Well, it's Christmas. Sort of. I find that this time of night/morning is always most confusing to assign a date to when it's the night/morning of Christmas Eve/Christmas. I mean, if it were any old Friday night/Saturday morning, I could call it either Friday or Saturday and not think twice one way or the other. But it being THIS Friday night/Saturday morning makes it more conflicting. Because if I say it's Christmas then I feel like I'm jumping the gun and internally will become more excited than I should be, as I still technically need to sleep before it can be "real" Christmas, therefore jump starting the adrenaline and getting my hopes up for something that I still have a couple hours before I'm able to experience. Kind of like a trick on myself. I'll tell myself, "Bri, it's Christmas!...buuut you still have to go to sleep before you can experience it." Then the other part of me goes, "WHY DID YOU GET MY HOPES UP IF I STILL HAVE TO WAIT?!?!?!?!" Then I'm just angry.
However, on the other hand, if I try to trick myself into not being excited by saying, "Chill out Bri, it's only Christmas Eve...." Well, then I can't help but notice that the date on the computer screaming, "12/25/2010" begs to differ, and then the other part of me says, "Are you stupid? If it was REALLY Christmas Eve, that would say '12/24/2010' ...I'm not gonna fall for your stupid tricks. I'm not five." Then I'm just angry at myself for thinking I could trick myself that way. See, it's a lose/lose. This is my struggle every year. Granted, this entire headache could all be avoiding if I would fall asleep when it was legitimately still the 24th...but that's not very realistic, now is it.
Anyway, when I started this post I had no intention of going into any of that at all.
What I meant to say was something slightly happy to contrast with my last post about the opposite of something slightly happy.
See, I, myself, personally, don't really get stressed. I mean, if there's something super major intense going on, then sure, I guess I would react like a human being. But then again, if it's something super major intense, I sort of skip the "stressed" stage and hop straight into the massive breakdown stage anyway. What I'm saying is, I don't cause myself stress. The thing that causes me to be stressed is other people's stress. I am a big victim of emotional contagion. So with this Christmas being the first since the demise of my parent's marriage, I was worried because everyone was worried, and I anticipated being really stressed because the build up to this day has caused a lot of people stress already so I figured the actual day would be one colossal wad of stress puke.
I went to the Christmas Eve service at RBC (well...Gracespring...whatever...), my mom and sister went to one in Grand Rapids, and my brother and his girlfriend, Amber, went downtown or something. Mine ended way first so I was just sitting at home for a few hours waiting for everyone to arrive... and when they did, within 2.7 seconds upon their entry, I knew I would be able to tell exactly how the rest of the weekend was going to go.
This is sort of how I saw it happening in my mind: *people arrive.... people are not happy.*
This is how it happened in real life: *people arrive.... people are happy!*
Some people talk about how when their expectations meet reality, it depresses them. See, people get their hopes up, and then they are let down. But for me, I set my expectations so exceedingly low, that when they meet reality, I can't possibly be more depressed than I already am. In fact, I was discussing this with Kaitlyn just today. We're both pretty sure that we are the smart thinkers in this world, because "if you set the bar low enough, the good things are surprises that are only increased to way super extra good, and the bad things aren't disappointing because we already called them happening anyway." It's pretty much a win/win. That logic was tested for me tonight, and it was proved to be valid.
So far, I've spent most of my time listening to my brother gab about the Elvish names he made up and the villages he's visited so far on Lord of the Rings Online, the enormous "super awesome" police lego set that Amber got him that he can't wait to turn into "a machine of death" for when he plays Brikwars, how much he likes his superhero pajama pants and his Transformers t-shirt, the Star Wars emblem he painted on his pick-up, and the like.
He's 24. And he's one of my all-time favorite people in the whole entire universe.
We also watched A Christmas Story (as semi-tradition) and Star Wars Episode III (not as tradition at all, but a very fortunate result of channel surfing), and played a clever little card game.
Here's my favorite quote for the night:
Justin: "It's already 2am, let's just not go to sleep."
Bri: "Yeah, let's just stay up all night drinking vodka..." (note: this was a joke based on previous conversations of the night.)
Mom: "Hey don't even talk like that!...the vodka is for the morning."
She is really going to hate me for posting that...but at least it's not on facebook. And the whole point is to say how cool it is to have a mom who still makes jokes about topics that most people wouldn't make jokes about given the knowledge that she contains. And plus just because she's a mom. Moms don't make jokes like that but mine does, and I think it's cool. Soo. What I'm saying is, I'm pretty blessed to have the cool people in my family that I do.
(Alyssa - you count as apart of the cool people in my family, I just didn't have an outstandingly blog-worthy story to tell about you from tonight. Sorry.)
Anyway, I'm pretty blessed. That's all.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
What can I say, my middle name is Joy.
Well, it's Christmas time. Usually this is the season for people to feel all joyful and merry and be all motivated to be extra nice to everyone.
However, for me, this is the season that makes me realize what a horrible scrooge I am. I mean, first of all, those ultra-sugary people have always gotten on my nerves, simply because it is obvious that they just aren't human. But as soon as we get near Christmas, it's like every single person morphs into one of those people, only amped up on cheerful-steroids, too. But then it just wears off as soon as "the season" does. And don't get me wrong, I am all for the whole Operation Christmas Child stuff... but think about it, if we send those poor African children a box of goodies one day a year, what kind of message is that sending? It's sending one that says, "I'll be giving to the less-fortunate for one day, but the other 364 days of the year, this stuff is MINE."
Okay, so the poor Africans probably aren't reading into it like that at all and are just super duper grateful (everyone should do an Operation Christmas Child box), but I'm just saying... what's the point of picking a couple days out of the year to pretend we're all super kind and giving, if we're just going to go back to being...not that...the rest of the year? I mean, is a little consistency too much to ask for? I may be a grinch, but at least you can count on that!
And how 'bout this phrase: "He is the reason for the season." Yes...this is true...but He is also the reason for LIFE. Not just the season. Christ wasn't even born in December. The only reason we started celebrating it in December was because we had no other holidays to stick there.
This is probably making me sound like some heathen who refuses to celebrate the birth of Christ due to pessimism-overload. That's not it at all. I love celebrating Jesus, obviously, I just think we should celebrate Him as much every day as we do on Christmas. Not that I do that very well either, I'm not giving myself a free pass in this, I'm just talking in general here.
Now, moving on to other Christmas-related matters.
How 'bout this Santa Claus guy?
It was because of him that I first came to realize how confusing my brain is. See, even as a four-year-old, I thought the entire concept of a fat guy sneaking down my chimney and leaving me presents was completely absurd. Logically, it made no sense whatsoever.
Yet, at the same time, I spent most of my days living in an imaginary reality where I was a fearless Bello Knight of Dormynzandra, fighting off the shadow demons with my powers to control the earthly elements. Or I was Tarzan in a family of gorillas that I swear I could hear talking to me. Or I was washed onto the beaches of Dinotopia, living amongst the scientifically-advanced dinosaurs, flying around with my best friend, Goochie the velociraptor. Or I was a Jaguarundi cub (a South American jungle-cat, cousin of the Ocelot), venturing my way across the mysterious land of Meldeson.
You see, all of these things were completely real to me. But Santa Claus - no way. That was just ridiculous. Made up worlds, talking animals, mystical powers: of course. A north-pole dwelling grandpa creeping down the chimney: absolutely not.
I remember making my piano teacher's son cry one time because I told him that "only stupid kids believe in Santa Claus." I was five. And I was also thoroughly convinced that if I could only conjure up some of this blasted "pixie dust," I would legitimately learn to fly. But Santa...only fools believed in him.
Do you see why my mind can be a conflicting place to reside?
Of course, now that I think about it, maybe the issue has nothing to do with the size of my imagination or the ongoing battle between the right and left sides of my brain. I mean, I obviously dream big enough for everybody and their brother. But maybe I just find too much pleasure in crushing other people's dreams.
Yeah, that makes sense...goes right along with that whole thing about being such a scrooge.
If the dream is mine, it's real, and it's going to happen. But if the dream is someone else's, it's simply preposterous.
Wow, I suck.
You ever have one of these moments? Where you realize something about yourself that makes it so obvious that you are pretty much an awful person? These are not rare moments for me.
Last night I got a glimpse of where I might have inherited this gene of awfulness, though.
Alyssa: Mom, where are my barbie ornaments?
Mom: Hopefully not molding out in storage in the kennel.
Alyssa: Um, that would be horrible.
Mom: Yeah, there are a looot of horrible things in life.
*Bri laughs hysterically*
To make Christmas even better, we have this stupid tree that no one watered and is getting pine needles everywhere. Not the nice kind of needles either, the spikey kind that feel like barbed wire. I'm serious, it's like a massively overgrown porcupine just chilling in the middle of my house. A booby-trap in my own living room. I basically have to venture through a freaking mine field of sharp, pokey death just to get to the kitchen.
And my sister made me help her decorate this death-trap last night, so that was just a bundle of joy.
Especially when we got to the end and realized we had nothing to stick on top.
Good thing my creative geniusness arrived for the rescue.
All it takes is a piece of paper, a high-lighter, a pen, and some tape to get that star on the top of the tree.
It may be slightly pathetic, and/or sad, and fragile, but it gets the job done.
..story of this year's Christmas.
OH by the way, I found out that the ignorant blog-genie thinks I live in Alaska or something, because it seems that the time it always says it is when I post a blog is three hours early. It's 3:07am right now, but it's going to say it's 12:07. (I fixed this today! -Future Bri, the one from 1/10/11 that is more technologically advanced and realized the blog had been set to pacific time.)
And this concludes our happy segment of Bri's Collection of Cheerful Middle-Of-The-Night Christmas Contemplations.
However, for me, this is the season that makes me realize what a horrible scrooge I am. I mean, first of all, those ultra-sugary people have always gotten on my nerves, simply because it is obvious that they just aren't human. But as soon as we get near Christmas, it's like every single person morphs into one of those people, only amped up on cheerful-steroids, too. But then it just wears off as soon as "the season" does. And don't get me wrong, I am all for the whole Operation Christmas Child stuff... but think about it, if we send those poor African children a box of goodies one day a year, what kind of message is that sending? It's sending one that says, "I'll be giving to the less-fortunate for one day, but the other 364 days of the year, this stuff is MINE."
Okay, so the poor Africans probably aren't reading into it like that at all and are just super duper grateful (everyone should do an Operation Christmas Child box), but I'm just saying... what's the point of picking a couple days out of the year to pretend we're all super kind and giving, if we're just going to go back to being...not that...the rest of the year? I mean, is a little consistency too much to ask for? I may be a grinch, but at least you can count on that!
And how 'bout this phrase: "He is the reason for the season." Yes...this is true...but He is also the reason for LIFE. Not just the season. Christ wasn't even born in December. The only reason we started celebrating it in December was because we had no other holidays to stick there.
This is probably making me sound like some heathen who refuses to celebrate the birth of Christ due to pessimism-overload. That's not it at all. I love celebrating Jesus, obviously, I just think we should celebrate Him as much every day as we do on Christmas. Not that I do that very well either, I'm not giving myself a free pass in this, I'm just talking in general here.
Now, moving on to other Christmas-related matters.
How 'bout this Santa Claus guy?
It was because of him that I first came to realize how confusing my brain is. See, even as a four-year-old, I thought the entire concept of a fat guy sneaking down my chimney and leaving me presents was completely absurd. Logically, it made no sense whatsoever.
Yet, at the same time, I spent most of my days living in an imaginary reality where I was a fearless Bello Knight of Dormynzandra, fighting off the shadow demons with my powers to control the earthly elements. Or I was Tarzan in a family of gorillas that I swear I could hear talking to me. Or I was washed onto the beaches of Dinotopia, living amongst the scientifically-advanced dinosaurs, flying around with my best friend, Goochie the velociraptor. Or I was a Jaguarundi cub (a South American jungle-cat, cousin of the Ocelot), venturing my way across the mysterious land of Meldeson.
You see, all of these things were completely real to me. But Santa Claus - no way. That was just ridiculous. Made up worlds, talking animals, mystical powers: of course. A north-pole dwelling grandpa creeping down the chimney: absolutely not.
I remember making my piano teacher's son cry one time because I told him that "only stupid kids believe in Santa Claus." I was five. And I was also thoroughly convinced that if I could only conjure up some of this blasted "pixie dust," I would legitimately learn to fly. But Santa...only fools believed in him.
Do you see why my mind can be a conflicting place to reside?
Of course, now that I think about it, maybe the issue has nothing to do with the size of my imagination or the ongoing battle between the right and left sides of my brain. I mean, I obviously dream big enough for everybody and their brother. But maybe I just find too much pleasure in crushing other people's dreams.
Yeah, that makes sense...goes right along with that whole thing about being such a scrooge.
If the dream is mine, it's real, and it's going to happen. But if the dream is someone else's, it's simply preposterous.
Wow, I suck.
You ever have one of these moments? Where you realize something about yourself that makes it so obvious that you are pretty much an awful person? These are not rare moments for me.
Last night I got a glimpse of where I might have inherited this gene of awfulness, though.
Alyssa: Mom, where are my barbie ornaments?
Mom: Hopefully not molding out in storage in the kennel.
Alyssa: Um, that would be horrible.
Mom: Yeah, there are a looot of horrible things in life.
*Bri laughs hysterically*
To make Christmas even better, we have this stupid tree that no one watered and is getting pine needles everywhere. Not the nice kind of needles either, the spikey kind that feel like barbed wire. I'm serious, it's like a massively overgrown porcupine just chilling in the middle of my house. A booby-trap in my own living room. I basically have to venture through a freaking mine field of sharp, pokey death just to get to the kitchen.
And my sister made me help her decorate this death-trap last night, so that was just a bundle of joy.
Especially when we got to the end and realized we had nothing to stick on top.
Good thing my creative geniusness arrived for the rescue.
All it takes is a piece of paper, a high-lighter, a pen, and some tape to get that star on the top of the tree.
It may be slightly pathetic, and/or sad, and fragile, but it gets the job done.
..story of this year's Christmas.
And this concludes our happy segment of Bri's Collection of Cheerful Middle-Of-The-Night Christmas Contemplations.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Just a happy, sunshiney, rainbow and unicorn filled tale.
I'm pretty much dying as I write this. Really, by the time you get done reading this, I'm sure I will be long gone. In fact, I just put your invitation to my funeral in the mail.
The reason for my untimely passing? Unbearable toe pain.
Remember in my first blog when I talked about my ridiculous day where I fell off my roof and somehow damaged my toe to the point of incomprehensible pain and infection? Then I jammed a needle in it and all the blood and puss gushed out? Well, I found out two days later that my single-handed emergency surgery only caused a temporary fix. It started getting all filled with death again, so I repeated the surgery, and thought that this time it really was cured for good.
Nope. Last night I started feeling it coming back, but I chose to ignore it and jump into my imaginary reality where I have the power to will pain out of my body. However, tonight I realized that I'm lacking as much in the willing away pain skill as I am in the willing away homework skill. Because after I returned home from work, my big toe was pretty much screaming at me to put it out of its misery and chop it off. But I decided to go with the less gory approach, and just jam it repeatedly with safety pins and simultaneously flood the open wounds with peroxide. I really thought I was making progress when I hit a spot and it started spewing blood...because last time that's what happened right before all the toxic nasty emerged and made it feel better. But that's not what happened this time. This time, blood only continued cascading profusely until I passed out in a pool of my own plasma on the kitchen floor.
That's a lie. But it did bleed a whole lot.
That's when I recalled hearing that if you got a needle hot enough it would burn a hole in your toenail without even feeling it, releasing pressure and hopefully those pesky germs, too. This may just be selective interpreting, but the way I remember it being described made it sound so easy - as if the burning needle would just slip right through like a steak knife through room-temperature butter.
Nope. I grabbed a lighter, feeling newly motivated that this might finally be my solution. I held my safety pin in the flame until it was nice and blackened, and then pressed the tip on my nail. However, instead of this being helpful at all, I ended up burning my finger on the pin, and then on the second try when the needle didn't just slide in through the nail, I applied more pressure which made it accidentally shoot across my nail, plummeting into the swelled mess of skin next to it.
So, now instead of my toe just being filled with intense pain and death, it is also burned, blood-stained, and looking as though it was mangled by a grizzly bear. I'm starting to think just chopping it off would have been the more productive way to go. And also, I'm not exaggerating when I say I might die from unbearable pain. I mean, I have a severely high pain tolerance, and I'm not kidding around here.
In case you are wondering why I'm blogging about this, it's because no one to whom I could complain is currently home.
Anyway...this horrific event was pretty much the best part of my week. And that's all I'll say about that.
By the way, I (sort of) sincerely apologize if you read my last blog and thought it was "so awful." Personally, I thought it was just full of some pretty good similes, but my mom said it makes me sound like the world's most evil, God's-creation-hating, abominable grim-reaper to ever surface the earth after undergoing a lifetime of corruption in Hades. At least, that's what her "so awful" said to me. So um. Sorry.
The reason for my untimely passing? Unbearable toe pain.
Remember in my first blog when I talked about my ridiculous day where I fell off my roof and somehow damaged my toe to the point of incomprehensible pain and infection? Then I jammed a needle in it and all the blood and puss gushed out? Well, I found out two days later that my single-handed emergency surgery only caused a temporary fix. It started getting all filled with death again, so I repeated the surgery, and thought that this time it really was cured for good.
Nope. Last night I started feeling it coming back, but I chose to ignore it and jump into my imaginary reality where I have the power to will pain out of my body. However, tonight I realized that I'm lacking as much in the willing away pain skill as I am in the willing away homework skill. Because after I returned home from work, my big toe was pretty much screaming at me to put it out of its misery and chop it off. But I decided to go with the less gory approach, and just jam it repeatedly with safety pins and simultaneously flood the open wounds with peroxide. I really thought I was making progress when I hit a spot and it started spewing blood...because last time that's what happened right before all the toxic nasty emerged and made it feel better. But that's not what happened this time. This time, blood only continued cascading profusely until I passed out in a pool of my own plasma on the kitchen floor.
That's a lie. But it did bleed a whole lot.
That's when I recalled hearing that if you got a needle hot enough it would burn a hole in your toenail without even feeling it, releasing pressure and hopefully those pesky germs, too. This may just be selective interpreting, but the way I remember it being described made it sound so easy - as if the burning needle would just slip right through like a steak knife through room-temperature butter.
Nope. I grabbed a lighter, feeling newly motivated that this might finally be my solution. I held my safety pin in the flame until it was nice and blackened, and then pressed the tip on my nail. However, instead of this being helpful at all, I ended up burning my finger on the pin, and then on the second try when the needle didn't just slide in through the nail, I applied more pressure which made it accidentally shoot across my nail, plummeting into the swelled mess of skin next to it.
So, now instead of my toe just being filled with intense pain and death, it is also burned, blood-stained, and looking as though it was mangled by a grizzly bear. I'm starting to think just chopping it off would have been the more productive way to go. And also, I'm not exaggerating when I say I might die from unbearable pain. I mean, I have a severely high pain tolerance, and I'm not kidding around here.
In case you are wondering why I'm blogging about this, it's because no one to whom I could complain is currently home.
Anyway...this horrific event was pretty much the best part of my week. And that's all I'll say about that.
By the way, I (sort of) sincerely apologize if you read my last blog and thought it was "so awful." Personally, I thought it was just full of some pretty good similes, but my mom said it makes me sound like the world's most evil, God's-creation-hating, abominable grim-reaper to ever surface the earth after undergoing a lifetime of corruption in Hades. At least, that's what her "so awful" said to me. So um. Sorry.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
The time that I became six months pregnant over night.
So, last night my boyfriend spent the night at my house, and today I was six months pregnant.
Just kidding.
Kind of. I mean, he did spend the night at my house, but for completely innocent and pure reasons, and today I did have to make myself look six months pregnant.
See, for my communications class our final project is to do this "frame of reference challenge" thing, where we had to do something completely out of our comfort zones that would force us to see things through someone's perspective whom we normally never would.
Considering my biggest fear is becoming pregnant,
-Okay I feel that I need to explain that statement in more length than would fit inside some parentheses before finishing this story. To be clear, there is absolutely no possible way that I could be pregnant. But for some reason I have this weird, irrational paranoia that somehow, someway it will just happen against my will. See, I hate children (with the exception of four of them in the whole world, and getting to the point of even accepting them as human beings took me about two years of them being forced upon me against my will). It's not just an intense dislike, it's more of a fear. I don't know how to explain it, it's just whenever a small child enters a thirty foot radius of me, my vision gets all blurry and I start squirming around in terror until I'm either writhing on the floor in the fetal position, or running away in total panic. Alright, so that first one has never actually happened, but the latter occurs quite frequently. Sometimes people who know me think it's funny to tell a little kid to come try to touch me. Which is basically the same thing as sicking a hippo on a helpless, newborn puppy with down-syndrome (I say "hippo" because google told me that they are the most dangerous mammal in the world...well, with the exception of human beings, and I wasn't gonna use that one because it didn't really make any sense, nor would it work with my analogy). What I'm saying is, it's pretty much the cruelest thing anyone could ever do to me.
To what age does this intense fear extend, you ask? I would say that I stop being afraid of them once they hit about eight years old...that's when it tends to morph from a fear into a raging annoyance. And then there are the infants...first of all, please don't get mad at me if you are around me when I refer to a baby as an "it." I don't mean to ignore the fact that they, too, are human beings...but my mind just refuses to view them as such until they can at least walk and talk. I'm pretty sure they don't terrify me quite as much as they simply gross me out. All they ever do is puke, poop, drool, and cry...I hate all those things. And then there are the people who think it's funny to try and force me to hold their infant...well, the jokes on them, because once that baby touches me, I'm incapable of moving whatsoever so the thing will most likely fall and die. I'm aware of how awful that sentence sounds, but if that's what it takes to make sure whoever reads this will never try to force a baby on me, then so be it.
So anyway, since this phobia of mine is pretty well known, a while ago my friends made this joke about how I would be the next "virgin Mary" and God would supernaturally impregnate me just for a funny gag. I think maybe that's when my fear of becoming pregnant started. Because it's not just the end result of pregnancy that scares me, but the nine, long months in which you are enduring the pregnancy symptoms appears to be the most intense type of hell on earth one could ever imagine. I mean, puking every morning, emotional roller coasters more intense than the Bizarro (a roller coaster in New England that was listed as one of the world's scariest coasters...it involves flying through a tunnel of FIRE), crying all the time, feeling like a beached whale, not being able to control your food cravings, and pretty much feeling like you're dying every single day just doesn't sound enjoyable to me. Not to mention the part where you are a freaking vessel carrying another life, meaning every tiny thing you do or eat could effect the outcome of the kid's existence. My mom said she ate a lot of Chinese food when she was pregnant with me, and now Chinese is my favorite kind of food. What if I'm so emotional and hung up on craving a certain food that I refuse to eat anything BUT that type of food the entire time I'm pregnant, and then that kid is destined to a life of being a picky eater for all of eternity? Or I trip and fall on my stomach (I'm outlandishly klutzy), and the kid comes out with a severe mental disability? The list of things you could do to screw up the little thing's whole entire life is basically endless. Now, add to all that the reaction that certain people would have to my becoming pregnant, which I might actually be more terrified of seeing than the pregnancy symptoms itself, and you've got my biggest fear in a nutshell.
And yes, logically I know that only I am in control of making pregnancy even a possibility, and that I know I never would, but for some reason I can't shake this unreasonable terror from my mind. Seriously, I have very realistic nightmares that involve me being abducted by scary people in white coats who stab me with giant needles containing the DNA of a baby and "scientifically" impregnate me. Once, I actually started crying in real life when I accidentally zoned out for too long and observed a scenario in which I became magically pregnant play out in my all too vivid imagination. I'm talking legit day terrors here, people.
Alright, now that you understand exactly what I mean by, "Considering my biggest fear is becoming pregnant," I will move on with the actual story.
So, I decided that forcing myself to experience pregnancy would push me the most out of my comfort zone, seeing how I'm not planning to undergo the real situation for a very, very, very long time.
So, I rolled up a bed sheet and wrapped it in saran wrap to make it all smooth and solid and then saran wrapped it to myself - it was quite the contraption - and headed off to the mall with Shawn, whom I brought along for some added dramatic interest. He got dirtier looks than I did.
It turned out to be a successful project, as I was able to witness first hand how judgmental people can be, what it's like to stand out like a pirate at a ninja convention, and how much perception can alter an assumption.
And what did I learn?
Being pregnant is even more of a hassle than I had originally anticipated. Seriously, it was exhausting trying to reach anything an inch out of my arm span, and trying to pick something up off the ground was just a joke. The only good part about it was that I had an excuse to wear sweats without looking like a hobo, and we got to park in the "expectant mothers" parking space.
For my summary paper, the last question I had to answer was, "Why would you recommend that other students do what you chose to do as a frame of reference challenge?"
I answered, "I would never recommend doing this. Not unless you want to feel like there's an alien growing out of you, or literally fall on your face while trying to tie your shoe, or waddle around like an awkward duck, or feel the glare of a thousand judgmental people burning through your soul, or overall just feel like you're trapped in the most terrible kind of horror movie."
...Just kidding, I didn't write that because I need a good grade. But, had I replaced my fear of failing this class with honesty, that's what I would have said.
Just kidding.
Kind of. I mean, he did spend the night at my house, but for completely innocent and pure reasons, and today I did have to make myself look six months pregnant.
See, for my communications class our final project is to do this "frame of reference challenge" thing, where we had to do something completely out of our comfort zones that would force us to see things through someone's perspective whom we normally never would.
Considering my biggest fear is becoming pregnant,
-Okay I feel that I need to explain that statement in more length than would fit inside some parentheses before finishing this story. To be clear, there is absolutely no possible way that I could be pregnant. But for some reason I have this weird, irrational paranoia that somehow, someway it will just happen against my will. See, I hate children (with the exception of four of them in the whole world, and getting to the point of even accepting them as human beings took me about two years of them being forced upon me against my will). It's not just an intense dislike, it's more of a fear. I don't know how to explain it, it's just whenever a small child enters a thirty foot radius of me, my vision gets all blurry and I start squirming around in terror until I'm either writhing on the floor in the fetal position, or running away in total panic. Alright, so that first one has never actually happened, but the latter occurs quite frequently. Sometimes people who know me think it's funny to tell a little kid to come try to touch me. Which is basically the same thing as sicking a hippo on a helpless, newborn puppy with down-syndrome (I say "hippo" because google told me that they are the most dangerous mammal in the world...well, with the exception of human beings, and I wasn't gonna use that one because it didn't really make any sense, nor would it work with my analogy). What I'm saying is, it's pretty much the cruelest thing anyone could ever do to me.
To what age does this intense fear extend, you ask? I would say that I stop being afraid of them once they hit about eight years old...that's when it tends to morph from a fear into a raging annoyance. And then there are the infants...first of all, please don't get mad at me if you are around me when I refer to a baby as an "it." I don't mean to ignore the fact that they, too, are human beings...but my mind just refuses to view them as such until they can at least walk and talk. I'm pretty sure they don't terrify me quite as much as they simply gross me out. All they ever do is puke, poop, drool, and cry...I hate all those things. And then there are the people who think it's funny to try and force me to hold their infant...well, the jokes on them, because once that baby touches me, I'm incapable of moving whatsoever so the thing will most likely fall and die. I'm aware of how awful that sentence sounds, but if that's what it takes to make sure whoever reads this will never try to force a baby on me, then so be it.
So anyway, since this phobia of mine is pretty well known, a while ago my friends made this joke about how I would be the next "virgin Mary" and God would supernaturally impregnate me just for a funny gag. I think maybe that's when my fear of becoming pregnant started. Because it's not just the end result of pregnancy that scares me, but the nine, long months in which you are enduring the pregnancy symptoms appears to be the most intense type of hell on earth one could ever imagine. I mean, puking every morning, emotional roller coasters more intense than the Bizarro (a roller coaster in New England that was listed as one of the world's scariest coasters...it involves flying through a tunnel of FIRE), crying all the time, feeling like a beached whale, not being able to control your food cravings, and pretty much feeling like you're dying every single day just doesn't sound enjoyable to me. Not to mention the part where you are a freaking vessel carrying another life, meaning every tiny thing you do or eat could effect the outcome of the kid's existence. My mom said she ate a lot of Chinese food when she was pregnant with me, and now Chinese is my favorite kind of food. What if I'm so emotional and hung up on craving a certain food that I refuse to eat anything BUT that type of food the entire time I'm pregnant, and then that kid is destined to a life of being a picky eater for all of eternity? Or I trip and fall on my stomach (I'm outlandishly klutzy), and the kid comes out with a severe mental disability? The list of things you could do to screw up the little thing's whole entire life is basically endless. Now, add to all that the reaction that certain people would have to my becoming pregnant, which I might actually be more terrified of seeing than the pregnancy symptoms itself, and you've got my biggest fear in a nutshell.
And yes, logically I know that only I am in control of making pregnancy even a possibility, and that I know I never would, but for some reason I can't shake this unreasonable terror from my mind. Seriously, I have very realistic nightmares that involve me being abducted by scary people in white coats who stab me with giant needles containing the DNA of a baby and "scientifically" impregnate me. Once, I actually started crying in real life when I accidentally zoned out for too long and observed a scenario in which I became magically pregnant play out in my all too vivid imagination. I'm talking legit day terrors here, people.
Alright, now that you understand exactly what I mean by, "Considering my biggest fear is becoming pregnant," I will move on with the actual story.
So, I decided that forcing myself to experience pregnancy would push me the most out of my comfort zone, seeing how I'm not planning to undergo the real situation for a very, very, very long time.
So, I rolled up a bed sheet and wrapped it in saran wrap to make it all smooth and solid and then saran wrapped it to myself - it was quite the contraption - and headed off to the mall with Shawn, whom I brought along for some added dramatic interest. He got dirtier looks than I did.
It turned out to be a successful project, as I was able to witness first hand how judgmental people can be, what it's like to stand out like a pirate at a ninja convention, and how much perception can alter an assumption.
And what did I learn?
Being pregnant is even more of a hassle than I had originally anticipated. Seriously, it was exhausting trying to reach anything an inch out of my arm span, and trying to pick something up off the ground was just a joke. The only good part about it was that I had an excuse to wear sweats without looking like a hobo, and we got to park in the "expectant mothers" parking space.
For my summary paper, the last question I had to answer was, "Why would you recommend that other students do what you chose to do as a frame of reference challenge?"
I answered, "I would never recommend doing this. Not unless you want to feel like there's an alien growing out of you, or literally fall on your face while trying to tie your shoe, or waddle around like an awkward duck, or feel the glare of a thousand judgmental people burning through your soul, or overall just feel like you're trapped in the most terrible kind of horror movie."
...Just kidding, I didn't write that because I need a good grade. But, had I replaced my fear of failing this class with honesty, that's what I would have said.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
bri herter, professional hobo, at your service.
I'm really tired right now.
I haven't slept more than seven hours in the last...few nights...I don't even know how many because I don't really count them as nights. They are more like naps. Here's a quote from HyperboleAndAHalf that perfectly describes the problem I encounter every single night of my life:
"When most people are getting ready for bed, I'm sitting on my couch, vibrating with pent-up energy. I have no idea what I get so excited about, but whatever it is, it's really, really, really exciting! I try to talk myself down from this hyper-excited state, but it usually only exacerbates the problem. I say to myself "Go to sleep. There is absolutely nothing exciting happening tomorrow. You are probably just going to wake up, crawl downstairs and fall asleep on the couch." But then I feel like I'm trying to trick myself. I think "This is probably just a cover-up for what's really going to happen tomorrow morning... I'm probably going to die. Or win a million dollars!'"
People always say, "You need to wake up early so you can fall asleep like a normal person." But what they don't understand is, I am not capable of being a normal person, no matter what extreme measures I may take to achieve that goal. In fact, I'm probably not even a person. My own mother has called me a robot on more than one occasion for reasons varying from "I don't think you even have a heart" to "Even as an infant you were this way." See, no matter how little of sleep I attain, I will never, ever, ever, ever, EVER be tired enough to sleep when it turns into night time.
Speaking of concerns about myself, here's another one that's been on my mind a lot: I think I may be a hobo. Or at least, I act more like one than the guy that always stands on the Sprinkle Rd exit on I-94. In fact, sometimes I'm temped to write him a handy note of tips on how to be a more successful hobo. But the only tip on it would be, "Live like I do."
Here were my first clues that made me start wondering about my condition:
-I only shower about 2.3 times a week.
-I wear the same clothes for days on end.
-I avoid washing my clothes at all costs...seriously, I don't even know how to work a laundry machine. Last time I tried, I broke one of the spinny thingys.
-In the summer I only wear old tshirts and gym shorts, and in the winter I only wear sweats. Only. Ever.
-Sometimes I leave my gum in random places around the house so I can come across it again in the future and keep chewing it.
-I take naps all over the place...it doesn't matter where I am, if I become unable to function from lack of sleep, I will stop suddenly and collapse on the floor, no matter what public place I'm in, and fall asleep.
-I don't care about school at all and will probably end up flunking out.
-I NEVER have money.
-I irritate cops.
-I will eat the scraps off of anyone's plate.
-I care so little about what people think of me that I am actually naming these things.
I used to think I was just the grossest person ever, but it was during a recent conversation with my career counselor that I realized my condition is worse than I thought. I don't just accidentally live like hobos do, but I actually subconsciously aspire to be a professional hobo. See, I've always had this dream of traveling Europe...but I purposefully don't want to plan out realistic things like living, food, or transportation expenses once I'm actually there.
This is how my conversation with Chris the career counselor (how about that for alliteration!) went:
Bri - Why do people think it's so unrealistic to save up some money and fly to Europe? Then when I need money I'll just fly back and make some more.
Chris - Have you ever heard of living expenses?
Bri - Yeah, but I don't require those.
Chris - But then...how will you live?
Bri - In a ditch.
Chris - What if it rains?
Bri - I'll bring a travel-sized tent, obviously.
Chris - But...what about bears?
Bri - In London?
Chris - ...London bears.
Bri - See, you don't even have a legitimate argument as to why this couldn't work.
Chris - Yes I do, what would you do for food?
Bri - I'm incredibly resourceful.
Chris - Do you understand that you are basically describing to me that you want to be a hobo?
Now, that's when my initial instinct told me I should defend myself, but then I stopped to think and suddenly realized that he actually hit the nail on the head.
I have traced these homeless person aspirations all the way back to my childhood. When I was little, my mom never let me play video games or watch tv for more than one hour a day, so I was forced to run around outside, projecting my imaginary realities on the world around me. For some reason, these scenarios that I played out always involved me being orphaned. I must have internally felt oppressed by my superiors or something, because I always had this huge independence complex. Therefore, the solution was obviously to kill everyone off in my mind, leaving me completely alone and free to make my own decisions. Which is why I could never play nicely with the other kids who wanted to play house or something stupid. Because there was no compromise. It was orphans or nothing. In fact, it got to the point where when I would play with my best friend, Mary, we would each put three ideas of what we were going to play in a hat and draw them randomly. This was her idea, because she thought that maybe this way I wouldn't be able to overpower her and manipulate her into pretending we were orphaned jungle boys (yes, boys...because there was no such thing as a female Tarzan). She told me I was only allowed to submit "orphans" once...so, on one I wrote "orphans," on another I wrote, "kids with no families," and on the last one I wrote, "kids that were left in a river basket as babies." Even as a nine year old, I was master of loop holes.
As for why my brain was initially wired this way in the first place, I will never know. Maybe God just said, "Hey, I haven't made any future hobos in a while, Bri will make a good one." After all, if there were no hobos in the world, how would you be able to tell the difference between successful people and failures? That's me alright, living selflessly to make others look good. I take my destined position in society very seriously.
These are the types of thoughts that tax my mind at 2am.
I haven't slept more than seven hours in the last...few nights...I don't even know how many because I don't really count them as nights. They are more like naps. Here's a quote from HyperboleAndAHalf that perfectly describes the problem I encounter every single night of my life:
"When most people are getting ready for bed, I'm sitting on my couch, vibrating with pent-up energy. I have no idea what I get so excited about, but whatever it is, it's really, really, really exciting! I try to talk myself down from this hyper-excited state, but it usually only exacerbates the problem. I say to myself "Go to sleep. There is absolutely nothing exciting happening tomorrow. You are probably just going to wake up, crawl downstairs and fall asleep on the couch." But then I feel like I'm trying to trick myself. I think "This is probably just a cover-up for what's really going to happen tomorrow morning... I'm probably going to die. Or win a million dollars!'"
People always say, "You need to wake up early so you can fall asleep like a normal person." But what they don't understand is, I am not capable of being a normal person, no matter what extreme measures I may take to achieve that goal. In fact, I'm probably not even a person. My own mother has called me a robot on more than one occasion for reasons varying from "I don't think you even have a heart" to "Even as an infant you were this way." See, no matter how little of sleep I attain, I will never, ever, ever, ever, EVER be tired enough to sleep when it turns into night time.
Speaking of concerns about myself, here's another one that's been on my mind a lot: I think I may be a hobo. Or at least, I act more like one than the guy that always stands on the Sprinkle Rd exit on I-94. In fact, sometimes I'm temped to write him a handy note of tips on how to be a more successful hobo. But the only tip on it would be, "Live like I do."
Here were my first clues that made me start wondering about my condition:
-I only shower about 2.3 times a week.
-I wear the same clothes for days on end.
-I avoid washing my clothes at all costs...seriously, I don't even know how to work a laundry machine. Last time I tried, I broke one of the spinny thingys.
-In the summer I only wear old tshirts and gym shorts, and in the winter I only wear sweats. Only. Ever.
-Sometimes I leave my gum in random places around the house so I can come across it again in the future and keep chewing it.
-I take naps all over the place...it doesn't matter where I am, if I become unable to function from lack of sleep, I will stop suddenly and collapse on the floor, no matter what public place I'm in, and fall asleep.
-I don't care about school at all and will probably end up flunking out.
-I NEVER have money.
-I irritate cops.
-I will eat the scraps off of anyone's plate.
-I care so little about what people think of me that I am actually naming these things.
I used to think I was just the grossest person ever, but it was during a recent conversation with my career counselor that I realized my condition is worse than I thought. I don't just accidentally live like hobos do, but I actually subconsciously aspire to be a professional hobo. See, I've always had this dream of traveling Europe...but I purposefully don't want to plan out realistic things like living, food, or transportation expenses once I'm actually there.
This is how my conversation with Chris the career counselor (how about that for alliteration!) went:
Bri - Why do people think it's so unrealistic to save up some money and fly to Europe? Then when I need money I'll just fly back and make some more.
Chris - Have you ever heard of living expenses?
Bri - Yeah, but I don't require those.
Chris - But then...how will you live?
Bri - In a ditch.
Chris - What if it rains?
Bri - I'll bring a travel-sized tent, obviously.
Chris - But...what about bears?
Bri - In London?
Chris - ...London bears.
Bri - See, you don't even have a legitimate argument as to why this couldn't work.
Chris - Yes I do, what would you do for food?
Bri - I'm incredibly resourceful.
Chris - Do you understand that you are basically describing to me that you want to be a hobo?
Now, that's when my initial instinct told me I should defend myself, but then I stopped to think and suddenly realized that he actually hit the nail on the head.
I have traced these homeless person aspirations all the way back to my childhood. When I was little, my mom never let me play video games or watch tv for more than one hour a day, so I was forced to run around outside, projecting my imaginary realities on the world around me. For some reason, these scenarios that I played out always involved me being orphaned. I must have internally felt oppressed by my superiors or something, because I always had this huge independence complex. Therefore, the solution was obviously to kill everyone off in my mind, leaving me completely alone and free to make my own decisions. Which is why I could never play nicely with the other kids who wanted to play house or something stupid. Because there was no compromise. It was orphans or nothing. In fact, it got to the point where when I would play with my best friend, Mary, we would each put three ideas of what we were going to play in a hat and draw them randomly. This was her idea, because she thought that maybe this way I wouldn't be able to overpower her and manipulate her into pretending we were orphaned jungle boys (yes, boys...because there was no such thing as a female Tarzan). She told me I was only allowed to submit "orphans" once...so, on one I wrote "orphans," on another I wrote, "kids with no families," and on the last one I wrote, "kids that were left in a river basket as babies." Even as a nine year old, I was master of loop holes.
As for why my brain was initially wired this way in the first place, I will never know. Maybe God just said, "Hey, I haven't made any future hobos in a while, Bri will make a good one." After all, if there were no hobos in the world, how would you be able to tell the difference between successful people and failures? That's me alright, living selflessly to make others look good. I take my destined position in society very seriously.
These are the types of thoughts that tax my mind at 2am.
The time I lit a bathroom on fire, and also got addicted to blogging.
Okay, it's already been over two hours into December 12th... I can finally blog again.
Shoot, I knew this would happen... this is my prediction: I'm going to get really obsessed with blogging about stupid things that no one really cares about, but I won't be able to stop. Kind of like when you're eating and you start laughing hysterically at the same time - you know other people are repulsed, yet for some reason you can't control yourself and just quit...in fact, it just gets worse and worse because the more you laugh the more you can't stop, and the more chunks are flying out of your mouth at every second until pretty soon you just start puking all over the place. Yeah, kind of like that. But then of course a month or so of this will pass and I'll suddenly get bored and move on to a new addiction. I'm hoping I won't ever neglect blogging completely, but my posts will certainly decrease in quantity as the excitement of having a new method of procrastination to play with wears off.
If you want to know how the majority of my day has been, read THIS.
However, after a sneaky-hate-spiral-filled-day (seriously, click that link), I finally got some good news. Due to the chaotic weather conditions, both my mom and sister were stranded other places and neither could come home tonight. Nothing against my mom and sister of course, love them to death, but if you know me, you know I treasure my independence and alone time a great deal. Especially in a tiny apartment (the designer of which obviously didn't see it necessary to supply my bedroom with a door) that lacks any means of escaping the excessive cacophony of unnecessary sounds that seem to emulate from everyone who isn't me. What I'm saying is, I enjoy my silent freedom greatly.
The hard part is knowing what to do with all this freedom...I mean, the opportunities are pretty much endless. Which is why I chose to eat a pint of ice cream for dinner, followed by an entire night of doing useless but completely entertaining things on the computer. Oh wait, that's what I do every single night, regardless of my parental restraints. Oh well. It was/is a good night anyway. Except for the part where I created the Atlantic Ocean on my bed/floor with a bottle of peroxide...I have no excuse for pouring it on my wounded toe over my floor instead of over the bath tub other than pure laziness.
Oh...I had a request (from Kaitlyn Beuckelaere...there, that's your mention, Kait) to tell a story about one of my favorite shenanigans on here. I'm hesitant because it will make this post really long, and since it's my second lengthy post within a few hours, I will look pathetic. However, it is also probably my favorite story about something stupid I did...well, maybe...I have a lot of stories to choose from, you know.
Okay, here it is.
So, I was at my Church (which you'll find that's the setting for a large portion of where my shenanigan stories take place), and I was supposed to be working at the garage sale that was going on as a fundraiser for missions trips. This was in the summer. But me and one of my best friends, we'll call her Reina, and our other friend, Austin, got bored and decided to take a break and do something exciting. And what else says "exciting" like fire does? Not much, let me tell ya.
Our initial plan was to keep ourselves limited to fire balls. That's when you soak cotton balls (or tennis balls, for more advanced adventures) in rubbing alcohol and light them on fire...they're fun because you can throw them around for a while before they die out. So, we were messing around with our little fire balls in the back parking lot, and pretty soon we started lighting puddles of the rubbing alcohol on fire. But then we were like, "Man, I wish we could make these puddles deeper so the fire would stay longer." Then we came up with this really great idea to fill a bowl with the rubbing alcohol and see how long it would take to all burn into nothingness. That's when adrenaline entered my blood stream, and that's usually the point where my innocent plans accidentally turn into criminal acts of destruction. We darted to the Church kitchen like kids on Christmas morning to find a suitable bowl. Out of respect for Church property, we grabbed the crappiest looking bowl so that no one would miss it. However, in our haste and excitement, we lacked the attention to comprehend the fact that the bowl was made of plastic.
That's when we stopped to think. I mean, if we were going to light a bowl of rubbing alcohol on fire, we should do it the safe way: in the bathroom, so that we had immediate access to water, just in case. Safety first, right?
So, the three of us hurried into the unisex bathroom and filled the little, yellow bowl up and lit it that sucker. It was really awesome and completely satisfying for about 3.8 seconds as we all sat around the flaming bowl. That's when we noticed the fire wasn't only burning the alcohol, but the bowl itself was beginning to melt. Then, in one sudden, horrific moment, the bowl collapsed and the flaming alcohol spread over the bathroom floor. We jumped up and starting dumping water from the sink onto it, but apparently we were the only people in the world that didn't know that adding water to alcohol only makes it spread, so we were really only adding to the blaze and making it a thousand times worse. That's when it became apparent that we were about to be engulfed in flames, so we jumped out of the bathroom, slammed the door, and began running around in circles like chickens with our heads cut off. I was pretty sure that the whole Church was about to burn down because of me. We ran to the custodial closet to get towels to beat the fire with, and by the time I came back around the corner, there were flames shooting out from underneath the crack in the door. That's when I pretty much saw my life flash before my eyes. My reputation was already not in a great place at that time, and I really didn't want to have burning a Church down on my record, too.
But I think that's when God said, "Fine, I guess you can have one more try at not being retarded," because suddenly the flames sucked themselves back under the door, and by the time we opened the bathroom, the alcohol head burned up, and the bathroom appeared completely untouched. I mean, it reeked for sure, but nothing was black or smoldering, and the alarm didn't even go off.
The three of us stared blankly, jaws dropped and eyes wide, trying to reteach our lungs how to pump oxygen. Then came the laughter of relief, and the anticipation of the day that we would be able to tell this story without getting kicked out of the youth group.
On the bright side, I got a pretty solid Frisbee out of the incident.
Shoot, I knew this would happen... this is my prediction: I'm going to get really obsessed with blogging about stupid things that no one really cares about, but I won't be able to stop. Kind of like when you're eating and you start laughing hysterically at the same time - you know other people are repulsed, yet for some reason you can't control yourself and just quit...in fact, it just gets worse and worse because the more you laugh the more you can't stop, and the more chunks are flying out of your mouth at every second until pretty soon you just start puking all over the place. Yeah, kind of like that. But then of course a month or so of this will pass and I'll suddenly get bored and move on to a new addiction. I'm hoping I won't ever neglect blogging completely, but my posts will certainly decrease in quantity as the excitement of having a new method of procrastination to play with wears off.
If you want to know how the majority of my day has been, read THIS.
However, after a sneaky-hate-spiral-filled-day (seriously, click that link), I finally got some good news. Due to the chaotic weather conditions, both my mom and sister were stranded other places and neither could come home tonight. Nothing against my mom and sister of course, love them to death, but if you know me, you know I treasure my independence and alone time a great deal. Especially in a tiny apartment (the designer of which obviously didn't see it necessary to supply my bedroom with a door) that lacks any means of escaping the excessive cacophony of unnecessary sounds that seem to emulate from everyone who isn't me. What I'm saying is, I enjoy my silent freedom greatly.
The hard part is knowing what to do with all this freedom...I mean, the opportunities are pretty much endless. Which is why I chose to eat a pint of ice cream for dinner, followed by an entire night of doing useless but completely entertaining things on the computer. Oh wait, that's what I do every single night, regardless of my parental restraints. Oh well. It was/is a good night anyway. Except for the part where I created the Atlantic Ocean on my bed/floor with a bottle of peroxide...I have no excuse for pouring it on my wounded toe over my floor instead of over the bath tub other than pure laziness.
Oh...I had a request (from Kaitlyn Beuckelaere...there, that's your mention, Kait) to tell a story about one of my favorite shenanigans on here. I'm hesitant because it will make this post really long, and since it's my second lengthy post within a few hours, I will look pathetic. However, it is also probably my favorite story about something stupid I did...well, maybe...I have a lot of stories to choose from, you know.
Okay, here it is.
So, I was at my Church (which you'll find that's the setting for a large portion of where my shenanigan stories take place), and I was supposed to be working at the garage sale that was going on as a fundraiser for missions trips. This was in the summer. But me and one of my best friends, we'll call her Reina, and our other friend, Austin, got bored and decided to take a break and do something exciting. And what else says "exciting" like fire does? Not much, let me tell ya.
Our initial plan was to keep ourselves limited to fire balls. That's when you soak cotton balls (or tennis balls, for more advanced adventures) in rubbing alcohol and light them on fire...they're fun because you can throw them around for a while before they die out. So, we were messing around with our little fire balls in the back parking lot, and pretty soon we started lighting puddles of the rubbing alcohol on fire. But then we were like, "Man, I wish we could make these puddles deeper so the fire would stay longer." Then we came up with this really great idea to fill a bowl with the rubbing alcohol and see how long it would take to all burn into nothingness. That's when adrenaline entered my blood stream, and that's usually the point where my innocent plans accidentally turn into criminal acts of destruction. We darted to the Church kitchen like kids on Christmas morning to find a suitable bowl. Out of respect for Church property, we grabbed the crappiest looking bowl so that no one would miss it. However, in our haste and excitement, we lacked the attention to comprehend the fact that the bowl was made of plastic.
That's when we stopped to think. I mean, if we were going to light a bowl of rubbing alcohol on fire, we should do it the safe way: in the bathroom, so that we had immediate access to water, just in case. Safety first, right?
So, the three of us hurried into the unisex bathroom and filled the little, yellow bowl up and lit it that sucker. It was really awesome and completely satisfying for about 3.8 seconds as we all sat around the flaming bowl. That's when we noticed the fire wasn't only burning the alcohol, but the bowl itself was beginning to melt. Then, in one sudden, horrific moment, the bowl collapsed and the flaming alcohol spread over the bathroom floor. We jumped up and starting dumping water from the sink onto it, but apparently we were the only people in the world that didn't know that adding water to alcohol only makes it spread, so we were really only adding to the blaze and making it a thousand times worse. That's when it became apparent that we were about to be engulfed in flames, so we jumped out of the bathroom, slammed the door, and began running around in circles like chickens with our heads cut off. I was pretty sure that the whole Church was about to burn down because of me. We ran to the custodial closet to get towels to beat the fire with, and by the time I came back around the corner, there were flames shooting out from underneath the crack in the door. That's when I pretty much saw my life flash before my eyes. My reputation was already not in a great place at that time, and I really didn't want to have burning a Church down on my record, too.
But I think that's when God said, "Fine, I guess you can have one more try at not being retarded," because suddenly the flames sucked themselves back under the door, and by the time we opened the bathroom, the alcohol head burned up, and the bathroom appeared completely untouched. I mean, it reeked for sure, but nothing was black or smoldering, and the alarm didn't even go off.
The three of us stared blankly, jaws dropped and eyes wide, trying to reteach our lungs how to pump oxygen. Then came the laughter of relief, and the anticipation of the day that we would be able to tell this story without getting kicked out of the youth group.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Bri Herter: blogger extraordinaire.
Well, here we go. I always said I would never blog because "the only people that blog are stay-at-home moms that have no life outside their children and cleaning, so blogging is the only way they can feel apart of the outside world." But I guess it's pretty obvious that I'm not a mom and I hate children AND cleaning, so I shouldn't feel lame (..sorry, moms). I just figured that enough stupid stuff happens to me that I don't want to forget about, yet I'm too lazy to journal by hand about.
Jeez, I also can't believe I'm starting this on December 11th...if you know me, you know I HATE the number 11. If you don't know me, well, first of all you shouldn't be reading this, but you should also know that I can't stand numbers that are one away from multiples of five. Such as 4, 6, 9, 11, 16, etc....and also any multiple of 11. Yuck. Don't ask me why, it's just a thing. And in case you're wondering, my favorite number is 15, followed closely by 13.
Alright, well, I guess I'll just talk about my week...I mean that's what bloggers do, right? And I'm a blogger now, so...here goes.
Monday was a fiasco. See, I have a severe procrastinating problem...seriously, worse than you've ever seen...so I pulled an all-nighter on Sunday night to get all my homework done for my Monday morning class that I'd been saving up for about a month. See, usually when I procrastinate I know I have a mountain of stuff to do, but I get so overwhelmed that I spend all my time worrying about how much stuff I have to do, and then sink into a stress-coma and never actually get any of the stuff done anyway. But instead of my homework's existence being revoked as I had willed it to be, my problem only seems to increase rather than disappear like my imagination fools me into believing it has. Except my Monday class is different because it's writing, and I actually like writing (because it actually has a purpose...unlike most other subjects *cough* math *cough*). Which is why I chose to deprive myself of a large chunk of sleep in order to complete it. So anyway, back to my disastrous Monday story.... So, I stayed up all night right, we got that...well, I was able to at least sort of function during class, and then I was extremely excited to come home and sleep. But I sped home in such a hasty fashion that I left all my books at class. Then when I got home, I didn't realize that the cord to my tape deck was in the door when I slammed it, so I broke that (which really blows because purchasing that thing a couple weeks ago was a troubling fiasco in itself). But here's where it gets good. For some reason the door to my house was locked...which it never is because I don't have a key. And it's not like either my mom or sister would be home for several hours. So there I am, broken tape deck, lost school books, running on no sleep, and locked out of my own house. It's those moments where I tend to break out into hysterical laughter, because that's the only thing I can do to keep from cursing and crying tears of intense rage.
But then! An idea. "I know," I thought, "I'll climb onto the garage roof and break in through one of those tiny windows above the sun room." It seemed like a genius plan. So, I got a ladder (if it hadn't been so freakishly cold and snowy, I would have found my own, creative way...) and got up there. And see the way the roof is, it's completely flat up there, and there's this six foot drop that leads to my porch (our apartment is attached to the second and third floor of this other house). The little windows looking into the sun room are right by the drop off. BUT the little windows were all locked, so now I was exactly where I started only now I was cold because the snow had soaked through my super duper high quality shoes (note: don't go three years without buying new shoes and then settle for some free, canvas flats from the Church garage sale). So then my default coping mechanism of hysterical laughter started up again, and I was just wandering around laughing and hating life. And it was all snowy right, and I was really tired. So, playing off my current state of hysteria, the snow sprung its trap...it had cleverly veiled the part of the roof that dropped off onto my porch. So of course the next thing I knew I was plummeting down this six foot drop, ending up on my back in the snow. During this fall, I ended up doing who knows what to my big toe that resulted in it blowing up like an Italian sausage and required my stabbing it with a needle several times in order for it to be able to release all of its nasty, infectious puss.
I ended up driving all the way back to KVCC soaked in snow and hate, and spent the day with my guy friends discussing theories on how one of their girlfriend's was most likely schizophrenic.
Then I arrived home and after expressing my anger about the locked door to my mom, she simply said, "Well, you could have just gone through Bonnie's unlocked door (the house our apartment is attached to) and walked through the door on the third floor that leads right into our apartment...." O_o
So, that was Monday.
The rest of the week consisted of a bunch of super-sleuthing that all lead up to an epic climax where a friend and I spent all of Friday staking out and confronting a random girl (with a video camera and everything) who we rightfully suspected was impersonating his (ex) girlfriend on facebook. So, good news, she wasn't skitzo, she just never existed. No but for real, I should probably go into the FBI.
Well, I guess that's all for now. I still don't have the book I need for my writing class...and since that's the only class that matters (even though it's the only credit I don't actually need to graduate...), I probably will continue to do nothing until I go to work in a couple hours.
Jeez, I also can't believe I'm starting this on December 11th...if you know me, you know I HATE the number 11. If you don't know me, well, first of all you shouldn't be reading this, but you should also know that I can't stand numbers that are one away from multiples of five. Such as 4, 6, 9, 11, 16, etc....and also any multiple of 11. Yuck. Don't ask me why, it's just a thing. And in case you're wondering, my favorite number is 15, followed closely by 13.
Alright, well, I guess I'll just talk about my week...I mean that's what bloggers do, right? And I'm a blogger now, so...here goes.
Monday was a fiasco. See, I have a severe procrastinating problem...seriously, worse than you've ever seen...so I pulled an all-nighter on Sunday night to get all my homework done for my Monday morning class that I'd been saving up for about a month. See, usually when I procrastinate I know I have a mountain of stuff to do, but I get so overwhelmed that I spend all my time worrying about how much stuff I have to do, and then sink into a stress-coma and never actually get any of the stuff done anyway. But instead of my homework's existence being revoked as I had willed it to be, my problem only seems to increase rather than disappear like my imagination fools me into believing it has. Except my Monday class is different because it's writing, and I actually like writing (because it actually has a purpose...unlike most other subjects *cough* math *cough*). Which is why I chose to deprive myself of a large chunk of sleep in order to complete it. So anyway, back to my disastrous Monday story.... So, I stayed up all night right, we got that...well, I was able to at least sort of function during class, and then I was extremely excited to come home and sleep. But I sped home in such a hasty fashion that I left all my books at class. Then when I got home, I didn't realize that the cord to my tape deck was in the door when I slammed it, so I broke that (which really blows because purchasing that thing a couple weeks ago was a troubling fiasco in itself). But here's where it gets good. For some reason the door to my house was locked...which it never is because I don't have a key. And it's not like either my mom or sister would be home for several hours. So there I am, broken tape deck, lost school books, running on no sleep, and locked out of my own house. It's those moments where I tend to break out into hysterical laughter, because that's the only thing I can do to keep from cursing and crying tears of intense rage.
But then! An idea. "I know," I thought, "I'll climb onto the garage roof and break in through one of those tiny windows above the sun room." It seemed like a genius plan. So, I got a ladder (if it hadn't been so freakishly cold and snowy, I would have found my own, creative way...) and got up there. And see the way the roof is, it's completely flat up there, and there's this six foot drop that leads to my porch (our apartment is attached to the second and third floor of this other house). The little windows looking into the sun room are right by the drop off. BUT the little windows were all locked, so now I was exactly where I started only now I was cold because the snow had soaked through my super duper high quality shoes (note: don't go three years without buying new shoes and then settle for some free, canvas flats from the Church garage sale). So then my default coping mechanism of hysterical laughter started up again, and I was just wandering around laughing and hating life. And it was all snowy right, and I was really tired. So, playing off my current state of hysteria, the snow sprung its trap...it had cleverly veiled the part of the roof that dropped off onto my porch. So of course the next thing I knew I was plummeting down this six foot drop, ending up on my back in the snow. During this fall, I ended up doing who knows what to my big toe that resulted in it blowing up like an Italian sausage and required my stabbing it with a needle several times in order for it to be able to release all of its nasty, infectious puss.
I ended up driving all the way back to KVCC soaked in snow and hate, and spent the day with my guy friends discussing theories on how one of their girlfriend's was most likely schizophrenic.
Then I arrived home and after expressing my anger about the locked door to my mom, she simply said, "Well, you could have just gone through Bonnie's unlocked door (the house our apartment is attached to) and walked through the door on the third floor that leads right into our apartment...." O_o
So, that was Monday.
The rest of the week consisted of a bunch of super-sleuthing that all lead up to an epic climax where a friend and I spent all of Friday staking out and confronting a random girl (with a video camera and everything) who we rightfully suspected was impersonating his (ex) girlfriend on facebook. So, good news, she wasn't skitzo, she just never existed. No but for real, I should probably go into the FBI.
Well, I guess that's all for now. I still don't have the book I need for my writing class...and since that's the only class that matters (even though it's the only credit I don't actually need to graduate...), I probably will continue to do nothing until I go to work in a couple hours.
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