Tag: humor

playing house

I house sat this weekend. Can you believe people trust me with their home and five pets? Me neither. They trust me with their kids a lot, too. I guess “fake it ‘till you make it” is working for me in the house/child/pet sitting world! (JOKE! I am very responsible when it comes to things that are important to other people). So I spent this weekend playing with three dogs, honing my Mario Bros skills, trying to make cats like me, hanging out in the hot tub – life is pretty good.

Except…

Except I swore to myself I would get ahead on my homework. Papers, blog posts, readings – I was just going to take some time to myself out here in the suburbs, no bicycle tempting me to go for a spin, no old town calling me, no household chores calling to me. I was going to spend some quality time with my school work.

But I forgot how awesome I am. Spending time with myself rocks! I pretty much didn’t get any studying or writing done – forget trying to get ahead. I forgot how nice it is to be in a house alone, how nice it is to raid somebody else’s kitchen, how silly three dogs can get, how awesome having a hot tub to yourself is, how stressful a cat who doesn’t take her Prozac is, how imperative it suddenly is to keep up with kardashians via (a slightly shameful) marathon. Mostly I guess I forgot how quickly time slips away when you think you have all the time in the world. So readers, I’d like to leave you with these words of wisdom:

Don’t take your time for granted.

Appreciate ‘me’ time when you get the chance to take it.

Forget about things you can’t undo.

An ice cream sundae in the hot tub is just as awesome as it sounds.

1/3 of the menagerie

et tu, Friday?

I had a lot of regrets on Friday.

I regretted sleeping in (luckily this came later in the day – I had no regrets at 7 am! Or 8! Or 9!).

I regret paying $1.35 for a candy bar that got stuck in the vending machine.

I regret that I am too shy to wiggle a vending machine in front of a bunch of strangers. (I needed that twix, yall!)

About ten minutes into class, I regretted sitting next to a trash can that somebody threw (judging by the smell) week old banana peels in.

I regret stopping this afternoon to offer help to a guy in apparent automobile distress – no wait, I don’t regret that. I regret that I didn’t notice he was in the parking lot of a mechanic shop and wearing a mechanic uniform with the name of the shop on it before I stopped and offered my help.

I just realized I was describing my typical Monday. This was a Friday, people.

I think regret is a natural part of human nature and a useful learning tool. Maybe because regret stems from reflection and self assessment – both things humans are good at in a completely skewed, self-centric kind of way. The learning process insists that we look back and judge ourselves. Often we may be disappointed, usually because we expect more of ourselves. This disappointment, for me at least, generally culminates in regret – I like to think it’s because I have high expectations for myself – followed by a learning moment. I get confused when people insist on having no regrets. Is there a learning process that YOLOers get and I don’t? And which approach is better to live by?

Last Friday I learned to pay more attention to my surroundings and to get over myself when there is a candy bar on the line.

starting a blog is hard!

Starting a blog is hard. It’s daunting, really. To help get us started, my professor gave us some great readings. I thought these were very poignant and helpful…for the most part. They also scared the crud out of me. In the article “You Should Write First for Yourself,” Jeff Goins gives us what he says is a crucial truth to writing success, putting the audience second when writing – great advice, right? Maybe it was just me, but the first point he makes rubbed me the wrong way:

You create prose to challenge, compel, or convert. But you don’t write to entertain (If you do, feel free to skip this post).

If you are truly communicating — and not merely entertaining — you need to challenge people. Which means making them uncomfortable. Which means sometimes bucking the system and pushing the status quo.

Uhh pressure much? I feel like those are some intense parameters to put on blogging. I don’t write to challenge, compel or convert very often. Maybe I should, I don’t know. I just  want to write a blog that gets a few followers and makes them smile. Sure, I’d also like to write something that sparks ideas or creativity, that’s helpful or gets people talking – but if it’s not entertaining, who is going to read it? I feel like Goins is perpetuating a stereotype of pretentiousness that is sometimes placed on writers. Am I being too sensitive here – looking at things in the wrong way? I did find the rest of the article and comments useful. Writers, you can read his article here and please let me know what you thought. Why do you blog – to challenge the status quo, because you enjoy sharing with others, or something else?

PS – I actually feel like I might have challenged the status quo of Tour de Fat costumes this weekend during my short stint as bicycling bowling pin.

Image

PPS – It occurs to me that might not be correct use of the term ‘status quo’ but I just wanted to brag about my amazing costume and couldn’t think of a way to tie it in. Shameless.