Whoa. I'm Not Eating That Ever, Ever, Ever Again.

There I was, eating a fruit cup of what I thought was mostly oranges, and in no way resembling a small child eating lunch on the playground while swinging their legs back and forth on one of those green plastic-coated-metal picnic tables, when suddenly! A wild grapefruit piece appears.

Not paying that much attention, as is typical of my afternoon-snacking attention span, I speared it with my majestic plastic spork, popped it in my waiting mouth, and was thoroughly disgusted by the grapefruity grossness that immediately impaled all my senses on a burning, sad, relentless taste-ride of horribleness. A fact that I'd long forgotten came suddenly to the forefront of my still-mildly-terrorized-by-grapefruit mind. I hate grapefruit! And the juice it rides in on!

I was a mildly picky eater as a child. My mother is an insanely picky eater. Actually, I take that back. She really isn't that picky in WHAT she eats, so much as HOW she eats it. Imagine this: The setting? A typical American restaurant chain in suburbia. The time: I don't know. Who cares! Obviously near or at a typical mealtime! Jeez, what's with the 20 questions? The woman: Middle-aged mother, tough but fair, a teacher, a reader, a crazy-funny person who prefers to wear socks with sandals because she says her feet get cold, but won't wear regular shoes.

Her order: "I'll just take a salad. What comes on that?" *listens intently, may or may not ask for a repeat of all or portions of the list* "Hmmm...ok. I want extra tomatoes, no cheese, light on the cucumber, make sure there's no pepper on that! And no meat. Also, I'd like extra dressing. On the side. Oh! And I'd also like some carrot curls. And the sweetest, most impossibly sweet tea you have. And even when you think it cannot possibly get ANY SWEETER, I'd like some extra sweetener on the side." (I totally just wrote that from memory, and is mostly not made up. I have heard this woman order at restaurants about a bajillion times.)

So, I do not order like that. But, I was a picky eater. No matter where we went, I could find something I liked, but I didn't really branch out much. I was thoroughly against trying new things, especially if they looked at all "icky" or texturally weird. Perfect example: I don't eat cottage cheese. At all. Never have, never will. I can't get past the lumpy-smooth-cellulite-y texture of it. It just looks gross!

So, now that I am an adult, and especially since I live in the mecca for a ton of different food choices, I have been trying things that I didn't like or wouldn't eat as a child. The good news: I now adore scallops in any way, crab meat (but not the whole crab, eww!), edamame, peanut sauce, asparagus, and a lot more. Bad news: trying some of it makes me nervous because of things like that stupid grapefruit. It was so incredibly terrible and committed food-terrorism on my palate that I STILL have an aftertaste of it, 20 minutes later. Stupid grapefruit. Hmph. 

Food I still hate, but at least I have the actual, legitimate reason of "I actually ingested some of it and still detest its icky grossness": raw tomatoes, snap peas, any squash that isn't specifically butternut (lol. awesome word), mussels, and onions. I know, everyone likes onions. But I just can't stand to be happily eating something and suddenly crunch into an intense onion. Ugh.

This entire story was to make one thing clear: it is absolutely, unequivically, irrevocably true that grapefruit, no matter the color or race, no matter where they are from or what they want out of their tiny grapefruity lives, are terrible. However, I do not paint all fruit with the same brush! Oh, no. In fact, I love most fruits! It is just that misleading jerk, the grapefruit, that I will never love. YOU WILL NEVER HAVE MY LOVE, GRAPEFRUIT! No amount of pleading, love notes, songs written to me, or poetry will ever change my mind. We are THROUGH!

A Sudden & Startling Turn Into Serious Jyssica On Politics For A Second

Our country is moving backwards in trying to establish new ideals. The founding fathers of the United States of America based this country on religious freedom, freedom from oppression, and the basic separation of church and state. We are now doing everything in our power to make sure that the US is a Christian police state, teaching Creationism in public schools, and allowing the military to legally detain American citizens indefinitely with no proof of doing anything wrong.

Texas recently passed a law that Creationism be taught alongside evolution in schools. One is religious, the other is science. As Texas is one of the largest order-ers of textbooks in the country, textbook manufacturers likely won’t have multiple versions of the same edition of books, and your child in Tennessee or Iowa may soon be learning Creationism in public school as well--regardless of your religious beliefs or non-beliefs, or your state’s current curriculum. I don't actually care what your religion is, but I don't want whatever you believe to be shoved down my theoretical child's throat.

I have long considered running for political office. Not because I care about politics, but because I care about people and the state of our country,and what we are becoming. But then I get seized by the question...would I genuinely be able to make a difference? Or would my hands be tied by the office I hold, by the laws I’d be swearing to uphold, and by the people whom I would be governing? How many of our nation’s current politicians started out as starry-eyed young people believing they could truly make a difference?

Why is it that a young woman, not particularly politically-inclined, no smarter or more dumb than any other average 25-year-old with a college education from the US public school system can see so clearly the things that should be most important in our country today?

Unemployment is sky-high, poverty levels are rising, people all over the country are deep in debt, losing their homes, and what is being done about it?

We are what will be studied in history books for generations.

How will we be remembered in history? As the highest unemployment rates since the Great Depression? As the ones who destroyed our nation’s economy fighting wars many of Americans didn’t want or agree with, in countries we shouldn’t have been in, staying long after those countries have asked us to leave? As the generation pushing back women’s rights, less than a century after we finally allowed them the legal right to vote for our nation’s leaders? Pushing back on human rights, so slow to recognize that gay or straight, all human beings deserve equality. As an increasingly intolerant nation, blaming whole races and ethnicities for the atrocities of a few zealots? Perhaps as the generation that allowed religion back into schools, but only the religion that legislators agreed was appropriate to teach?

Why do people even talk about abortion anymore? As of now, it is still legal, LET IT GO. Until Roe v. Wade is overturned, it’s a waste of time to be discussing it every time someone needs an incendiary or conservative platform. If you’re going to start putting conditions on what women can do with their bodies medically, then I demand that restrictions be placed on men wanting Viagra, Cialis, and vasectomies. These are things that men do, and no one in legislation is trying to require a prostate exam before getting them, or that insurance companies shouldn’t cover it, and it should be brought up as a perfectly parallel argument to the one currently going on in Virginia right now.

I don’t know about you, but I will NOT be remembered as someone who oppresses an entire gender, who hates people based on nothing more than what they look like or where they are from, or someone who forgot that the United State of America is supposed to be based on freedom. Freedom to love, believe, and become anyone and anything.

I leave you with the words our nation uses to welcome everyone who comes into this country.

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
-the Statue of Liberty

To Duckface or Not To Duckface? That shouldn’t even be a question!

There is this phenomenon, a kind of terrible one, of women doing what has been dubbed “the duckface” in pictures of themselves. It’s when you stick your lips out as far as they can possibly go, almost like they are attempting to escape the very reality of your face, and then take a picture of it. As you can imagine from that delightful description, it’s not always attractive. 


Personally, I think it started as maybe blowing a kiss, and then just got extremely out of hand. And for some reason, no one looked at their picture and said “Whoa, I look like my lips are trying to escape and the rest of my face is engaging in an awkward tug-of-war, in which at least one part doesn’t care if the lips go, and the rest is trying realllllly hard to make them stay.” Obviously, I would have said this.

I think I AM dancing. I do like doing that!

Yes. It's pretty accurate. Damn, I am an ARTISTE!

My duck-drawing skills are practically unmatched!

This is for you. Well, maybe not you SPECIFICALLY. But maybe someone you know? Someone you love? Maybe you love them less since they starting resembling Daffy in every picture. But you ONCE loved them, so this is them. Possibly not you. But maybe it IS you and you secretly do it! Do not lie to me!

THIS is what you THINK you look like.

-------------->
And this is what you ACTUALLY look like. This is what everyone else sees, and then immediately questions your sanity. I'm going to be nice and not even talk about the Dorito tan and wonder why she looks so darn surprised. Like "Holy carp! Is that me??" Sure is, kid. Suuuuuuuure is. Sorry.



However, I will admit that long before that was ever called a duckface, women were sticking their lips out. I was sticking my lips out. There, I said it! I stuck my lips out then, and I still sometimes do it now. But it was never a picture-taking-I’m-too-sexy-for-my-lips thing. It’s mah DANCIN’ FACE!

In the picture, I'm dancing to "Straight Up" by Paula Abdul, if that helps you FEEL the drawing.

Randomness And Me In Pictures

<-----This is me. I like to talk things out. Sometimes I just think of an interesting word or phrase, and I need to say it out loud to hear if it sounds as good as it did in my head. Sometimes I'm making a mental to-do list or shopping list, and I say it out loud to better remember. Other times, I simply have a song stuck in my head, and sing it out, in the hopes that it stops being stuck. But, yes, I talk to myself. And laugh. And look like an idiot.

------------------>
This is me on Monday mornings.
And I'm not sure if I can accurately express how much it annoys me when people say "huhhuh, looks like a case of the Mondays!" No, it looks like I contracted a case of 'get the hell out of my face, before I try out my judo chop on your best friend. And I will FIND your best friend and do it in front of you, while you're begging me to stop, until you promise to never again approach me with that cliched crap on a Monday morning before I even have my coffee.'

These are the kinds of things I think about when I see coworkers hitting the elevator button. And dammit, if I haven't done the exact same thing when I was in a hurry. And then I immediately felt like a terrible person.

<--This is the kind of thing I laugh at. Personally, the absolute simplicity of the joke and the person, it is perfect.

                                








This is my boyfriend. -------->
He's great, and funny and I like to tease him that he's my knight in scruffy jeans. This picture well describes he and his friends. Smash brothers, anyone?

I adore Dr. Seuss, I adore this quote, and I am posting it here, right now. This is how I always imagined falling in love would be! :)

<----This is when I grew up. When the Prince was Fresh, when you could blow into the games to make them work, when playing tag with the neighborhood kids was my all-day activity, and when the Sega GameGear cord was approximately 12 inches long. Come to think of it, that's about the length of my phone charger cord, 15 years later...

These are my 3 very best friends in the world. We like to hang out and play cards.

This is my friends and I playing cards if we were German.

This is the 4 of us when we're really old. Still playing SkipBo and Phase 10 and such, but talking about prunes and grandkids instead of more fun stuff.

                                                    

This is me. ------>
My unfortunate klutziness is well known. But it's not like I'm just flailing around all willy-nilly, beating myself into things! Those bastard walls are always just THERE, suddenly, out of nowhere! Those jerks! Maybe they're in collusion with the sudden cracks and unevenness in the sidewalks! Gasp!

<----
I can only hope that one day, someday, I can just reach out and become as singularly awesome and cool as this lady
when I am old. It's going to take some work, some gun permits, and big ol' glasses (check) to get there, but I want to be her in 60 years!

Things I Not-So-Secretly Wish I Owned

I am the targeted demographic for late night infomercials. Specifically me. I am lazy, I am fascinated by kitchen stuff and random crap, and susceptible to late night advertising. Unfortunately for them, I’m also broke.

Things I not-so-secretly wish I owned: Magic Bullet, Pajama Jeans, one of those never-dull knives that can cut through steel, and the ShamWOW (just to test it’s liquid-holding breaking point!), among others.

ShamWOW could get that right up for you with NO DRIPPING!

It’s like, when I see a product at the store, my reaction is along the lines of “Oh, that’s so silly. Who would possibly give them money for that? I can slice things perfectly fine, my arms ain’t broke.” (Except I would never, ever say 'ain't' because even though I am FROM the South, I am not a redneck, and my English teacher mom would kill me. Or worse, annoy me with never-ending corrections!) And then later, when I’m laying on the couch watching an infomercial at 3 in the morning, I’m like “OH MY GOD. How have I lived my life for 25 years without this magical, amazing device? How am I even alive right now?”

Mostly this magical device, specifically. It can do ANYTHING in 10 seconds or less!

Miracle Socks? You know, now that I think about it, my feet HAVE been feeling less than energetic recently...

One thing I’ve seen that I really CANNOT get behind at all is the Snuggie and the Forever Lazy thing. I just don’t get the appeal. People seem to really love the snuggie. I don’t know why...it’s a backwards robe, and you’re paying $20 for it! I have blankets. I dont need a blanket with arms. because I also own these revolutionary things called sleeves, that are miraculously attached to my shirts.

And the Forever Lazy? Are you KIDDING me? Who could possibly need a full-body fleece cover with a trapdoor? If you’re house is THAT cold, you should call Maintenance, because that’s not good. I would be sweaty and gross. And trapped inside of a terrible thing that made me look like a Furry. Which, for the record, I am not. Nothing wrong with it, totally cool for you, if not a bit weird, just not for me.

The stuff that always seems to sucker me in is the different tools. Caulk Pro? I could SO see myself re-caulking the shower. I’m just saying, it’s easy, it’s useful, I can imagine myself more handy than normal with it. It’s perfect for me! And what girl doesn’t need a 7-in-1 cordless drill/sander/glass cutter/grouter/table saw?

Don't know what it is, but I absolutely need it. $69.95 plus shipping? That's practically GIVING IT AWAY!

At least I’m not some shop-a-holic who comes home with new clothes every day, or nail polish I’ll never use. It should be a point in my favor that the infomercials I am most drawn to, the things I almost get off my lazy ass and get my credit card for, are useful tools and gadgets.

Sometimes, I think the Caps Lock button on my keyboard should totally be the Billy Mays button. That guy has almost sold me stuff too many times to count! BILLY MAYS HERE! Admit it, you know you read that in his voice. It’s so beautiful!

Less beautiful than Billy Mays. STOP STARING INTO MY SOUL, CREEPER! I CAN FEEL YOU SUCKING OUT MY SOULLL! Mays would never do that to me!!

You’re WELCOME. Now you can go buy the Bender Ball or Magic Bullet guilt free, knowing how close I have come to having a closet full of Veg-O-Matics and Perfect Meatloaf and Shakeweights.

….and I didn’t know this, but I totally just found out there is an entire website for As Seen On TV...and I browsed, just for a minute! I was just looking! My credit card is NOT within arm’s reach! And there is a MEN’s SHAKEWEIGHT now. Damn it, I wish I’d have seen that infomercial! And just look at that guy’s face!    

AMAZING!