A Day in the Life of Me: A Short Narrative on Failure

INTRODUCTION:  What you are about to read is a boring, rambling, drawn out, and markedly unfunny account of how I live my daily life, and may go some way in explaining my lack of child support for this, our love child.  As Emily explained in ridiculously sympathetic terms, I am a fail. Dear child, please understand that though I love you as only a mother can, I am completely incapable of existing in this world like a person successfully.  Now, this post has been in the works for about a month, and in that time the quality has deceased from mildly amusing to slightly worrying to downright disturbing by the end.  Please note that these are all exaggerations (though, sadly, not by much) and should not be taken in any way seriously.  Yes, there is a marked decrease in quality, yes, the pictures disappear a third of the way through, but I like to think that finishing this post on this day and setting it upon the internet like some grossly mutated abomination of science released into the city is a renewal of our (your father's and my) vows of ULTIMATE HETEROLIFEMATESHIP.  And so, without further preamble...

                                                        A DAY IN THE LIFE OF ME


Unlike Emily's posts**  I will now cop out of any subject remotely relevant or entertaining by basically outlining the inherent tragicomedy of my life.

**(full name used here out of respect.  I know Emily kindly addressed our mutual understanding about our hetero lifemate status in her last post, but I feel like I must explain the use of "Em" in context, to better illustrate just what type of absolute misanthrope I am:

This is exactly how it went.)

ACT 1: MORNING

After the first, blissful haze of sleep, I a) remember all the homework I didn't do the night before; b) feel the sudden urge to skip the next four classes in favor of more sleep; c) have to use the bathroom; and d) curse myself from about 10 hours ago for not doing my homework or going to the bathroom, in favor of interwebz.  This is usually followed by a useful morning mental exercise I like to call "Rationalize the Time."  This is how you play:

1.  When your first alarm rings (the night before you've played Rationalize the Time as well and have set up a series of safeties in the morning) blearily look at it, register nothing, turn it off, and go back to sleep.

2.  Half an hour later, when the second alarm rings, look at it with annoyance and slight recognition, and go back to sleep.

3.  Have fitful half-dreams for the next half hour when your subconscious realizes that you've overslept the safety alarms and there's no hope of studying/writing/finishing the essay.

4.  The final alarm rings, usually two or three hours prior to class start.  Wake up fully while it rings, stare at alarm in horror for a minute, and then turn it off.  If the alarm is in the cellphone, grasp cellphone and close eyes without actually sleeping.

[Emily here. I'm going to go ahead and break into this right now before 'the game really begins' and let you know that Sameera has leased me as an event illustrator. (Because..what she was just blogging about is, in actuality, happening right now in her life, and she needed time to try and stave it off.) In other words, I'm going to badly draw her morning for you, and maybe try to offer some insight into her being. Because, I'm sure while reading this, you might think that she can't really be as bad as she says she is - but Sameera has never told a lie. She really is that bad. So let's DO THIS. Oh, and if it's bold, that means it's an outside party - in this case, me. Because..somehow I figure this will happen again in the future.]


5. This is where the game really begins. At first, you close your eyes and take catnaps for five minute intervals, savoring every moment in your warm, fluffy sheets. Then, when you've realized you've done this for the last 20 minutes, you begin to rationalize the amount of time it will take to do certain tasks. These include, but are not limited to, brushing teeth, taking a shower, changing clothes, eating breakfast, and studying/starting/finishing a paper. For instance - let's say that you have a class at 11 and your final alarm is set for 8:00. By around 8:30 your reasoning goes something like this: Oh crap I can't believe it's already 8:30 omg I really, really have to use the bathroom now ok so here's what I'm going to do. Get up and brush teeth - 5 mins, shower - 10 mins, clothes - 1 min, breakfast - 10 mins. Ok so what that's five plus ten plus one plus ten so that's twenty plus six that's twenty six ok so by around 9:50 I should be done with everything ok so that leaves me from 10 to 11 but it takes about ten minutes to get to class, fifteen if I'm walking slow and want to get there before the exam starts, so ok I'd have about 45 mins to study. That's ok right I totally know my verbs, well, most of them, okay so I'll probably be able to get most of them right - moving on to nouns. Jeez there's a lot of them I'll skim through the chapters and magically retain them all somehow okay so that'll be fine and grammar! Crap grammar I'll just make some flashcards real quick and study them on the way to class. But I don't want to look retarded on the way to class crap what am I going to do?

6.  By this time, it's about 8: 40, and although you're already ten minutes behind schedule you operate as though it's still 8: 28.  This means that when you next look at the clock you really do only have about 10 minutes to get to class.

7.  You flip open your book and skim four chapters and five weeks' worth of material on the way.  This slows you down and by the time you get to class everyone is already sitting down.  You haven't changed out of your pajamas or washed your face.

8.  You freak out, have a mini mental breakdown and stare at your exam sheet, all the while imagining vaguely your grandparents shaking their heads in disappointment.  Slowly, you regain feeling in your hand and begin to make educated guesses.  You mark all the questions you are not sure you got correct, but soon begin to rationalize those as well.

9.  By the end of the exam you've rationalized that you haven't done that badly, really, and even congratulate yourself on a job - if not well - done.  You don't think of how you've possibly just failed it and go get some much-needed lunch (breakfast didn't happen.)  After lunch you break down because time away from the exam and a cursory look through the book has shattered your previous fragile confidence in how you did, telling you that no, the substantive adjective is in fact not the direct object of the verb, and you cry softly into your quasi-healthy meal of lettuce and pizza.

~~~FIN~~~ end of Part I. 




ON TO PART II

After lunch, the sleep you haven't gotten last night tries to catch up with you but you still have other classes to go to.  You do some quick math in your head and decide that it's best to just skip the one class that never has anything due in it in order to regroup.  After class you find out that you had something due in it, emergency email the teacher and try to drop off whatever it is in the office before they leave.  I like to call this game "Rationalize the Professor." it's like "Rationalize the Time" except this time your opponent is your teacher's patience instead of the clock.  This game is a little simpler because it mainly consists of:

a) counting the number of times you've been absent before.  if the number is less that three, you're still in
b)counting the number of times you've turned things in late/haven't turned anything in at all when it's due.  If the number is less than or equal to two you're still in.
c) If your numbers add up to something less than 5, you're still good.  This means that the teacher probably hasn't made a special note of you as a "bad student" but also won't be too surprised that you're trying to turn in something so clearly after it's due.
d) Run haphazardly towards the office in the most disheveled manner possible.  This may or may not include a slew of papers slipping out of your folder as you run up the stairs and the panting in your voice when you ask for the office number of your professor.
e)  Try to regain dignity and walk to the professor's office even though the recent physical activity is the most you've had all year, all the while hoping that the professor isn't there.  If they are there, then babble for some time about your five congenital diseases that caused you to miss class and miraculously cured themselves enough to allow you to come running to the office.  Said professor then smiles vaguely and gives you a Look, and both leave content in the knowledge that if this ever happens again, you are going to fail the class.
f)  If the professor is not there by some chance of fate, but you know they're still on campus, throw the paper onto their desk after practically forcing the secretary at gunpoint to time-stamp it and flee with your life.  This is the preferred method because you no longer have to deal with this until next class, which isn't until Thursday.

This is around the time that some experience Early Onset Self-Loathing.  Unfortunately, you still have a few classes to go before you can go back to your room and suitably distract yourself from your life with Netflix, so this means you must get a cookie to calm your nerves.  Five short boxes of cookies later, you are ready to face the world once more.

Fin~~~end Part 2

PART III:

The next few classes are a little better, and since your stomach is starting to rebel against that 40th oreo you've got plenty of distractions to keep you from thinking about the gravity of the situation (i.e. that you are failing all of your classes).  While trying to stay awake amidst the monotone stylings of your latest professor (who, for some reason, seems strangely fixated on the more bloody aspects of the Norman Conquest), you miss out on a few essay assignments and test dates.  But that's another story for another time.  When class finally ends, you jet out of there as fast as possible and beeline to the dorm, where you promptly throw down your books and settle down for a nice, long night with your computer.

It's around this time (about 6 PM), when the self-loathing really kicks in.  First you work yourself into a mood by indulging in some loathing majorly.  This includes, but is not limited to:

1) comparing yourself to the ill-used heroine in the latest book you've read
2) convincing yourself that you're really a genius that's just lazy
3) convincing yourself that you have a certain number of tragic disabilities or issues that keep you from doing your work.  This works on another level because it's secret and no one else knows about it and if your professors knew they'd love you and say how brave you are for existing in this world.
4)  Nobody.  Nobody understands.  They don't know you!  They can't. Life is like a box of chocolates and you?  You're stuck with the nougat.
5) This is when you usually start being homesick for your parents/house/pets for absolutely no reason.
6)  Those orphans, man.  Those orphans in like, Africa.  They like, they don't even have chairs.  Look at you.  You're sitting in a chair.  You ungrateful - you - you don't even deserve this chair.  You know who do?  Those Africans.  Those African orphans deserve that chair.
7) Why, God, why???!!!!! *sniffffffff* WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN.  I HATE YOU GOD. YOU HEAR THAT?! I HATE YOU.
8)  Right, so.  About that last one.  Sorry, God, sorry, you know how it is.  I mean you don't, but you do.  Right?  Right.  So.  That's never happening again.  Ever.  Believe me.  I swear this time.  You're like, the best person.  You're not even a person.  You're the best omniscient spiritual and universal presence that exists outside of space-time. Are we cool again?  Awesome. Okay.  Because, because you see, there's this test that I took.  And I know I didn't study and I came late and I didn't do well on it but then I had to skip my next class because I was tired but something was due there and I think I missed most of my last class because I think I blacked out but the important thing is that I took it, and you're awesome.  So if you could find it in your big, omniscient space-time heart, could you please, please let me pass it?  If not for me, then for my parents.  Thanks.
9)  Nobody. Nobody knows.  Not like you do.  They can't possibly know. 

Promptly drown your fears in apple juice (or your preferred poison) and reminisce on every past instance of failure you've had.  After a while you feel a little better and console yourself with some netflix.  You fall asleep, but not before emptying your refrigerator and putting it in your stomach.

FIN.

A letter to baby blog from one of the proud parents.

Dear love child,

I know it must be hard for you, little baby blog. You don't have any friends to hang around with, and no one comes to check on you aside from me. Not even your mother (SAMEERA. OKAY.). But don't worry. Daddy's here and he's going to tell you all about your mother, who really is a very wonderful person and would fall into a ditch and die before she would purposefully abandon you but unfortunately that is a real possibility because mommy is also very clumsy and she often forgets her glasses.

Let's see, what can I tell you about your mother.

Though she is of honorable intention, your mommy tends to sink into what I'd like to dub, from now on, the quicksand of failure. You see, dear child, your mother is like an explorer setting out on a long journey. She is as prepared as she could possibly be for that journey. She has done everything a good traveler should - she's got a meal in her, she knows her route, and she has an emergency plan. This was your mother when I first met her - a completely well prepared conquistador of sorts, knocking out those straight A grade point averages year after year and impressing observing adults the world over. But even the most prepared explorer will stumble into some quicksand once in a while - and it seems your mother was born under an unlucky star, for quicksand seems to follow her. When your mother first stepped in that quicksand, she picked herself right up and went back to conquering. But I imagine repeatedly finding herself suddenly having to struggle madly against death (also known as failure) wore out her 'get back on the horse' reflex. Over time, it wasn't even just quicksand anymore, oh no. It was snakes and frighteningly large jungle insects and bears that don't even belong on the same continent where she was and OH SHIT SOME SORT OF PREDATOR TYPE THING FROM THAT MOVIE I SAW ONE TIME - oh. Excuse my language, dear child. Speaking of your mother brings out the passion in me.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, your mother struggles valiantly against everything that is thrown at her, but because of time, and perhaps my gelatinous influence, she has become less of a conquistador. Does that explain, in some way, why she isn't here right now, darling child? Your mother might be worn down, but she's not out just yet - she still has that fighting spirit, and right now she's in that jungle, probably screaming in a pit of quicksand. But don't worry, she'll be back. ..Eventually. Sometimes even daddy doesn't hear from her for weeks.

There is so much to say about your mother, I can hardly decide where to go, what to tell you next.

Ah. Tell me child, have you seen Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams? Yes, of course you have, I should have known not to ask such a question. Regardless, I should explain. In the movie, Steve Buscemi plays a scientist who experiments with genetic mutation, on an island that features a device of his own creation - a device that blocks out the signals of, and from, all electronic devices. This device was called the "Transmooker".  Child, your mother IS this transmooker. She is unaffected by the signals of her electronic devices - oh they cry out for her attention, they do, my love, but their pleas go unheeded. They beg for just one bit of her esteem - just one post, a status update, maybe a little poke? Once in a while they will be rewarded for their patient diligence, but the payoff is much too small and irregular to be worth it. And yet they, and you, dear child, continue to fight, to hope. Don't worry. I will continue to poke her physically, and through the phone. I know it has been nearly thirty days since she started her visit with you and you have heard only a few words, but cling to those words with the knowledge that your daddy fights for joint custody. For an equal partnership.

Because when mommy is here, she's wonderful. But we miss her when she's gone.

Fondest regards,
Your loving father. Who happens to be a woman.

P.S - Maybe you could try a little harder and make some friends. If mommy found out you had some friends, maybe even, god forbid, friends who left word that they had been here (!!), then she would come back! I know she would. But you and your friends won't know until it happens, will they? So you should get on that.

I can see that blogging at 5am is not going to be a good idea. ..Which won't stop me from doing it.

So, I was just lying in bed at 5:55 (MAKEAWISHIWISHFORNACHOS) AM watching Family Matters on mute while listening to my ipod - because I was really in the mood to listen to music and I didn't want to stop even though I hadn't seen this particular episode of Family Matters and that was important too so I was making up a story for it in my head as to what was happening and I'm pretty sure I got the story right but not the dialogue aside from "Did I do that?" because how could anyone properly predict the dialogue unless they could read lips but then that wouldn't be predicting and..I'm getting ahead of myself.

Anyway, while I was watching, I saw a commercial for what was apparently a live Diego show. (I am assuming that simply referring to this character as 'Diego' fits into common knowledge, but then I started wondering if someone might somehow mistake 'Diego' for the 'Diego' from Ice Age, because that's pretty popular too..and I like him better..but no, I'm referring to the Diego from 'Go Diego Go!' the Dora the Explorer..spin-off? Weren't they related somehow? I feel like they were cousins. Anyway, he's basically male Dora in the jungle. Dora finds the barn and the big apple tree [RIGHT BEHIND YOU DORA YOU CAN'T MISS IT THERE'S LITERALLY NOTHING ELSE THERE.] and deals with that bad ass motherfucker Swiper and Diego tells you what marmosets eat. (Which I guess would come in handy if you're a feral child growing up in a Tarzan jungle, but I doubt I have to explain why that wouldn't fit.)

Oops. I got off topic.


Um. SO. I saw a commercial for a live Diego show. Which basically means it's some anonymous person in an innocuous giant felt Diego suit putting on a show for the kiddies. This has been done many times over with many characters..I think recently they did a Toy Story 3 On Ice thing that is probably still going on now, though I'm not sure. Anyway - even though the suit is perfectly non-threatening and familiar (I guess.) despite being..well, not very believable, I've never thought about how creepy it is that I don't know who is inside that suit. But tonight, it occurred to me out of nowhere. I was watching the poor soul occupying the tv Diego costume dancing around awkwardly while the costume head smiled happily, and I started imagining John Wayne Gacy in there. Which is pretty much the creepiest thing I think I've ever thought, at least in such an abrupt fashion. It usually takes some sort of provocation for me to think up that kind of deranged shit.

I'm not going to pursue the idea that it would be Gacy in there anymore, because that legitimately freaks me out, but the point remains - it's creepy that there's this happy costume dancing/skating around, worn by a stranger that might have ulterior motives. If you can see the person performing for you, at least you can try to gauge whether or not they're a serial killing freak. Knowing that I can try makes me feel better.

See, if Hitler had been in a Diego suit, I wouldn't have known it was him. Unless he started goose stepping across the stage. That might give it away. Not literally GOOSE stepping..that's more of an actual Diego thing..you know, with the animals. Yeah.


This is a..now 7AM post, so it's allowed to be nonsensical. I just kind of feel like blogging about all the things that have been on my mind lately while I've got the chance and the words are coming easily. There is a zone and I am in it.


I got this signed poster of Bo Burnham the other day. I paid ten bucks for it. It was a really good deal, I thought, because it's a pretty giant poster and it's made of this strong material (at least stronger than my other posters.) and it's actually SIGNED! Still, most of its value to me is intangible. I put it across from my bed so when I turn over and over trying to find a comfortable position for sleep, I see Bo staring at me in the dark and sometimes it scares me but most of the time it makes me giggle like a frigging girl. It's thrilling. The poster is actually kind of powerful. Once when I caught sight of it, my thoughts turned kind of existential. Man, humans look weird..when and how did we decide what was attractive? [I haven't sat here and explained in focused detail that I have never been an accomplished sleeper..yet..but my experiences really paint a picture to that effect.]

One of the things that I think about a lot is the possibility that someone has planted a camera in my room. Especially since I'm currently living in an apartment on campus and the RA/maintenance staff have the keys to my apartment/room, plus they had access to it before I had even moved in, so there were/are a lot of chances for them to spy on me. Though honestly, I can't see who would want to. I mostly just eat or lie in bed watching Chowder. Anyway, because the Bo poster was thicker than most posters are, for some reason I imagined that there was a camera in it, and when I hung it up the eyes would move and become human when I wasn't looking, like the portraits in old horror movies. Bo could use the material he would get from me. He already wrote a line about a fat chick in an elevator, (Teehee. Guess what he did to her.) I'm sure he could do something with a fat chick pantomiming participation in a Pokemon battle.

This wasn't what I meant to segue to, but Spongebob Squarepants just said, "I've got darkness inside of me!" Now, I wasn't paying attention to the episode because I was writing this, and it was easy to see that he meant literal darkness (The episode seemed to be about his fear of the dark.) but at the same time, it could be misinterpreted, if you were really determined to do so. Like Spongebob has some really fucked up urges buried deep inside. In my mind they have something to do with Krabby Patties, or maybe some form of cross species sexual intercourse. Like with jellyfish or squirrels. 

Damn, I just get really openly gross and sexual when I haven't slept and it's early in the morning.

What I MEANT to segue to here was the fact that I got some fish for my room. It's not as unrelated as it could be. Spongebob takes place in the sea, and..fish live there. 

I named the fish Artemis and Apollo. They're cute and a lot smarter than people give fish credit for. Or, at least, than I did at first. I always thought fish had a five second memory (which was only reinforced by Dory in Finding Nemo), but it turns out that Google claims that they have a memory that can actually last up to 5 months or more. I put a lot of stock in what Google tells me, so I'm going to think of that as a confirmed fact. Not to mention the fact that my fish seem pretty aware of what's going on. They like to play follow the leader around the tank - well. It could just be one being a douche to the other, now that I think of it. I just watched them do it and it turns out that it's the chick chasing the dude around. Kinky. Even though apparently the Glo fish are really hard to breed because they do this thing where they have the eggs, then they eat them from the bottom of the tank. So, I imagine Artemis is just chasing Apollo around the tank because of her innate desire to "rock the casbah", as they say.

I saved this post until later because somehow, it felt unfinished. 

So..now it's 8:19 PM and here's how I'm going to finish it.

On the way to class today, I was walking along and this big wind came by, which made the leaves dance around me. It was just like Pocahontas. ..In my mind.

Which in reality was more like:

Don't judge me. Even though I am giving you plenty of material to use.

If I were to get married, we'd have a disrepairage.

Like I've already sort of gone over in my self-introduction, there are a number of simple household tasks that I have extreme difficulty completing. And this is, usually, not for lack of trying. I would like very much to be a normal, capable adult that never worries about trivial things that have a low probability of happening. But then I find myself wondering if my washing machine is going to blow up because it doesn't have a little place in the middle to pour detergent (like our washer at home does.) and I just poured it straight in. I know that this is okay to do because I have seen many more adept-at-life people doing it (it's especially okay if there's no place designated for the detergent.). And yet, I worry. I worry about things much stupider than that. This is probably because I don't know how to do most things that I consider 'adult'. I didn't know how to use the washer or the dryer until I started attending college last year. Even since learning how to use them, there are still many things I haven't learned. I only very recently asked my mom which water temperature goes with which color of clothing. I don't know anything about detergents or fabric softeners, I don't ever feel comfortable closing my door when the machines are going (because I fear explosions caused by inattention, as if the dryer were a difficult child) and every single, solitary noise the thing makes forces my heart to stop beating for a moment. This is a pain in my ass because washers and dryers are perhaps the loudest appliances there are.

What I'm trying to say here is, of the (admittedly few and mostly useless) things I'm good at, housewifedom is not going to be one of them.

..Not that I plan on being a housewife.

Continuing with the theme that noise frightens the hell out of me - which sprung up naturally as I was typing this, but now realize is a big part of my life - I think that if I were an animal, I'd be some sort of canine. This is not only because we've domesticated the hell out of dogs and they now, for the most part, need our care to survive, (This is an analogy describing myself and my parents, who I had to call to ask if it was okay to set the dishwasher to 'normal'.) but because I trust my senses far more than I should.

A dog can hear sound as high as 40,000 hertz. (Humans can hear up to 20,000 as children, and that decreases as we get older.)
Sitting in my room, no matter how cold it is, I always decide that I need the fan to be on. (The fan is the only machine that I get along with. I love the fan and the fan loves me. Should I get a tattoo that immortalizes the fan? I think..I think I should. These last two sentences explain awfully well why I never let myself get drunk. Because I was sober when I wrote them. I can't imagine what kind of crazy unearthly shit I'd think was a good idea if I were sauced.) When I'm in my apartment, which has air conditioning, I still rely on the fan. I set the thermostat to 69 (heheh.), then I put the fan on setting 2 and I lay under a fuzzy blanket. The blanket, as my mother would say, rightfully belongs under the other covers on my bed, but I take it out and lay on top of the covers. Because I'm a rebel that way. No, but it's really because there is a delicate balance concerning my body and heat. I once tried to do that with another blanket, and it was too fuzzy. It was wrong. Damn, this post is making me seem more complex by the minute. ANYWAY. What I was eventually trying to get around to saying was that the fan, no matter how much I love it, or how low I set it, makes noise. And with that droning noise filling the room, I can no longer hear other things as well as I normally can, but I convince myself, subconsciously (I never actually think, MAN I CAN HEAR LIKE A GOD.) that my hearing is so sensitive that I can hear tiny noises which my mind most likely creates just to trick me. Then I take those nonexistent noises and create stories for what they might be. If I think I hear a little clicking noise, I think, "Maybe someone's trying to pick the lock to my apartment.." or "Maybe my fish have found a way to jump through the little hole in the top of the tank, sprout legs through some form of accelerated evolution, and are attempting to pick the lock and get OUT of my apartment!" When I take into account just how many stories I create for the noises I've also created, I wonder why I haven't been creative enough to allow myself to finish writing an entire book, but I stop wondering why I never get any sleep. 

This personal phenomenon is far worse when I add a larger, more dangerous and less friendly-toward-me machine to the equation.

Dogs have 100 times more smell receptors per square centimeter than humans.
The oven we have at my house is, I suppose, a normal oven, but it is different than the one that my apartment has. In the oven at home, the heating coils are on the top - which, to me, makes sense, because..I envision the heat coming down from the coils and baking whatever I've put into the oven. In the oven at my apartment, the heat comes from the bottom, and, I suppose it swirls around in the oven, cooking it the same way the oven at home does, but to me, this makes less sense. I suppose, in my mind, heat is very constricted, and can only move one way. I don't know how I got to thinking that, but I can't help but find the oven here a little weird. It's this kind of thing that makes me think I might have been a racist in another life. I mean, it was the big thing back then, wasn't it? I have an oven at home that I'm all accustomed to, and then I come to college and use this strange oven that's different with its newfangled ideas and consequently find it weird and frightening. Get my drift? Good, I don't have to expand on it any more. (That could have been risky, but I'm going to leave it in. This blog is getting pretty edgy.)
Anyway, because I'm so freaked out by this oven which is new to me (it takes me years to trust these machines.) not only do I check on it constantly, but I take anything I smell as a bad sign. Even when the smell has a decidedly food-ish scent. Even when it smells exactly like the food I am cooking and is perhaps, for that reason, a good sign and not the sign of the cataclysmic oven related apocalypse that I take it for. Just as it does with my ears, my stupid imagination becomes a factor here, creating smells that probably don't exist, and stories to go along with them. Then, in another nightmarish combination, I take the scents and combine them with any sounds the oven might make. Is that cake smell the way burning plastic smells? No, I've got to have smelled burning plastic before..well, maybe not, but I feel like it's known as a very pungent odor..no, no. It's fine. It's just the cake letting me know how good it's going to be. Or maybe it's the cake calling to me for help. "HEY. THIS IS KATE THE CAKE INVADING YOUR NASAL PASSAGE. THIS IS HOW I CALL FOR HELP. COME CHECK ON ME." So I do. I end up checking on the cake about a zillion times. (Or even just glancing over the kitchen partition to see if an inferno has sprung up.) Which is probably why they never rise for me. They barely get any alone time in the oven - I'm sure it's their way of rebelling, the way a teenager might.

The way I compare all my uncooperative machines to misbehaving children should say a lot about the kind of mother I would make.

The other day, one of my room mates took it upon herself to clean the metal parts that go beneath the hot coiling parts on the top of the appliance. (Google was not helpful in coming up with the proper name for those.)

I came into the room and instantly sensed that something was wrong. I looked at the oven and saw that the coils were lying in the white center, completely detached. And the metal parts were gone. This room mate of mine is an adult by my classification. She was able to fearlessly take the oven apart and shove parts of it into the dishwasher. (That's TWO MACHINES, people!) I told myself that she knew what she was doing and let it go. But when the dishes were finished, and  looking at the parts that belonged attached to the oven, I felt..lost and frightened. The assembly seemed as simple as putting the metal plate down into its place, then fixing the coils so they connected to all the parts beneath the metal - so that the heat would travel along the coils properly. In my mind, this seemed as difficult as I imagine building a superconductor would be. (The idea of building something that could make magnets levitate seems like fucking wizardry to me.) I imagined myself struggling to connect coil A to metal part B, causing them to bang and scrape together repeatedly until they sparked a fire as if I were lighting a Bunsen burner. Needless to say I left the parts unassembled until someone else not only decided to do it, but also used the attached pieces to cook something. (Just to make sure it was safe before I tried it myself. I don't foresee much personal accomplishment in the firefighting field.)


Because of the personal idiosyncrasies this post details, I think that my 'marriage pool' is quite limited. It's more like my marriage puddle.

My Ideal Husband:

• Manages to make me laugh pretty much all the damn time.
• Is well read.
• Can kill bugs with a sort of manly ferocity that'd almost be hot if it didn't involve bugs.
• Is good at math and loves doing all math related things so that I never have to fail at them.
• Will let me correct his grammar and spelling without wanting to tear my head off.
• Will play video games with me. Or just watch me play them.
• Doesn't mind having to clean up after me if he wants the house to be clean.
• Is pretty much my best friend but also someone that I can have sex with.
• Isn't too..gooey. None of that PDA stuff.
• Can cook so that I never have to risk burning the house down.
• Will watch horror movies with me.
• Will watch foreign movies with me.
• Will watch foreign horror movies with me.
• Is capable of watching many seasons of a show, one episode after the other, all the way through without a pause.
• Doesn't mind having boisterous, uncensored, inappropriate conversations. 
• Doesn't mind being woken up at all hours of the night by my not-yet-close-to-sleep self, most likely wanting to be taken to get a smoothie. No, a bubble tea.
• Will get me an Amazon gift card if he can't think of a present to get me.
• Won't think it's perhaps a sign of schizophrenia that I speak to inanimate objects. No. He'll think it's cute. He'll like me MORE because of it. I realize I'm asking a lot of this guy. That's why he's nonexistent. 
• Won't give a shit about what a wedding looks like because I sure don't. We could just not get married, I don't care. That makes the potential break up messier and record scarring. 
• Will help me have a makeshift funeral for the lobster I ordered right there at the dinner table because I didn't realize the face would make me want to cry. (RIP Fast Eddie the underwater car salesman.)
• Will eat at Olive Garden with me every night during a vacation to NYC. (If only I was a lesbian, Sameera. If only.)
• Is semi-buff, Korean, and can sing and dance. [Okay, so I'm pressing my luck. But I don't care, I'm leaving it in. I'll just..put it in italics to signify that it's not necessary.]
• Loves animals. (Like, pets. I'm a dog person.)
• Above all, lets me be me. I don't need to be tied down and made to focus only on him and the relationship. I have my own life and he should have his.

It's a good thing that, unlike most women, I'm not focused on finding someone to marry. I mean, God, in places that list just got unbelievably, unrealistically specific. Good luck, possible future men.

AND THE LORD SAID - DON'T CALL ME G.

I understand that the process of shortening names into nicknames for convenience and fun is a practice that has been around as long as I have, and it's likely not going anywhere fast. Despite this, I still think some regulation is in order. Here are the rules that I have thought up to save the officials some time - you're welcome, government.

Nickname Commandment #1
Thou shalt not shorten a name that beith already five letters or less.
Now, this one applies to me personally, and is the inspiration for this entire post. If someone's name is already five letters or less, like 'Emily', I don't think that it needs to be any shorter than that. It shows laziness, that you're not willing to put in the tiny effort necessary for saying my entire name, and it makes me feel like you don't care. Okay, not really - that reason just sounds more plausible. I just think it's a stupid practice. Now, if we have any readers yet, some of you might ask me, "But what about Sameera? She calls you Em sometimes..-points to past posting-" Sameera is, in this case as in all cases when it comes to me, a special circumstance. She has not only known me for going on ten years now, but she is my hetero lifemate, and she can call me whatever the hell she pleases. She has earned that right through ten years of hard labor as my friend. Besides, we've usually got so much to say to each other that the few seconds we shave off saying each others names will probably come in handy. (Honestly, if there's anyone reading this best friend love-fest of a blog, we thank you.) Anyway, that is the exception to this rule, as well as the fourth one. If you have the kind of best friend relationship where you can pretty much do anything with that person, I'm sure this won't matter.
**

Nickname Commandment #2
Thou shalt not shorten a name into something that maketh no sense.
Case and point: Richard = Dick? That's like calling your boat a Poontang because a boat is sometimes called a Schooner and Poon rhymes with Schoon and Tang goes with Poontang naturally and sounds just as inappropriate as Dick.

 

 This leads me to commandment number three.



Nickname Commandment #3
Thou shalt not shorten a name into something thou canst yell in a public forum.

Nickname Commandment #4
Thou shalt not shorten a name without asking first. **
Some people are not okay with being suddenly renamed, so it would be a good idea to ask them before doing so. That way you can avoid that awkward "Please don't call me that." conversation/fight. Not to mention the possibility of renaming someone who is too polite to tell you they don't like it. This just means you'll have earned their silent resentment. I am one of these people, and consequently my name has been shortened into a number of different things.

Nickname Commandment #5
If thou must use nicknames in a relationship, thou shouldn't use them in public.
No matter how you feel about using cutesy nicknames in a relationship, I think it is safe to say that you don't enjoy seeing a couple walking around in public cooing their baby talk to each other. It's fine when you're the one spewing this nonsense, but when you have to listen to someone else do it, suddenly you're more against it than anything else.

Okie doke. The strep throat is getting to me now, so I'm going to go and sleep. I might add more later. I just had to get this up before the illness erased it from my memory.