Pride goeth before a fall

I mean, you're pretty good looking, so that's 50% of the work

Thank you. I like to think I am. I mean, I'm hot as s***.

....you might want to use a better metaphor.

 

Laffalittle.

Heil!

There's this classmate of mine, this lovely specimen of a fellow, who must have a skewed perception of social norms and...our relationship? See, most people greet other people like this:

Sometimes like this...

Maybe this?

Occasionally....this.



But this person. Is the first person who has ever saluted me. 

Life is strange...

Social lubricant.

You just can't take your friends anywhere.

My lovelies planned a surprise visit to the local brewery for my birthday last Saturday.

The first part of the reason this is funny is because....well...I don't know how to say this....my body had already had enough of the liquid they were offering me the night before. Surprise bathroom visit.

However, mouths loosen up when beer is added to the equation. Not my mouths.

Mi amiga was chatting up the bartender, talking about good ol' times and beverage preferences. Amiga starts a conversation with the following words:

"So I like beer now, but freshman year my drink of choice wa....."

"I mean....."

"After I TURNED 21, my drink of choice was..."

*awkward drunk giggles and silence*

Social lubricant.

That's all.

The People We Love

As a few of my lovely friends and I were chatting around a beer, the Hobbit release came up (as we were planning a major LOTR marathon the day before).

One of my friends goes, "What is the Hobbit? I have no idea what it even is."

Blank stares.

Facepalm.

"Oh girl."

"What?? It's like the last Harry Potter movie, right?"

...


Laugh at the people you love.

Manders

Sleep Monster

My sleep deprivation has developed in stages since the dawn of my college career. It started out simple and innocent, missing a few hours here and there, but catching up on the weekends. Eventually, I started pulling all-nighters, sometimes quite frequently but it was fine because I was still young and versatile. Come junior year, I avoided sleep like the plague. Someone once told me that a sleep cycle (4 hours) is enough to function on. That person was so right and so wrong.

This year, I am an old person. Now, in my venerable old age, I have started spiking my coffee with coffee and having sleep-deprived manic panic attacks and early onset bedtime symptoms (which means, I started going to bed during class, piano lessons, morning jogs, and other relaxing activites of the sort).

My body has begun to fight back. It will be robbed of its precious sleep times no longer!!
I don't really know how to accurately describe what's happening here, but it's like my body and conscience have schemed together and created some sort of subconscious, demanding, spiteful alterego. So in the mornings, I try to wake up with enough time to get adequate sustenance and at least spend enough time in ths shower, but my alterego will not let me. It's not like it shuts me down and forces me to sleep through an alarm, it's like it shuts me down and takes over to get out of bed and TURN OFF all four of the alarms I set in the morning before putting me right back to bed.

I HAVE A JOB TO BE AT. I HAVE CLASSES TO ATTEND. THIS ISN'T FUNNY!

I tried changing my alarm tone, I tried setting even MORE alarms (ridiculous, right?), I tried putting my alarm on the other side of the room, despite having to wake my sleeping roommate. I've tried everything people.

Also, it knows what it's doing. It doesn't just let me sleep past my alarms, it wakes me up precisely 15 minutes before I have to be at class/work. Every single morning. Which leaves me just enough time to put a bra on and grab a bagel. I'm gonna be honest, it's best not to venture too close to me these days, because the likelihood of me brushing my teeth any given morning is slim.

laffalittle.

Manders

The Tale of Four Bargain Hunters

There's this sick, twisted part of the Thanksgiving holidays called Black Friday. A sick twisted part where people give up everything that's holy and good and transform into maniacal, crazed beings with an addiction to power and consumerism.

As the years go by, the world of big business seems intent on transforming this activity to make it as sacrilegious as possible. Black Friday has, in recent years, has mutated into Black Thursday and Black Saturday, or as I like to call it, the Weekend of Darkness.

And the sick part of it is that my family does it as a tradition.

I would like to say we boycotted this spillover into Thanksgiving Day, but Wal-Mart had $9 Crock-Pot door busters and $3 tiny blenders at eight o'clock pm Thursday night. How can you say no to handheld kitchen appliances?! I found myself strangely convinced that my life wouldn't be the same without one.

Ok, getting there. Post-Thanksgiving dinner, we strategized a devious plan and mapped a route for maximum success. We determined that the best plan of action would be to take the event in shifts so that we might hit all the best sales and leave time for intermittent naps. Lezbehonest, naps were the one way we could give ourselves a competitive edge over all the other shoppers. When their steps slowed and vision started to blur, we'd zip in and out before they could even shake a fist!

8:00pm - Tiny crockpots and blenders
9:30pm - Nap
12:00am - Shoe doorbusters and $10 dollar off coupon
1:30am - Go back home and nap
5:00am - More blenders?
5:30am - Frantic hunt for caffeine
6:00am - Huge appliance sale - toaster ovens $8
7:00am - Losing competitive edge
7:30am - BOGO shoe sale disappointment
8:00pm - Return home, annihilated but successful

After getting our fair share of tiny blenders and crock-pots and returning home for a brief reboot, we headed back into the frenzy. When we arrived at the shoe doorbuster place (I gotta admit, the only real reason I participated in all of this), there was a line forming outside the door to the establishment. I was overcome by sheer terror and shopping mania like a good little consumer and I lept out of the moving vehicle (sorta) and fled toward the line. It was on. I scanned the premises, looking for anyone who showed signs of going after a $10 pair of black faux leather boots. They looked handle-able.
I was so wrong.
That day, I learned the true meaning of the phrase "never get between a woman and her shoes". I was just trying to get a cute new pair of boots but every other woman in there was trying to start a whole new wardrobe from scratch like her very life was depending on it. I swear, these women brought personal attendants to help them hold their purchases.
So, I didn't get the shoes I wanted.

After that, things started getting crazy. I found that we started to lose our grips on reality, charging around the stores like madmen on a mission, then realizing we had nothing to buy. It's contagious! It was time for coffee. We zippity dee doo-ed over to the local grocery store only to find it closed. As most grocery stores are at 2 am. We saw, in the distance, a lighted gas station and hope was re-ignited! My great aunt, still in attack mode, whipped a u-ey in the parking lot. "Oops, I should probably drive straight so I don't look drunk and have to explain to all my church people."

We piled into the gas station and made a huddle around the coffee machine. As we were trying to figure out how to man the operating levers and buttons and whatnot, we were completely oblivious to the poor woman just trying to put a lid on it (her coffee, that is). I'm pretty sure she spent a good 2.5 minutes outside our huddle looking in.

As an aside, Iowans can buy alcohol at the local gas station, at any time of day. I guess Iowa needed some incentive to get people to live there.

This is what the JCPenney sales clerks saw as they walked past the front doors. "Can we just stand inside, it's cold out here!!" They took pity. They let us huddle on the little red welcome mat inside the front doors, which happened to be strategically placed next to the bathroom. I realized I had to release the dragon in my coffee cup now wreaking havoc in my bladder, so I thought I had scored pretty well. Funny thing is, they don't turn on the lights in the bathroom until they start selling things off their shelves and trying to find one of the toilets in a public bathroom in the dark isn't something I'd ever like to replicate. As I was sitting there frightened but progressively relieved, the lights flickered on for 4 seconds. Then back off. Cruel, cruel world. 

So anyways, we divided and conquered JCPenney as you might expect. Kitchen appliances were $8 a piece, my brother came out like Rachael Ray's personal kitchen. Anyways, we stopped at McDonalds on the way home to pick up breakfast which was the last indication that we were no longer society appropriate and needed to go home to bed. My aunt pulled the SUV so far up, the speaker was aimed directly at the rear bumper, and the clerk still managed to hear my her yelling the contents of the menu to the rest of the car. "They have egg wraps, sausage McMuffins, Egg McMuffins, yogurt, burritos, and hash browns! What do you want?"

The voice out of the speakers, "All right, that will be $25"

"Wait....no....that's not....no, please clear the menu. Ma'am? MA'AM!"

And that's how the day ended. Back in the privacy of my aunt's house, we carried out the rest of the day sleeping peacefully in bed. 

And that, my friends, is how to simultaneously do and not do Black Friday. 

Laugh a little!

Manders. <3

If at first you don't succeed, find a friend who gets it.

A few things.

First, I'm bending my own rules as to the content of this blog. I can do that. I tried posting things that make people laugh so that I could make people laugh but, you know, sometimes you just have to be there. So I've created an amendment that allows me to include happy stories, too.

Second, I realize that most of these funny stories are at my expense. I feel okay about it, if you're concerned.

On to bigger and better things. I'm not a fan of whining in general, some might even say it's my pet peeve, but regardless of how I feel about it, some days start out as a pain in the gluteals (if ya know what I mean) and then just go downhill from there. Yesterday was one of those days. I walked into class sucking air down into my throat in furious desperation (I'll tell you more about that in a second), plopped down next to my classmate who just looked at me. Like she knew. Like, in that moment, we were united in our misery. She knew about the stairs! The look in her eyes told me that, once again, she had tried to climb the 120 Quad stairs and once again they had defeated her!

We chatted for a bit about our own personal struggles, each one being worse than the one before. I told her I had just spilled coffee all over my shirt and pants. My one bright part of the day had come back to bite me in the rear (I mean, I don't even know how, I was just talking. It was like a baby momentarily invaded my body and spit up all over my last pair of fresh clothes). She told me she had run out of clean clothes to wear a week ago. I pulled our crumpled and ripped group paper out of my backpack and mumbled a brief apology, and she said, "I'M WEARING MY SHIRT BACKWARDS. NOTHING ELSE MATTERS." I was taken aback. I had never expected such a reaction, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew she was right. When you look down at that malicious little white square, you realize that today is the day you can't even succeed at dressing yourself and it's hard to focus on the good things in life.

That's all folks. Don't laugh at others' struggles, but laugh at how pitiful your own seem when your friend is wearing shirts backwards.

P.S. Is it weird that one of my biggest fears is spontaneously vomiting in class?

Manders

Woman vs. Wild

Nature’s a sneaky little mongrel. I think the more serene and peaceful it seems outside, the more nature is conspiring to get you.

Today was an Indian summer kind of day, October 16 with a high of 70 degrees (that’s Fahrenheit for you Celsius adherents). Why wouldn’t you do your homework outside?

Julia and I meandered down to the lakefront. Immediately after placing ourselves in a location on campus about as far away from facilities as possible, I had to pee. Fortunately, I feel comfortable enough relieving myself outside. Unfortunately, there was not a location in sight where someone wouldn’t be able to spot my white little hiney from miles away.

Nature – 1

Amanda – 0

At St. John’s, there is something in the water that makes the squirrels a little loco crazy. They’ve been described with phrases like demonic little fiends, ugly, evil and conniving devils, and the like. They seem to hone in on fear too, and maybe redheads (considering Julia’s past experiences). Her and I were just relaxing after a concerned conversation about how especially lively they seemed today when, all of a sudden, something small and brown comes flying through the air at a phenomenal speed! Screams! Flailing! Panic! Fear!

That leaf had incredible squirrel-like qualities.

Nature – 2

Julia – 0

I’m not afraid of bugs. They’re ugly and are never up to any good, but fortunately my logic usually outweighs my irrational fear of freckle-sized creatures. There was, however, this one little guy that I had my eye on. He had been poking around my backpack for quite some time when I decided to let it go. If he crawled in there, he was going to regret it. Back to reading.

All of a sudden, I felt a tickle. Where? I’ll tell you where. I felt something small slowly making it’s way down the valley of the sternum. For those of you who don’t know which bone that is, take an anatomy lesson or, like I did, Google it. I’m very sensitive to things crawling in that area and I’m sorry, I panicked. It’s all fun and games until you have something creepy crawly in sternum valley! I pulled a feat similar to the vivid memory I have of my mom’s reaction when a grasshopper forcefully made his way underneath her shirt (I’m assuming it was a he).

Nature – 3

Amanda - 0

Sleep is a beast.

Well, I have a couple things to share today, and I don't think I'm breaking any kind of moral code by doing so because I've been absent since Monday.

First on the agenda...

This gem of a story was just shared with me by my roommate. I laughed so hard I forgot how to inhale for a second, does that ever happen to anyone else?

CLICK HERE FOR SAID STORY!!

Once you're done wiping the tears off your face, prepare to read something slightly less funny (only because, in my opinion, bodily humour is right near the top of the funny pyramid).

I tried pulling an all-nighter last night, to be bombarded with the cold, hard fact that I'm not as young as I once was. This body doesn't bounce back like it used to anymore, and I'm just barely 21. It all gets worse from here, I'm assuming.

Ugh it was awful. It was like the dark side of YouTube, some sort of physical and cognitive twilight zone. Nothing was familiar, I had no idea how I got there, and my body was doing all these strange things it's never done before. Pfft, bounce back my rear, my body bounced back about as much as my soggy wet comforter during my laundry fiasco (refer to earlier blog).

I knew class was a mistake, but my current class attendance record really deprived me of the opportunity to skip. It was one of those days where I just had to show up to class so my professor could see my face...you know, just be there in body, nothing else matters. Which is good, because my body was really the only part of me that was there. As soon as my rear hit that chair, I had roughly 35 seconds before a slightly extended blink turned into a second-and-a-half micro nap. I know it was a nap because I woke up thinking class was over and my head did that awkward "fall-snap" thing so everyone knew what had just happened. Usually, though, the embarrassment of that situation gives you enough of a kick-start to stay awake for much longer afterwards.

Nope, not today. It started recurring almost religiously every 3 minutes. The class was 70 minutes long, you do the math. I started panicking. This wasn't your average sleepy class day, this was a crisis. My first solution: get up to go to the bathroom. Get some blood flowing, some cold water on my face, anything really. I stumbled down the hall to the bathroom, not really all that conscious and when I got there, 14 layers of memory foam couldn't have looked more comfortable than that bathroom floor. I sat down. Woke up. In that order.

Stumbled back to class hoping they hadn't all gone searching for me, but it was fine. I felt like the four children coming back from Narnia, what had been ages for me had only been seconds for the rest of the world.

No sooner did I sit back in my chair then it started happening again. Still panicking, I tried writing down every word she said thinking I could keep myself occupied, which is when the weird stuff started happening. Instead of it keeping me awake, my body started falling asleep one side at a time. My eyes started getting all bugged out but my right eye was twitching itself into shutting, my head was craning to one side and my forehead was strangely magnetic to my desk. Kind like this, only with more manic crazy:

Plus, nothing I wrote came out legible. I reviewed my notes after the fact to find phrases like "undertaindary feel better", "bad world you uncertained about probabilations", boosts others rosenful impicaration". I'm not joking. Also, there were random lines all over my page where I would start writing something and have another micro-nap against my will. 

Literally, I spent five minutes pinching myself,  I held my eyelids open with my fingers, I shook my foot uncontrollably, I sketched on my page, I tried listening to what she was saying, I poked myself in the forehead with my pencil, nothing. Absolutely nothing. 

Needless to say, I was directly in the line of my professor's vision, and there is no way she missed all of this. I genuinely hope she saw everything that was happening and it made her day a little better. 

Afterwards, I stumbled to my friend's house and don't remember anything until I woke up at 5 pm. 

On that note, I'm going to bed. 

Laugh when you're awake!

<3 Manders

Fight Club

In my mind, my upbringing with two brothers has adequately prepared me for moderate to challenging  physical combat. It's not uncommon that, when feeling especially spry and energized, I challenge my girl friends to a wrestling match (one at a time, of course, I'm not that ambitious). Despite a few unfortunate and consecutive losses at the hands of my bff Sydney, I've somehow managed to convince myself that I should keep throwing out these challenges whenever I'm feeling particularly burly, assuming that I'll come out the victor.

Yesterday was one of these occasions. My friends and I were having a relaxing night but I was all amped up and looking to do something a bit more....eventful.

I issue the challenge! The girls were skeptical and unenthusiastic but I felt if I continued to egg them on, they would either hit me out of frustration or finally give in. Andrea suggested a modified (supposedly less dangerous) wrestling match where the victor is the one who removes the opponents socks first.

Bring it. Gurl, my entire life has prepared me for this moment.

We faced off, eyeing each other up. I don't wanna say I knew I was going to win, but I knew I wasn't going to lose. In addition to having all these cultivated fighting skills, she happened to be about 6 inches shorter and 20 pounds lighter than me.

She floored me. Twice. My socks were off before I could even locate her feet, let alone disengage the rest of her body so I could concentrate on de-socking her. In the second match, where I tried to vindicate my first loss, she had given up and was lying on her back, panting, so I lept toward her tootsies in her moment of weakness thinking, "YES REVENGE IS MINE", and simultaneously exposed my own feet to which she responded with a simple flick of the wrist. I had been vanquished again.

Desperate to preserve my own dignity, I challenged her sister to take me on. I wasn't going to let these two flukes define who I am as a person.

I'll not rehash the struggle as it pains me to recollect, but, needless to say, I'm rethinking my future career as a pro wrestler.

We got photographic evidence of all three of these fights. No I will not share.

Manders.

Amanduck

My mom got me out of bed this morning by convincing me we were going to go into town for a “Girl Day”, which ended up being fun but started off with a 2 hour session at AT&T where I served as a translator between her and the sales rep. He couldn’t really figure out how to use regular-person words…it was like trying to explain quantum physics to a puppy.

Anyways, we went to the local “boutique” to do girly things and I’m over by the mirror trying on this nice flannel piece when I overhear my mom and her friend trying to find personalized ringtones for their contacts. I heard my name. My mom’s friend says, “You need just the right ringtone for Amanda…search for duck noises!”

…um, excuse me?

As I continue eavesdropping, I hear my mom find the “perfect ringtone” for me – a cute little snippet of Donald Duck singing a Christmas tune. You know, now that I think about it, I do have a lot of duck-like qualities, I really can't think of a better fit.

They’re all ROFLing and my mom’s friend is like “HAHAHA OMG that’s perfect” and I’m just like…”let it slide, Amanda, let it slide. Look at how good this flannel looks on you.”

I continue to eavesdrop while they decide on a ringtone for my brother. I’m thinking, “hey, if I get Donald Duck, this ought to be good”. Expecting the worst (aka the best), I hear my mom say, “I need some sort of classical music or a song from Phantom of the Opera for Joe”.

I don’t know what I did to deserve this.

Finally, she turns to her friend again and says, “What do you want for yours?” and all she says is, “Anything but a duck.”

Some days you wake up and say to yourself, “this is definitely not going to be a laughing day” and then life surprises you.

Laugh at your own expense.

Manders

Adventures of Harold and Amanda

I feel like it's time to introduce you folks to Harold. Harold, for those of you who are wondering, is my old man crush, my partner in crime, and my temperamental 2000 Buick LeSabre. Now, for those of you to whom the make and model of a car means about as much to as the breed of a cat, here's a little visual aid:

Yes, this is what I drive. The stereotypical car in the handicapped parking lot at the front of Walgreens. Harold is, in fact, the only LeSabre driven by a person under the age of 55, funny maybe, but part of the reason that our relationship is so special. Add a few dents and scratches to each of the fenders and there you have it, the old man love of my life.

Although he's a spry old man, he's starting to feel the effects of old age, especially in the last few years. I think he went through some sort of mid-life crisis a while back where he would roll down the driver window at will, usually at the most inopportune times for me. Just like any other elderly person, his parts are beginning to sag a little bit, and I have to periodically pump up all his wheels. He also does this thing where, if I neglect to keep the gas above an acceptable level, he gets revenge by swinging the gauge all over the place and right when I'm having an ecstatic, happy-go-lucky cruise down the highway on a full tank, he drops it below critical mass. You know, that level where finding a gas station has become a matter of life and death.

I guess he's become a bit anal about cleanliness too because he cleans his tape (no, not CD, cassette tape) player countless times a day. I'm sure he must be concerned about how dirty it's getting because of how often I use it...
Anyway, this causes whatever music is playing to stop momentarily while a soft whirring sound lets you know he's in one of his moods again. Which is fine, patience is a virtue, but that little brat always decides to go all Mr. Clean on me right when I'm high rollin, windows down, music up, singing at the top of my lungs, RIGHT at the best part of the song.

Sassy old fart!

Despite all our moments, our relationship is still quite an affectionate one at its core. His most famous antic is when he shows me how happy he is to see me...although interpretations of this antic have bordered inappropriate, he has this habit of...popping his trunk whenever I hit the unlock button, open the driver's door or..."turn him on".

I mean, I could be construing this all the wrong way though. He could just be flipping me off.

Anyways, poor guy is still suffering from saggy parts syndrome. Yesterday his rear window fell down permanently, just in time for my fall break. I couldn't just leave him alone like that in public so I brought him home with me and we had a magical drive back with the warm, fresh autumn air blowing in through the back window.

Commence October 4, 2012, the day of Harold's doctor appointment. The weather forecast called for a 30 degree drop in temperature overnight with a slight chance of rain and winds up to 35 mph. Lucky for me, I like to stay uninformed and I failed to check the forecast. Not that it would have mattered, I still had to get my sleep-deprived rear out of bed at an hour much earlier than I had planned for fall break so I could take Harold in to get fixed.

Driving into town, I wasn't fully conscious...usually I just let H do his thing and we get there fine. We arrive in town and the auto repair shop is NOWHERE TO BE FOUND. I'm like, "awwww fricken A, I leave for like a month and they change EVERYTHING!"

....

No, actually I was in the wrong city.
For some reason all sense of spatial relationships just went kaput and I didn't even know how to correct my mistake. It took me a while to even figure out where I was, let alone remember what town the auto shop was actually located in and figure out how to get from point A to point B.

So I turn around to get on the freeway. I have to make my way back to Carlton, which is south of where I was at the time. I'm currently three minutes late, but since it only takes 5 minutes to get to my destination from where I am, we're golden. Fashionably late. Not a problem.

I'm trying to think of a clever way to make an excuse for getting on the freeway going north instead of south, but it was clearly just stupidity. Now we're going 70 mph and bone-chilling gusts are coming through my back open window, keeping me just cold enough to be uncomfortable.

I get off at the next exit hoping to make an inconspicuous little turn-around, pretend like that never happened. Construction. No entry ramp. 10 minutes late. More bone-chilling gusts and freezing rain. Harold starts cleaning in the middle of my favorite song, again. Dad calls and I tell him I'll be there in five minutes, the world's biggest white lie. But I drove a circle with like a 10 mile radius in under 15 minutes, I'm shocked at my own abilities.

So that's Harold. It's weird that I'm blurring the line between automobile and human.

Master Commander

It's only 1 am and I know this will have been the highlight of my day today.

Happy Monday. Laugh a lot. 

The Laundry Disaster

Funny moment today and I started thinking about how I was going to word it in my blog so that other people would get it, you know? I think I do that sometimes, I experience this funny situation in my life that doesn't really come out well on paper. Well....."paper".

But I mean, sorry about it. No feedback? No complaining.

So, let's leave the funny inside joke story aside and I'll just tell you that my friends and I...we're hilarious. Honestly, come have dinner with us because it's funny. Not me, really, I just sit there silent-laughing so hard there's soup bubbling out of my mouth and running down my chin and into my lap.

Laughable moment #2 - the Laundry Disaster. (Dun dun duunnnnn)

I washed my comforter last night imagining how nice it would be to curl up into a clean fresh blankie when it was time to go to bed. Literally, I was envisioning this:

But no, that's not what happened. What really happened was the washing machine was thrown off balance because the comforter was shoved to one side, so it stopped halfway through the cycle. Which meeaaannnsss, my bedtime blankie was sitting in a puddle of cold, dank water when I went to fetch it. It was 2 in the morning. I was not prepared to deal with this. Literally. That machine needs a dollar to run and I didn't have any money. Slammed the lid shut and spent the rest of the night cursing my non-fluffy, non-detergent-smelling sheets.

The pseudo solution the next day was the funny part. I enlisted my friend Dan to help me problem solve, and the only workable solution we could come up with was to drag that 300 pound dripping wet blanket down the hallway and into the yard to wring it out so we could stick it in the dryer. At this point I had a dollar, but just one, so it was either the washing machine or dryer. Yeah, blankets made for queen beds hold a lot of water. Wringing it out was a bit ambitious. I think we managed to water the grass a little. I got a bath.

We couldn't put it in the dryer, we couldn't bring it back inside, I definitely couldn't sleep in it... Right now it's draped over my car, Harold, so there is one car in my college apartment complex parking lot that is...snuggling with a giant blankie. Tonight, Harold is going to sleep like that accursed little teddy bear and I'm back to seeing how many times I can roll myself in my sheets to get the maximum amount of layers covering my body.

Happy moment #1 - the feeling you get when someone gets up to help you wash the dinner dishes without saying a word.

laugh a little
<3 manders

Bleep

Today an old man told me that Gay was a beautiful last name! There's a first time for everything!

Laugh about it
<3 Manders

No cheese, please

This week has been kinda rough, not going to deny that. But I've found that the crappier the day gets, the more important it is to laugh, or at least force a smile from somewhere out of the depths of your belly. 

Today I attended a memorial service for a childhood friend of mine, and afterwards we went to his family's house to see people and have snacks and whatnot. I ran into one of our old "neighbors" (I say it like so because in rural Barnum, neighbors can live up to 5, 10 miles away) and her children that I hadn't seen in a few years. Children change so fast! How does something whose only noises used to be gurgling sounds made by the slobber rolling down its chin learn to say real words and steal food off people's plates? It's ridiculous. Said child was charming her way in and out of the crowds flashing her petite little smile (I don't know if it's appropriate to use that adjective/noun combination), which some innocent bystander must have been distracted by for just long enough for her to swipe a cheese stick off his or her plate. 

Which, by itself, still seems charming. One thing I've learned with little kids though is to never underestimate them, because charming turns into cunning reeeaaalll quick. After realizing she didn't actually want to eat the cheese stick, she knew she had to find some other, more entertaining use for it. After being cajoled and encouraged by many of the adults to use it as a weapon on any one of the other kids or to "give it to _____ as a present!", she finally managed to deposit on someone else's plate before they knew what was happening and before they could catch her fleeing the scene. I only know that because that plate happened to be my brother's and four of us were having a nice conversation as old friends when he looked down to find a squished, gnawed-on, slightly slobbery hunk of string cheese on his plate, with no little girl in sight. 

Well played, little girl. Well played. 

Maybe this was one of those moments where you had to be there. Regardless, my point is that it doesn't take an epic practical joke or Will Ferrell movie line to have a good laugh.

Earlier this week I lost a friend, but today I got to celebrate in the strength and the joy he left behind, the beauty he experienced in his lifetime, and the knowledge that he left us knowing he was going to be with the One who can love him more than anyone in this world can. Even when faced with the heartache of missing him, I realized that there is joy in knowing that regardless of time and distance's conspiracy to separate us and those we care about, some things don't change. Some people remain in your love forever. But heap your love on the ones life hasn't separated you from yet, because you don't know when it will happen. 

Today, the leaves were all shades of warm colors, the air was invigoratingly fresh, the fog was gently rising from the fields, and the setting sun was shedding its radiant light on everything as far as the eye could see. I couldn't have asked for a better way to say "Until later!"

Love and laugh always,

Manders

Stay out of the advertising business

Commercials. I think they're running out of ideas. I think they're getting ideas from the bottom of the barrel. From the bottom of the barrel on the bottom of the pile.

I sat down with my friend to watch Criminal Minds with my "roomie" last night (quality television AND hot guys). I don't even remember what the first commercial was about because I was too distracted by the awkward, gangly blond stroking the television screen with her pointer finger.

Weird as.

The commercial right after that was definitely trying to get me to buy Ragu spaghetti sauce by telling me my hamster wanted gray hair instead of white. And honestly, all I could think of was Gandalf the Gray and how that dang hamster should be grateful for his hair color because he didn't have to fight a balrog single-handed to get it.

Oh, it gets better. I then watched an entire mini-documentary on the size of humans ears. I don't know if ya'll were aware, but they're not actually round? Therefore, don't use those worthless round headphones, they won't work because your ears are not round, OH AND BUY AN IPHONE5!!!!!! Don't buy it because it's the thinnest, lightest, fastest phone ever, buy it because your ears have been severely misunderstood your whole life.

That's all, thanks. Remember, laugh a little!

<3 Manders

When the dead rise.

September 24, 2012

I already know the funniest part of my day! You know that feeling you get when you realize you've overslept and the world might as well just end? Yeah I had that.

Somehow the two alarms I set just weren't enough to get me out of bed. I'm sure it had NOTHING to do with the fact that I went to bed at 4 am. #ilovecollegggeee

So anyways, my work shift started at 8 this morning and I snapped myself awake at roughly 7:54. I sat up in bed so fast it was like fricken Lazarus coming to life. A good six minutes to get ready, right? I can probably even squeeze a tooth-brushing session in there. WRONG. Ladies and gentlemen, I live off campus, so give me a good three minutes to get there on my bike and subtract that from my getting ready time.

Moral of the story, don't get too close to me today. I am a morning-breathed, yesterday's clothes, showerless, coffee-less, (braless) kind of person today and I did not eat breakfast. Send Tony the Tiger on over, I need some Wheaties.

<3 Laugh a little
Manders

Permabrows

I realized I really miss blogging and I can't possibly expect that my life in Minnesota will hoard nearly as many blog hits and followers as my life in Australia. Therefore, a blog about my life is just an invitation to get my hopes up and have them smashed to pieces.

No thanks.

So in the spirit of entertaining, I'm going to start sharing just the funny parts of my day, the parts that remind me that life is comical and even Mondays, laundry days and bad hair days are opportunity-to-laugh-days.

Sunday, September 23 (2012)!!!

Well, last night I went to an Australian reunion/shindig dressed as a man. Let me stop first and just say that I'm discovering my own weird complex when it comes to my choices for dressing up. I don't know if it's my personality, my body type, my dissatisfaction with my own gender, or a combination of the three, but I always dress up as a man. For Halloween 2010, I went as an old man. The year after I showed up as Eminem. Last semester for a school project, I dressed up as Vinny from Jersey Shore. I hope you're starting to see the pattern developing here. Well, last night I brought Vinny back. If you've never seen Jersey shore, you 1) are the luckiest person alive and 2) do not know that Vinny is known for his dark eyebrows, which we tried to reproduce with a significant amount of eyeliner.

Men, if you didn't know, eyeliner was never meant to be permanent. I went to bed with that stuff still on my face, which I realize was my first mistake but...this morning as I surveyed myself in the mirror, I knew it had to come off. Combined with the living being on my head that we'll just call messy hair, I looked like a cavewoman from those Geico commercials. It wouldn't come off. As I was sitting there scrubbing so hard the hairs were coming out of my brow, I was having nightmares and visions of showing up to class the next morning with eyebrows that were not just dark, but huge and weirdly angular too.

I did finally get them out. I look like my normal human self again. Since I'm in the clear, I'll just go ahead and say it was pretty funny.

<3 laugh a little,
Manders