Verdi

Along with a much more tragic loss that I'm not sure you readers need to know about (deaths do come in clusters), my parakeet got real sick and had to be put down.  Rest well, old bird.

Toilet

It's almost the one-year anniversary of an event that shook me to the core and helped to shape me into the person I am today.  I was ashamed at first but now enough time has passed that no matter who reads this, there couldn't possibly be any hard feelings anymore.

Last year, one of my friends - we'll call her Ollie - was going to miss an awesome party because she had to go to her then-boyfriend's frat formal at U of M.  Being the engineering frat, not all of the boys were... winners, and I decided in a fit of cockiness to volunteer my best friend and myself as hot blind dates.  I didn't want Ollie to feel left out and I saw it as an awesome opportunity for adventure.  I insisted it would be a blast and that we had nothing to lose.  I somehow talked everybody into it, acquiring random dates for my best friend and I, while setting my work schedule around the certainty of going.  Naturally I didn't realize the sheer ridiculousness of it all til we parked the car outside the building.  My desperate pleas to go back were not taken seriously.

Though the night was laced with moments of epicness and awkwardness (mostly awkwardness), there was one certain moment that I thought would haunt me forever.

Disclaimer: it may be gross.

It was some ungodly hour of the morning that Ollie and I realized neither of us had used the bathroom in half an eon.  Being located in an enormous frat house, we found some back-room bathroom where the contents of the toilet bowl must have been at least 90% standing frat-boy urine.  Ollie stood guard while I squatted for some light business.  I flushed but before Ollie entered after me she pointed out that the flush was unsuccessful.  I acted before my brain processed what I saw: the toilet had been clogged by previous users.  But I cranked down on that lever somewhere between 3 and 10 times before my brain synapses released a delayed warning.

The toilet instantly overflowed like a treacherous witch's brew.

It bubbled over and splashed onto the floor, flooding the little bathroom in an instant.  The horror.  It all happened so fast.  Never before had I witnessed the catastrophic result of acting before thinking... not like THIS.  The pee-water was headed for me.  I knew that if it hit me I'd just die on the spot, my soul rejecting my body out of pure repulsion.  But by some luck, as I stared at my feet, they moved, as if possessed by the will to live.  Amazing gazelle-like reflexes kicked in and I avoided the pee-water lava by mere milliseconds.

Ollie and I slammed the door shut and ran the HELL outta there.  The pisswater slowed but oozed out from under the door.  We didn't stick around to see what else happened.  There were no other witnesses.

We made a pact to never speak of it again (which failed over time but kept us sane for the rest of the night).  Whenever we caught each other's eyes, our glances were grave, or we giggled out of ridiculousness and fear. We barely found the nerve to let our other friend in on it, which must have been real damn annoying and I'm retrospectively sorry for that.

We never heard of what happened to that bathroom.  We checked the scene of the crime the next day and found it clean, as if I never unleashed the chaos of what had to have been Pandora's toilet bowl.  Day by day I got over the post-traumatic stress of destroying the plumbing of a building with which I really had no business.  It's been a process, the final point being today: I have grown brave enough to blog about it.  It was horrible at the time but retrospectively hilarious.  I'm over it.

... but I still wonder who had to clean that hot mess up.

Venom

I wished upon the first star I saw as I walked to work this morning.

I wished for the ability to spit venom.

It was admittedly an irrational wish, but upon weighing all the possibilities of interpretation, there is absolutely nothing that could go wrong with my wish. I wished for the ABILITY to spit venom, implying not only would I be capable of spitting, but I could also choose when to use my power. I did not wish for immortality, flight, or the golden touch, and respectively I did not doom myself to live forever, fly forever or be gilded forever.  The classic fables have taught me the importance of word manipulation.  I'm such an English major.

Why would I want the ability to spit venom?  Uhh to inflict damage on foes or prey, duh!  I can only imagine how the brown-noser in class would react if I just stood up and ejected a stream of low-grade toxin across the table at her in the middle of her cacophonous sentence.

It's not like it's a crime to spit venom.  I understand that harming people without reason is "wrong", but it's just like any self-defense mechanism.  I would only strike when provoked.  As long I don't kill people I'm basically in the clear.  I also think that being a venomous college girl could fill a specific niche on campus as a much-needed vigilante, keeping a sort of order by holding the threat of snake-lady bites over everybody's head.

I just realized that I told you my wish and now it can't come true.
Anti-climatic.

hair troublems

When my hair was short, all I wanted was for it to be longer. Now that it's long, it's like it will never be long enough to satisfy me.  After years of just assuming I wasn't allowed to have long hair, I became secretly obsessed with it.  I don't know how to make it stop.  Should I cut it super short again? Will that fix my hair length gluttony?

The last time I recall maintaining a short hairstyle, I was in my mid high school years, where I knew what it took to be pretty but not how to accomplish it.  I didn't even know how to use foundation makeup properly, so on the rare occasions I did style my hair, it went awry.  I like to think that in the past couple years I've grown girly skills - I use eyeliner now! - and if I were to cut it short, I could probably get it to look pretty nice on a daily basis.  Hypothetically drawing, I'd aim for this:

There's a catch though: my hair is thin, flat, and useless.  My hair's even thinner than angel's hair.  Not the pasta.  Like, actual angel's hair.  Which I would imagine is real real thin to have minuscule pasta named after it.  My hair can't hold anything like a curl for more than a few minutes unless sprayed with twice its mass of hairspray, which ends up weighing it down back flat anyway. It is also impossible to put any volume in it with all the science of the world (under a $5 budget).  When my hair is at its wispy-worst,  I look like a relatively well-complexioned bridge-troll with a comb-over.

Thin hair on a thin face with a big ol' pear-shaped lady-body is not a good look.  Sorry, troll.  Even if I DID find a way to fluff it up, I must not forget how lazy I am, and how infrequently I'd actually try.

Wow. I think I officially talked (wrote?) myself out of wanting short hair.  Sorry, Brian, looks like you'll have to compliment my long hair instead.

squirrel

I hit a squirrel today.  Too much shock value?  Let me start over:

Because of inclement weather, one of my classes was postponed for an hour.  Within that hour, many suitemate shenanigans ensued, the final one being the discovery of a latent mold colony inside a coffee mug.  Out of the goodness of my heart I decided to dispose of the now well-contained mug (hermetically sealed in a grocery bag full of febreeze).  Running late for my already late class, I speed-walked past a trash can and power-chucked the nast-bomb inside.

I expected a small delay before hearing it thud against the bottom of the can, but instead I heard an almost instantaneous thuk followed by some sorta explosive blasting through the other side.

Yep.  I managed to hit a squirrel as it was foraging through trash for winter sustenance.  And I probably hit it really hard.

I laughed out loud like a mad scientist for about 2 seconds more than what would be considered socially acceptable.  Somebody walking past even called me out for my creepiness.  I then began to ponder the implications of what I had done: I had hit a squirrel with a bag filled with mold and febreeze.  What would such chemicals do to the poor thing?  Could it be that the squirrel became exposed and now was doomed to die of an unlikely poison combination?  Or worse: will it become a MONSTROUS MOLD SQUIRREL MUTANT OUT TO GET ME FOR MY CRUELTY?!?

I hope the answer is "no" since I have yet to be attacked by a massive mold-squirrel.  But only time will tell.

nothing

I don't have anything funny to say right now. Please enjoy this magical winged horse.

Quirk

I've developed an odd habit recently.

Humans, when faced with a surprising stimulus, often react in one of two ways: fight, or flight.  I tend to go for fight, and lately I've developed an oddly specific defensive response mechanism.  I stand up straight, lock my knees, and fold my arms up like a tyrannosaurus rex.

Though I can see why this wouldn't be surprising to you, readers, it is to me.  I usually walk around like a dinosaur as a joke. But I worry now that it is becoming all too natural.  T-Rex Mode is honestly my brain's first subconscious response to stimuli.  The other day my roommate and I were just walking back to our building when we encountered a sudden patch of ice.  With a wave of squeamishness I slammed on my feet-brakes, stood stock-still, and held my arms up for attack.

My roommate made fun of me, justly, and ever since I've been trying to remember when and why I do this... this t-rex thing.  In the days since the first incident, I've noticed that if I am suddenly facing a fork in an unfamiliar path, or if somebody shouts out something foreboding like "STOP!", I seize up like I'm braced for meteor impact.  Clearly it's the fear of the unknown that gets my primordial, more accurately mesozoic, instincts to kick in.

I've yet to decide if this defense mechanism is actually beneficial or not.  For now, it makes for good laughs.  Cuz people make fun of me.  A lot.  Thanks, sympathetic nervous system.  You are sympathetic to my survival in stressful situations yet ultimately you lack sympathy for my social life.

I'm being TROLL'D?!

Somebody's gone through and polled all my posts as dumb and for that I'm removing the ability to vote on reactions to each post.

Take that, troll.

Commissions

I guess I take commissions now, but mostly only from my friend whom we'll refer to as Yucky.  Yucky was once stranded somewhere and needed her boyfriend's brother to pick her up.  Realizing the need to thank him, Yucky asked me to draw a dinosaur for him as a sort of small thank-you present.  Here's a pretty accurate MSPaint-version of the final result:

I signed the masterpiece and varnished it with a kiss.  There was a smooth hand-off outside of a study hall the next day and as time passed I figured Yucky had given her rescuer the picture without any screw-ups, hiccups, or other destructive ups, and I would soon be hearing praise for such a wonderful gift.

Til I got a message on Facebook from her boyfriend's brother, simply saying:

"Did you draw me a pic of a sultry velociraptor?"

Apparently, Yucky's perception of his schedule did not match his actual schedule and any chance encounters fell through, leaving her no choice but to shove the drawing under his door without any explanation.  As far as he knew, I was sending him a creeptastic lil' present that some less chill people would find worthy of a call to the local law enforcement.  Luckily with a bit of explication from Yucky's boyfriend, all was resolved and laughs were had. Aha, ahaha, haaa.

Anyway, yeah, I'll take commissions if I'm in the mood. It may cost ya though...! (Nahhh, it won't!)

defensive

Going over the edits people made in my creative writing class... I'm slowly but surely getting better at receiving constructive criticism.

Well... It's a process.

EW

Hey.

Psst.  Hey.

Wanna know something gross?

Don't say I didn't warn you.

semi-precious

The random Mexican-American woman who sells homemade hats, gloves, and jewelry was peddling her wares as usual in the Kellogg Center and cast a spell on me today.  I'm usually pretty resilient bustling through there but my eyes fell upon her collection of rings and I was entranced.  I reminded myself I was a broke college kid til she mentioned that each ring was only $3 - a super low price I knew I could pay in dimes if need be.  I was not the only one suddenly captivated by these stones.  My suite mate too felt the deep necessity to procure a stone ring.

After running back to get money, my suite mate and I spent far too long deliberating which semi-precious stones would make for the best husband.  Cuz, yknow, when you get a ring from somebody, they're a king of that thing. Like Halloween spider rings mean you're wedded to the Spider King, silver rings imply a connection to the Silver King, and TPS Report rings mean you're married to a CEO.

Having the idea in our heads already set that we wanted a lawful marriage to The Jade King, My home gurl and I finally decided upon these gorgeous and supposedly jade rings:

After purchasing them, the peddler-woman gave us some spiel about how they absorb good energy or something long-winded and a lil' late considering we already bought them and weren't about to offer her more money post haste for the knowledge of their various imbued powers.

Upon returning home and making our other suite mate comment on our awesomeness, she told us that real legitimate jade isn't that cheap and suggested our rings were fake.  She told us that the way to test real jade was to scratch glass with it.  My fellow Jade-King Wife and I, out of deep hurt and denial, ran up to the first glass thing we saw - a mirror - and scratched it with our rings.
There were no marks left behind.

What did that mean? Obviously the mirror was not real glass anyway. Figures.  There were also no real glass mason jars in the print studio or real glass windows in my prof's office either.  Weird.  Maybe some day I'll find real glass that my perfect genuine not-fake blue Jade King ring will be fit to scratch.

Maybe there's a reason they were all labelled "semi-precious"... only kinda precious, bordering on barely precious at all.

But I'm still gonna pretend it's giving me special powers.

hydroasnomia

From my knowledge of basic latin, I made up a sciencey word!  It should mean "inability to smell water", which is kindooof what I wanted to get at, I guess.  For years now I've known that there are magical properties of water in regards to smells.  When I was younger I thought that water was limited to either being smelly or not smelly, but this is false.  The mysterious effects of stink when exposed to water are far deeper than I ever imagined.

I first realized water's uncanny ability to hide its many stinking secrets years back when an old fish died in  my father's tank.  My dad found its well-rotting corpse somewhere between a rock and plastic plant.  As he scooped it up, its monstrous carcass emerged from the depths.  As the water broke over it, a stench erupted into the air that I can only describe as:

Though we can smell the surface of the water, reekings can be muffled or hidden under the constant swirling of the universal solvent.  Think of how many things live, eat, poop, and die in the ocean. Water at this very moment is hiding stinks so deep in its darkest trenches that the land creatures of this world will never experience them. Thank GOD.

Far more recently I've had to learn another property of water when introduced to stink.  The way mirrors reflect light, water reflects stink.  It's creepy enough when somebody breathes down the back of my neck, but when it's their breath bouncing off the surface of the water up into my nose, life just seems too cruel.

That's stink, not vomit. This'd be a whoooole different post if that were the case.

Swimming in a lane with somebody who is cruelly unaware of their own bad breath makes for a doomed, doomed practice.  A rest at the wall leaves me choosing between suffocating from lungs full of pure CO2-stink combo or suffocating from holding my breath too long.  Some solutions are just not realistic.  The only practical thing I can manage is leaning over to the next lane for fresh air.  I would just stay under water, unable to see, hear, OR smell them, but most swim practices call for time management and therefore my personal Shamu routine will probably never run.

... I forget the point of this post.  I just wanted to draw me trying to be an orca.  Water and smells, oh yeah. Hmm. I could just tell people that they have bad breath sometimes. Unlikely.

Desperation

When toilet paper gets low in the suite, my suitemates do this:

I do this.

12 rolls of blanket-soft Charmin Ultra: $4.99. An industrial-sized roll of Maverick One-Ply: PRICELESS!!!


... Assignments?  What assignments?  I'll be academically productive when I'm DEAD.

Awkward Couples

Valentine's Day is comin' up, which means two things about the singletons out there: insecure people are getting desperate, and confident people are getting angry.  Being the latter, I will spend the rest of this post describing some awkward couples that I hate upon daily to make me feel better about myself.

The Honeymooners

From the minute they started dating, it was as if fate brought them together. Nothing can keep them apart for more than necessary. They are willing to abandon all former family, friends, and responsibilities in order to monopolize each other's time.  They're the girls right there on the field during a game or the guys that come begrudgingly late to class.  They are so deeply infatuated with each other that they probably don't even talk, but rather just stare into each other's eyes incessantly.

The Keller is not a home theater, Honeymooners.  That TV probably isn't even on.  Stop imagining your future kids playing on the carpet in front of you. This is the only room-n-board place to eat and you're making everybody lose their appetites. Oh wait THAT'S JUST THE FOOD! Buh-dum, ching! But I digress.

? + ? = ?!?

Regardless of society's desire to categorize everybody, some people have managed to remain undefined through to college.  That's not to say all androgynous people are the scourge of society. There are some really hot androgynous people roamin' around.  It's the ugly ones that concern me.

Now, I've yet to actually see this, but I fear with the looming pressure of the coming spring, some of campus' more questionable people will pair up for safety.  I could be wrong, but my guess is that if this ever happened,  I would be so confused that I would have no choice but to... just... ignore them.  Whatever makes em happy, I guess...

The Weird Birds

Ever since a less-than-mature viewing of Alice in Won der land, I have been traumatized by the idea of weird, unruly birds.  Robins and finches and parrots are awesome and great, whatev. But if something like this, this, or THIS came anywhere near me, I would simply die on the spot for fear that standing still would allow it to come peck at me and running away would challenge it to chase then peck at me.  The unconventional ornithological has always disturbed me, but as of late, it has become a fascination.

Bringing me to a couple I like to call "The Weird Birds".  I think the reason they remind me of freak-show avians is the fact that all they really have in common is their noses.  These two awkward people have been sitting alone together like trivial flea-market bookends since the day they met.

I find myself tempted to sneak into Baldwin at night with a baseball bat, checking the corners for possible nests.

The Mistake

Then sometimes you see a relative to extremely attractive person, coupled up with somebody decidedly less attractive, either by physical features or personality flaws. What starts as mutual infatuation slowly fades into a nightmare that the more attractive partner may be fully aware of or brainwashed against. This attractive person is rarely with the lesser one for love, generally with them for pity, and most often is with them because of an accident and the proper escape method has yet to be determined. I would know, because I've been there.

What started out as a seemingly normal relation-ship was upon closer inspection a lil' dinghy that started sinking before I even got on it. I woulda been dragged down by its all-consuming vortex if my best friends weren't such avid lifeguards.

Thanks, guys! :D

Being single and confident is no easy task but it's the most healthy thing I could possibly be right now.  I'm almost excited for Valentine's Day to get here.  I'll give it a friendly hug, reminding it that we're just friends, but I'll give it the hope that maybe in a couple years we can have a legitimate relationship.

BANGS

A war has begun, readers, and I hope you'll chose your side wisely.

Bagels lobbed with cream cheese hold a special shelf in my heart.  As a frequent swimmer and an avid eater, they are the most delicious way to wad together 600 calories.  So whenever I don't have time for a meal, cannot make a decision, or don't want food poisoning from a suspicious Baldwin Dining Hall meat product, I go the bagel route.

Baldwin Dining Hall is... well, obnoxious.  It's like a 1-star buffet at best yet expects the reverence of P.F. Chang's.  It's a stupid college food trough with pretentious rules that make sense only on a large scale.  Consider the recent crackdown on taking food out of Baldwin: sure, stealing 400 apples is bad, but eating a sandwich while leaving shouldn't be punishable by death.  Alas, during the crackdown, even those nom-nomming their om-noms had to stop what they were doing and abandon their food. Where? In the trash can right next to the door.  From freshly made grilled cheese to the innocent apple, all had to be tossed.

Way to go green, Baldwin.

But as with all crackdowns, people lose interest, and once again rebels get away with things. So the other day, while prepping for several hours of foodlessness, I sneaked a precious bagel and a package of cream cheese into my bag. I felt confident after having done this several times before that I would get away with it, especially since I have spent my entire college career being exceedingly courteous to the dining service employees.  As I enter, I greet them with a smile, and as I leave I always thank them and wish them a lovely rest-of-day.

But there's one monster of an employee, with a heart as black as her left incisor.  Though pleasant on the surface, she (it?) is a truly evil being, incapable of empathy.  I'd peg her at 6,800 years old. She has many names,but I simply call her "Bangs".

While leaving the wretched trough, I was in the middle of gifting Bangs a grateful "goodnight" when it spat its venom at me without warning.
"WHADIJOO PUT IN URR BAAAG?"
I pooped a lil and tried to run, but the apparent offspring of Medusa still had some of momma's powers, petrifying me indefinitely.  After an awkward hesitation, I squeaked out a horrible excuse. "Oh, just some cream cheese, for later..."
Her glare intensified from stun to kill, the forked tongue slithering through each word.  "But whaddijoo WRAP UPPHhhhssss"
She got me there. I couldn't lie if she watched me actually take the bagel and wrap it up. If I said words I don't remember them and they had no effect, because she bewitched me into a stiff-legged transit towards the abyssal trashcan.  My hands fumbled in my bag for the innocent Mr. Bageley and like an executioner specializing in bottomless pits, I power-chucked him down into the abyss.

Bangs had her way.  I exited the building like a prisoner of war whose freedom comes costly after the guilt of what he did to stay alive.  I have always been so nice to Bangs but this was an affront to my dignity.

This is the beginning of war, Bangs. You will no longer receive the niceties that acquaintances deserve and from now on, I shall refer to your job position as "the help". I'm already winning, you atrocious hag. How so, do you ask?

I still have the cream cheese.

cuddle buddy

My twin sister (twister, if you will) got me a lil' stuffy dwagon a while back.  He's become quite my cuddle buddy in these past few months of single living.  Franz is his name and he's perfectly shoulder sized and totally adorable and it reeeeallly messes with my head when I start to think he's got a personality.

It's not my fault he's a very expressive collaboration of felt, polyester stuffing, wires, and hot clue.  Every time I put him in a bag he looks up at me like "Weally? I git tew go wif?"

Too cute to not be alive. He's whispering me sweet nothings as we speak!

I'll probably never grow up.  I'm totally cool with that.

Comeuppance...?

I generally live my life each day thinking I'm better than most everybody I encounter. I'm not gonna get into whether or not that's healthyyy, but my point is that I spend a lot of time being wrongly self-righteous.

It usually takes about five days of being a little shit for the cosmic energy of the world puts me in my place.
Lemme back up a lil' by saying I currently have the easiest job I will ever have in my adult life.  I work at the athletic center, where during any given shift I can be assigned to one of three posts: front desk, equipment room, and floater.  At the front desk, I sit and check people in. I basically get paid to watch Hulu.  At the equipment room, I sit and lend out basketballs, tennis rackets, etc. to people. I basically get paid to watch Hulu.

Then there's the floater shift.

If at reading that word your mind wants to drift away from thoughts of poop, don't let it.  The floater shift is the cleaning shift, directly opposing the previously mentioned dream shifts.  I guess it's a good balance of responsibilities and it keeps the place looking nice n' clean BUT THAT DUN' MEAN I WANNA DO IT.  I got this job as a naive 17-year-old freshman girl.  I barely ever cleaned my room and certainly did not sign up for a janitorial career.  Alas, there it was, in fine-print. I've come to terms with it at this point as an inevitability but it still kinda suuuuxcksz.

It seems every few Fridays I get assigned a stray floater shift from 11am to noon.  The task at hand for said shift is to simply mop the weight room.

Ew.

I'm not even gonna get into how... disgusting a weight room can get (the sweat of every sports team member on campus in one anti-ventilated room) or how long it took me to teach myself manual labor (what is... "vack-yoom"?).  At this point I'm more concerned with the damage it does to my high-and-mighty image.

I'm not sure if you know what it's like to be in a room full of weight-lifters when you don't lift weights and your sole purpose there is to mop up their messes.  Let's see if I can get it across to you.  Imagine, if you will: a beetle at an ant-party who's only been invited to eat their poop.  A chihuahua thrown into a wolf pack as a half-baked science experiment.  I'm that beetle, that chihuahua: a naive teenage girl, weak as a kitten, in a room full of hulked-out and bulked-up men who probably don't even care that I'm there and may even be glad somebody cleans anyth JUDGE MEEEE!!!  It's sufficiently awkward enough to knock me down a few pegs.

I spend about half an hour mopping the layer of sweaty debris off the floor, shuffling around freewights and medicine balls because I'm afraid to attempt to lift anything over 30 lbs. at risk of straining my precious everything-zius muscle, while mumbling apologies to tall men I don't know and mopping over my feet way more than any normal person should.

A real janitor would, could, and should laugh at, kick, and help my ass, respectively.

Afterwards my composure has melted into a puddle of insecurity, sweat stains and pathetic facial expressions.  My trademark high-pony sinks into a low-back sweatrag and the hair behind my ears does this weird... sticky-outy thing that defies laws of physics.  I only know this because one entire wall of the weight room is a mirror. This is what I see, when I look up in that mirror:

Uh-oh.  Apparently my right-side appendages have atrophied.

Place-Put Town, population: Hayley.

Luckily I have all weekend to recover and be hot shit again.

First post!

So this whole blog thing is just on a whim.  I'm going through an intense phase of narcissism that can only be satisfied by telling everybody about meee.  I also tend to bitch a lot and I wanna change that.  If I can hold my tongue and sit and think and find a way to make it funny and blog about it, I feel like I've done some good.  Hopefully I'll make you laugh at some point because that way, we both get something out of what has to be the 2.8x10^8th MSPaint blog.
This is totally experimental and may even fail within a week, but I'm gonna try to give it a shot!

Here's something I whipped up the other day, when the inches of snow/class cancellations ratio was waaay off.