Humor
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Publishing and Catastrophizing
I was lying in bed the other night, doing the thing I do best when I should be sleeping: catastrophizing. Actually, I was getting a lecture from my inner critic. She’s tall, blonde, and attractive in that way that automatically qualifies someone to be a meteorologist on a morning show. She taps long, fake, blingy nails on a phone better than mine, guzzles Red Bull, calls kale smoothies “meals,” and has never had a thought she didn’t share. She wears jeans bedazzled with judgments too cruel to make it into a burn book, and the back pockets are stuffed with internalized misogyny. Worst of all, she can initiate a Zoom…
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Low Altitude Turbulence
Yesterday, I ran an errand on my lunch break. I walked out of a store in Sugarhouse (a neighborhood here in Salt Lake City) and stopped short. Right in front of the sliding glass doors of the Nordstrom Rack, the chassis of a Honda Pilot was balanced on a large boulder with three of the SUV’s wheels off the ground. I stared at it for a beat, trying to understand what I was looking at. I must have just missed the cool stunt, because I could hear the man in the driver’s seat (way up in the air!) talking to roadside assistance. Because, for real. No getting out of that…
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Witches Brew: Repost
I just learned a historical fact that blew my mind. Matt is reading a book on the dark ages right now, and he told me that there is a paragraph describing that from ancient times, beer was made almost exclusively by women. But in the 1500s, men decided that they wanted to take over beer making as careers and set about putting the brewers known as “alewives” out of business. So they called them witches and drove them out beer making. Here is a video that shows how the details we associate with witches, such as brooms and cats, directly came from the legacy of the alewives. So interesting! Makes…
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Some Unwanted Advice from Your Great Aunt Rae
Dear Class of 2023, I want to tell you something that I wish someone had told me when I was your age. You won’t listen. I wouldn’t have either. But I’m going to tell you anyway. I know you have all been warned about the dangers of drinking alcohol when you are underage. You have been told that it is sinful, or bad for your brain and body, or that it isn’t what smart kids do. I heard all of those things, too. I drank anyway to rebel against those voices. What I didn’t know – what I wish I had been prepared for – is once you reach the…
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Shrinkage?
This is what I get for ordering dog treats online. I’ve known a few guys who measure six inches this way… but seriously. Are we really worried about the pig’s feelings at this point?
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Here’s to You, Birthday Blues
When I married into a Chinese family, I learned that the number four is very unlucky. I thought it was maybe just my in-laws, or maybe it was just a Cantonese thing, but it wasn’t. I learned this one day when I wrote a check (it was the 90s, we still did that back then) at my local Chinese restaurant (Chop Suey Louie’s) and the guy almost didn’t take it because it was check number 444. The problem is that the Chinese word for “four” is a homophone for the word for “death.” I wrote a death death death check. I’ve been thinking about this because I just had my…
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Contemporary West
Hello friends. I’ve been a bit distracted and I took an unintentional break from blogging. I’m getting back in the saddle; I promise. Meanwhile, I wrote a thing and someone published it! Yay for me! You can read it here if you are so inclined.
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Hit Me with Your Best Shot
I think I wrote a few months back that I participated in the Pfizer COVID-19 study. If not, surprise! That was me! (And 29,999 other people.) I was “unblinded” last week and learned that I received the placebo. Good thing that I told myself to pretend I KNEW I got the placebo all along! The researchers brought me in for a shot of the real stuff yesterday, which was very nice of them. While I was sitting in the clinic waiting for my dose to thaw I got a breaking news alert that the US officially passed 500k deaths. It was a surreal moment, taking that in while in the…
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The Other First Thanksgiving
The year 1863 was a rough one in the United States. On January 1st, the new year began with Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation, stating, “I never in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper.” Let’s not give him too much credit though; this was a calculated military decision, not a humanitarian one. The civil war was in its third year and far from over. As such the proclamation was not enforceable in the rebellious South. Lincoln hoped that emancipation would inspire a mass revolt and exodus of Southern slaves to the North, bulking up the Union army and sapping…
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When You Get a Divorce…
But the rest of the sticker still applies!