So why is it creepy and wrong to sign it, “I want to drink your bath water,” and leave a smudgy kiss on the card? I think that might be an unfair double standard that discriminates against people who are really passionate about someone. Or crazy.

So yesterday, you know, Valentine’s Day, when I arrived at work and picked up my desk phone to hear horrifyingly ominous words, my heart stopped briefly. And at my age there’s always a possibility it won’t restart. Which is why I avoid fast elevators. Anyway, the voice on the other end of the phone was really breathy and eager sounding and it said the most chilling thing I can hear: “Hey Miss Lorca.”

Now, I realize that may not mean anything to you, my dear reader. But in the world of working in the prison, it means an inmate has just called me on the phone. They are required to put the salutation in front of our first names, because we protect our last names from these lovely people like our initials actually spell out the secret rocket formula. Since the inmates can’t call my desk from any of the phones inside the facility (this is like that horror movie…”We’ve traced the call, it’s coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE!”), it could only mean that this person has either been released or escaped AND that he’s calling me.

Yes, I’m a judgmental person and yes, I did feel a little bad when he began talking and I discovered that he was simply trying to get back into high school and was having some trouble from his guidance counselor. I had even told these people to call me at work if their schools gave them any static. He was just doing exactly what I had told him to do in order to continue his education. I felt very small. For only about twelve seconds.

Because then he ended the call with, “And you make sure to have a really good Valentine’s Day today. You just never know how many you have left.” And he hung up. That was either a warning or (more likely) a stab at my advanced age. You may now be jealous of the adventure that is my life; you got a box of chocolates from Walgreens. I got an aroma wax burner from my husband and a cryptic possibly-death-threat from a convict. Happy final Valentine’s Day.

Taxidermied Animals Scare the Crap Outta Me

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My family has tolerated my insane fears for as long as I’ve been afraid of things. Random yet paralyzing fears, like my fear of light fixture stores and the ceiling fan aisle of Home Depot. I have a couple of obvious fears, like dolls and clowns, because who doesn’t? And for the record, I’m not afraid of clowns, I’m afraid of people who want to dress like clowns. You know their brain stems don’t go all the way down.

But thanks to Jenny Lawson, aka @TheBloggess, an otherwise extraordinarily funny woman with a host of famous friends like Will Wheaton and Nathan Fillon, I’m afraid of roadkill. More to the point, I’m afraid that someone is going to scrape up some roadkill, preserve it with an unholy expression on its satanic little face, and slap a cutsie hat on its head before standing it up on my doorstep.

I just pissed myself.

I realize the likelihood of someone actually mailing me a dead animal is not that awesome, but apparently it happens to her all the time. It’s really sad, because she’s gotten so used to it that she actually gets excited when a mystery box appears on her porch. She gets all giddy wondering what the hell kind of dead animal might be in the box. And is it wearing pants.

I get it that Jenny lives in Texas and therefore dead animals might just be part of her decorating theme, but I live in Alabama. We’re only seven hours and eight IQ points away from Texas. We hang deer heads in our living rooms. I can’t handle it. I need a ceiling fan to ward off the evil spirits coming out of Bambi’s glassy eyes or maybe a clown in full Ringling Brothers regalia to stand guard at the door. It can’t be as scary as a possessed raccoon staring at me out from under the brim of its straw hat.

Revenge Is a Dish Best Served with a Sippy Cup

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Okay, it was funny when my nine-year-old nicknamed her dad “Baldilocks.” I don’t care who you are, that’s comedy gold. It was only slightly less funny when she kept telling her older sister to shave her underarms because “You got peach pits.” Well, she did need to shave and the truth hurts.  My youngest has learned the fine art of the well-timed jab and she uses it constantly, mostly to my delight.

But then she started calling me a geek because I had to start wearing my glasses again. Not so funny. Yes, I totally see the double standard here and I fully admit that the other stuff was funny because it wasn’t dragging me down in flames with it. But I don’t care. Something must be done about this.

All the parenting books have advice for how to handle these discipline situations with love and compassion. Fortunately, I never read any parenting books, as you can tell by the fact that school picture day sneaks up on me every year and my children are immortalized in the yearbook wearing stretched out faded T-shirts from Joe’s Crab Shack.

I’m of the mommy school of thought that says if your child is a biter, there’s a sure fire way to make sure he never bites anyone else ever again. No, biting him back one time without actually breaking the skin is for sissies. I would remove his teeth. Don’t be a monster, start with a tooth that’s already loose and then tell him that’s the first one to go. If he ever bites again, the rest are coming out next. He’ll quit that shit right away, mostly because he now thinks you’re unstable. Oh c’mon, it was already loose.

But even I, vicious tiger lady that I am, can’t bring myself to call my autistic child names to teach her that name calling is wrong, even funny ones and even if it’s just to teach her a lesson about pointing out other people’s uncontrollable flaws. So I took the high ground. I stopped feeding her.

Oh c’mon, that was a joke too! (Like I would ever actually rip teeth out of a child’s head. Sheesh.)

No, I stopped wearing my glasses and pointedly told her I didn’t want to look like a geek. That made her laugh. She even said, “Now you’re not a geek because you have no glasses.” Good. The plan is unfolding, my dear.

Then she had broccoli for breakfast. Things got ugly. Vegetables were thrown. And the whole time that she was crying I kept explaining, “No, that’s not broccoli. That’s cereal. I’m looking at it.” She was mad. But I would squint my eyes and wrinkle up my nose as I got really close, trying hard with my deranged underground mole eyes to see her breakfast plate.

“I’m sure it’s cereal. I don’t know why you’re mad. I’m looking at it and it looks like cereal.” Giggle.

“Mommy has to wear her glasses! I can’t eat broccoli!”

“Is it broccoli? Really? No, I’m sure it’s cereal.”

“NOOOO! It’s broccoli! Mommy has to have her glasses!”

“Mommy can’t wear her glasses, she would look like a geek.”

“Mommy isn’t a geek! I need cereal!”

Lesson learned and no teeth were harmed in the writing of this blog post.

I Might Have Cancer. Or Ringworm. Probably Ringworm.

ME Overly simple thoughts

I have this thing on my face that wasn’t there in October. Yes, I tried washing it off, thank you very much. I also tried putting lotion on it and covering it with spackle. I even tried antibiotic ointment in case it was some kind of flesh eating thing, because you know that a little Neosporin can totally take on Ebola virus. Just as I was about to scrape it off with a loofa, something occurred to me: there’s a good chance a doctor might need to look at it and if I scrub it off with a square of cosmetic-grade sandpaper, the doctor won’t get to see it. So the festering thing and I went to see a doctor.

Hmmmm-ing noises were involved. Bright lights were shined on it. The doctor even called for back-up, asking other people to come look at it, including one person whom I’m pretty sure was just a really nosy copier repairman. In retrospect, it went something like this:

DR: Well, Lorca, that certainly is very interesting.

ME: Oh that’s good. At least it’s not, like, fatally ugly. It’s just at DefCon Interesting. So do I put some kind of cream on it or something?

DR: We can’t do anything with it until we know what it is (this doctor is a member of the royal family, apparently, because he calls himself “we.”). For now, I think we’re possibly looking at either skin cancer or fungus.

ME: Oh, that’s good. Then fungus it is.

DR: What?

ME: You said I could have cancer or fungus, so I vote fungus.

DR: Um, you don’t get to pick.

ME: But you just said I could have either cancer, or I could have fungus. You clearly just gave me a choice.

DR: No, I meant, it could be cancer or it could be fungus.

ME: There you go again! That’s what I just said. So let’s make it be fungus.

DR: We don’t get to choose. That thing on your face has already decided what it is.

ME: How? It’s only about four months old! I hadn’t even decided I could eat solid foods when I was this thing’s age. There’s still time to shape it into the thing we want it to be when it grows up. It’s still impressionable at this age.

DR: I don’t think you’re understanding me. I don’t know what that is.

ME: I don’t either, but I’m going to make it be a fungus.

Now I have to take these pills that have nothing to do with my face but are more likely to stop me from acting weird when I go back for the medical scraping that will help the doctor ask this thing if it wants to be cancer or a fungus when it grows up. And while I still maintain that he was quite obviously giving me options, he may not have actually been meaning to do that. If I did have a choice it would totally be a fungus because I know what to do about that. Luckily, these pills won’t let me think much about anything until I go back to see him for the fungusectomy. Since it’s a fungus and all.

 

UPDATE: Because I’m completely a giver and all, I’m going to let YOU vote on whether it’s a cancer or a fungus. That will serve two purposes. One, I can show the doctor that all these people think it’s a fungus and therefore he’ll have to treat it like one, and two, I can find out which of you are douche canoes who want me to have cancer. Take a look at this photo:

Cast your vote now! Does Lorca have a fungus (yeah!!!) or cancer (boooo)?