In Facebook news, someone scanned and posted the large composite 8th grade class photo and tagged most everyone in it. Lots of the scary freak girls are tagged, and thus when one of them makes a comment, I get an email with the following subject:

Jenny Meanstein Who Tried to Kick Your Ass in 1985 commented on a photo of you

And I die a little bit inside. A few weeks ago there was this exchange between the scary freak girls (who are giving the camera the stink-eye in their black Ozzy t-shirts):

Jenny Meanstein: We look so MEAN! How horrible!
Lucinda Asskicker: Girl, we WERE mean! LOL

Today there is a discussion about what the area was called where the scary freaks hung out — freak corner or freak alley? And I got this email a few minutes ago:

Kelly Awfulness commented on a photo of you:

“It was freak corner and freak alley was the scheduled arena for afternoon fights!”

The glee in the part about the fights gave me hives. Do you know how many times the scary freak girls ordered me to freak alley after school? And how many times I hid in the school office until I saw my mother’s car drive up? HIVES. I now have a hive virus.

I just wrote a really long post about how I felt nauseous and then threw up yesterday, but deleted it because I forgot you’re not my mom and don’t want to hear every gory detail. But I will tell you this: throwing up behind a green adirondack chair in your own backyard is a very interesting experience, especially when the dog is all whatcha doin? and after it’s over and you are wiping your eyes, you hear the telltale sign of leaves crunching in your next door neighbor’s yard. Oh hi! Just having a little puke right here by our shared fence. Can I, um, borrow a cup of sugar?

Have you ever actually borrowed a cup of sugar from a neighbor? I attempted to borrow an egg from various neighbors a few years ago and it was a very embarrassing experience, especially when I knocked on the door of the townhouse across the street where the college kids live, and discovered that THEY HAD A POT-BELLIED PIG AS A PET. And then one day it escaped and Larry put it in our yard, the very yard where three years later I would vomit.

It’s the circle of life. Don’t you love NaBloPoMo?

Hello, and welcome! It is the middle of the night. I went to bed somewhere in the early part of the 9:00 hour and woke up at midnight, when I heard Lulu get up, sneeze, walk into the kitchen, sneeze, walk into the living room, sneeze, walk into our bedroom, sneeze, and then go back to her bed in the back room. I finally got up about 30 minutes ago and came into the guest room to send emails to all the people I owe emails to but never end up emailing because during the day I can find 800 other things to do. Apparently, if you’re not sleeping, you can get a lot of stuff done. Edited to add: OH MY GOD LIKE WRITE THE LONGEST POST OF ALL TIME. (more…)

I love the internet deeply for many reasons, but here is one: the internet allows you to talk to people you used to know with minimal effort, and then they can tell you weird stuff about yourself that you have thankfully forgotten, but now remember.

Case in point: this boy I knew in middle and high school reminded me yesterday that in our 8th grade earth science class, I apparently used to talk to a stapler “as if it were a person.” You know, I could’ve lived a pretty full and happy life without that knowledge. But now that nugget of information is back and cannot be extracted, and so I have made myself a name tag that I have to wear the rest of my life that says TALKS TO STAPLERS.

Last night I was digging around in the guest room closet trying to find something to wear to work today — clothes are becoming a problem for me — and I came across my dream journal. If you already know how boring it is to hear other people’s dreams, get ready for some fun! If you don’t know this already, read on. (more…)

Yesterday as I was driving home this story popped in my head: my last semester of college my friend Jennifer and I were studying for our French final and we decided that we would only speak in French during our study session. We were doing pretty good — bad French is waaaay more fun than accurate, precise French — and then I remembered that my mother had made me some peanut butter fudge.

–Tu voudrait les bonbons? Uh, uh, le fudge? Le beurre something?
–Oui, oui! J’adore le fudge or whatever. Wait: is “beurre” beer?
–Non, c’est biere. Beurre is butter. Like le nut de pea beurre.

Then I opened the box of fudge, and it was full of ants, and we both started screaming and grabbing for our French dictionary, hoping to be the first to find the word. I think she won, because I can clearly recall her hollering LES FOURMIS OH MY GOD I MEAN MON DIEU LES FOURMIS.

Speaking of bad French, xyz and I used to instant message our way through our respective cubical jobs in our respective states, and we too adhered to the mostly French rule. Does it surprise you that the word “saucisson” was used liberally?

One more story about French, which also coincides with the state fair: my first boyfriend in 10th grade went to the Texas State Fair with me and my parents. While there, we were confronted by a man in a giant pickle costume giving away pickle pins and also a booth where an Asian man was selling little fuzzy chickens made of pom-poms and that had twisty wire legs. (They were four for a dollar, so we bought four [two brown, two yellow] and split them.) Two weeks later he gave me a note that had two appalling things in it: one, my name, MISSPELLED, and two, his declaration of love. Therefore, I broke up with him, and the next day, he waltzed into our French class wearing the following:

1. The outfit he wore on our first date.
2. The pickle pin.
3. BOTH THE BROWN AND YELLOW CHICKENS SOMEHOW TWISTED ON TO HIS COLLAR WITH THEIR LITTLE TWISTY WIRE CHICKEN LEGS.

I sometimes wish that I had already become the person I am now when I was 15, because today I would totally high-five him and make out with him immediately, while then I turned beet red and tried to will myself dead out of embarrassment. As if anyone in our class knew what those twisty chicken legs meant! Come on, Sally, loosen up and enjoy the hilarious and pathetic teenage gesture! I mean, it’s little twisty jambes du poulet. If that isn’t tres bon, I don’t know what is.

Last night I was digging through some files looking for things I could throw away. That is one of my life’s great passions, the searching for and disposal of stupid things in my house. Perhaps my definition of “stupid things” differs from yours: I threw away all my student loan forms and kept a file of head shots of opera singers. (more…)

I know you’ve all been dying for another installment of photos from my 8th grade class picture, so worry not! The update is here. (more…)

More stupid vanity tags! Kool-aid pickles! The story of the Crispy Elf! (more…)

First: we’re keeping Elsie and not sending her to Petsmart. For the time being, she is the queen of the backyard, where she is enjoying her new, kind-of-awesome cat house I made her out of a big plastic tub and some blankets. (more…)

I have sort of a problem when it comes to zipping up my pants. If my pants have the standard fixtures — one button, one zipper — everything is fine. But if there are, say, two buttons and a zipper, my dumb brain makes me fasten the two buttons and then says “we just fastened two fixtures, time to leave.” So this means I am often running around the workplace with my pants unzipped. (more…)

I celebrated President’s Day like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln would’ve wanted me to. I read a book and went to a movie. (more…)

I mentioned before that I dismantled my junior high/high school scrapbook over Christmas, but what I failed to mention was that I apparently saved everything. I have a napkin (complete with Chee-to dust) from that one time I spied on a boy who worked at Subway, and a straw from that one time I went to the movies with so-and-so, and obviously that is ridiculous. Goodbye, Chee-to dusted Subway napkin from 1989! Farethewell, straw that I remember nothing about! I will not miss you. (more…)

Last night — before I was assaulted by the sight of that lady’s gravy and douche purchase — I thought to myself, what night is it again? And when my brain answered, Tuesday night, the phrase Tuesday night rollers followed along, and so I thought I would tell you this mediocrely interesting story that I automatically think of when I hear the words Tuesday night together. (more…)

My friend Lorie lived three houses down from me while we were growing up. We were friends based mainly on proximity, although we did both watch All My Children religiously, which was a major bonding point.

I have two main stories about Lorie. (more…)