Clothes are better than diaries

Wall Closet (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I clean out my closet fairly often, since I don’t have much room for clothes and therefore can’t keep items that don’t fit or that I don’t wear. I’ve been more or less the same size since high school, so I’ve got a few items that are pretty old, and it’s funny to trace my evolution through my fashion choices.

I still have the olive green corduroys with butterflies on the back pockets that a friend persuaded me to buy in college with money that really should have gone toward things like printer paper and food. I still fit in them because I habitually buy frivolous items with money that should have gone toward food. They’re actually a little big on me now, but it’s okay because I’m much more likely these days to slouch around a park in the afternoon than to go to a party. Just as well to have the extra room. It’s hard to slouch effectively in tight pants.

Then there are the lace-up black ankle boots that I fell in love with fifteen years ago and had to have, and that I still wear because they have brilliant rubber soles with tread in addition to three-inch spike heels, and I’m convinced I could outrun attackers, defuse the bomb and save the boy when I’m wearing those boots. I can wear them just about anywhere, in any setting. I’ve gone hiking in them, and I’ve gone to church in them. Other boots have come and gone, but the black ankle boots remain, and are a pretty good metaphor for who I am.

John Lennon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But I think my favorite item of clothing is a T-shirt that I stole from my big sister, a T-shirt of John Lennon in NYC. It’s as old as I am, thin as tissue, with holes in areas that necessitate wearing it with another shirt underneath if I’m going out in public. It’s authentic vintage and definitely the coolest piece of clothing in my closet. Cooler than the jacket that looks like leather but is actually animal-friendly and washable, cooler than the gold silk skirt that will always look classy no matter what’s in style, cooler than the classic white button-down blouse my mother got me when I landed my first grown-up job. Of course, it’s that much cooler since I had to filch it from my sister’s drawer when she was still living at home! Sorry, Big Sis. I love you, but we’re talking John Lennon here.

These days I mostly buy suits and pantyhose, with the occasional pair of neutral-colored slacks and a tasteful selection of work-appropriate shirts. But back in the day, I rocked torn jeans and a vintage tee. Sometimes I still do, on the weekends. Maybe I’ll drag Johnny out tomorrow, hit a few bars, and see if I get carded. Like I said at the beginning of this post, I don’t have room to store clothes I don’t wear!

March 23, 2012littleblindgirl 4 Comments

How to rant effectively

Angry Penguin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m looking out for you guys. I want you all to lead happy and fulfilling lives, and I want to spare you from the pain and trauma that exist around every corner in this world. So here is today’s life lesson:

What with the election season heating up and all the controversy over transvaginal ultrasounds and Tim Tebow being traded and all the other drama going on in our complicated little lives, we’ve seen a number of very passionate monologues, dialogues, arguments, discussions, and flat-out rants lately. They’re on TV, at home, at work, in church, waiting in line at the grocery store…you haven’t lived until you’ve had a gut-wrenching, no-holds-barred debate on Kim Kardashian’s marriage with the lady at the next table in the coffee shop, and then you realize at the end of it that not only have you never seen each other before that day, you haven’t even bothered to exchange names.

So because I want to help you on your path to spiritual enlightenment, here is my advice: if you’re going to go on a rant, be it televised or otherwise, make sure you dress up. I get a lot of free entertainment out of watching people go on television in bad suits and uncombed hair, giving longwinded diatribes on the proper method of vermin control or whatever hot button issue, but a rant inevitably ends up with the ranter sounding like a crazy person with his or her voice hitting that register that only other nutjobs can hear. If your hair is all shiny and styled and your makeup is done, maybe you’ve got a particularly flattering shirt on, no matter how crazy you sound, you will still come off as reasonable. This is because people don’t actually pay attention to the content of what other people say. Politicians have been taking advantage of this fact for centuries.

This also holds true if you just happen to be in the lunchroom at work and someone wants to bring up the latest idiot comment that [Insert politician/celebrity of choice’s name here] said. If you’re having a bad hair day, or your tie is loose or there’s a run in your pantyhose, you’re going to come across as disheveled and unstable. If you’re all power-suited up and you’re wearing your diamond earrings and you actually bothered to curl your lashes that day, you can say whatever you want and someone’s going to nod along with you. Ranting is all about image. You don’t want to be the crazy-homeless-person-ranter. You want to be the clever, witty, insightful ranter who could have your own television show if you weren’t too busy doing work that matters.

So there’s your life lesson for the day: rant with style and you, too, could end up with a special broadcast on Yahoo, filmed in front of a hand-selected audience who will laugh and clap sycophantically. Or else you’ll just rule the lunch room. If you haven’t managed to pull it quite together, bite your tongue and live to rant another day. But always rant responsibly. Here endeth the lesson.

March 22, 2012littleblindgirl 3 Comments

Johnny Depp meme

Because I feel bad about yesterday’s post and because it’s Monday:

March 19, 2012littleblindgirl 5 Comments

Ask a Little Blind Girl, Part 2

Image via Wikipedia

It’s time for another installment of Ask a Little Blind Girl, because there just wasn’t enough crazy in the first go round. This time, we have some really burning questions that I know you’ve all been wondering about. I have actually been asked each of these questions–the first two I get pretty frequently. The last one was just recently posed, but it’s an issue of such magnitude that I’m throwing it in right away, and I think you’ll understand why when you get to it. So here we go:

1. Little Blind Girl, I like to go out at night, but I can’t wear contacts and I’m too vain to wear my glasses. How can I tell if a guy is hot if I can’t actually see him?

–Myopic in Manhattan

Dear Myopic in Manhattan: Yeah, blind and vain is a really frustrating combination. But if you’ve conquered the questions of how to put on eyeliner when you can’t see what you’re doing and how to navigate a crowded club in four inch heels with no depth perception, this one’s fairly easy.

Image via Wikipedia

Guys will treat girls as crappily as they can get away with. The cuter the guy, the more he can get away with, because girls as a rule will let him. Lesson 1 to take from all this: Girls, grow a f*cking spine and stop putting up with this sh*t. Lesson 2 to take from all this: if a guy is treating you really nicely and is showing lots of courtesy, he’s either really ugly, happily married, or gay.

If a guy is treating you like you’re something he found on the bottom of his shoe after he walked the dog, you don’t have to know what he looks like to know he’s hot. But trust me, he’s not worth it. You put a lot of effort into getting all prettied up to go out, spend your time with someone who appreciates that. If you never put your glasses back on, you’ll never know the difference.

2. Little Blind Girl, why do you spend so long in the bathroom getting ready if you can’t even see what you look like? What’s the point?

–Definitely a Guy in Way Too Much of a Hurry

Dear Definitely a Guy in Way Too Much of a Hurry: You have completely misunderstood the point of the bathroom ritual for girls. This is not just about trying not to look like death warmed over, thereby ensuring that I will appear unprofessional and a poor employment prospect, and it’s also not about attracting guys (although that would be nice) or impressing my girlfriends (who honest to God don’t care). This is my meditation.

Image via Wikipedia

I could sit around in a lotus position humming for hours, or I could make myself pretty by doing unbelievably damaging things to my hair and putting acid directly on my face. I choose acid. Mostly because I find the lotus position incredibly uncomfortable, but also because I like the steam that comes from my curling iron when I’m frying the crap out of my hair. I like to put on some soothing music, light some candles, maybe have a fruit smoothie, and coat my face in pounds of makeup so no one knows what I really look like. This has the added benefit that when I turn to my life of crime, no one will be able to give a good description of me. Bonus! This is my “me” time. Just let me have it.

3. Dear Little Blind Girl: Who’s sexier, Johnny Depp in full Captain Jack Sparrow regalia or Benedict Cumberbatch reading erotic poetry?

–Anonymous

Dear Anonymous: Oh, my God, why do you hate me? I have no idea. It’s like a paradox, like two things with this much sexy can’t exist at the same time or the universe will explode. It’s just not possible, and yet–does anyone know if Benedict Cumberbatch has actually read any erotic poetry? We may want to sign a treaty forbidding him to do it, just in case it ends up being too much sexy for one world.

Benedict Cumberbatch (Photo credit: honeyfitz)

And are we talking about really good erotic poetry? I mean, Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow is the ultimate in visual sexy…but as a Little Blind Girl, I think I’m going to have to go with Benedict Cumberbatch reading erotic poetry. I never thought the day would come. Sorry, Johnny. It’s not you, it’s me. If anyone knows of any recordings of Benedict Cumberbatch reading erotic poetry, let me know. Please. Really, please.

March 18, 2012littleblindgirl 6 Comments

Things I will never do, so stop asking

Image via Wikipedia

There are many situations in which I get asked if I’ll do something that I would never in a million years do. This happens slightly less often since I graduated from school, but it still comes up a little more frequently than I’m really comfortable with. It only takes one drunk friend on Facebook, you know? Plus, now that I’ve started a blog, I get random requests from people I don’t know but who think they know me because they read the blog.

So here’s a list of some of the more frequent and/or bizarre requests that I will never, ever do, so stop asking. Please.

1. The cinnamon challenge

This is where people attempt to swallow a tablespoon of cinnamon in under a minute without drinking anything and without vomiting or inhaling the powder. Apparently, this totally sucks, although I really think I could have figured that out on my own when part of the challenge involves not vomiting. Schools are banning kids from sneaking in cinnamon to do this during school hours, and at least one principal has been suspended for not cracking down on this growing menace. Cinnamon as contraband? Well, whatever, I guess. But no, I’m not taking the cinnamon challenge. Stop asking. As a consolation, here’s Jenna Marbles, one of my favorite vloggers, taking the cinnamon challenge dressed as Drake. Awesome.

2. Eat my broccoli

Broccoli (Photo credit: Cookthinker)

I’m a grown woman, living on my own, and I don’t wanna eat my broccoli. You can’t make me. No you can’t. No you can’t. No you can’t. No no no no no! I don’t like the way it tastes, I don’t like the way it smells, and I don’t want to eat it. You know what? Broccoli’s going in the trash! Oh, no, is that the sound of a green vegetable hitting the bottom of the trashcan? Yes, I believe it is. Broccoli’s gone. Never gonna eat it. Stop asking. On with the ice cream!

3. Make a sex tape

Never gonna happen. Stop asking.

4. Drink tequila.

tequila (Photo credit: doviende)

That stuff’s nasty. And there are worms, and if there are worms anywhere near any beverage, I’m not drinking it. I’m not exactly one for little frou-frou girly drinks, but tequila is seriously icky. I think people keep drinking it because they don’t remember in the morning how nasty it is. They just wonder why they have their underwear around their necks. In my experience, there are much more pleasant ways to end up with underwear around your neck–although when tequila is involved, it’s probably just as well to black out. So, no, I don’t want a shot of tequila. Not the cheap stuff, not the expensive stuff, not even if there’s no worm. Stop asking, and bring me a beer.

5. Learn to cook

I’ve tried. I have cookbooks and I’ve watched cooking shows and I’ve planned romantic home cooked meals for current honeys. But, dude, I’m blind. As a result of my attempts at cooking, I’ve got scars all up and down my arms, nearly chopped off a finger, and ended up in the emergency room more than once. I also set off the smoke alarms about a third of the time, and whenever I try to chop onions I have to lie down for twenty minutes with a damp cloth over my eyes. Take out rocks. Delivery rocks even harder. I can order chinese food like a mofo. Little Kung Pao Girl, that’s me. I tried to learn to cook, and I failed. Stop asking, or my health insurance company is going to drop me.

So there it is. Five things I Absolutely Will Not Do. Unless Johnny Depp asks me, and even then, he’d have to be dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow. So stop asking. Unless you’re Johnny Depp dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow. Are you?

Image via Wikipedia

March 17, 2012littleblindgirl 16 Comments

Little Mean Girl

Image via Wikipedia

This is one of the times when it’s really hard to be a Little Blind Girl. At the training conference I was at, the teachers kept using PowerPoint, and they would turn the lights off and on over and over throughout each day. It played merry hell with my eyes. And as if that weren’t enough, there was a photographer there memorializing the event with flash photography. Every picture was like a knife stabbing into my eyes. After nearly ten minutes of this, I was about ready to drop him, I swear I was. And the handouts had this miniscule font, which I couldn’t have seen anyway because the lights were off, and on and on and on…

At the end of every day, I had excruciating headaches. I hadn’t forgotten you guys, but it was more than I could do to stare at a backlit screen and focus my eyes enough to type out a blog entry. I stayed in my hotel room and didn’t go out playing with the other conferees and was generally irritable and antisocial the entire time, thus earning the new nickname of Little Mean Girl. It shouldn’t be so hard just to try to keep up with the developments in my profession, just to try to do my job and live my life. I shouldn’t have to lock myself in a dark room and avoid all company. It shouldn’t physically hurt just to get through the day.

Image via Wikipedia

Is it this hard all the time for everyone? Am I being a whiny little babypants? I probably am. I’ll stop now and think about the starving children in China who would give anything to be able to attend a PowerPoint presentation. I’ll remember how lucky I am that I can see anything at all; I may not have been able to see the screen for the training presentations, but I could see the hillsides as we drove to the training facility a little after dawn, red earth gleaming wet and dark against the slowly brightening sky. I could hear the presenters even when I’m pretty sure they didn’t want me to, and I could lean over and make snide comments to the person sitting next to me. Really, as long as I can snark, I can make it through the day.

But if that photographer comes back around at my next training conference, I’m putting my four-inch heel through his foot. Photographer, You Have Been Warned!

March 16, 2012littleblindgirl 11 Comments

Training conferences by Dave Chappelle

I’m at a training conference. I like training conferences, they remind me of college. Except that I usually skipped lectures in college, and never ever attended a lecture before 10 AM, on principle. But it’s a nice change, sort of relaxing…a little too relaxing…all right, when they turned on the powerpoint and turned off the lights, I fell asleep.

Which is how I’ve come up with my latest idea: I think that training conferences should be planned and drafted by experts in the field, but they should be performed by professional comedians. Those guys know how to keep your attention for a long time without resorting to slides, overheads, or handouts. Plus, if you don’t like how things are going, you can heckle them. I would definitely pay attention if I got the chance to heckle the presenter. All I get to do now is write snarky comments on my notepad and slide it across to my table mate. It’s not fun if you don’t get to throw things.

Personally, I would like to see my training conferences performed in the style of Chappelle’s Show. I want lots of profanity, a healthy dose of cultural insensitivity, and little bits of stand-up in between the panels. There could be lecture skits about “When Keeping It Real Goes Corporate”, and we could hear about the financial impact of paper vs. digital from Rick James. I know you know what I’m talking about! If conferences were like Chappelle’s Show, I’d never miss a panel.

March 12, 2012littleblindgirl 2 Comments

My Sainted Mother: The Vacation Chronicles

Image via Wikipedia

My mother controls the weather. Not in a mad-scientist-underground-laboratory-with-hunchbacked-assistant kind of way, and not even in a Gaia-Demeter-Mother-Earth kind of way. No, my Sainted Mother is simply a magnet for natural disasters. If she boards a flight, a thunderstorm will form unexpectedly around the plane. If she visits a foreign country, a tsunami will overwhelm the hotel she was staying at about a week after she leaves. After she retired and started spending more time at home, she caused an earthquake, a tornado, and a hurricane all within a one week period. I’m not kidding or exaggerating about any of this.

She’s currently in Hawaii. The last time she went there, she caused torrential rain and mudslides, and I think that was the time that the plane behind hers got struck by lightning and had to make an emergency landing. So it was no surprise to me to get a call from her informing me that she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to make the next leg of her journey because weather conditions had gotten so bad out there that the governor had declared her island a disaster area! Her power is only getting more potent with time.

Monster cyclone 2A with large eye making landf...

Image via Wikipedia

My Sainted Mother likes to send her daughters the itinerary of her trips before she goes so that we’ll be able to get in touch with her at every stage of the journey. I’ve explained the concept of cell phones to her, but what can you do. I’ve come to value these itineraries, though, as a sort of warning for what places to avoid and when. I’m thinking of posting them on this blog as a public service, so that the areas she’s traveling to can take proper precautions and lay in supplies. Sainted Mother, I beg of you, use your powers for good! Until then, if you see black helicopters circling overhead as you take your next cruise, you have only yourself to blame. Also, for anyone traveling with my mother, remember to pack your umbrella. And your first aid kit. And an inflatable life vest. Just in case.

March 10, 2012littleblindgirl 13 Comments

Don’t let the Little Blind Girl out at night!

Image via Wikipedia

Why little blind girls shouldn’t be allowed out after dark:

I got home from work pretty late tonight, well after dark. Now, as I’m legally blind, I have a lot of trouble seeing much of anything after dark. It’s all blurry artificial lights and shifting shadows and I’m basically completely blind. Usually I don’t go out after dark, but I know my way to the corner store pretty well because of various after-hours emergencies over the years. Of course, not having a strawberry soda after a hard Tuesday counts as an emergency, and just such a crisis struck tonight, so I ventured out.

The way to the corner store includes a pass through the parking lot for another business, where they know me well and know of my condition, and generally try to look out for me. So I was not too surprised, if a little taken aback, when, as I walked through the parking lot, I heard a female voice say very loudly “Don’t go there!” It being pitch dark, I couldn’t see even an outline of who was talking to me, but I thought perhaps a car was coming and a staff member or patron of the business was warning me, so I backtracked to what I thought was safe ground.

I heard the same female voice say, “Get away from there!” in a very authoritative tone. Now thoroughly bewildered, I edged toward the door for the business. Again, the female voice shouted “I told you not to go there!”

Exasperated, I said, “What is going on? Why can’t I go there? Why are you shouting at me?”

Out of the dark, the female voice replied, “What are you talking about? I haven’t said anything to you!”

Seeing Eye Dog Original (Photo credit: Mike "Dakinewavamon" Kline)

“You shouted at me not to go there!” I shot back, somewhat out of temper at this point.

“Are you blind or something?” the disembodied female voice asked. “I was talking to my dog!”

That’s right, gentle readers, the lady was out walking her dog and was telling her dog not to do its business by the store’s front door. I gave lady and dog what I hope was a wide berth, considering that I’m not sure where the dog ended up relieving itself, got my soda, and hustled home. Seriously, I shouldn’t be allowed out of the house!

March 6, 2012littleblindgirl 10 Comments

the adventures of the little blind girl

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: