Five Shows That Will Never Be Resuscitated

Posted on June 3, 2013 by The Waiting

Every so often, a show is born that is a critical darling but is largely ignored by the TV viewing public. Arrested Development was such a show. It only made it through two and a half seasons before it got cancelled, much to the dismay of pretty much anyone who has ever tried to impress you with their TV-viewing savvy while you both knocked back some cold ones at a hipstery bar.

But then, the world decides to not be horrible so it gives that show a second chance. A week into the fourth season of Arrested Development – now streaming on Netflix – I am not sure how I feel about the new episodes. I was just a tad bit excited (yep, just a little bit) that one of my favorite shows of all time was going to be brought back, but I’m not really finding that the new episodes are living up to my own hype.

But now is not the time to nit-pick Arrested Development (although, obvs, if you want to geek out with me in the comments, this is your open invitation to do so). I should be so lucky that it was Arrested Development that was brought back and not My So-Called Life. Maybe it’s just me, but as much as I ~~loved~~ adored MSCL, I don’t think Angela Chase could really exist in the 21st century, and I’d just about die if network execs brought her back and made her a Belieber. I’ll take an oddly independent collegiate George Michael Bluth over that, thank you very much.

Instead, let’s talk about some shows that we’ll never see brought back from the dead and thank our lucky stars that they are over and done with.

1. According to Jim

By my rough estimation, According to Jim was the worst show ever made. I can make this declaration because when I lived in Korea, it was sometimes the only show on TV that was in English, so out of pure desperation to hear my native tongue, I watched it too much and likely shortened my lifespan in the process.

Jim Belushi plays the dumb drunk husband to his hawt wife Cheryl. Betcha didn’t see that one coming. They have some kids who randomly show up and chirp generic sassy rejoinders, but mostly the show centers around the antics of Jim and his awkward brother-in-law Andy. Lots of oblique Chicago references are made because that is where the show is set, but in all the time I lived in Chicago, I never saw anyone as predictable and lame as Jim and his crew. This turd of a show somehow lasted eight seasons. Let’s keep it buried in the cancellation graveyard.

Who the frick thought I’d like to see Jim Belushi’s chest? FML.

2. What I Like About You

If you think I am adding this show to the list because it’s fun to talk about the trainwreck that is Amanda Bynes right now, you would be correct. But What I Like About You is pretty gnarly on its own, and even if Amanda were making headlines for joining the Peace Corps and donating her All That residuals to the ASPCA, I’d still have no problems dumping all over it. In this cinematic masterpiece, teenaged Holly (Bynes) is sent to live with her older sister Valerie (Jenny Garth) in the Big Apple when her parents move to Japan. The show is marked by Jenny Garth having hissy fits every five minutes and Amanda Bynes channeling Jenny McCarthy’s hot snortiness. Yeah, thanks, but no thanks.

3. Step By Step

I get the feeling that Step By Step, which was part of ABC’s TGIF lineup in the 90′s, was trying really, really hard to revive the classic Brady Bunch formula of a brunette dad and a blonde mom merging together to form one super family, a family whose uniformly straight teeth would endear them not only to each other but also to the entire nation. However, unlike the Bradys, who were reunited many times because of their adorable kitsch (and, honestly, the fact that they dated each other off-camera just begged the question of whether they’d let their guard down for their 1980s Christmas reunion specials), the trials and tribulations of the Lamberts don’t leave you wondering what trajectory their lives went in after the show ended. I would be halfway interested in seeing a reprisal of Suzanne Somer’s other show. Just sayin’.

I would like to know what happened to that pig.

4. Ghost Whisperer

I read something once that said that the cheesiness inherent to Ghost Whisperer, “is okay because other elements of this show work well together and there are enough twists and a season-long story arc that makes things worthwhile.” Um, no. I humbly disagree.

Ghost Whisperer starred Jennifer Love Hewitt. She can talk to ghosts, and she does. And she feels for them. No, no; she feeeeeeeels for them, and in doing so, she helps knit together such a tight web of corniness and melodrama that I am unable to watch reruns of this show without getting stabby. It will likely be in syndication for all eternity because grandmas who love the supposed wholesomeness of JLH will always exist, but I don’t think there will ever be a big clamor for it to be brought out of Cancellation Land. Say what you will about the yuppy hipsters who demanded more episodes of Arrested Development, but they are more organized than Great Aunt Gert and her cohorts.

LOOK AT ALL THE FEELS JENNIFER LOVE HEWITT IS FEELING.

5. The Office

Oh, The Office.

The Office, The Office, The Office.

How I loved thee when you were fresh and new. How I loved you when Pam still had a bad perm, Michael was sleeping with Jan, and before writers decided that Angela should be made into a semi-likable person. And while I will always remember the good ol’ days, I cannot forgive you for your last seasons where you went down in a tailspin with all this “Robert California” BS. Sadly, I don’t think anyone else will either, and for that reason you will likely never be brought back unless you kneel at the shrine of Steve Carrell and beg for his blessing.

What are some shows you never want to see return?

Also, Arrested Development. Discuss.

I wrote some Stuph.

Posted on May 31, 2013 by The Waiting

Twindaddy graciously invited me to write a guest post on his formidable corner of the Intertron, and I, of course, was all over that.

Then – surprise, surprise – Wee Cee commandeered the keyboard while I was busy watching Arthur (because, let’s be honest, I am more of a fan than she is. She has yet to appreciate the tragic humor of beauty school dropout Binky Barnes.) What resulted was a meeting of the minds between her and Baby C, TD’s toddler.

I guess that makes the title of this post a lie, as I didn’t write some stuph. She did.

Pop on over and check it out.

Don’t make the babies cry.

baby-c-trooper

Oooooh That Smell: Living with a Stinky Kid

Posted on May 29, 2013 by The Waiting

It will happen. You will think your baby is immune to it and that it’s an affliction that only claims children who log 30+ hours each week in the Pit of Filth otherwise known as McDonald’s Playplace, but you will be sorely wrong. You’ll wake up one morn lacking the ninja skills to effectively rid your child of their ubiquitous eye crusties. It’s happened.

You’ve got a grubby kid.

Not even an iota of remorse

Grubbiness is more than just a blowout diaper or an entire cup of grape juice dumped down the front of your child’s white sundress. While massively catastrophic at the time, those can be cleaned with a dunk in the tub. Grubbiness, however, is more persistent and insidious. It comes in droves. It’s playground grit under their nails, oatmeal woven through their hair, a random rash likely caused by the duck poop they carried around the park for ten minutes before you noticed.

Wee Cee has been nursing a case of the nasts for nearly two solid weeks now, and I don’t see it abating until she’s off to the prom. I am incapable of staying two steps ahead of the film of babyhood that is constantly building up all over her. I will find a smudge of yogurt behind her ear and then recall that the last time she ate yogurt was two days prior. How could this happen? Is she stockpiling the stuff in the cavity of her Sleep Sheep and breaking it out when we think she’s napping?

Source

I think it all started when she actually grew some hair. Up until recently, C has been sporting the natural pixie look. I birthed what was effectively a cueball and her hair was slow to come in. Then, the back overtook the front and now she’s got a Carol Brady flap-back thing happening. I lie. It’s a mullet. My child has hockey hair. Hockey hair that is constantly in that precarious cradle cap zone (“cradle cap” sounds so much cuter than “dandruff”, which is what it really is) and smells like wet dog even after it’s been shampooed.

Speaking of dogs.

You know how it’s kind of cute when your baby is teething for the first time? How those front teeth come in and you can just give them some frozen toy that assuages their pain? Yeah, it’s been my experience that teething molars is a completely different, disgusting ball game. The pain that is brought on when her molars come in induces so much drool that she looks like an inbred hound dog lacking a barrier lip to fight the influx of saliva. And that colorful teething ring? LOLOLOLOL. She gnaws on her hands and my keys and rocks and and and.

It’s gross.

The good thing about molars, though, is that she can now eat more. I say “good” because I’m ironic. C is all about helping herself to whatever we’re having and smearing it over her hands, face, elbows, and highchair, but when it comes time to clean up after her meal, she makes like Regan McNeil and thwarts all our attempts to clean her off. It burns. IT BURNS!

Often, an odor that’s not that bad but certainly not right will emanate from her pores. I’ll smell something off and realize that it is my girl who I got done scrubbing vigorously not twenty minutes before. All the soap in the world will not be able to cleanse her of her musk of burnt cumin. The most fun she’ll have all morning is when she toots or burps loudly and then grins as if the secrets to the universe made themselves known to her through the bubbles of her gas. She’s basically a yogi of stank.

And crusty crumbs.

And playground sand packed into the tiny lines of her palms.

And onesies dotted with a potpourri of orange and purple stains.

Grunge was a style of music popularized by bands like Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Soundgarden when I was a preteen. Now it’s one of the recurring themes of my life. But that C? She doesn’t smell like teen spirit.

A Modern Day Parable of Optimism

Posted on May 21, 2013 by The Waiting

Sunday was a weird day for my husband. He turned 30 amidst speculation that his blogging platform – Tumblr – would be sold to Yahoo!. Don’t for a second think that the irony is lost on either of us. Peace out, twenties.

Here’s how he felt about it:

By Monday afternoon, the deal was done. Tumblr was sold to Yahoo! for $1.1 billion.

Here’s how the Internet felt about it:
I could throw us all a big pity party. I could weep and sigh and gnash my teeth with my husband and hipsters and the Internet in general. But I’m not going to.

You see, this world where Tumblr mates with Yahoo! is also a world that brought Arrested Development back from the dead. Netflix (which is no gem itself but I am willing to forgive it for all its tomfoolery last year) will be airing new episodes on Sunday. This has been a long time coming. Only a few more short days until we can all put our denim cutoffs back on!

So take heart. This world is not all evil. Things find a way of balancing themselves out.

♥♥♥

Like me bloggy? Like me Facey!

Diapering Memorandum

Posted on May 17, 2013 by The Waiting

Dear Ms. Baby,

We regret to inform you that when you opted in to the Eating and Drinking Program (EDP), you also opted in to the Diaper Changing Program (DCP). For each meal/snack you consume, you will have to report to the changing table roughly two times. As long as your parent/guardian continues to feed and clothe diaper you, these numbers are expected to rise. The anger you have been expressing recently on the changing table may worsen. However, we understand your frustrations and are here to offer some constructive pointers on improving your situation.

Perhaps you would like to persuade your parents to start using disposable diapers more frequently so as to cut back on potential trips to the changing table. While your mother and father are ever so smug about the environmental and financial savings they incur when they wrap your lower torso in reusable garments, they are knowingly creating more work for themselves and for you. Each time they haul you off to the changing table to change your soiled prefold diapers, they are tearing you away from the pressing matter of removing every single item from every single drawer in the home. Please notify them that by switching to disposables, they will not have to change you nearly as often.

Frequent diaper rashes may be the source of your frustrations when your parents insist on laying you upon the slab. If this is the case, we suggest you procure yourself a tube of diaper cream and have your guardian apply it liberally to your underside. Note: we advise against you performing diaper cream maintenance on yourself. The urge to eat Desitin is just too great and poses many threats to your still-developing innards.

As you know, the time you spend on the changing table can be tedious. If the doldrums persist, consider bringing something to entertain yourself with while you’re lying on your back. Entertaining items include but are not limited to:

• Your mother’s filthy set of keys

• An abridged copy of War and Peace

• Plush bunny

• At least four (4) pacifiers

Should you find that having your diaper changed is too unbearable, you may be a prime candidate for transfer to our Early Toilet Training Program (ETTP). Using a potty is indeed a sign that you are a VBG (Very Big Girl). If your expansive vocabulary of da-da, bye-bye, ma-ma, and mooooooooo does not sufficiently convey to your parents your desire to transition to the toilet, we recommend that you simply drop trow in the middle of the living room and go for it. Your parents will likely get the hint.

Yours,

The Management

"Yeah, so, no. I'm not going to lie down."

“Yeah, no. I’m not going to lie down.”

That Time I Got Acupuncture in Korea

Posted on May 6, 2013 by The Waiting

We had three months left in our contract in Korea when I checked out. An end in sight to our two year stint gave me acute senioritis, hating everything distinct to the culture but also all the things that really weren’t. Kimchi and sidewalks both had to go. My body got into the spirit of ire, and one morning I woke up, walked to our bathroom which didn’t even have a shower curtain for God’s sake, and my back gave out. Fuuuuuuuuh.

As B and I walked the four blocks to work that morning, I crumpled in tears every 15 steps or so. I hated that country for not believing in the concept of a sick day except for when you were literally on your death bed. B had had one day of work where he threw up three times, and he still wasn’t given leave, so I knew my inability to stand up straight without crying wouldn’t get me off.

I freaked out my boss Ashley, though, when I hobbled into our office and started spewing breathy, sloppy tears all over her desk and begging her to just help me. Help. Unless you buckle and give me a reprieve, no kindergartener will learn anything from me today except how ugly foreigners look when they cry. Out of sheer mortification of my showiness, she made me an appointment at the acupuncture clinic two floors down in the highrise our school was located in.

“When will it be?”

“Now. Let’s go.”

“Fatty.”

We rode the elevator down together and entered the office, which smelled of ginseng, Bengay, and waygooken fear. Ashley accompanied me into the practitioner’s office to act as a translator during the consultation. It was decided that my back had given out because I was far too fat to carry my girth without inflicting damage to my frame. This was highly interesting to me because my back problems had started when I was 10 years younger and 30 pounds lighter.

They could have said I was in pain because I was whoring myself out on the weekends to Japanese businessmen and I would not have cared. I just wanted to get my holistic therapy on.

I was brought into a small curtained-off booth in the back of the clinic where I was instructed to lie down on my stomach. A web of heated suction cups were fastened to my back as I lay in agony. Soon enough, the humming sound of their massage made me doze off with images of my seven-year-olds two floors above doing phonics with their Korean teacher. Then came the needles. Prick prick prick. I waited for them to kick in because I’m a good foreigner who respects all traditions that will help me go a day without barfing in front of small children.

Before I knew it, the session was over. Ashley had gone, but the receptionist at the front knew enough English and I knew enough Korea to understand that I would be coming back during my unpaid lunch hour everyday for the next week. I went diligently back to work still in blistering pain but at least not crying.

Weeks later, we met up with friends to go singing at the noraebang, the Korean version of karaoke. I was mostly healed but still incredibly sore from accommodating my fat back. B’s cousin Chad who was also an English teacher commented on my rendition of “Sloop John B.”

“When you sang ‘I wanna go home’, it was one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s because it’s true.”

Humor me for a sec.

Posted on May 4, 2013 by The Waiting

I just have one little question for you. It’s this:

That was easy, no?

I have never done a poll on the blog before. I evidently thought about doing one, though, because when I went to make the one above I found this one in my poll queue. It was from before C (AKA Bebe) was born. You are more than welcome to answer it, although at this point if you get the answer wrong I will have to give you an F- for the reading comprehension portion of your grade. That will inevitably bring down your score for the entire semester, thus affecting your GPA adversely, and then you can kiss your chances of getting into a fully-accredited university goodbye. I may also cut you. Chose wisely.

Now here’s this. My husband spends a lot of time on Tumblr and he found it and made me happy:

That llama is my spirit animal. So fab.

Hope you’re having a great weekend!

Postal Service Marketing Tips

Posted on April 26, 2013 by The Waiting

Source

I don’t know what is wrong with me, but I feel bad for the US Postal Service. It’s kind of like an aging great aunt who, in her youth, thrived as a courtroom lawyer in all-male Atlanta, but now that she is older smokes three packs a day and insists that the Sears Towers is located in Skokie and not the Loop. I want to help the Postal Service, so here are some marketing tactics I am giving it for free.

1. Spend some serious coin on a decent commercial. Stamps are cute, but you can’t take cute to the bank. (OK, so maybe you can, but cute will eventually crash and burn and start dating men three times its own age. So, gross.) The USPS should just bite the bullet and buy the rights to some Michael Jackson songs and make a series of commercials based around them. Hello? Earworm. All I’m saying is that it is really easy to hear “Keep on with the post office/ Don’t stop ’til you get enough” when MJ sings, “Keep on with the force/ Don’t stop ’til you get enough.”

2. Hot ‘N Ready Little Caesar’s Pizza is on to something. It caters to busy parents and poor college kids by having $5 pizzas at the ready for customers on the go. The Postal Service should have something like this, too: super cheap, super fast delivery. For a low, low fee, you could drop your parcel off at the Post Office and have it delivered by another postal patron who’s heading to the final destination of your package. They’d get a discount on their own mailing fees for helping a brah out.

What if the random weirdo who promised to handle your letter never follows through, you ask? Well, Little Caesar’s doesn’t factor quality into their business model either.

3. Move its floral section to the front of the store. I am a total sucker for Whole Foods. It’s bad. If you think I get possessed when I walk into Target and inhale that first sweet breathe of salty, stale popcorn, you should see me when I enter Whole Foods. That place is more orchestrated and controlled than Disney World. Every dreadlock falls just so and each kernel of quinoa has been blessed by Incan descendants themselves (not really.) At the entrance to each and every Whole Foods, shoppers are greeted with bountiful, beautiful flowers for sale. This is because during the walk they had to take from their Prius to the interior of the store, their smugness dipped to low levels and had to be rejuvenated ASAP. The FDA said so. The Postal Service really, really needs to move their flowers to the front of their facilities. This is so obvious, I can’t believe no one has pointed it out before.

What’s that? The Postal Service doesn’t sell flowers? Well there’s their problem.

Flowers at Whole Foods Source

4. Sue other delivery companies for picking up parcels they lost. I have a dream. I dream of a world where Monsanto does not have the corner market on evil. I dream that much like Monsanto – which litigates against adjacent farms for seeds that scatter naturally from their own fields – the Postal Service will grow horns of its own and start suing FedEx and UPS for picking up their slack. There is nothing more American than a good ol’ petty lawsuit, so the USPS needs to get with the program and start some. They are on the right track for suing Lance Armstrong, but I challenge them to get more brazen and heartless in their practice. It’s the ‘Merican way.

5. Patent the concept of delivery. The USPS needs to take a little more pride in itself and start claiming that it invented the practice of moving parcels around. It needs to slap a patent on the concept of delivery. No one has ever said that Apple doesn’t have high self-esteem, and this is because it has actually taken patents out on the concept of page-turning.

6. Two words: Jack Nicholson

I mean, come on. GET THIS GUY ON YOUR TEAM. He could sell ice to Eskimos.

7. Have monthly specials. This is so obvious I can barely stand it. USPS, I am throwing you a slowball with this tip. The deli chain Subway thrives on its Five Dollar Footlong promotion. Basically, every month they promote a sandwich and give it to you for five dollars, whether it’s actually worth that or not. The Postal Service should have monthly specials where they give deep discounts on certain services. Stamps are marked down in December, getting more people to send Christmas cards. Media Mail containing books is put on special during October for National Book Month. Parcels containing, um, illicit substances are put on special for April, no questions asked.

8. Spontaneous Yelling When was the last time you said to yourself, “Wow, I can’t wait to go to the Post Office to go file my passport papers!”? You’ve never said it. No one has ever said it. Moe’s Southwestern Grill had the same problem. Why would you want to go to Moe’s when Chipotle is right across the street? So Moe’s came up with the genius idea to have their burrito artisans yell spontaneously whenever customers walked in the door. All of a sudden, Moe’s had some provenance. Now, they’re known for their spastic screaming. Postal employees should do the same thing when their facilities get overcrowded. There is something about leading a crowd in The Wave to lighten spirits. I am picturing some real Cowboy Ugly action, minus Leanne Rimes. Because ewww.

I intended these tips for the Postal Service, but the DMV is welcome to them, too.

Do you smell like a bear?

Posted on April 23, 2013 by liquorstorebear

Have you ever had an idea that you know has potential but you don’t want to execute it yourself because the last time you did that, you ended up with burnt English muffins when all you wanted was a mini pizza? I was thinking about stupid wine tasting terms the other day as I looked at my gut and realized that it was as flabby as a $2 bottle of ice wine. My mind immediately went to my friend the Liquorstore Bear, who I knew could give the topic of bizarre wine tasting terms a far better sendoff than I ever could. So here he is: the one, the only, Liquorstore Bear.

-Emily

My friend Scarybear knows we’ve ordered pizza before the delivery guy even rings the bell. What’s more, he can tell which toppings we’ve ordered and which pizzeria.

Okay, so you don’t know who the hell Scarybear is. But bear with me.

Many thanks to Emily for allowing me to do a guest post. My friend Scarybear will be delighted that this pic is circulating to yet more readers.

When you think of bears you probably think of lumbering, garbage-raiding pests who regularly take a tranq dart for encroaching on campers. Bears (I happen to be one) are famous for being nuisances, but they can’t help it. They have the most awesome noses in the animal kingdom.

It was the ursine nose that enslaved me to wine, but human noses aren’t too shabby (they’re at least a two-thousandth as acute as bear noses). You need to have that olfactory bulb on board to really enjoy wine, and it’s probably better just to smell the wine in the room, not the empties that have already been brought out to the garage, right? Meaning, you humans are probably in the olfactory sweet spot for wine enjoyment, whereas wine’s amazing aromas will eventually drive me mad.

http://www.aromadictionary.com

You’re familiar with the welcome wine aromas: oak, tannin, tobacco, leather, spice, berries, orchard fruit, tropical fruit…etc. But when you buy wine within the LBHQ budget (which is to say, a small budget aiming for max wine), you encounter all sorts of unexpected aromas too…

Fair to say, a wine can smell like anything, depending on the (in)competence of the winemaker.

Popcorn

If you think Orville Redenbacher bottled your vino, you’re not imagining something’s off. Excess diacetyl, formed early on when the yeasts are first converting grape sugar into alcohol, produces that fake butter odor. A little butter isn’t unwelcome in a Chardonnay, but you shouldn’t feel like you’re in a movie theater.

Sweaty horse blanket

One of our local wine consultant’s eyes lit up as she described the slight barnyard notes in a Carmenere. She’s not alone; plenty of wine drinkers adore manure aromas; others (correctly?) think they smell like ass. They indicate the presence of Brettanomyces, a yeast capable of wrecking a wine but acceptable in tiny amounts. (Not to bears with kick-ass noses though!)

Skunk cabbage

Skunky beer has its adherents, but skunk in a wine indicates an excess of sulfur, used in winemaking to inhibit bacteria. Especially in low-nitrogen wines, sulfuric chords assert themselves rudely—rotten eggs, snuffed matches, Scarybear’s farts—making wine undrinkable for all except the most determined alcoholic bears. Riesling and Chardonnay most often fall prey to skunkiness.

Wet packing material

Damp cardboard is a surefire sign that a wine is corked. There is some debate as to what exactly causes cork taint (2-4-6-trichloranisole)—fungus, contact between corks and cardboard packing material, chlorine used to wash the cork, although this practice was discontinued in the 90s. Throw that wine down the sink (unless it will leave you without wine) and get a clean glass for your next bottle; the odor is persistent. And don’t be embarrassed to embrace the screw-top.

Asparagus

Not asparagus pee, per se, but soggy asparagus itself, this odor may emanate from Sauvignon Blanc and is the result of vinifying underripe grapes. Vegetal odors are all wrong, if you ask me, just like vegetables are all wrong.

Campfire marshmallow

This smell may accompany a brick-red hue (for reds) or a tawny shade (for whites). It signifies oxidation. Some dumbass stored or transported the wine improperly and exposed it to air or high temperatures.

Nail polish remover

Another reason to toss the wine (or take it back to the store if you can), this screeching high note does not belong. It’s a kind of bacterial spoilage known as volatile acidity (VA).

Cat pee

One of the most interesting and even sought-after aromas, feline urine occurs most often in Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc. The responsible compound, p-mentha-8-thiol-3-one, smells like kitty tinkle only in a specific concentration range, below which it smells herbal and above which it smells like blackcurrants. Wow! Basically you want to attack this wine right away or let it sit for a day so you can bypass the pee phase. Unless you like pee.

Which smells have you encountered with wine?

Let’s all hold hands and sing Kumbaya.

Posted on April 15, 2013 by The Waiting

This is the post where I bask in the glory of the Internet and its ability to transmit all the says I say around the globe.

Remember awhile ago when I begged you to further inflate my oft-pregnant ego and “like” the page on Facebook? Remember how you thought to yourself, “Wow, I never thought I’d see Emily get so low as to flat out beg for hits”? And remember how you liked me anyway because you are nice and you know I mean well but just lack any savvy to garner Internet kudos without begging? Yeah, I remember it too. And trust me, it was a proud moment when I got a whole cartload of likes on just one day. It gave me a wicked case of the kumbayas because only the day before I had gotten a particularly mean-spirited comment on an old post that made me feel all kinds of sad emoticons.

Wop-waaaaaa.

During the Day of The Like, I got a comment on the page from a reader in Australia (hi Jari-Ann!!!) that filled me with a happiness roughly on par with seeing a giant unopened package of Double Stuf Oreos on your counter all for you. So yeah, elation. The reader, who (I’m fairly sure) had never left a comment before, told me that she had been following me since C was born and that she always gets excited when she sees a blog update in her inbox. I know! I was so excited to hear this! And I promise I’m not making it up. You can even go and SEE her comment and know that it’s real and not a figment of my imagination.

I have always been aware of the possibility that maybe, just maybe, there are people out there in the other computerboxes who read my things and don’t really comment on them. That’s totally OK by me. Comments are wondrous and right and an angel gets its wings every time you leave them, but they are not everything. Angels do not need to fly and live perfectly beatific lives walking. All I really want is for my words to make you nod along and hopefully see the world in an invigorating new way that complements your own experiences. If you leave a comment, fabulous. If you don’t, that’s OK too. But I want those of you who don’t really interact with me here to know that I appreciate you and I’d like to get to know you. I’d love to know where you live and what makes you tick, not because I am a weirdo who will hunt you down and unload all my baggage on you (which I pretty much already do since I blog), but because I love how reading and writing and sharing makes the world a smaller, cozier place. You may have already noticed I have a raging, hormone-induced infatuation with the Internet. Well, the Internet is all people (except the bots, who I love too anyway because Horse_ebooks.) So that means I have a crush on you.

My parents sometimes took my brother and me to this science and nature museum when we were kids. There was a little exhibit of a fox’s den off the main drag of the museum – nowhere near the giant, shiny pendulum or the taxidermied lions who were rumored to have eaten an entire village in Botswana. You could crawl inside the softly lit cubby hole with brown carpet on the walls and feel safe and small. You could still hear all the tour groups and big kids on field trips outside the hole, but for a moment that tiny spot was yours. It smelled a bit like urine but what did you expect at a kids’ museum?

You all are my fox’s den, minus the pee smell. (This is a major compliment.) I feel safe and full knowing that you care. This Internet is a big black annoying forest where you walk into cobwebs and get them in your mouth and then spin around and spit like a crazy person, disoriented and angry. Somehow, though, we have all managed to find one another without much of a compass, and we have nestled in together in a safe enclave. Even if you’re quiet and don’t leave me a note, just know that the residual heat you leave in our tiny nest keeps me warm and I appreciate you.

Ooooh, Lord, kumbaya.

The Waiting

Turns out, it's not the hardest part.

Tag Archives: humor