I'm An Astrologer Now! No Training? No Problem!

So, I have this thing. I think it's hilarious. You look up a friends horoscope for that day, and then when you see them later, walk up behind them like a super creepy weirdo-dude. Like, one of those guys who wear skin-tight skinny jeans and a sleeveless t-shirt? And in as awkward and squeaky a voice as you possibly can, creepily start whispering their horoscope to them. Like *sneak sneak* "Heeeeeeey. Don't make any rash decisions today......!" The reaction is priceless. I find this hysterical to even think about! My roommate and I have actually started doing this to each others faces at random. You can't help but laugh.

Look at my horoscope for today! [I'm a Gemini. I don't care what you are. Deal with it. I AM A GEMINI. This is MY horoscope, so YOU deal! Tough cookies if you're something else. Just ask me, I'll give your yours. Maybe.]

You will be awesome, like most days. You will pass a mirror and may not at first realize it’s a mirror until after you wink and say “heeeeey, you lookin’ goooood.” People around you on public transportation may think you’re weird, and it may or may not be banana-related. Embrace the weirdness and do not change, for they don’t KNOW YOU and you won’t see them ever again anyway, so you might as well have some fun. Avoid 3rd Avenue today, it’s really traffic-y and there’s still a lot of construction. The elevator in your work building will have that weird grinding noise again around 1 pm, but don’t worry, I don’t see the “Death” card in your tarot today, so you’re good. Besides, 12 flights is a LOT of stairs, even when going down. You’re going to feel mildly contrite when you skip the gym to hang out with your boyfriend. It’s ok, you can blame Boyfriend. He won’t mind.

Today’s Weather Forecast:
Not as cold out as the temperature in your room or of the toilet seat might suggest, even though the window is wide open, letting in the outside temperature. In the afternoon, it will be sunny and bright, and you’ll have lost one of the lenses from your sunglasses in your bottomless, gigantic woman-purse-suitcase-thingy. Evening temperatures are set to rise when you see Boyfriend for the first time in several days, and then cool down almost immediately after you forget your jacket when you leave for the movies.

Work Forecast:
Your positive attitude and openness make people think they can ask you to take over a couple of their projects late on a Friday afternoon, but your hearty dose of sarcasm and some “don’t try me” body language remind them that your bite is worse than your bark. Your lucky numbers today are 5, 3, and 0! When together, they represent an escape to freedom. Based on the astral plane, it looks like you’re making tacos tonight. Congrats on an easy, yet amazingly delicious meal!

Movie Theater Forecast: Crowded, popcorn not buttery enough, the kid behind you didn’t turn off his damn cell phone, and it rings right in the middle of the biggest twist. Entire theater mutters under their breath about what a douche canoe that kid is. That kid is oblivious, but also embarrassed that everyone probably just heard his girlfriend’s ringtone, which is “Mine” by Taylor Swift. People notice, and they laugh.

Activity Forecast:
Playing pool: Mediocre, with occasional flashes of awesome just often enough to have your teammate be impressed, followed by mild disappointment and humor when you bank the yellow 2 ball off 3 rails and not hit anything else or come anywhere near the pocket. Your long shots will surprise and amaze many. Or, at the very least they will surprise and amaze you. Try to be solids, it’ll realign your chi.

At the Bar: The resident creepy old guy will assume you’re staring at him when you accidentally catch his eye while checkin’ out the scene on the dance floor. He’ll wink, and think about heading over, and you’ll immediately turn to your girls and whisper what just happened. Escape to the bar or bathroom if he decides he has a shot. Vodka is your lucky drink! Your friend’s heels are sparkly and amazing and you’ll have a momentary pang of jealousness, before you remember that you’re a dance-in-your-Converse type of gal, and that you’re also superklutzy and might die on the dance floor if you wore those hot shoes anyway.

At Karaoke: This weekend, the stars are all aligned in a random-looking but specifically amazing pattern that makes you the karaoke queen! Rock your heart out, girl. Do some Alanis, she needs the love. Rock out to the 80s, and don’t forget to do a classic all-friends rendition of something appropriately sappy, such as “Friends In Low Places.” Because your moon is in retrograde, try singing something like “Eye of the Tiger” or “We Built This City” for strong motivation.

Gym: Saturn has a buncha moons, and let’s face it, they are all in the wrong orbital planes and on a bad axis for forcing you to go to the gym after the Saturday night you’re about to have. You’re going to feel kind of guilty, and probably have good intentions about going “later today” but in the end, you’ll be at home watching Once Upon A Time when you could be complaining about jogging while actually jogging. Don’t worry, Pluto (which I will always consider a planet, no matter what THEY say) is in the right grade and you’ll be back in the gym and not feeling terribly guilty on Monday.

Coming THISCLOSE To Saying The Right Thing

Sometimes I think of a hilarious insult or comeback, and then I completely and totally, without meaning to, ruin it. My sister was bragging about something once, and a bunch of us were sitting in the living room, and I looked at her and said, dead serious, “Even a blind nut finds an squirrel sometimes.”

The entire room bursts into guffaws, even though I SWEAR I MEANT “Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn sometimes.” Which, really, would have been the perfect response and everyone would have been laughing WITH me, instead of AT me, as is more usual. Oh, well. This was a year ago. I wasn’t a kid, I was a fully grown, mostly functional adult when this happened. Fully capable of stringing together a coherent sentence...sort of.

I guess you had to have been there, because it was seriously hilarious. The thing is, I love funny insults and jokes. Sadly, I sometimes ruin them in the retelling. It might be a family thing. My brother Charlie can’t finish a joke correctly to save his life, even though he’s a fairly funny individual in regular life. No matter how long or short the joke is, he mangles the punchline, which either makes the rest of us laugh at him, or just stare blankly in confusion, because HE is laughing hysterically and the resyt of us have no idea why or if that was funny.

Also, I hate those times when you are arguing with someone, or being teased, and you just end up mumbling “oh...YOUR MOM!” because you can’t think of anything, and then 3 minutes later, you think of the most spectacularly perfect thing to say, but the moment has passed and it’s too late. Arg, that’s such a frustrating feeling!


Or when you’re going over the conversation in your head later, and you craft a wondrous speech full of excellent points and subtle sarcasm, that lightly hints at your adversary being an overgrown puppet with a hand up their ass that dances to the tune of THE MAN, but of course, you’ll never get to say it. By the time you see them next, the time to have given your oratory masterpiece is over, and that person will never realize how close they came to being auditorily eviscerated by your words.

Effective AND annoying. What more could you want??

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

So, I recently told everyone that I was tired of the rightleaning politicians that base things on religion and not fact. I don't care what you believe, I have no desire to change your mind, or convince you one way or the other. 

What does bother me is when people use and twist religion to suit their needs, their prejudices, and fuel their hate. Oh, God hates gays? Well, the Bible also clearly states that marriage is only valid if the woman is a virgin, that divorce is prohibited, that stoning is an acceptable form of punishment, as is execution (for a non-virginal bride and other crimes), premarital sex is a sin, it prohibits tattoos, and apparently Leviticus has a passage about forbidding people from playing with the skin of a pig. The Bible also tells the story of Adam and Eve, who had children, mated with their children, who mated with each other and their own children, and so on, to create the population. So, according to the Bible, incest is probably ok, too. There's also a virgin birth mentioned in there. If a married woman stepped up and said she was a pregnant virgin now, would anyone believe her? Even though, technically, there is a precedent for this sort of thing?

Personally, I think of religion as a moral code. A basic ideal of right and wrong, and I also believe that we have to live as good people in order to be closer to God. You can't pick and choose what you want to be righteous about, and then condemn others for not agreeing with your nitpicking. That makes you judgmental and the Bible clearly says to judge not, shall ye be judged. But, oh, you want to tell everyone how God hates whole groups of people? How do you know, did you ask?

Either way, a much more fun, rhyming, honorary doctor is a wonderful person to follow and believe in! And so, I present to you, the new religion I am founding, Seussology. We follow the teachings of Dr. Seuss, and we pray to the Magical Cat in the Sky. Here, check out this awesome collection of Dr. Seuss quotes, in which he reminds us to smile, to be good people, to go places, and to dream big. Worship him! All hail Dr. Seuss!

Thanks to Sylvia Martinez over athttp://www.mamiverse.com/30-dr-seuss-quotes-to-live-by-4920/

Dr. Seuss said “Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and who matter don’t mind.” And I definitely agree. He was a man who pushed kids to have their own voice, to use their imaginations every day, and to dream big, knowing you can be anything you want to be. 

I saw this quote on Facebook, as a response to someone asking why another person wouldn't believe in God. “Because I find the idea of worshiping an unelected, unaccountable celestial dictator with a history of genocide morally appalling.” [Will add name when I can find it on FB]

I may not agree with what he believes, as I am Jewish, myself, but I can absolutely, 100% see where he is coming from.

So, hey. If you have to believe in something, believe in Dr. Seuss! His real name is Theador Seuss Geisel, and went by Ted. 

MIND BLOWING FACT:

Seuss is actually pronounced as "Zoice" and not "Soose." According to his website Seussville.com.

I'm not changing! I will continue saying "Soose!"

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.

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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.

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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!