the rapture...

{officially abducted}

on a more serious note...

pardon me, for a moment, as i have a vulnerable moment about a life lesson i've learned this week :)

this week, i have learned a lot about myself.

i expect the very worst of people

on thursday, my absolutely incredible roomy, truly tricia, threw me an absolutely AMAZING surprise birthday party. for one, it was harry potter themed :) for two, i was completely surprised:

{ah yes, harry potter legos!!!}

{nearly peed my pants when i got my hermione wand}

{hermione, professor mcgonagall and you can see an earless george in the background}

{and yeah. surprised}

it was an absolutely thrilling surprise. i definitely cried a little later that evening. and here's the thing of it:

i absolutely do not expect my friends to be so kind to me

...i don't expect them to love me. i don't expect them to intentionally do things specifically for me, above and beyond what courtesy expects. i felt like sally field in her 1984 acceptance speech...

sally field's acceptance speech 1984

{you like me! you really like me!!}

it was only later that i realized the need for a change in my mind. it's hurtful and frankly, insulting to my friends to hold them to such low standards. and it's a perpetual hurt to myself if i continue view myself as not worth loving. maybe i mess up a lot; maybe i'm sinful; maybe i talk too much behind other people's backs and maybe i'm a little selfish. but i am worthy of love.

this might not be my funniest blog post, but i truly thank God for the incredible love of my friends, and i thank God for a surprise harry potter party -- a wake-up call to self-abasing lady.

as harry says to his friends at the end of the 5th harry potter movie, "i realized something. we have something voldemort does not. something worth fighting for."

words i think are fun...

in the words of my friend Jenna Diorio: "If you are going to insult someone, why use such bland vocabulary as the usual five swearwords. I major in English so I can insult people creatively." Lately, I've been thinking about some words or phrases I think are truly hilarious. Here's a short list:

**ignoramus**

definition: (acc. to urban dictionary): An offensive term that deliberately insults somebody's level of intelligence or education. 


use: "that girl got put into remedial potions bc she's a complete ignoramus."


reasons i love it: 


1. it sounds like an ignorant snuffalufagous...or however you spell it. or someone who ignores a man named amos.
2. it's fairly insulting, but come now, would you not laugh hysterically if someone called you an ignoramus?
3. i kind of imagine that this is a silly dinosaur or something.


**imbecile**


definition: more intelligent than an idiot but less intelligent than a moron.


use: hello, people, have you ever seen 101 dalmatians??

(which reminds me of another fantastic phrase: crazy woman driver!!!)

reasons i love it:

1. it's used so often in disney movies!!

2. when i was little, i thought that "imbus" could be used as a short-version of "imbecile."

**asinine**

definition: absurd or dumb

use: "thinking that you are able to flap your arms and fly is an asinine idea."

reasons i love it:

1. it's like ass with a twist.

2. does there need to be another reason?

**toot**

definition: synonym for fart

use: beans beans, the magical fruit, the more you eat, the more you toot. the more you toot, the better you feel so eat ur beans with every meal!!

reasons i love it:

1. it's a silly attempt at making farts sound polite.

2. it's funny when kids say it. it's even funnier when adults say it.

**bodaggit**

definition: something you may call Uncle Rico

use: get off of me, you bodaggit

reasons i love it:

1. we used it all the time in college. in fact, i'm not sure i've ever called my friend, shannon, by her real name. i think i've only ever called her bodaggit.

2. you have to say it in a man voice. otherwise, you just sound like you don't know what you're talking about.

**fugly**

definition: freaking ugly!!

use: that girl wasn't just ugly, she was fuuuuggglly!!!

reasons i love it:

1. i always imagine that it is a combination of furry and ugly. so like the bearded lady:

2. i feel like you have to follow the word fugly with some snapping action and putting a hand on the hip.

the list could go on and on, but i'll cut it short there. what are your favorite silly words and phrases??

i wanna go hoooommmee!!!

once upon a time, i was a very small child. my step-gma always took us to the museum or fancy restaurants bc she didn't think our family was classy enough. on this particular occasion, we went to the ballet to see the nutracker. it was a very fancy occasion: i had to wear a red velvet dress with ruffles and velvet bows in my hair. hell, my mom even made me brush my hair. so we went to the ballet, and my mom to this day cites this as the one day she thought i was the most horrible child ever. i have the attention span of a gnat, so a long ballet with no speaking or anything was boring as hell to me.

so obviously, i was looking for something to play with. my grandmother attempted (in vain) to hold my attention by letting me use her opera glasses to see the ballet. mind you, these were like super expensive marble coated opera glasses (why you give these to a small child, i have no idea). so i begin to play with them bc they are odd. and then i drop them on the ground. oops!!

so of course, my mother is humiliated. after the ballet, we went to this fancy dinner on the top floor of the steel building in pittsburgh (used to be a REAL fancy restaurant). at this point, i screamed and cried through the entire dinner, wailing, "I'M SO UNCOMFORTABLE!!!"

as an adult, there are several situations when i want to continue to act like this:

#1: showers

not delightful warm water pouring down my back showers...no no, a real shower is potentially one of my FAVORITE things of all time. no no, i mean baby showers and bridal showers. while i love my friends and wish to support them in these great new things happening in their lives, the sheer amount of estrogen in the room is enough to suffocate a bear. plus, you never know what you're getting into. a shower could be something as prim and proper as a tea party, as laid back as a brunch, or as outlandish as a bar-crawl. so you never know how much inappropriate humor ("what kind of underpants will you wear for wedding night??") will be accepted by the crowd. the new trend of co-ed showers: best idea ever!!! girls immediately stop clucking like hens when the testosterone steps into the room.

#2: fancy work lunches

the thing about these lunches isn't the etiquette for me. westminster and my mommy taught me well. it's more about who you are with. there's always someone acting way too proper for wherever you are (taking bites smaller than my cat and wearing a black tie). and then you've always got some idiot who wore jeans, has his napkin on the table, and has a baseball-sized bite of food in his mouth while he's telling a loud story. my thoughts are always: "i don't wanna act like that guy. but i don't wanna act like that guy either." it's just uncomfortable.

#3: listening to bad jokes from professors or pastors

at my school, professors often tell stories or jokes which are not funny. these jokes are so terrible, they should only be told by tom bergeron...

the awkward moment arrives when the rest of class is laughing like hyenas (specifically the hyena, ed, from the lion king), and i'm like...err, did i miss something? i want to use the words of rhea paulson in matilda: "stop being such an ignoramus."

as adults, we don't scream and cry for being uncomfortable. but hey, sometimes we want to. what are your experiences??

boy, she is a saucy mama.

this morning i had a lovely encounter at the bus stop with a man who wanted my phone number, and it got me thinking of some fantastic pick-up attempts that men have tried on me. it reminds me of anchorman when all the men try to hit on veronica corningstone:

"what can i say? i like the way you're put together."

"sex panther. they say that 60% of the time it works every time."

"that's the smell of desire, my lady."

"would you like to go to the pants party?"

"oh, it's such a deep burn. i don't know if you heard me counting, but i did over a thousand."

"how about just for tonight, we be co-people? you be a woman, and i'll be a man."

unfortunately, no man has played the jazz (yaz) flute for me...or tried to impress me by translating the city of Pittsburgh (as opposed to San Diego) as "a whale's vagina." however, i have a few good ones:

#1: "do you need any maintenance?"

once i was at the park with my youth when i worked in crafton. it was mid-summer and i was wearing like this flowy skirt...i mean, i was at work, so while i had a shin showing and i know how that tiny bit of skin showing on the ankle makes men go simply bonkers...

i was dressed pretty conservatively. there were these guys doing maintenance on the park right by where i was sitting. one of them came over, and without pretense, said, "i don't normally do this, but i was wondering if i could take you to dinner sometime." i was so startled i blurted out NO really abruptly. i probably could have been more polite. and he wasn't a terrible looking guy, but i think he was approximately 5 years younger than i was. anyway, it didn't work out.

#2: "trick or date."

once, there was this guy i knew, and he was a real shady creeper. i thought he was a friend but apparently not. so, we were in college. from day 1, he was creepily hitting on me. i was always nice to him bc we had so many mutual friends, but he had a permanent smell of bug spray and more grease in his hair than danny zuko:

and not nearly the looks!!

so over xmas break, he couldn't make it to this party, so he wanted to hang out another day, make sure we saw each other. i agreed to go to the cheapy theaters down the road from my house to see chronicles of narnia (mistake #1). i knew from the moment he arrived at the door this was going to be a bad idea. he was wearing a xmas sweater that would make even my grandmother cringe, cologne that rivaled sex panther in its "pungent aroma," and he had his hair parted down the middle, so it looked like a bum. never a good sign.

so, as we get into his car (mistake #2), he explains that he'd like to go the theater by his house instead bc he had some coupon or something. note: his house was an hour away from mine. i try everything in my persuasive power to break his will, but he is not budging. so we drive a whole hour to get there. at this point, it is 5pm, and i'm freaking starving. so i suggest mickey d's or something closeby. to which he says, "oh no, i have a place in mind."

i kid you not, it was kings. for those of you who may not know, kings is a terrible restaurant with bland food for old people. similar to bob evans? shoney's (if your from the carolinas)? anyway, it's completely repulsive. as we walk in, he explains that his grandfather or some crap used to know the owner of this kings. i had stopped actually listening by this point. so i had a crappy dinner, then we spent about a million dollars (or $12) on tickets for chronicles of narnia, which if you didn't know is absolutely the longest movie ever. and the whole time he's doing that thing guys do: he's got his hand on the arm rest, palm up. no one sits w/ their palms facing out unless they want to hold hands. and yet, we've all pulled this move bc we're trying to look "natural" just in case we get rejected. i believe i had every limb crossed that evening to prevent any unwanted touching. we then had to spend yet another hour in the car as he drove me back, during which he picked apart every man i knew. at the end of the night, he turned his car off in my driveway. meanwhile i was out of the car and into my house before you could say bobs-your-uncle, so i don't know if he stood there, lips puckered ready for a big sloppy wet one, or not, but i can only imagine how disappointed he must have looked.

he sent me roses on valentines day a mere 2 mos. later.

i will post more of these another time. in the meantime, what are your dating horror stories??

the happiest bunch of a-holes this side of the nuthouse.

so, once upon a time in the 1990s, boy bands were super popular. so popular, in fact, that: 1. i was allowed to go to a concert. 2. i planned out my entire relationship and marriage to Justin Timberlake. 3. i haven't completely given up on that dream. 4. mtv made a FANTASTIC parody to them: 2gether

and let's be real, i definitely loved 2gether more than any other boy band. where was i going with this.....oh yes, so part of this parody was that in a boy band there are always 5 specific roles: the bad boy (the most unruly boy of the upper-middle class), the heart-throb (a dude w/ lots of gel in his hair), the shy one (too thick to put together a sentence for cameras, usually), the cute one (usually under 18 - the love of teenage girls and the discomfort of 20something year olds), and the older brother (everyone sort of wonders why this guy is even in the band...).

so after the reunion of my giant dysfunctional family at my cousin's baby shower this past weekend, i've become aware that these distinctions exist for families too:

the insulter

everyone's got a relative who doesn't hesitate to let you know that you've gained 5 pounds or that you're clearly a spinster at the age of 24 or how stale the cake tastes. it's pretty obvious that this person would rather be anywhere else than this particular family gathering. i think of aunt muriel from harry potter:

aunt muriel: ronald, you'd better get your hair cut, i thought you were ginerva for a second.

the unifier

you can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose, and you definitely can't pick your family. some family members are bound to get on better than others. which is fine, it's just natural. in the same way, some will just always drive each other crazy. and unfortunately, some just fall out with one another. you know, aunt sally is still mad bc her sister jane put a whoopy cushion under her fat rear once. but there is always that family member (usually the one i would like to smack) that invites everyone to the event, that wants everyone to just get along...in short, this person is an idealistic person who has no idea the hell he/she is inflicting upon everyone else. i think of cam from modern family:

Cam: "Well, my white man name Tucker. i am 1/16 Cherokee. ready for daughter to sore like eagle."

the one who never grew up

clearly, my father. there's always an adult who still dresses like they are in high school, is adored by all the small children of the family (usually for their ferocious tickling), and is the life of any crap-tastic family gathering. usually this person just seems so cool all the time (and probably isn't very cool in real life). subcategories: class clown, successful jock gone to seed, etc. i think uncle rico on this one:

napolean: this is the worst video of all time.

kip: like anyone could even know that.

uncle rico: napolean (emphatic thumb-point), you can leave.

family who isn't really family

potentially, this only happens in redneck families like my own. we had this whole "family" in new york that i didn't find out actually wasn't our family until my aunt married one of them. which makes us sound real sophisticated like. but at any rate, everyone has that family member who's not blood related but has been attending family gatherings for your whole life. i think of sean hunter on boy meets world, specifically the episode when the matthews family almost adopts him.

feeeeny. fa fa fa feeeeeeny.

creeper

this can take many forms. an uncle who's touch lingers just a little too long. a cousin who really likes to take pictures when you're in your bathing suit. someone who makes that sexual innuendo that is followed by 3 solid minutes of crickets. that crazy aunt who shares just a bit too much about her personal life. that mom who hovers just a bit too much over her son's personal life (potentially a category of its own). i think of wallowitz's mom in big bang theory.

howard: hi. it's me. [pause] howard. just calling because my mom would like to know how many for the brisket on sunday. call me back. it's me. [pause] howard.

(come to think of it, howard is a creeper on his own)

that's all for now. what crazy relatives do you all have???