I am done.
And by done, I mean more than finished.
Continue reading Putting the Art in Cathartic…
Category Archives: Terrifying Transitions
Doing a Thing…
In case anyone wonders, I am doing a THING.
I can neither describe it nor defend it, but I’m definitely doing it because I plunked down a $25 no-refund application fee and I will spend an insane amount of money before I admit I am ill-qualified to do the THING.
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Continue reading Doing a Thing…
IT’S ALIVE!!!!
I’ve been living an absolute nightmare. For TWO WHOLE DAYS!!!
But finally, after a weekend of anxiety-drenched trauma, I am back to tell the tale. It’s mercifully short, but not, I think, an insignificant one to any who has experienced the horror. Mary Shelley only dreamt of such nightmares as this!
Continue reading IT’S ALIVE!!!!
Out-of-Focus Musings of a Disturbed Mind
Head Rush
I was complimented recently on my writing, it came via someone with a tenuous Facebook connection. It’s the first time anyone who wasn’t a friend or blood relative (and therefore obligated to like my writing or at least lie to me and say they do) told me they found my writing funny. (But funny in a good way.)
It made me feel, just for a nano-second, what it must be like when famous people get recognized. It was awesome and I thanked him…and then felt like a total fraud because I haven’t given two thoughts to my blog in months!
You can thank/blame him for this post.
Continue reading Out-of-Focus Musings of a Disturbed Mind
Double-Ginger? Oh Snap!
If you give your kid a book of cookies, which one will he pick?
The hardest recipe? Not necessarily.
But he might pick an unexpected one.
Continue reading Double-Ginger? Oh Snap!
Hiding from the Moon on a Very Dark Night
In case anyone needs to hear this, you are going to make mistakes as a parent. Some of them will be colossal. Just try not to let that be your standard operating procedure. Learn from my mistakes…
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Everything has gone wrong.
I’m sending this to you from a secure location.*
The system has been infected.
A technician is scheduled to come out (for the third time) to fix it.
Your connection is not private.
Attackers may be trying to steal your information.
Save yourselves. Continue reading You May Not Be Safe
Click Bait Title
You won’t believe your eyes!
Nine out of ten people won’t read past this sentence.
You can’t believe how this story turns out!
Who would have thought anything so strange, bright, bold, beautiful, and bouncy could happen here?
Only my real friends will read to the end, and copy and paste this, and dance naked in the rain while singing the theme to the Brady Bunch.
“Here’s the story…of a lovely lady…”
Try not to hate me.
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CLICK BAIT!
I guess I am as guilty as anyone else. I click the title that leaves me hanging, that asks for, nay, demands attention. A dangling question mark with a spurious answer. Unless it has a mysterious sea creature or a poisonous arachnid that I absolutely must know about before going to bed. (‘Cause that’s not gonna cause nightmares at all!)
What I’m saying is, I’m a sucker for flashy headlines that drag me onto an eye-blistering site with multiple pop-up ads, hidden read-more arrows disguised by embedded commercials. Oh, and let’s not forget the blinking GIFS causing neural disruptions. FUN!
I hate that I fall for these things because they drag me away from real life and important things…like laundry and grocery shopping.*
Sometimes I lie to myself–that following these idiotic stories is in pursuit of knowledge.
I’ve watched videos on the metamorphoses talents of cuttle fish and octopi which change outfits so often they are the aquatic equivalent of The Next Top Model, but underwater.**
Though my favorite videos are by the guy who voiced Dear Kitten Commercials. It’s awesome when he goes off the deep end:
If you’ve got a hook, I’ve probably swallowed it:
Pseudo science dumbed down to bite-sized consumer factoids?
Bring on the quasi science fiction babble about neutrinos emissions formed with pop rocks and microwaved coca-cola.
Something innocuous actually poised to kill or permanently maim mankind?
I swear, everyday someone is ruining a favorite treat with a gross video or unsubstantiated claim about the poisons in our everyday life. My mom sent me one about my favorite ‘Don’t Kill Anyone Today Beverage.”
Tea – A Killer Cup of Poison? One lump or two?
I read the whole thing, but didn’t see any links to data or studies. But then, I was reading it on a microscopic phone screen while simultaneously trying to keep track of my boy child. Still, who has time to follow up on the facts? Not when there’s all this junk to sift through!
Why stop to fact check or at least think for a moment about how likely the fear really is?
There are actual sites for that you know:
Woofighters.Org for example.
Snopes.com for another
There are plenty of examples of how horribly effective and subversive clickbaiting is as a propoganda tool.
My first search on the topic brought up this article from 2017:
You won’t believe how these 9 shocking click bait titles work?
Life is more valuable than reading a regurgitated tale of misrepresented woe/gladness/shocking/sadness/turned-joyful-resolution.
Unless there is a tragic picture of homeless, frozen kittens who’ve had a fuzzy make-over.
Or squirrels. I will apparently watch anything having to do with squirrels.
Or the lost Atlantis.
Or “You won’t believe how they look now!”
(Google this yourself. I’d break the internet trying this on my old laptop.)
I’d like to say that, knowing the dangers and misrepresentations, I won’t fall for these time wasters any more. But I really don’t have any answers. All I know is that putting the iPhone down for a weekend won’t kill you. Will it?
Hang on…Googles topic…Okay…finds story on the Daily Beast (which is no doubt a reputable news source with a name like that):
The Dangers of Digital Detoxing
YIKES!
DISCLAIMER: if you plan to become a luddite and leave the internet behind, perhaps you should consult a doctor before taking any drastic measures…or take away a teenager’s XBox.
There should be an easy path back to a normal life. A life unplugged and free from anxiety-inducing ersatz drama. One where you don’t jump at every text DING like a Pavlovian pooch or fall for sleezy, but alluring, tabloid-esque, ALL CAP article headlines. There must be a way back to normal!
But that’s a story for another day. I’ve got the car packed to go camping and a teenager waiting for his car ride away from electronic distractions.
Hopefully we will both survive to meme another day.***
Asterisk Bedazzled Footnotes:
*Okay, I really hate doing laundry and grocery shopping so it doesn’t take much to distract me from a task…oh look, a SQUIRREL!
**You know that an Underwater reality show is in the works somewhere. Hosts will be Ursula the Sea Witch from The Little Mermaid and Charlie the Tuna from the Star Kist commercials.
***I’ve been meaning to write this one for a while. And to do a much better job of it than this. Sorry.
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Feature Image stolen from LocalSurgeMedia.Com
Diarrhea Diaries: Volume II
Warning: Graphic and disgusting subject matter. Not for the faint of heart. Reminiscent of my prior post on the topic: The Diarrhea Diaries. Which, as it turns out, was volume one of an unfortunate series.
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Dear Diarrhea:
The US Food and Drug administration recommends two to four servings of fruit per day.
I don’t think they had this in mind:
BEWARE KILLER MELONS!
If you visited the CNN article I referenced, you get why I fear produce. If you didn’t trip the above link, the 20-point, bold font title of the article pretty much says it all:
“Multistate salmonella outbreak linked to pre-cut melon”
Now the fact that pre-cut watermelon has been spreading salmonella throughout the midwest wouldn’t ordinarily concern me except for two things:
- I ate some pre-cut watermelon Sunday.
- Monday began a marathon that makes the prospect of running 26 some miles actually pleasant by comparison. This is not that kind of marathon.*
I did not buy my melon at any of the stores referenced in the CNN piece on salmonella contaminated fruits. This does not stop me from putting a very strong set of coincidences together and coming up with a likely culprit to my week spent regretting everything I’ve ever eaten that I did not personally sterilize in a 1400 degree Fahrenheit kiln.
I spent the last (gets calculator, does math) 168 hours visiting the powder room. HOURLY. Sometimes more frequently. A brief itinerary of my adventures can be summed up this way:
Day 1: 6:00 a.m. – stomach lets out initial howls of protest. By 4:00 p.m., I am so sick, I’m curled up on the floor of my son’s therapy office wishing I didn’t have to drive us back home.
“Can’t we just live here?”
Day 2: After waking all night long to tango with the toilet, fever strikes and I shake my digital read-out thermometer convinced it has to be wrong.
Day 3: Have decided that having a will to live kind of sucks. Scrounge through medicine cabinets to find decade’s old Tylenol and take it, hoping it will kill me.
Day 4: Fever finally breaks and I would celebrate, but I’m getting low on toilet paper and there seems to be no end in sight.
Day 5: Am now reconsidering my agnostic stance and will willingly convert to whatever religion will cure me.**
Day 6: There may be light at the end of the tunnel, but I suspect they are the tiny sparks as each of my brain cells implode from dehydration. I gird my loins and guzzle Kefir straight from the carton.***
I wipe curdled cream from my lips and scream:
“Take that, you plague-ridden, bacteria bastards!”
Today is Day 7. It has been a week and, slowly, I am feeling somewhat human. Though, of course, the diarrhea hasn’t given up trying to kill me. I counter its vicious attacks with a chemical carpet bombing of Gatorade and Live-Culture acidophilus pills.
I’d really like this to be the worst thing that will ever happen to me, but I known I am just not that lucky.
As for whether this was a case of Salmonella or not, who knows? If it wasn’t, I sincerely pity the people who’ve had it worse.
If anybody needs me, I’ll be in the bathroom…freshening up.
Asterisk Bedazzled Footnotes:
*Hint: it was not a Law & Order Marathon either.
**I’m looking at you, Vishnu, you beautiful blue man. Although, Shiva the Destroyer makes more sense in the circumstances.
***Kefir – the sound you involuntarily make after tasting fermented yogurt drink. Which tastes just as bad as it sounds.
Feature image stolen from UK Pinterest site. Please forgive me, I have no energy or desire to get my own watermelon and recreate your excellent work. Although, Gallagher’s work on expressing rage by smashing fruit with a giant mallet is starting to make a great deal more sense to me now.
50 Shades of Earl Grey Crème…
Wanted: A naughty cup of tea with a bergamot bite.
I’m on my knees.
I’m begging for relief.
Aching for that particular and distinct pleasure that only a true acolyte of the libatious arts can attain. But alas…
My cup is empty.
I am truly lost without my Earl Grey Crème.
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The week I learned that Teavana was going to close its doors, I went straight to the mall, plunked down a piece of plastic and ordered an obscene amount of tea–something near 7 pounds–because that was the minimum I could order to get 30% off the total price. I did not even look at the receipt when I signed it. No price was too high a cost to pay.*
You think 7 pounds doesn’t sound like a lot? Imagine the backpack sized tea parcels they gave me–I’m sure I looked like a tea mule smuggling fine grade, uncut pure leaf addiction–I’d show you…but I drank it all.
In less than a year, my precious was gone.
I swore I wouldn’t buy any more tea until I have drunk some of the thousands of other teas in the many, many containers I already possess.
You think I’m kidding?
I’m not.
I’ve stuck by my resolution not to succumb to temptation. Not to bend. Not to splay myself prostrate crying
“Why have the tea gods abandoned me? WHY?”
I’ve been sucking down Twinnings Chai to sublimate my desires. I sugar it. I even use the latte foamer that makes me feel like a pampered princess…until I have to clean it.
IT’S ONLY DAY THREE!
I’VE CRACKED.
I am now hunting for a replacement.
How hard can it be to find a fragrant facsimile?
A delicious doppleganger?
A tantalizing taste bud teaser to pleasure the palate? A tea that will make me whimper when it’s gone bottom’s up!**
I’m putting out an ad to the area tea purveyors:
“I’m a sweet young thing looking for the bad boy I’ve been missing…oh where, oh where is my Earl Grey Crème?
Fortunately, the internet is ready to cater to most discerning clientele.
Clickety, click, ka-ching!
So, bring on the Adagio Moonlight loose leaf and the Earl Grey Crème wares of Art of Tea–I can’t wait to sample your charms!***
Hurry to me, my darling. I’m waiting for you!
Asterisk Bedazzled Footnote:
*I lied. I did look at the receipt. The total was shocking, and this was after the discount. And, though I did not faint, it was only because I was afraid I would drop my complimentary cup of tea in the process.
**I want a tea that will own me, make me say “Thank you! May I have another!”
***This post may be a sign that I need an intervention…or a really dominant cup of tea.
TheDustSeason 