Tag Archives: Humor

My Mom & The Rogue Hair

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I subscribe to many blogs, and today one of them posted this link to Wisdom Teeth, a short film by Don Hertzfeldt:

Personally, I find this video rather entertaining.  Disturbing and totally random, yes–but enjoyable nonetheless. I am a big fan of off-beat humor and creativity, so I was amused by it.  Make sure you wait for the end to see the odd and somewhat unexpected ending.  (P.S. the Scandinavian accents are completely fake, and the stick figures are actually talking in gibberish–or at least that’s what I read online…).

While this video is entertaining in its own right, I couldn’t help but recall one of my favorite stories of my mother while watching it.

For those of you who are lucky enough to know my mother, you know that she is incredible.  You know that she’s one of the most giving and loving people that you’ll ever meet.  And, most endearingly, you know that she’s adorably crazy.

You could say the apple didn’t fall far from the tree when it comes to my mom and me, as we both tend to get ourselves into the most embarrassingly awkward situations.

For example.

I grew up in a small town in New York.  Everyone knew everyone, and it was a common occurrence to run into someone you knew while running errands.

One day, my mom was shopping at the p.x. (the post exchange, or military catch-all store, for you non-military folks out there) when she ran into our church priest.  He was an older gentleman, and my mom knew him fairly well, as she was quite involved in the church.

As they were visiting, my mom noticed that he had a loose thread hanging on his shirt.  Always the helpful one, she nonchalantly reached up and pulled on the thread during the course of their conversation.  Assuming that the thread would immediately come loose, she was a little surprised when it remained attached to the shirt.  Determined, she kept pulling, while our priest kept talking.  Soon, the priest started smirking, and my mom, feeling embarrassed (yet still pulling), said, “gosh, this thread just won’t come off.”  His response?

“That’s because it’s connected to my chest.”

Realizing that she had just spent the better part of five minutes pulling on a priest’s chest hair in the middle of a store, my mom was understandably mortified.  Luckily, the priest had a sense of humor and all was fine.

I just love that story.

And yes, I realize that it’s a bit of a jump to go from the wisdom teeth video to my mom’s chest-hair pulling incident, but that’s just the way my mind works.

Got Camels?

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The other day I was having a conversation with a friend about pick up lines/conversation starters.  In a dating world where most guys can’t do better than something along the lines of the cheesy “Is heaven missing an angel?,” it’s refreshing when you hear something original and unexpected.

This conversation got me thinking—do I have a go-to conversation starter? My first inclination was to say no, but then tonight I signed onto match (yes, I’m still on that thing–stories to come) and, after reading an e-mail from a nice man, realized that I do indeed have a go-to line of sorts: my beer drinking camels.

You see, I come from quite the eccentric family, and among our various claims to fame is the fact that we own beer drinking camels.  Yes, our pet camel lives right smack in the middle of southwestern Oklahoma.  While it’s not common for me to blurt this fact out upon meeting someone, I have found that it proves to be a great conversation starter whenever a great conversation starter is needed (whether it’s during a date, meeting new friends, or telling stories with old friends).

When I was filling out my match profile back in July, I absolutely could not bring myself to create the prototypical profile with things like, “Hi, I’m Erin.  I’m a super genius.  I have a body that’s comparable to a Victoria’s Secret’s model.  I make oodles of money at my incredibly impressive job.  When it comes to homemaking, I’m a perfect mix between Martha Stewart and Betty Crocker.  In my free time, I like to build houses for the homeless while nursing orphaned baby birds back to health.” Because, you know, even though those statements are all completely accurate (haha), I don’t like to be a braggart.

Instead, I opted for a “10 Random Things About Erin” kind of profile in which I tell them 10 things that, while telling them nothing of great significance about me, allow them to get a glimpse into my personality.  Of the 10 things, #3′s “I’ve got two beer drinking camels” gets the most responses by far.  I knew that this would be a good thing to include, of course, because in my “real” life, anytime I bring up my camels, it always brings about a fairly good conversation.  What I didn’t realize was just how much this statement would spark other match-ers curiosity.  (Incidentally, my number #8 random fact involving the way I prefer my toilet paper roll to hang brings in the second highest number of comments, followed closely by my # 6 love of math.)

Just to provide a sampling of the kinds of comments my camels inspire, I’ve copied the camel part of the five most recent e-mails that I’ve received:

I must say I found your list of ten things rather intriguing. I couldn’t help but chuckle about your #8 (this is my toilet paper comment). That’s always been a pet peeve of mine, too! Your #3, of course, obviously begs for follow-up questions, so I guess my first ones are – how in the world did you come about having two camels, and how did you find out they like drinking beer??

Your profile was a very fun read. The 10 random facts was a refreshing read and provides more insight than the usual hollow information from most everybody. At the risk of sounding somewhat gullible, do you really have two camels? I figure the camels are a euphemism for large dogs or some such thing.

Say what? Camels? That’s a hell of a thing to only make #3 on your list. Definitely did a double take on that one. Can you ride them? I guess they have to be sober for that.

Can camels get beer bellies? Do they live with you?

Interesting 10 random things about me list, especially the 2 beer drinking camels.

This last line is the one that came from tonight’s e-mail.  After reading these e-mails, and responding to many of them, I thought it might be time to introduce my camels to the blogosphere.  It breaks my heart to tell you that Curly, our one-hump camel, recently died due to a broken leg and infection (turns out there’s not a lot of vets who specialize in camel infections).  We now only have Clyde, our two-hump camel (he’s been with us the longest), but they’re both so dear to my heart.  Even though Curly’s gone, I want to share pictures and introduce them both.

Without further ado, here’s Curly:

And here’s Clyde (you’ll have to excuse these pictures–they were taken more than 10 years ago!):

That’s my arm holding onto Clyde, by the way.  I would have left the picture uncropped, but I was afraid I’d break the computer.

Anyway, those are my camels!  They’re somewhat famous around these parts.  In fact, they’ve been featured on E!’s show Wildest Weddings.

I’d tell you that story now, but a big pile of gen psych exams is calling my name, so I’m going to get to grading and save that story (as well as the details of my camels) for tomorrow’s post.

Happy 9th Day Before Christmas, Everyone!

Erin


On the Tenth Day before Christmas….

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When I was little, I had a friend who had a big sister who would often promise to do things with us.  ”Sure, I’d love to take you to the movies next week!”  ”The zoo? Why of course!  We’ll have the best time when we get to visit all the animals.”  Then, without fail, every time we’d get our hopes up, the day would come , and she’d suddenly become busy and wouldn’t deliver on her promises.  It always annoyed me, and I swore I would never be like that.  I generally like to think that I’m good for my word, but then I woke up this morning and realized that when it comes to blogging, I’ve turned into the sister full of empty promises.

This revelation causes me great cognitive dissonance, so I’m going to try to rectify the situation by not promising to post a certain number of postings each week anymore and by also delivering on any future promise that I do make.  With that being said (and oh, I will redeem myself), I’m committed to posting every day until Christmas.  Consider me your own personal advent calendar.  Maybe advent is already half over and maybe I don’t provide tiny morsels of chocolate when you punch in my doors, but I’m counting down to Christmas nonetheless.

On this tenth day before Christmas, I’m currently in the throes of finals week.  2 down, 1 left to give. I have piles and piles of grading sitting on my desk, but knowing that in three days I’ll be free from whiny students for a month makes the task of grading seem a little more tolerable. My poor students seem positively exhausted, but they’ve all been in good spirits during their final and have been great sports with my requests for class pictures.  Yes, I’ve made each of my classes gather together for a end-of-the-semester-picture. I think it’s a fun tradition to start, and I know that I’ll truly enjoy looking back at my past classes in years to come.  Overall, I’ve received good feedback from my students, and, as nerdy as this may be, I’m starting to feel the beginning pangs of post-semester depression.  I always get a little sad when the semester’s over, my classes end, and my students leave.  As crazy as they drive me, I really enjoy my students and the relationships we build over the course of a semester. Hopefully I’ll be able to remember this feeling when I get into the middle of next semester, and I’m ready to strangle my students again.

On a completely different note, I had a doctor’s appointment earlier this week, and while there, I realized that there are times when I really should come equipped with a muzzle.  I don’t know what it is about doctors’ offices, but something about the visits makes me nervous, and nervous Erin = blabber mouth Erin (see my previous post about my recent ob/gyn visit for another example).  It’s like I feel like I have to say something, but then whatever comes out sounds strange, so, in an attempt to explain my strange comment, I just keep talking until I’ve made an odd comment seem downright crazy. If I could just learn to stop talking, I might be able to maintain the appearance that I’m practically normal.

Anyway, I’ve been having trouble with my hips, so I went to the doctor hoping to figure out what was wrong.  While there, my doctor ordered a pelvic x-ray for me down the hall.  The nurse brought me a gown and instructed me to take off my pants and put the gown on.  In my Monday morning rush, I hadn’t exactly planned on traipsing around the waiting rooms in nothing but a micro-mini hospital gown and socks, so my already pale legs were looking dry, slightly unshaven, and dressed in knee high purple argyle socks.  I realize that no one probably paid me much attention as people walking around in hospital gowns is a common sight in hospitals, but it still made me feel uneasy.  Whenever I feel uncomfortable in this manner, I have the irresistible urge to tell everyone within hearing distance why I’m dressed/acting/whatever the way I am (e.g. after I fell on my face in Rome and came back to the states with a huge healing wound on my nose, I told literally every single person that I came into contact with that it wasn’t a monster zit or a some weird disease, but that I’m a klutz and had fallen on my face.  The looks on their faces told me this was not something that the local grocers or postal workers needed nor wanted to know, yet I continued to tell everyone until my nose completely healed).

But back to Monday. As I sat waiting for my turn, I informed all those sitting next to me that I was waiting to get an x-ray (because, you know, the fact that I was sitting outside of the x-ray room in a gown didn’t clue them in).  I continued to tell them why I was there and the duration of my hip issues.  I’m certain they enjoyed the play-by-play of my recurring pain.

My name was finally called, and a young (as in too young for me) male x-ray technician got me situated on the table.  As he was setting up the machine, he asked me if there was any chance that I was pregnant.  That seemingly innocent question spurred the following conversation:

Erin: Oh no, definitely not pregnant.

Technician (sort of smirking at my emphasis): Definitely not, huh?

E: Nope, definitely not!  (This is the point where I should have stopped talking.  But no, I kept right on going…)

E: Unfortunately. Well, not unfortunately that I’m not pregnant, because though I one day want kids, I don’t want them right now. More unfortunately  because it’s sort of a sad state of affairs that I know for certain that there’s absolutely no chance I’m pregnant because, you know, I’m alone and not dating anyone.  But not that I can’t get a date, I can, it’s just that I’m picky and busy, and well, yeah.

Cue a blank incredulous stare from the technician.

Though embarrassing, I’m grateful he gave me a look that told me I was acting insane or else I might have kept going.

I like to believe that moments like this will be embarrassing enough to stop me from doing similar things in the future, but given that I’ve had many, many of these moments in the past, I’m starting to think I might be a lost cause.

Unfortunately, my humiliation didn’t end there.  As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a rule following people pleaser, so when someone tells me to do something, I do it and do it well.  The technician needed a total of four x-rays, and before the first one he instructed me to lay with my toes facing inward towards each other.  I did as I was told, and he took the first picture.  He took out the x-ray and went back to the little side room and started doing his thing for the next 4-5 minutes.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve had the opportunity to lay on your back and hold your feet inwards so your big toes touch, but after about a minute, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep that pose.  He hadn’t told me to release my pose, so when he came back for picture number two, there I lay: a 30-year-old woman in a super short hospital gown and knee-high socks, toes locked together, and thigh muscles slightly shaking due to the fatigue of holding the pose for so long.  He literally laughed at me and said, “um, you can relax when I’m not taking a picture.”  Thankfully, the rest of the time flew by, and I was able to leave with what remained of my dignity.

The good news is that the x-rays didn’t reveal anything unusual.  The bad news is that I’m probably going to have to find a new doctor again because I don’t think I can handle facing X-ray Technician ever again.

I sometimes have to wonder how a girl who can be so successful in some parts of her life can be so spastic in others.  It’s just one of life’s mysteries, I suppose.

Hope your tenth day before Christmas is providing you with fun times and good stories!  Thanks to those of you who regularly check my blog even though I’ve been erratic in my posting–it means a lot!

Until tomorrow,

Erin

Diego Knows Best*

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How is it already December?  I have no idea what happened to the last three weeks; November absolutely flew by.  The end of the semester is always so busy, and I’ve been running around like a crazy woman trying to get everything wrapped up before Christmas break.  That being said, I’ve pushed my blog down to the bottom of my priority list.  I’ll work on that…

I’m working on my lecture for tomorrow’s class, so I don’t have much time for a “real” post, but I wanted to post something so that those of you who are still checking my little blog know that I’m still alive and still posting.  I’ll work on getting a longer post up later this week.

In the mean time, I’ll leave with you a mini story from yesterday:

I am in the bad habit of taking my clean clothes out of the dryer and laying them neatly on my couch until I have time to fold them.  When things are calm, I can be quite on top of things, folding and putting away the laundry almost immediately.  When life gets busy, however, my pile of clean clothes can stack up quite a bit.  Given that I live alone, it’s not that big of a deal, though I definitely prefer when I get it done right away.  That being said, it drives my friend Diego crazy. For the last couple of years, he’s been on my case about putting my laundry up as soon as I take it out of the dryer.  He’s an impressive immediate folder-and-put-awayer himself, so he just doesn’t understand how I can leave my clean laundry piled (neatly) up.  He gets on my case about it a lot, but I tend to just blow him off and happily go about my life.

Well, (and it pains me to write this), it turns out I should have listened to Diego.

As I said at the beginning of this post, the last few weeks have been busy. I can hardly see myself coming or going, and I’ve let many things, including my laundry, sort of slide to the wayside.  As a result, I have huge pile of clean laundry (some folded, some neatly stacked) sitting on a chair in my living room–the same chair that I often unload my bags onto when I get home from work.  This system of taking what I need from the chair when I need them has been working for me, and I’ve been in no hurry to put the clothes away.

That is, I was in no hurry to put the clothes away until yesterday.

You see, yesterday, for the first time in a couple of weeks, I popped out of bed in the morning and really felt like I had it together.  I got up a little earlier than usual, I made breakfast, picked up my living room, graded some papers, and ran an errand all before work. In addition, I was having a “cute” day, and I was feeling pretty smart.

I grabbed my bags, left my apartment, waved hello to the lawn care people, smiled at a teenage kid walking by, and said hi to a neighbor.  I ran my errand, drove to work, and parked my car.  As I was sauntering up to my office, I was feeling pretty with it.  This was going to be a good day, I thought to myself.  It was at the exact moment that this thought was running through my head that I caught sight of something unusual on my bag.  I looked down only to discover that I had been walking around all morning with a pair of clean underwear stuck to the outside of my bag.

Oh, Erin.

Thankfully, I found it before I actually made it into my office or walked in view of any students.  Unfortunately, I had been out and about waving and smiling at random strangers all morning.  I suppose that might explain the look the teenage kid gave me or the big goofy smile I received from one of the lawn care guys.

Feeling humiliated, I told Diego about the situation, and instead of the sweet compassion I was looking for, he just said that maybe if I would put away my laundry immediately, I wouldn’t have to worry about these kinds of situations happening.  I don’t know what’s worse: the fact that I flaunted my panties to the world or the fact that I gave Diego the satisfaction of saying “I told you so.”

Stupid static cling.

I’ve since put the clothes away and promised myself that all future departures from my apartment will include a thorough check for any and all stray panties.

Anyway, hope you all are having a good week!  Check back soon for another new post.

*I’d like to note that Diego may know best about the folding laundry timeline, but I refuse to make a public proclamation that he knows best about anything else. :)

I’m Unique!

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Okay, so many of you have already heard this story, as it’s one of my favorite stories to tell, and I’ve posted it before on a different blog a few years ago.  I don’t want to get in the habit of reposting stories, but I just remembered another highlight of my last few days, and this story provides the background.

Between my junior and senior years of college, I got a job working as a summer camp counselor for the YMCA. I was actually labeled the “Co-director” for the off-site camp, so I worked with about 30 kids aged 5-13 every day. It was one of my more interesting jobs, as these were all under-privileged kids and some of them were pretty rough. Anyway, one of my little five year olds was named Imunique. Yes, you read correctly–Imunique (oh, parents). She was a sweet little girl, and I became quite fond of her.

On Mondays-Thursdays, we stayed at our little off-site camp, never really interacting with the other campers or counselors who were stationed at the YMCA. On Fridays, though, we always joined the others at Lake LETRA, a little lake at Fort Sill. Even though we were with everyone else, we still sort of stayed within our own little group, as we didn’t know the names of the other campers, and they didn’t know us.

One day when we were out at LETRA, it was time to pack up, and I was trying to round up all of our campers. I looked out and saw a few of my kiddos, including Imunique, playing over by the slide in the water. I also happened to notice a very cute camp counselor standing right next to me. As I said, I didn’t know him (he worked at the other site), and he didn’t know anything about me. Anyway, needing to get my kids to come in for the day, I stepped out to the water’s edge (right next to him) and yelled:

“IMUNIQUE! IMUNIQUE!!”

I will never forget the face he gave me as I turned around. It was a face that practically shouted, “you are unique. And weird–yelling ‘I’m Unique!’ to the whole world.”

Needless to say, he didn’t ask for my number.

Like I said, I love this story, and it makes me laugh every time I tell it, because I can still clearly see the camp counselor’s face in my mind.  This makes my shopping find this weekend stand out as one of the highlights of my week.  My mom and my aunt were in town visiting, and we spent a lot of time shopping.  One of our stops was at the local Kohl’s.  As I was browsing the store’s inventory, my eyes immediately stopped on this:

Does it get any better? Obviously I had no choice but to buy this shirt.  Too fun.

If You Wanna Be Happy For the Rest of Your Life

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Today as I was driving to work, Jimmy Soul’s song “If You Wanna Be Happy” came on the radio.  I immediately had flashbacks to high school when I, along with a few of my friends, went through a phase when we would listen to mostly ”oldies” music.  I, in particular, was a fan of the Jimmy Soul song, and I remember singing it more than once around my group of friends.  I have no idea why I endorsed that song with such enthusiasm, especially since it’s chorus maintains that “if you want to be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife, so from my personal point of view, get an ugly girl to marry you.”  Regardless of the reasons behind it, I enjoyed the song and sang it (along with many other equally awesome golden oldies) quite often.  Which made me wonder….

…how in the world did I have so many friends in high school?

I mean, I was not your ordinary, cool student.  Heck, I wasn’t even your ordinary, uncool student.  I was just uniquely me, and I just did whatever made me happy.  Even if what made me happy was singing to my guy friends about making ugly women their wives (which, by the way, annoyed me even then because I could never figure out if I should imagine myself as the pretty woman who the guy shouldn’t marry or the ugly girl he should chase after.  Thinking about it now, however, I’m going to take the fact that I’m still single as proof that I’ve always been the pretty woman.  Haha.).

Despite my inherent dorkiness, however, I always had lots of friends.  And not just any friends–amazing friends from all walks of life and made up of all different personalities.  Looking back, one of the best things about my friends was not that they put up with my insanity, but that they often times encouraged it or joined in on the crazy.

For example, today’s trip down memory lane reminded me of the many times that my high school best friend and I would cruise around town in my little red car with the windows down and the sunroof open.  “But, Erin,” you might be thinking, “lots of high school students cruised around town with their windows and sunroof open.”  Yes, you are correct.  But did lots of high school students blare “The Hokey Pokey” through the speakers, sticking their right arms out of the sunroof when “you put your right arm out?”  I feel it’s a pretty safe bet to say no, they did not.  But Melissa and I did.  And we would laugh hysterically and have the best time.

Similarly, there was a group of us (guys and girls) who went to lunch together pretty much every day our senior year.  This was around the same time that Jewel’s song “Foolish Games” became popular.  I don’t remember why or how it started, but that song became sort of the theme for our lunch-time adventures.  We’d all jump in the car, pop in Jewel’s cd, and sing “Foolish Games.”  At the top of our lungs.  Every day.  We loved every minute of it.

Again, how was it that we were fairly popular in high school?

The song ended just about the time I was pulling into my work parking lot, and as I parked, I felt a ping of sadness at the thought that my carefree days of spontaneous dancing/singing with friends might be behind me.  Oh to be a kid again, I thought to myself.

And then I had a flashback to this past weekend.

I was in Norman for Calico’s 30th birthday, and on Saturday night, Calico, Diego, and I were all sitting around watching football.  A little bit earlier in the evening, we had muted the TV  and started streaming some Halloween songs on the computer to make gourd-carving a little more festive.  The carving was now well behind us, but the music was still playing.  We each had our respective computers in front of us and were not paying much attention to each other when “The Monster Mash” came on the radio.  Without really needing to take time to discuss the situation with each other, we all stopped what we were doing, stood up, and broke out into the best mini-monster-mash-dance-party you ever did see.  After the song was over, we sat back down and continued our night as usual. It was pretty awesome.

Remembering that, I realized that no matter how old I get, I never have to stop breaking out into spontaneous song or dance. That thought makes me happy.  Perhaps Jimmy Soul was wrong, and it’s not getting an ugly wife that will make you happy for the rest of your life.  Instead, maybe the secret to life-long happiness is letting loose, enjoying those you’re with, and finding the fun in every day situations.

Then again, my ex-boyfriend went and got himself an ugly wife, and I hear he’s pretty happy these days.

Halloween

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Halloween’s this weekend, and my Facebook newsfeed is full of updates about the exciting costumes that everyone’s putting together for Halloween parties and adventures.  Again and again I hear friends make mention of the fact that Halloween is their favorite holiday, and often times their costume-preparation starts weeks in advance.

While I don’t dislike Halloween, I do not share this unbridled enthusiasm for dressing up and for celebrating this holiday.  Don’t get me wrong, as a child I lived for a night of trick-or-treating with friends.  As an adult, I’ve loved living in places where little kids come trick-or-treating at my door, and I get to ooh and aah over the pretty princesses or cower in fear at the sight of the swamp monsters.  I’m also fairly certain that when I one day have kids of my own, I’ll be as passionate about adorable children’s costumes as the next person, and Halloween will once again become an exciting holiday for me.  At this point in my life, however, my excitement for Halloween is limited to the constant availability of bite-size candy and the opportunity to spend an evening with some of my best friends listening to the monster mash while carving gourds.

So why am I somewhat indifferent to this spooky holiday?  Well, I can’t say for sure, but I have a feeling that it may be due to my childhood costume experiences.  You see, while my childhood was pretty dang spectacular and my parents made every effort to give us a great life, they may have been a little lacking in the Halloween costume department.

While other kids were decked out in costumes resembling superheroes, witches, or cartoon characters, I was generally decked out in random clothing items pulled straight from my mother’s dresser drawers and accessorized with random finds from the family linen closet. Case in point: the other day I was looking through old photo albums and came across a picture from Halloween 1986.  All of the kids in my neighborhood were gathered together for a group picture.  There was my friend Nancy who dressed up as Rainbow Brite in a head-to-toe commercially made costume.  Then there were the two little girls from across the street who were dressed up as Dorothy and the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz. I’m pretty sure their mom made their costumes, and she made sure that not a detail was amiss.  The rest of the neighborhood kids had on various masks and were dressed up as monsters, skeletons, or princesses.  And then there was me.  To this day, I’m not quite sure who I was trying to be, but I’m thinking that my mom and I decided that I would be an angel.  I stood tall among the other kids wearing an old red shirt of my mom’s with a random scarf slung around the waist.  The shirt came down to my knees, so I guess it was a dress of sorts?  The outfit was made complete with some homemade angel wings and a magical wand made out of a hanger and a pipe cleaner.

The next year I wanted to go as a rock star, so my mom gathered my hair into a side ponytail, hairsprayed in some glitter, put me in one of her more colorful sweaters, and sent me on my way.  What a rockstar!  A few years later, I hit the streets wearing a random ugly man mask (which we must have found somewhere, because I’m pretty sure we never bought it) and draped in my dad’s army blanket.  I’m not sure what look I was going for with that outfit, but if it was of an uncreative dorky girl, I’d say I pretty much nailed it.  The year I went as a witch, I think we actually did buy me a real mask, but, again, I dressed in one of my mom’s black shirts.

My mother/linen/paper look didn’t end with trick-or-treating either.  Oh no—it seeped into my school activities as well.  In my Catholic school, we didn’t celebrate Halloween.  Instead, we celebrated All Saints Day (Nov. 1) by dressing up as our favorite saints. I’m pretty sure I went as Mary every year.  My mom wrapped me in a blue sheet and put a blue towel over my head.  I think one year we went a little crazy and switched it up a bit with a white towel instead of a blue one.  I don’t even think we secured it with anything; I’m pretty sure we literally just draped it over my head.  To be fair, dressing up as a saint doesn’t leave much room for super-exciting costumes, but I do remember that many of my classmates went a little further than a sheet/towel combo in their choice of outfits.  For example, there was one classmate that came as St. Joan of Arc wearing full body armor and carrying an awesome shield.  Another classmate came as St. Patrick and wore a green robe and carried a giant staff.  Another was St. Francis of Assisi and wore a friar’s robe and carried around a bunch of stuffed animals.  Me, though, I just showed up year after year in my sheet.

Despite my less-than-stellar costumes, I always ended up having a great time on Halloween, and I never really noticed that my costumes were rather lacking.  I mean, I was the girl who went through a phase in which I repeatedly wore an oversized sweatshirt, tights, and patent leather shoes as an outfit because I thought I looked absolutely adorable in my homemade sweatshirt dress (which, as a family picture will attest, had a huge picture of Garfield covering the front).  And I was also the girl who, despite waking up at times with crazy tangles in my hair, only brushed the front of her hair because “no one could see the back.”  Talk about the inability to see another’s perspective.

Not noticing that my costumes were somewhat lacking, however, did not mean that I spent all of October quaking with anticipation at the thought of dressing up on Halloween night.  No, for me, it was always about a fun night with friends and never about the costumes.  And so, as everyone else gets all dolled up in their creative and crazy costumes this weekend, I plan on having a great costume-free evening with friends.

Although, now that I think about it, my mom did accidentally leave a shirt here the last time she visited, and my linen closet is filled to the brim with towels and sheets, so maybe I’ll dress up after all.

You Better Check Yourself

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This month is breast cancer awareness month.  People everywhere are wearing their pink to show support for breast cancer survivers and sufferers, as well as to remind women to be proactive in their fight against breast cancer by engaging in regular self-examinations and mammograms.  This is an incredibly important issue, and one that is dear to my heart, as my childhood best friend’s mother passed away five years ago from breast cancer.  It’s an important concern, and I believe that everyone should support the cause any way they can.

That being said, I hold breast cancer awareness responsible for one of my most embarrassing  moments of the last year (I have to qualify that, because I’ve had a lot of most embarrassing moments in my lifetime).

I can be a bit of a hypochondriac (thank you, Dad), and I am (and always have been) a  hard and fast rule-follower.  Taken separately, these characteristics can be amusing and somewhat obnoxious, but fairly easy to handle.  Taken together, I turn slightly obsessive in my fight against all possible medical conditions.  As a result, when I heard that women should perform self-examinations regularly, I took it to heart.  I’ve always been a girl who likes to do well on her exams, but an exam that can lead to better physical health and to early detection?  This is the kind of exam that I aim to ace. 

And so, for the last several years, I did my part and engaged in self -examinations.  Regularly. With great passion and enthusiasm.  If there was a cancerous cell lurking in my body, I aimed to find it.  Just like the ads and the doctors and the women in my life told me to do.  

Not terribly long ago, it was time for my latest annual exam (sorry, guys, I know this post is a little lady-heavy).   These appointments are the worst.  I absolutely dread them, and they’re always just so awkward.  For me, the worst part is the breast exam, because it’s the only part of the visit when you’re in a compromising position and actually have to look the doctor in the eye.  This particular visit was the first time I had ever seen this doctor, so my discomfort level was alrady increased.  Luckily for me, he had a great sense of humor (which I respond well too), so I felt a little more relaxed and settled back in my chair waiting for the exam to begin.

In the course of our conversation, he asked if I was married or single, and I said single, and we talked about the plight of the single girl.  It finally came time for the breast exam, and as he was doing his thing, he asked me if I ever give myself self-exams, stating the importance of engaging in that behavior.  Always aiming to please and pass my exams, I said with much enthusiasm, “Of course I do!  Regularly!”  Just like the ads instruct.  I’m such a good woman.

“How often is regularly,” he asked me. 

“Every morning when I take a shower,” I responded, feeling a little smug that I was such a go-getter and overachiever. 

My smugness sooned turned into humiliation, however, as the doctor immediately stopped the examination, looked me in the eye and said, “Really? Every day?’ “Yep!”  “Erin, you’re only supposed to do it once a month.  Otherwise you aren’t always able to tell a difference. Promise me that from now on, you’ll stop examining yourself everyday.”

Oh the horror. I hope you never have to experience the mortification of having to hear your ob/gyn tell you to stop feeling yourself up on a daily basis.  I can tell you from personal experience that it does some major damage to your self-coolness factor.  My face turned bright red, and I made some lame joke about getting cheap thrills anyway you can (way to make it worse, Erin!), and then promised that I would limit myself to one time a month. 

You’ll be proud to know that so far, I’ve be successful in this attempt.

While I have a few other stories related to breast exams up my sleeves, I can feel my parents and close friends cringing at the fact that I just posted a story about an ob/gyn visit and my zeal for self breast examinations, so I better save those for a different time. 

In the meantime and in honor of breast cancer awareness month, I’d just like to take this opportunity to  remind you ladies (and to tell you fellows to remind those ladies in your life) to be sure to check yourself regularly.  Just not every day.

Get It On? Let’s Not.

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Do you remember when you were little, and you’d do something stupid and your parents would sit you down and tell you that a wise girl thinks before she acts?

It turns out that I didn’t learn that lesson very well.

While there are many, many stories that provide evidence for this fact, the most recent involves a match.com date I went on a few weeks ago.  Yes, after my recent move to my new big city, I decided that maybe internet dating would open my world to the plethora of tall, dark, and handsome bachelors that I was certain existed around every corner of my new city, just waiting for me to log on and create a profile.  Unfortunately for my love life, but fortunately for my blog life, so far all that I’ve experienced have been dating doozies rather than dating dreams.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I went on a date with a guy that I had been e-mailing for a few weeks.  Let’s call him Goofus.  (Sidenote: do you remember the comic strip Goofus and Gallant in Highlights magazine?  Man, I loved reading that as a kid.  If you’re not familiar with the strip, it always had two side-by-side pictures in which two boys engaged in a similar task.  Each week, Goofus would demonstrate the incorrect behavior, while Gallant would demonstrate the correct behavior.  Seems to me that I tend to attract the Goofuses of the world, while I’m searching for my Gallant. But enough of my random side thoughts.  Back to my date).

So, Goofus and I had been e-mailing back and forth for awhile.  To be honest, I wasn’t sure we would be a match in the romantic sense, but he seemed like someone who could make a good friend.  He seemed pretty funny and like a fairly nice guy.  So when he asked if he could take me out, I happily said yes.

We had a nice dinner at a cute little hole-in-the-wall restaurant, and conversation flowed nicely.  During dinner, we talked about match and our experiences thus far.  While he was a nice guy and I had a nice dinner, it became clear that we might not be a perfect match. Realizing this, I blurted out something about how I was really only on match to meet new people in this big city (which is actually quite true) when he asked me what I hoped to get out of my match experience.  He seemed to understand and even agreed with me that sometimes two people are just better suited for friendship rather than for romance.

Those of you who know me well know that I am in no way, shape, or form a girl who can easily tell a guy that I’m just not that into him. Just thinking about having that conversation makes my stomach scrunch up in knots.  As a result, I often do whatever I can to avoid those actual words, and often times I come up with excuses or subtle hints in the hopes that the guy will catch on.

Those of you who know guys well know that they never catch on.  They need the words, or else you end up with stage 5 clingers who text you every day to check on you despite the fact that you haven’t responded to a text message in over a month.

This is why, on my date with Goofus, I felt exceptionally proud of myself for stating clearly that I was only on match for friendship.  ”Yay, Erin!,” I thought to myself.  Like I said before, from my perspective it appeared that Goofus and I were on the same page.  This made me happy, and I thought that maybe my match.com-for-cool-friends plan had actually worked.  A happy Erin is an unguarded Erin, so when he asked me if I’d like to go next door for a drink, I said of course!  Afterall, even though neither one of us actually said, “Hey Goofus/Erin, even though you’re a great person and I’m sure you’ll make someone very, very happy, I’m just not that into you,” we did say that we wanted to make new friends, and in my mind that was saying virtually the same thing.

Unfortunately for me (and I suppose for Goofus, too), what was in my mind did not quite match up with what was in his mind.

I just didn’t quite know that yet.

So, there I was, a newly-friended girl having a nice evening with a nice boy, not worrying at all that maybe he thought things were going to progress to a level that I was in no way going to let happen.  Once we were settled in the 70s-styled bar with beers in hands, Goofus told me that he wanted me to go pick a few songs to play on the jukebox.  He told me it was a test of sorts, to see what kinds of musical taste his dates have when they’re only given limited options.

Not one to back down to a challenge, I skipped over to the jukebox, money in hand, ready to show him that I am a bit of what one might consider a musical connoisseur.  Haha, not really, but as I flipped through the 5 pages of available cds, I did think to myself that I was just going to choose any song that caught my eye that I genuinely loved.  I wasn’t going to worry about whether it was cool or lame, because, again, who was I trying to impress? I was just having a beer with my new friend Goofus.

It is at this point in the story where I wish beyond wishes that I would have learned the think before you act lesson, for my first musical song choice proved to be a turning point in the mood of the night.  As I flipped to page two, my eyes immediately honed in on a song that I listen to and sing fairly often (judge if you will, haha) and truly love.  Without thinking, I put in my dollar, typed in song choice 0301, and started looking for my second song choice.  Standing over the jukebox and searching for my next song, I heard the music begin, and soon Marvin Gaye’s soulful voice filled every corner of the stale-aired room.

Yes, friends, in a moment of utter only-Erin-would-make-this-mistake stupidity, I picked “Let’s Get It On” as my first song choice.

Now, I’m sure that most of you have enough sense to realize what kind of message this might send to a date.  But on the chance that some of you leave your common sense hats at home when you go on dates (like I clearly do), let me spell it out for you. If you are not interested in a guy, it’s probably not a wise choice to play ‘Let’s Get It On’ for him on your first date.

By the time I realized what I had just done, it was too late.  Goofus had snuck up behind me and put his hands on my back, excitedly telling me that I sure do make “aggressive song choices.”  I went into panic mode rapidly explaining that I was definitely not trying to send a message, but that I merely liked the song, and that I like it more for the way it sounds than for what it says (which is true!).  Goofus just laughed and said that he likes my aggressiveness.  Clearly he was a lost cause as he was in no way listening to what I was saying.

Not quite sure what to do, I decided to escape to the bathroom in hopes that some magical bathroom fairy might swoop down and save me.  One did not, and so I had to once again go back out into the bar. We had been sitting catty-cornered to each other, with me in a chair and him on the adjacent couch, but when I came out of the bathroom, he had moved  down so that now there was a big empty space between him and end of the couch.

Seeing that he had an arm around the empty space and being the considerate girl that I am, I kindly took my original seat in the chair.  I naturally didn’t want to interrupt what appeared to be a private moment between him and his imaginary friend.

You can probably imagine how awkward the situation had now become.  I had just played “Let’s Get It On.”  Goofus had moved over and draped his arm around the couch in anticipation of me coming back from the bathroom to begin my song-promise of getting it on.  I ignored this fact and sat back in my original chair, leaving a gaping hole between us.  Awkward.

I did my best to continue conversation as normal as possible (“So, um, how about those football quarterbacks? Looking good, huh?” “I like pizza.  It tastes good.  What about you?”).  He finally interrupted my crazy rambling and told me to move over on the couch with him because it was too far for us to lean forward and try to hear each other.  I did, because, if you’ll remember, I’m not good at saying “no, thank you, I’m not interested”.  As we’re sitting there (with his arm still draped on the couch behind me), he decides we should play the first-date question game (as in, “so, Erin, tell me what your expectations are for tonight and for me.”  I hate this game.  No metacognition on a first date for me.).  After I said something stupid and evaded answering the question, he leaned in for a kiss.  Oh no.  I start panicking at this point.

Most normal people might stop here and say that they are just not interested in the other person or suddenly remember an important morning meeting and make a fast exit, but I am far from normal.  And so, I made the situation worse by pulling back and giggling an exceptionally uncomfortable giggle.  I can’t help it, it’s what I do when I’m uncomfortable.  Goofus mistook my giggle for excitement and tried to go in for another kiss.  I pulled back and started spouting out every excuse I could come up with (“Um, I don’t kiss on the first date.”  ”I’m not comfortable with PDA.” “I haven’t brushed my teeth since we ate that garlic dish at dinner.” “Jesus appeared to me in the bathroom and told me that every time I kiss a guy, an angel dies, and as a result I’ve suddenly taken up celibacy.” Okay, so I didn’t say the last one, but you get the picture).

I underestimated Goofus’ persistence as he kept trying to lean in for a kiss.  Finally he said that if I wasn’t comfortable kissing, then would I please let him give me a shoulder massage, as he has “masterful hands from years of trumpet playing.”  Thinking that this would at least allow me to turn away from him, I agreed.  Meanwhile, I had downed my beer in hopes that we could get out of there sooner, while he had taken maybe two sips.  I literally kept telling him to drink faster and finish his beer.  He just laughed and said that beers are meant to be enjoyed, not downed.

He’s clearly never been on a date in which he played Let’s Get It On for a girl he didn’t like.  In those situations, beers are most definitely meant to be downed.

As he started massaging my shoulders, I stared off into space, creating my escape plan.  I was just in the middle of telling him that I really needed to get going soon because I had an early day the next morning when all of a sudden he leaned in for a surprise earlobe attack.  I don’t know about you, but I am not a fan of tongues in my ear.  Not when I like you, not when I don’t like you, and definitely not when you sneakily tongue my ear from behind.

I whipped back around, told him again to finish his beer,and said that I had to go home and go to bed.  He smiled and told me it was cute that I got so shy when I liked a guy.  In retrospect, I have to give him credit for his ability to spin everything I said into something that was in his favor.  Oh, Goofus.

The night couldn’t have ended more awkwardly, as I once again attempted to evade his kisses by quickly pulling away from his embrace and quickly opening up my car door.  He told me that I should really start enjoying the moment and stop making my kisses so short. I needed to learn to kiss longer, according to Goofus. I told him thanks for the advice, but I had to go.  I jumped in the car and headed home.

We haven’t been out since.  He was a nice enough guy, but he just wasn’t right for me.  Though neither a love match nor a friendship evolved from our date, at least it taught me to stop and think about the situation I’m in the next time I decide to indulge my love of Marvin Gaye.