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Tag Archives: humor
Little blind girl goes to the art gallery
CC Image courtesy of iambents on Flickr
Remember that post where I said that if you’re taking me on a date, don’t take me to an art gallery because I’m legally blind and I won’t be able to see anything? I take it back. I went with Potential Boy Friend to a college art exhibit and found that art has changed quite a bit even since the last time I attempted to appreciate it, or at least I think it has:
LBG: I’m really not sure about this. I can’t see any of the paintings.
PBF: That’s OK, I’ll describe them to you. And some of them aren’t paintings.
LBG: Photographs?
PBF: Modern art exhibits. There’s one that’s a collage of old heating bills in the shape of Paris Hilton. It’s titled, “That’s Hot!”
LBG: Very funny! You are kidding, right?
PBF: All the yellow highlighted bits that say “This bill is overdue” form her hair extensions. There’s another that’s just an empty frame, entitled “Occupy This Space.”
LBG: That I might actually believe.
PBF: It’s listed for $7500.00.
LBG: Not buying it in so many ways.
PBF: Over here is a portrait of a young man in cap and gown who appears to be signing a student loan contract, while a man in a business suit stands over him holding a baby. Let’s see what the title is–
LBG: This should be good–
PBF: Ah, Sale of a First-Born Child. A striking commentary on a post-modern society.
LBG: It speaks to me.
PBF: And here we have a sculpture of a woman in a pose of agony, clutching a large group of children to her while staring at an envelope.
LBG: Let me guess: “Final Welfare Check”?
PBF: Close: “Niobe’s Child Care Bill Arrives.”
LBG: I like mine better. (Peers more closely at card with title of work) Oh, my God!
PBF: You totally thought I was making that up.
LBG: Oh, my God.
PBF: And I haven’t even told you about the woman sitting in a harness hanging from the ceiling.
LBG: Don’t tell me.
PBF: Her harness rises and falls with the current level of the stock market.
LBG: Oh, my God, get me out of here!
And thus ends the latest installment in the adventures of the Little Blind Girl. Stay tuned for the next exciting episode, Little Blind Girl goes to the Firing Range!
Mountain Dew, you’ve let me down
CC Image courtesy of Ed Yourdon on Flickr
I stepped out of my apartment today to run across the street and buy a soda at the convenience store. I’d been doing housework, so I was in jeans and a sweatshirt, no makeup, hair not done at all. On the way to the store, about a two minute walk, I got no fewer than two wolf whistles, a car horn honk with a remark I’m not going to repeat, and a “Hey, shortie!” I was thinking, man, these must be some good jeans!
So I bought the soda and walked back toward my apartment–and nothing. It was like the soda made me drop 20 hotness points. What is it, guys? Does a Mountain Dew make you think I’m too high-maintenance? Did you take it as a sign of unhealthy eating and eventual obesity? Or did I just walk out after all the traffic cleared up? A friend of mine used to jog alongside a major road, and she would always get comments and whistles. One day she didn’t, and she sulked until the next time someone yelled something lewd out of a car. Man, the pitfalls of being a girl.
The cat vs. the Hair
CC Image by red.dalia on Flickr
A friend of mine, who is beautiful and awesome and brilliant and all sorts of good things, is also the proud possessor of a head of very, very curly hair. It’s the kind of hair that has so much body that you sort of suspect it of also having an independent mind–you know, working in tandem with the brain under her scalp, but occasionally going off and doing its own thing on, for example, rainy days. Another couple of friends of mine are the proud owners of two cats with very defined personalities and certain ideas about the hierarchy in the household. Our theory is that they’re only putting up with us until they figure out how to work the can opener. In the meantime, though, they like to make sure they can jump on everything in the household in some sort of bizarre, repetitive exhibition of feline dominance. I’ve given you all the pieces; can you figure out where this is going?
My Curly-Haired Friend was at the cat-owned apartment hanging out one night. We were just kicking back, practicing Latin (no, seriously, that’s what we were doing. That’s not at all code for something else). Curly-Haired Friend was sitting on the floor, yelling Latin declensions; cats were prowling the furniture. I looked away for a second and then I heard this almighty yowling, and then an extremely Anglo-Saxon shriek. I looked back, and one of the cats had jumped onto my friend’s head and was attacking her hair! Just jumped from whatever piece of furniture and seemed to be fighting the hair from six different angles at once. I think he saw it as an enemy and was trying to subdue it. My friends and I could have told him that was a hopeless battle, having watched our Curly-Haired Friend fight with her hair for years, but the cats never consult us when they make their plans.
Now, this is not just any hair. This is Hair with experience, possibly with combat training. The Hair started fighting back. Poor Curly-Haired Friend was letting out ungodly shrieks from underneath while the cat and the Hair battled it out on her head. Eventually, the Hair forced the cat to jump off onto the floor, partly assisted by the mere mortals who were weakened by uncontrollable laughter, but mostly it was the Hair. The cat immediately scooted off to some dark recess of the kind where cats go and licked his wounds, and I swear, I swear, the Hair started purring. Neither of the cats has ever challenged the Hair’s dominance again. We had to finish the Latin another night, though. The Hair told us to. And you do not mess with the Hair.
True or False?
- By Leonetto Cappiello
Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
One of the bad things about blogs is that there are those who know who you are in real life and read your blog for the express purpose of being able to cause trouble for you down the road. I don’t want to stop writing this blog just because a few people are being immature. I figure that, if I stop this blog, they’ll just be immature about something else, and I’m not going to live my life according to what other people might think.
So I’m going to make this statement: Some, but not all, of the information on this blog is true. Some of it, but not all of it, happened to me. Some of it happened to other people. Some of it I’m making up wholesale. So gather dirt at your pleasure. You may or may not be reading complete works of fiction. You want to cause trouble, you’re going to have to find another way. Pick on my grammar, maybe, or how I use too many commas. If you’re trying to use my blog against me, you’re already pretty much at that level, so it shouldn’t be a stretch.
In that spirit, I’m going to play a round of Two Truths and a Lie. Or am I playing Two Lies and a Truth? Or maybe they’re all lies, or they’re all true. They’re just here for a laugh, like my other posts. Take it for what it is, not for what you want to make it into:
1. I climbed onto the clock tower at one of my old schools and carved my initials in the back of the clock. I thought it was high time!
2. I once toured Europe as part of a band.
3. I have a tattoo of a scorpion on a part of my body normally covered by clothes.
Whatcha gonna do with that? And for all the readers and commenters and followers who genuinely like my blog, you rock, and you’re most of the reason I’m not just taking this blog down. I love hearing from you. Keep it coming! Feel free to leave a comment with your own contributions of two truths and a lie. I promise I will never use them against you!
Sonnet to Johnny Depp
Image via Wikipedia
Shall I compare thee to Gerard Butler?
Thou art more yummy and more versatile;
Harsh critics pan Gerard’s roles more and more,
And high profits elude him still a while.
Sometimes too weird the star of Brad Pitt shines,
And steady has his skin’s complexion dimmed,
And sexiness does all too soon decline,
Especially when beards remain untrimmed.
But thy eternal fresh face does not fade,
Which frankly freaks me out a little bit,
No wrinkles do thy perfect face invade,
nor senility cloud thy clever wit.
So long as movies play for eyes to see,
So long my ticket stubs belong to thee.
Little blind girl and the magician’s apprentice
CC Image courtesy of nuanc on Flickr
Once upon a time, a friend of mine took a course in magic tricks, and she liked to practice on me. Magic, it transpires, is an extremely visual art, and the practice sessions could get a little interesting–for instance:
Friend: Pick a card, any card. (Little Blind Girl picks a card.) Don’t show me what it is. Turn it over. Now put it back in the deck. (LBG puts card back in deck, friend shuffles enthusiastically.) Now! (Friend turns over top card on deck) Is this your card?
Little Blind Girl: I don’t know. Is it?
Friend: (stares at card, then at LBG.) I have no idea. Didn’t you look when you turned it over?
LBG: Sure.
Friend: So what did you see?
LBG: A blurry white piece of paper.
Friend: (pause) OK. Um. Next on the list is…never mind.
LBG: What?
Friend: Three card monte.
LBG: Huh. Yeah, talk about guessing blind.
Friend: You know, when I make jokes like that, you hit me.
LBG: I’m spirited.
Friend: You’re a nutcase.
LBG: What’s next?
Friend: Let’s see. (consults lesson) I’m going to make a card vanish. I’m taking a card from the deck, no particular card, nothing special about it. I’ll put it here on this table in front of me, pass my hands over without touching the card, and over again–and it’s gone!
LBG: Gone from where?
Friend: The table!
LBG: Is it?
Friend: You know, you take all the fun out of misdirection.
I’m pretty sure I was not the reason my friend gave up on her dreams of a career in magic. I think she’s an accountant now. So, you know, making good use of the lessons in misdirection after all. Still, I’ll always be curious about what would have happened if we had gotten to the trick about sawing a lady in half. I really think I would have noticed that one.
The results of fashion hubris
CC Image courtesy of Thomas Hawk on Flickr
This is what happens when blind girls try to be cool:
I recently went on a second date with a guy, my first second date in quite a while. He’s tall, and I picture him as dark and handsome, and he has a great voice, so all is well thus far. He asked where I wanted to go, and I said “Anywhere where I can wear flats,” so he took me to a meditation seminar. Promisinger and promisinger. Then, after the meditation seminar, we went out for extremely unhealthy food and mocked the seminar presenter mercilessly. Could it get any better? Yes, yes it could.
He dropped me off–at my door, after leading me up the steps because he knows I’m legally blind (I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I walk those steps every day of my life and could walk them if I were completely blind). It wasn’t until then, at the end of the date, that I realized that I was actually wearing two different kinds of shoes! And I’d been going on and on about what a relief it was to wear flats! All afternoon! I tempted the wrath of the fashion gods with my hubristic desire for comfort, and this was the result.
I exclaimed in dismay. He, bless him, laughed and said…well, on second thought, I’m not going to tell you what he said. Or what he did, because this isn’t that kind of blog. But it made up for the blind equivalent of realizing I had spinach on my teeth all evening. And there will be a third date because, let me tell you, he’s looking very good to me right now.
Operation Black Friday
So we’ve all seen the headlines about what may have been the craziest Black Friday in history: pepper spray, smash-and-grab, bloody fights with shoplifters. Now, of course, it would be nice if we could all be civilized and remember that wanting to buy a crate of X-box consoles is not really provocation for physical violence, no matter how good the price. But this is America, and that’s a bit pie in the sky, isn’t it? So I have a different idea: instead of trying to fight it, just go with it.
Hear me out: we’ve already got a really cool spec-ops name for it: Operation Black Friday. Stores will coordinate the exact opening times for the front doors, perhaps using those cool head-set thingies to communicate about the anticipated onslaught and their sales associates’ readiness capacity. They’ll go to radio silence just before midnight, and the store managers will be doing those hand-signal things to the associate managers to direct them on the field. Shoppers will come prepared for battle, wearing night-vision goggles looted during a previous Black Friday (spoils of war?) and decked out in protective gear. I’d recommend stopping short of using tasers, as has been suggested, but again–this is America.
We could have training classes leading up to it, covering tactics, hand-to-hand combat, and comparison shopping under siege. What a great form of exercise, and with self-defense built right in! We would truly be the most feared nation on earth; imagine attackers plotting against us, spying and doing recon, and then reporting back to their leaders that all Americans over the age of sixteen know how to render an assailant unconscious using only a USB cable and a value pack of men’s underwear. We’d be the new Sparta! Those who are left at home would tell the valiant warriors, “Come back with Modern Warfare 3 or on it!”
I think this could be a turning point in our history. Black Friday is not for the faint of heart. Navy SEALS are taxed to their limits. We’ve got untapped potential, here, people. Let’s not waste it.
Mea culpa, with cartoons
Now that I’ve started blogging, I think I’m starting to understand what high school was like for my friends. Because I was legally blind back in high school, too, I couldn’t see all the hideous changes everyone’s bodies were going through. I couldn’t tell that my lab partner had big ears or that the head cheerleader’s hair was frizzy that day or that the President of the student body had gorgeous eyes. I could tell a few things about myself, but I’m grateful to have been spared the gorier details. My friends, though, would obsess over every little thing: is that a zit? My jeans are too short. What is going on with her hair? Do you think he likes me? I wanted to slap them, but I loved them, so I didn’t. I just told them they were wonderful, because they were.
I did laugh at my guy friends when their voices started to change, though, ’cause when you’ve got super-sensitive hearing, that sh*t’s hilarious.
Now that I’ve been blogging for a few weeks, I’ve become obsessed with my stats. How many people have visited my site? How many comments do I have? Why hasn’t anyone “liked” this post? Should I leave a comment on this other blog? Are my posts too long? I seriously want to slap myself. I’ve been in the game less than a month, and I’m feeling unpopular because I don’t have as many hits as other blogs that have been going for over a year. Like I shouldn’t be massively flattered that total strangers have visited, “liked” what they saw, and left comments, especially once I see how awesome their sites are compared to mine. The popular kids “like” me! It’s a quantifiable fact.
But then there’s the dark side of blogging: the seduction of commenting in anonymity. I’ve gotten nothing but cheers and support in my comments, which makes me think either my blog attracts really cool people or I’m not posting about anything very interesting. No reason it can’t be both, I guess. On some of the blogs I visit, though, there can be some really vicious comments, ones that I didn’t think people would have made face to face until I remembered high school. There was nothing wrong with my hearing back then, and I remember being shocked by some of the things that would come out of people’s mouths, just like I’m appalled by some of the comments I read on other blogs. I would self-righteously prim up my mouth, scroll down, and congratulate myself on not being like that.
Until I left one of those comments.
I’m not going to go into the details. I recently left a comment on a blog I follow that was substantially less than positive. To my utter horror, the blogger responded and had clearly been hurt by what I had to say. Dismay! Consternation! My new-found blogging power has Gone To My Head! I promptly responded with a Public Groveling and timidly extended the Olive Branch Of Recommenting, which the blogger graciously accepted.
So I’m wondering at this point if I’ve turned into those people I avoided in high school, who said the nasty things and didn’t have the wonderful friends? If I have, please find some way to slap me. I don’t give a rat’s hind quarters if my ears are too big or my jeans are too short, or even if my posts are too long, but I’m not in this to hurt anyone. Mock with abandon, yes, but not just tee off and be nasty. With election issues heating up lately, I think the news media has pretty much got that covered. I’ll leave it to the professionals.
iliketheworldfuzzy.com 