Fourth of July fun, fireworks, failure, and flabbergastedness
General | July 4, 2010
Okay. First of all. Why is flabbergastedness not a word?! Unacceptable.
Secondly — and this is obviously not as important as the omission of “flabbergastedness” in the dictionary — happy Fourth of July! I bring you the fireworks I saw last night, served with a side of my awesomesauce iMovie skills. Hah. No, seriously, though, I was capable of making an entire documentary in high school with the old version of iMovie, and now… This new version only has, like, 5 buttons. You would think less mess would make things easier, but no. And dragging things around hoping that they’ll achieve the result you want doesn’t really do anything anymore.
You should still watch the video, though. (It’s slow at first, but the finale starts around a minute in.) And link me to other videos featuring fireworks, especially if they’re more exciting than the suburban ones featured in mine. I think fireworks are magical — I mean, I’m hardly willing to spend five minutes watching a boring movie these days, but I can lie on a blanket on cold, lumpy grass just to watch explosions in the sky repeat themselves for half an hour? Okay, so they are explosions, and they are pretty, and I am kinda sorta a pyromaniac, but still. Not many things get past my lack of attention span these days.
Prime example: My friends and I were at our one friend’s house passing away time before the fireworks, and this one friend happens to own a lot of video games. So my guy friends were playing Castle Crashers, and I joined them because, well, as much as I hate video games, playing them is a lot more fun than watching people play them, except that was a really bad decision because a few minutes in, I decided that eating Chex Mix would be much more fun, and then my character kept on dying. Because my love for Chex Mix was distracting me. Obviously not because I hate video games and am a failure at playing them and killed my character every two minutes and had to keep on being resurrected by my friends’ characters. Shut up. That’s not the point.
I swear, though, one day I’m going to get really high and make lots of money by designing a video game that’s even more bizarre and confusing than Castle Crashers with its purple unicorns and monster-y creatures that look like crosses between diseased rhinoceri and Sasquatch.
Anyway, if you aren’t into fireworks, low-quality videos of fireworks, or bad stories about bad video games, I bring you something I heard someone say while I was walking in a horde of people returning from the fireworks:
“I want somebody to shoot me in the shoulder and have it go through so I’ll have a scar and people will think I’m the coolest person ever.”
What? I don’t even. FLABBERGASTEDNESS.
I am not a normal person
General | June 27, 2010
A quick Google search, in addition to previous knowledge, tells me that some of the most common phobias include: spiders, insects, snakes, enclosed spaces, thunderstorms, driving, flying, needles, and heights.
Here’s what I have to say about things other people are afraid of:
- Spiders are not scary. I just crushed a tiny one that was crawling up my hand.
- I will gladly allow ants, cockroaches, centipedes, etc. to get acquainted with the bottom of my shoe. C’mon, I’m not going to let something that’s a gazillionth of my size defeat me.
- Snakes? I mean, I’m not going to get up close and cuddly with one, but I’m not going to scream and run away. That probably isn’t the best strategy to follow anyway if you encounter a rattlesnake…
- I’ve never been claustrophobic; perhaps it’s because I don’t have any siblings and thus have never been shut in a box, cabinet, or fridge by anyone. Whatever the cause, I actually welcome close and cozy spaces.
- I love thunderstorms and think they’re the only acceptable cause for rain. If you’re going to do something, go all out, right? Mother Nature should follow that rule. None of that wimpy drizzly rain. Okay, maybe I should be more careful about what I say — floods are not okay. But thunderstorms are lovely. When they’re not that dangerous. (Look at me backtracking like a politician.)
- I don’t actually know anyone who’s scared of driving. I love driving and would totally cruise around in my car all the time if the environment wouldn’t suffer the consequences.
- I don’t like flying anymore because of that one time I had to spend the entire day at two different airports because of delays, and I dislike the smell on airplanes, but I’m not afraid. Turbulence is actually kinda fun.
- When I get blood drawn, I watch the needle go in.
- One time, I saw a PostSecret that went along the lines of “I’m not so much afraid of heights as I am of getting the urge to jump.” No worries, I don’t plan on ending my life, but I’m just a thrill seeker who does rash things at times. (You know that game in elementary school where you stand on the landing and see which monkey bar you can jump to? I was playing that game the summer after third grade, this kid dared me to jump to the sixth bar, I did, and then I landed on my back on the mulch and hit my head. Maybe that’s the reason I’m so abnormal, heh.) Point is, I’m not afraid of heights.
If that isn’t enough to make you wonder which other planet I fell off of, I’ll tell you about my phobias. In fact, the incident that inspired this entry happened two nights ago around midnight and involved me screaming and flailing and running away from an orange. I know what you’re thinking right about now, but I’m not that weird. It was a moldy orange that I unwittingly grabbed out of the back of the fridge. It was soft and there was white fuzzy stuff growing on it and I swear my hands itched for half an hour afterward. Even after I scrubbed them for an eternity.
Not only am I afraid of mold, but fuzzy white things in general terrify me. When I was little, I cried when I saw cotton fake snow on Christmas displays. No joke. I’ve since gotten over that, but I go to school in Illinois where apparently “cotton” trees abound, and they get all over the grass and concrete and alskdadlsjkfajksljafkls. I think I’ve even deluded myself into believing I’m actually allergic to them.
My other weird fears? Holes and sometimes clusters without holes. Except I’m not as afraid of clusters as my friend — she can’t even look at poppyseed bagels or used dartboards. Disembodied hands. Just look at this and tell me it’s not scary. Vomit (though college is lessening this phobia). If you ever vomit in my presence, I will hunt you down and empty the contents of my stomach onto your face. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I have babies. Probably accidentally drown them in sympathetic vomit.
I know rampant judgment is passing through your head. It’s okay. I’m judging you too.
I know summer’s here because…
General, Photos | June 4, 2010
I’ve managed to acquire a farmer’s sunburn. Not even a farmer’s tan, a farmer’s sunburn. See for yourself in the picture to your left. (Yes, I’m aware of the gorgeousness of my bright yellow smiley face and the perfection of my obviously existent eyebrows.)
How embarrassing. And painful. But I like to see the bright side of things, so I find it more amusement in this whole debacle than embarrassment or pain. And undoubtly other people find it even more amusing.
How did this happen to me? Well, the sun sneaks up on me practically every summer because I’m absent-minded when it comes to sunscreen and inaccurate at judging the lengths of time that I spend outside. This time it wasn’t entirely my fault, though! Weather.com told me it would rain on Wednesday, which it did, but only for a short period of time. And then the sun came out with a vengeance. And I was sitting on a roof.
Let me tell you, sitting on a roof hammering nails is a great way to relieve stress. Especially when you imagine that every single nail is the face of someone you don’t particularly like. Just kidding, I’m not that violent. But seriously, when I signed up to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, I didn’t know that I would be able to find so much enjoyment in spending an entire day hammering nail after nail after nail into shingle after shingle after shingle. And I didn’t know that I’d be climbing a wobbly scaffold onto a high, slanted roof — it was so scary at first, and I’m not even that afraid of heights! It was such a fun and fulfilling experience, though.
Okay, back on topic. Another indicator of the arrival of summer is everyone’s lackadaisicalness (I really wanted to use that word…). Especially mine. Now that I’m done with classes, I have no motivation to work anymore despite the papers and finals looming over me, and I’m no longer capable of operating on a normal schedule. Case in point: It’s 5:35am right now.
And now I’m going to end this scattered entry abruptly because being awake at 5:35am is a good excuse for that. Cheers!