I view my titles as a means of expressing my love for you, (insert reader's name here).

May all the bugs in your food turn out to be poppy seeds.

May you always pick the fastest cashier.

May your analogies always make sense and your anecdotes never ramble. 

May your dog always make it to the yard in time.

May your cell phone miss the toilet bowl completely, and land in the laundry hamper.

May you manage to suck that thing out from between your teeth before it's your turn to talk.

May nobody have seen you trip, nor your lame attempt to make it look like it was on purpose.

May you get distracted before you find the dance floor when you're really really drunk. 

May they accidentally delete those photos of you just before you really piss them off.

May you have new batteries on hand when the smoke alarm starts beeping.

May your kid ask the other parent where babies come from, and may that stain on their pants turn out to be chocolate.

May your bathroom scale be broken and reading five pounds too high.

May they credit your account, honor your expired coupons, and give you free upgrades.

And may there always be a cold beer in your fridge.

Namaste, my babies.

I bet I could finish writing a title in under ten seco

The Twelve Times of Day

1) Coffee time

2) Yell at cars time.

3) Watch the time time.

4) Coffee time.

5) Try to stop watching the time time.

6) Drive badly time.

7) Coffee time.

8) Dinner time.

9) Coffee time.

10) Beer time.

11) Bed time.

12) Get up to pee time.

Write a title... done. Hey, that was the only thing on the list. Oh well, done is done. Cookie please!

Perfectly Valid Reasons to be Happy

Your gloves happen to have the exact same number of fingers as your hands do.

Turns out the scary thing in the back of your fridge hasn't even expired yet.

The bell rang before it was your turn.

The *dog cleaned up what the cat did before you could even get a cloth.

The neighbourhood realtor came through with the free calendar just before you broke down and bought one.

 

The person leaving the stall you're next in line for was just in there cleaning it.

Shake shake shake, and now you're Not! out of ink!

Getting to read awesome blogs like The Smitten Image   injaynesworld  and That Blue Yak

Getting to **shamelessly promote your friends.

Not only is galoshes a real word, but there are actual things actually called galoshes.

You beat your boss to the elevator and got to push the button first.

Surprise! Free refill!

*if you don't get this one, just let it go.  For the best. Trust me.

** yes, that means I'll probably do it again, so don't even think your blog is safe just because you don't see it here

sdrawkcab eltit eht etirw uoy fi skrow ylno ti

SHH! The dog just ate bread. 

Now we wait.

Apparently I need complete silence to be superstitious.  I actually didn't know that about myself until just now.  Neither did I know I was superstitious until just now.  I had this zany notion that I was actually quite rational.  In retrospect, that was probably the least rational notion I ever held right there.

Nobody's rational.  Rational is not doable.  Our brains are pattern seekers, and that quest is inherently tied to a need for satisfaction. Needs are not rational. I cite 85% of the things you did in puberty as proof of that.

I need this to work, and I'm willing to be however irrational I need to be to make it work. Seriously. I'll play the lottery, buy firming lotions, and marry for love. Whatever it takes.

I need sleep. The dog gagged all night last night.  Not scary emergency vet gagging, but ate a blade of grass that wasn't ready to die and has plastered itself to the side of his throat like a masked, beret wearing, stripey shirted burglar gagging. I think maybe. 

That or he is sick. I'm not keen on that second option at all.

Don't worry! The internet will save us!  Maybe?  I dunno.  Something said to feed him bread. Yeah, okay.  It definitely won't kill him, so I fed him bread.

And he's been silent ever since.

And so have I.

Because somehow my brain has decided that if I never talk again, he will never cough again.  Because apparently at some point he coughed right after I'd spoken, and that was enough to convince Dr. Sciencey Proof Finder here that speaking causes dogs to cough. And that only bread can cure them. Or something.

Look, I don't see any logic lining up with ideas that might help me sleep through the night, so this is what we're going with.  Okay?

Hey, for you guys? The good title. Definitely the good title.

These are my fishies.  They keep me safe.

Nothing bad happens in fishie land. Never ever. No it DOESN'T.

The last person who bathed in my tub was the elderly man whose house I bought following his death, and whose carpeting crunched when I rolled it up. I have bleached and scoured and killed and re-killed the ghosts of any bacteria that have ever so much as looked at that tub, and I still refuse to allow any flesh on my body to commune with it's surface. My stomach even invented a specific convulsion reserved exclusively for when my feet stray off the happy fishie bathmat that both protects and distracts me from the horror surrounding my most vulnerable state.

And I am sad. I want to be naked and submerged and covered with bubbles. Without having to enter a radio contest.

Of course a much better place to be naked, wet and slippery would be my boyfriend's, anyway. Would be. If his water wasn't orange.  Carrot with a spray tan orange. And if it didn't leave behind scales so thick and so sharp you could shave with them. Yes, he's had the water tested.  Ask him about it sometime. It will give him great delight to drag out the report and show you how tiny the margin was by which it passed as drinkable.

I don't know.  That's just the kind of thing farmers find funny, I guess. Keep in mind that 80% of the man's social contacts are cows.  You gotta cut the guy some slack.

But this still leaves me in an unforgivably vertical state for all of my bathing practices.

Hm. Oh. Sorry. I guess none of this has anything to do with anything relevant for anybody reading this.  I was just booking a hotel room for an upcoming over nighter, and was debating between the $78.00/night and the $171.00/night options. Writing this was... helpful.

Never mind! Back to your lives now.

Toodles!

And for those who hate titles, piping hot tough cookies up your nose!

Ten Reasons Not to Pour
Soup Down Your Pants

an unfavorable post about soup 
for the benefit of my beloved and 
most passionate soup hating readers

1) The crackers itch.

2) What dogs lack in critical thinking skills they make up for in speed when they smell food.

3) Your socks aren't nearly as absorbent as you think.

4) Ants. Charming expression, horrific reality.

5) You probably won't remember to take your cell phone out of your pocket first.

6) Root vegetables retain an alarming amount of heat.

7) You won't be allowed on the good furniture.

8) You won't be allowed on school properties.

9) You might spill and get some on your shoes. 

10) I might be going out on a limb with this one, but isn't it just possible you might have something better to do?

15) Write a title for this post!

Blooooooog Cooooooonteeeeeeest!
Follow these easy 13 14 15 steps to enter!

1) Follow my blog publicly. And passionately. This is important. I have to believe you mean it for your entry to qualify. I mean I am doing this for you, to make you happy. That's gotta mean something, right?

2) Find three complete strangers and get them to follow my blog publicly. The use of force is authorized.

3) Create ten new blogs to follow me publicly. Bonus entry: don't use the word "cat" in any of them.

4) Create a post extolling the virtues of following me citing evidence of miraculous healings, lottery wins, and finding extra prizes in cereal boxes.

5) Follow me on Twitter and laugh at all my jokes.  I will too know whether or not you actually laugh.  Yes I will. Just do it.

6) Make MySpace more popular than Facebook.  Make me the new Tila Tequila.

7) Explain to me how MySpace is supposed to work.  I never did figure that out, and they've probably changed it.

8) A card would be nice.  It doesn't have to be my birthday or any special occasion or anything.  Just something nice in the mail. I'm just saying.

9) Brush my teeth. Make sure you get behind the back ones - that area is too often neglected.

10) Stop using captcha codes. Do that whether or not you want to win anything.  Do that to avoid being yelled at by a lot of people often. I did, and it improved my life immeasurably.

11) Do everything else I do too.  And don't question it first.  That goes against the spirit of blind compliance, and takes the fun right out of it. If you're going to be like that about it don't even bother. Geez.

12) Comment on this entry. I know, you're thinking I shouldn't have to tell people that, but I'm telling you, if I don't say it weeks from now somebody's going to come crying that they didn't win and I'm going to be all "well you didn't enter" and they're going to be all "well I assumed" and I'll be all "well c'mon, what am I supposed to do with that?" but they'll already be pissed and there's just no reasoning with people at that point, is there?

13) Comment on this entry again.  Dammit, I just know somebody's going to screw this up and it's going to come flying back on me even though I've made it perfectly clear. You don't comment, you don't win.  Got it? So do it twice, and that way... oh hell. I don't even know why I bother. I really don't.

Don't delay! Lucky winners will receive

14) Secure a sponsor to provide a prize for the contest.

Someday all my titles will bloom into full essays. About writing essays.

A little bit about me? Okay. Well... I'm single, love animals, love dancing, love going to the library, and my hobbies include painting, playing the mandolin, learning French, and raising mutants.

No, I'm not referring to Cynthia, the living embodiment of O_o:


She qualifies as a mutant, sure, but she was a gimme. She came pre-mutated. It was no reflection on my nurturing.

This is what a reflection on my nurturing looks like:


If it weren't for the little plastic marker I don't think even they'd know they were tulips. Being raised in a thin, diluted trickle of January light in a Northern Canadian basement without water or adequate nutrition has left them a bit confused about just how exactly one goes about being a plant. Do you grow straight up? Sideways? Straight up then sideways? Which end of the bulb do you come out of? Top? Bottom? Both?

Apparently in the absence of a clear direction a variety of survival strategies were employed. Can't knock what works. There's no way the things should even be alive. Surely. It's just not normal. Natural. Right.

They scare me. That degree of persistence is both impressive and alarming. It's also intimidating when there are justifiable grounds for grudge holding.

I didn't mean to treat them badly. I swear! I meant to just leave them to die. I actually thought I'd succeeded in that, too.

When they first came into my life last year they were actual, well adjusted, identifiably tulip-looking tulips which excelled in the art of being tulips. They had been raised with light and water and dirt and all that other fancy stuff over-privileged first world plants take for granted. And then they met me.

Now I'm not a complete monster. I took very good care of them the whole time they were pretty. It wasn't until they stopped being pretty that I abandoned them to the basement to die.

And there they remained for three seasons, waiting for me to get around to throwing them away so that I could recycle the cheap plastic pots they'd come in.

And then the damn things went all Lazarus on me. Now stop just skimming this and really start reading because this is the important part where I redeem myself and look all heroic and stuff:

I paid money to buy dirt. Then I gave that dirt to a bunch of plants. Plants that aren't even pretty.

How's THAT for altruism?

Charity to the homely, baby. I'm all about that. Told you I was a good person.

Oh look. I'm being self referential about my self referential titles. How precocious.

New Slogans for the Soup Industry

Woo hoo! Look at me! I'm food blogging!

SOUP - because if it's not soup, you're chewing too much.

Enjoy your meal with the safest utensil. Enjoy SOUP.

It's what other meals eventually become.
SOUP: the final food form.

Rehydrate with SOUP!

SOUP: it's like a bowl full of mom.

You can't blow bubbles in a hamburger.
SOUP: it's more fun than hamburgers.

The meat's never too dry when the meat's in SOUP.

Enjoyed with head colds and broken jaws.
SOUP - nature's most loyal food.

Monkeys eat with their hands.
SOUP: you can't eat it with your hands.

SOUP: everything all at once, in every mouthful.