Tag Archives: This Book Will Change Your Life

To everyone he meets he stays a stranger….

Today’s challenge was to release your inner secret agent.  I was not terribly successful releasing my inner secret agent.  In large part because I work in the boondocks.  I went outside a few times today, triggering a longing for a time when I smoked at work and I could go sit outside on my ass a few times a day, but the only people I saw the great majority of the day were my neighbor’s kids.  I waved and tried to appear secretive… but it seemed to garner very little attention.

Later when the kids were riding their bikes I turned my blind’s up and back a few times.  Just to see if  they’d ride over and see what I was up to.  Nothing.

This left my last option at secret agent activity.  There’s a weird dude that is walking up and down on the street where I work nearly every day.  I see him either on my way to or from work five days a week.  I didn’t see him in the morning of this challenge so I was willing to bank on seeing him in the evening.  Sure enough as I turned left away from work I spotted him. Always in a white tshirt, crisp blue jeans and a white do-rag.  And face covered in sweat.  He’s one of those guys that seems to just sweat all over his face and it doesn’t seem to pour down his neck, it just hangs on his face, as if his sweat os more gelatinous than most sweat.  I hope he keeps walking in to the fall so I can see what he looks like sans sweat.  I can’t really imagine it as of yet.

So today, as I drove by him, instead of my half hearted wave I pointed at him and then made the international sign language symbol for “telephone” with my hands and nodded my head knowingly.  We’ll see if he can figure out just how to “call me.”  And if he ever does… you can be sure I’ll tell him that the “eagle flies at midnight.”

This wasn’t a challenge I was particularly jazzed about.  I’m not big on killing things and today’s goal of killing something left me a little disinterested.   SO much so that I considered using today as an excuse to write about my kefir slugging habits and the resulting death of the funk that grows in my intestines.  But ultimately I decided that didn’t even interest ME enough to write about it.   SO I decided against it.

And they really do drive me beyond nuts.  I don’t know what it is about them… their sense of entitlement?  The buzzing noise… I dunno.  But they make me nuts.  We get awful flies in our house when we leave the back door open for a moment.  I am guilty of this on occasion and the shortest member of our household does it on the  regular so I thought I’d get the chance to kill a fly today.  And then regale you with the tale of my Fly Homicide.  No luck.  And not because I didn’t end up with a few of those bastards in my house.  I just couldn’t catch them.

My luck turned around Sunday afternoon when Emily was catching bugs in her bug catcher.  She had what I believe was an aphid in her bug catcher when I smooshed it down to put it back in it’s carrying case.   I thought the bug catcher was empty at the time.  Much to my secret delight she cried “Moooom, you killed it!”  I unzipped her bug catcher and removed an itty bitty little aphid.  Unmoving.  I apologized both to the bug and to Emily.  And considered this challenge completed.

About twenty minutes later the aphid I believed to be deceased righted itself and stroller across the table.   SO… I failed.  I failed at killing bugs.  But I succeeded in managing my intestinal flora, killing the bad oook and replenishing it with a perfect balance of bacteria.  And I’m more than unhappy to chat you up on this subject.  All you gotta do is ask….

Eat nothing but asparagus all day to ascertain just how noxious your pee can get.

I don’t need a lot of encouragement to perform this challenge.  I love asparagus, and I always pay an undue amount of attention to my bodies output.  Must be something about motherhood, but shortly after Emily’s birth I became unnecessarily interested in my own output.  Maybe I was just spending so much time charting/counting/examining her wet and dirty diapers that I finally figured what the hell?  Why should she have all the fun? Sadly, I have not had a lot of success cleansing my colon but it hasn’t discouraged me from trying through the years.  I’ve yet to bite the bullet and sign up for a series of colonics, all in due time, I suppose, baby steps towards a clean and happy intestinal system.  Ahh, I’ve distracted myself from my point… todays’ challenge.

I love asparagus.  And I smell my pee every day!  So today was win-win.  Before I can accurately report today’s findings I must first establish my control pee.  (Not to be confused with getting control of my pee. )  I like to use my pee’s smell and color as an indication of my vitamin, coffee and water intake daily.  So many varieties the morning pee can have.  The heavily concentrated, post workout, bright yellow, dehydrated pee, the “I took all my vitamins and here is my toilet full of “very expensive pee” pee” ( a term courtesy of my friend Jenny who thinks that my vitamin obsession is absurd.)  And of course, my very favorite, the pee that makes the bathroom smell like a Starbucks.  When you know it’s time to switch to water, because your pee smells like freshly brewed coffee.

So… this morning’s pee.  A pale, vitamin laden pee.  Bright yellow, but plenty of water.  Pretty average.  So, I’m thinking my results will be apparent.  I’m laying off excessive coffee or water, today, so as to not dilute the effects of my asparagus experiment.

On the menu?  Last night I stopped at the grocery store to plan today’s menu.  Grabbed two bundles of asparagus and two cans of asparagus tips. I was feeling pretty clever when it dawned on me to make an asparagus SMOOTHIE!  On the phone with Em’s dad I was telling him my plans to make a smoothie out of asparagus tips and kefir (another hobby of mine that is aimed primarily at creating optimal intestinal output.)  When I described my plan of blending up asparagus and kefir and maybe something for flavor he started to laugh… “Yeah, Kel, we call that soup.”  YES!  Soup!!  How had that idea escaped me?  I wasn’t really stoked about eating boatloads of roasted asparagus all day, but Asparagus Soup?

About an hour later I had this on the stove…

Pretty easy, and I will definitely do it again.  Threw two cans of asparagus tips in the blender with the juice from the can.  Added a chicken bouillon cube and a spoonful of sour cream, some Parmesan cheese – Voila!  While the soup was on I got to chopping and threw a bundle of asparagus in under the broiler with some olive oil and garlic.

All set!

10:15 am

As of this writing I have eaten an entire bundle of roasted asparagus.  In the spirit of keeping things honest I do plan to have a 1/2 portion of kefir smoothie this afternoon, as well.  It’s a necessity and another blog post entirely.  So far, first pee after the initial pound of asparagus… mild.  Smelling more like a rain after the grass was cut than asparagus…  but I’m hopeful.

12:30 pm

Working on the soup.  Mid morning pee does not smell at all of coffee, and definitely emitting an asparagus odor.  Success!  Soup is tasty, tasty.  I think I’ll make it next time with pureed cottage cheese instead of sour cream to amp up the protein.

12:52 pm

All in all, I am calling today a WIN! Pee is RANCID.  Belly is full.

Interesting factoid, just in case you are disappointed in your own lack of smelly urine after a day long asparagus eating extravaganza.  Evidently everyone can not SMELL asparagus pee.  But everyone’s pee SMELLS.  So, if you can’t smell asparagus and you feel like you’ve given it your all.. it might just be your sniffer.  For further details on this bit of fascinating scientific trivia, it was  summed up in this study.

Discreetly give people the finger all day today. Fabulous.  Who needs an excuse to do this?  Not me.

I’d every intention to take this challenge by the balls.  But this morning took an odd turn.  MQD and I had an exchange last night that could best be defined by the words “adult communication.”   I was pretty proud of the way we’d interacted so this morning when he snapped at me somewhat thoughtlessly I refrained from snapping back.  And missed a golden opportunity to flip him the bird from the other side of the wall.  Moments later I caught myself reacting to something he’d just said in much the same way he’d reacted earlier and I heard myself.  So, instead of giving myself the bird I marched right ion to the bedroom and apologized.  And asked him to examine the way he’d just spoken to me and make an effort not to repeat it.  What the fuck is going on? ANOTHER “adult communication.”  I don’t know what this is a sign of?  The Apocalypse?   Growing Up?  Damn, I am hoping it is a sign that there is much good horizontal mambo to come.  That’s all I am really prepared for. I don’t have enough food stocked up to survive the End of Days and I have no idea what it would mean to grow up, but I have the snacks and the flexibility to “listen” to the Best of Marvin Gaye two times.  In a row.

So… the finger.  Everyone at work got the bird.  The aforementioned nameless fellow at the Stop N Go.  Em’s preschool teacher.  A whole host of walkers, joggers and bike-riders. But all in all I found this challenge somewhat unsatisfying.  While it was amusing to me, I think that I might have had more fun with it if I’d thought the “joke” would be shared with someone.  If MQD and I had hit the town it would’ve been funny to do it all over the place (heh) and share a laugh.  But I don’t feel like I got the bang for my buck I was looking for out of this challenge.

Now about that other bang?  Fingers crossed.

Gay for the Day!

I failed.  And I really tried.  I didn’t see a single woman all day besides my daughter.  And I’m not even going there.  I did have a brief chat with one of my daughter’s teachers, but she doesn’t ring my bell, not that one anyway.  Heh.

So, off to the gym.  I was hopeful that I might get to have an entertaining encounter.  I even went in to the locker room, thinking that I could guarantee that I’d not be distracted by anyone of the male persuasion in there.   I hung around in there for a few minutes, just long enough to  start feeling like a creep and moved on, hopeful that my yoga class would have some enticing young ladies.

My trip to the gym actually was a double mission.  Last week I managed to surreptitiously snap a pic of  a bearded cute young man who looked an awful like the third Avett Brother.  I’d recently had a conversation with someone about how camera phones could easily be used to snap pictures of people with out them even realizing it, so I quickly took a picture of this cutie as an example.  While my efforts were appreciated I was told that the picture I got was altogether too blurry for her to confirm that he did really resemble an Avett Brother so I was on a mission to secure a less blurry photo.

Waiting in front of the room for the yoga class to begin I felt like a cast member of the Jersey Shore… I was CREEPIN’ for sure!  As a not-single gal this alone had me a little giggly.  Moments after spotting the Avett look-alike he got on his phone and I was able to snap a quick pic of him talking on the phone and incidentally looking right at me.  It was perfect.  I win!  Mission One accomplished.  Now, to set my sights on a lady.

There were a handful of cute-ish girls, but all of them  younger than the last.  And while I think a 17-year-old boy is about as cute as they come, pardon the expression, the teen gals do nothing for me.  I’m sure there is something to be uncovered by a therapy session in that,  but moving on… Well, not just yet, speaking of uncovered in a therapy session, I did notice that while actually scoping out chicks at the gym I found myself just as critical of other women as I am of myself.   I often wonder if my body image issues are motivated internally or externally, primarily.  In really looking at other women I realized a few things… I think my “ideal” is totally fucked by societal standards.  And even in a gym full of college aged women I couldn’t find a “perfect 10.”  What does this mean? I should chill the fuck out and relax a little and not be so hard on myself.  And if I was a lesbian I think I might be a real pain in the ass.

So…. in to yoga class I go.  Still failing miserably at today’s challenge.  I did try and spend less time grabbing at and eyeing MQD’s ass than I typically do in a day.  And this is saying a lot.  But still not enough to make me feel Ive succeeded.  Throw down my mat and see that Yoga Boy/Avett Bro is right next to me.  He has a placed another mat next to him, presumably for the recipient of his phone call.

And she enters the room.  Cute little blond, crosses in front of me to Yoga Boy/Avett’s Brother’s spare mat.  Awww.  His girl.  Of course.

I spent the next hour attempting to make eyes at this young lady, but it was a huge fail.  She made really screwed up yoga faces, for one, and for two…  the fact that the only time I even kinda thought there was a glimmer of somethin’ somethin’ in my innards was when I could check out her butt from a most interesting point of view (looking through her boyfriend’s legs…)

Moral of the story… I failed.  I love boys.  Boys, men and everything in between.  Today wasn’t much of an epiphany.

I’m a huge fan of  this  challenge.  As a person with fairly shitty self-esteem I have always been one to lay the compliments on thick.  In the spirit of treating others as you’d like to be treated, I suppose.  Living with a  partner that does not play in to my insecurities or come off of a compliment freely or when he suspects I’m digging for one has forced me to be really honest with myself about the need for  a “compliment.”  I’m trying to wrap my mind around a “compliment” being more of a “complement” to the way I see myself, rather than the way I define myself.    In examining the way I seem to crave this kind of affection and affirmation I have found myself being less liberal with the compliment lately so it was a pleasure to live it up today!

I decided that since I am very comfortable with slathering on the compliments to Em and MQD I’d try and give them more freely in my work environment.  This yielded some entertaining results. I’ve made a point of  stopping to compliment something in every interaction with a co-worker the past few days.

To the adorable twenty-something hippiedippy girlfriend of my boss’s son “I love that dress… it looks comfortable, but really nice.”  Her response “I love a long dress.  So I don’t have to wear underwear. ”   Of course.  Of course.

To the cabinet-maker who rents a workshop from my company “I am sure you enjoyed your reunion (his 30th high school.)  I mean, you’ve obviously held up better than the average bear.”  His reply, “You’re not fucking kidding, and I’ve only been divorced ONCE,” as he trolled his dating site.

To the project manager who routinely turns in his paperwork late or not at all.  “I noticed you had all your invoices coded, that really saves me a lot of time, thanks so much.”  His response “Did you get engaged?” As if that was the only possible reason for my sunshine disposition?  I imagined responding “Nope, just the d-squared, p-squared combo. ”  (This would be my profane and not at all romantic shorthand for deep-dicking, pussy-pounding… ahh such a romantic I am….) But instead, I just said “Nope… I must have put my ring on my left hand this morning…”

To the gal that rents the property next to us “I’m sure you’ll do a great job on your exams, you’ve worked so hard.  I love that shirt.”  I should have stopped at “so hard” re: the exams.  Because “I love that shirt” just spilled out because I was on a roll and I immediately realized that you could cut ice with her nipples and the fact that I had said “so hard” and alluded to her chest all in one breath had me snickering like a 12 year old boy.  (Which is admittedly how I spend much of my time…)

The pièce de résistance was when I very genuinely complimented my boss.  I am the go-to gal for computer related help in our office.  I’d been having a fairly annoying afternoon in relationship to a new piece of software we’re using and I remarked as such as he passed by my desk.  Ever helpful, he said “You know you can just double click on the cell and it won’t do that….” and he came to stand slightly behind my desk chair.  I double clicked, had the desired result and in my excitement turned my chair and went to playfully backhand him in the leg and said “Well, HOT DAMN! Look at you!”  This was my own way of saying “Geez, thank so much for this time saving tip, aren’t you smart and savvy?”  And it might have come across like that had I not spun my chair around and back-handed him in the junk.  Whoops. Always classy, even in the face of my classless sense of humor he just walked towards the coffee maker and resumed our previous conversation.

Compliment Day was a good challenge day.  I thought a lot about why you choose to compliment people and how it might make them feel.  And, of course, why I seem to want them and yet I dismiss them from most people.  And how maybe there’s a reason I finally found a sidekick that doesn’t say anything he doesn’t mean… so when he does say “Wow, you look nice” it makes my heart beat fast.  Good stuff to think about…. and we’re only two weeks in to the book.

Day 13: Write a letter to a mass murderer.

Today’s Challenge:  Send a letter to a mass murderer.

Bizarrely I found a website with multiple addresses for writing murderers of all shapes and sizes.  I perused it for a but, hoping someone would jump out at me.  Well, not literally…

I am not a stranger to sending letters and newspaper clippings, books, magazine subscriptions, bible verses and computer printouts of the Koran to inmates.  But this challenge was tougher for me because I wasn’t sure I really wanted to interact with any of these “murderers.”  But one man’s name caught my eye.  For a bit I thought it was cheating, skirting the real goal of today’s challenge… but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that to some, he is a mass murderer.  But not to me.

Dr. Jack Kevorkian
4870 Lockhart St.
W. Bloomfield, MI 48323-2533

Dear Dr. Kevorkian,

Just a quick note to tell you that I truly admire the work you have done to help people of all ages maintain their dignity.  I’ve never understood how assisted suicide is any different from a patient’s right to sign a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate.)

I read this quote about your time spent incarcerated “Listen, when you take my liberty away, you’ve taken away more-something more precious than life. I mean, what good is a life without liberty? Huh? None.”  I think it’s interesting in that it applies to the interminable period some of us may spend while waiting to die just as well as it applies to your time spent within our “legal system.”

I was actually not writing to ask you anything about your legal troubles or anything relating to euthanasia at all… I actually had another question entirely.  You’ve received a lot of press in the past decades.  And almost 50% of the time you are wearing a blue sweater.  Did you do this on purpose?  Because you bear a pretty startling likeness to Mr Rogers whenever you wear a blue sweater.  And I can’t help but think that has helped your cause along the way.  I mean after all… no one would accuse Mr Rogers of being a ruthless killer.

All my best,

Kelly

Just sayin..

This challenge was a particularly well timed challenge.  I think the question could be taken in two very different ways, and I’ll do my best to answer it in both ways, in an effort, of course, to maintain my status as both a slacker and an overachiever.  My apologies for being several days late in writing up my challenge results…

What’s my type?  As in what type of boozer am I attracted to, or interested in conversing with at a party?  Well, that’s an easy one.  All of the above.  A decade as a bartender and I never really tired of boozy flirtation and sloppy jackasses.

My very favorite, my “type” of boozer?  It would have to be a cross between Mr Nice Guy and a Sleazeball.  A dirtball with a heart of gold?  A nice boy with a mouth like a trucker? Sold.  I’ll take him, as-is.

And what type of Boozer am I?  Well that can be answered quite easily from the options above… the Clever Brunette, of course.  And the one that licks Fluevogs.

And that likes to get dressed up…  this was moments after I realized I could actually pull my fishnets up all the way to my ampits.

For a spell I was the kind of gal that liked to wear an eye patch….. I’ll have to bring that back…. it was a good look.

Day 11:
Introduce yourself to someone you know but have never spoken with….

This is a tough challenge for me because I talk to EVERYONE. I opted to take advantage of the opportunity to introduce myself to the fellow that works at the Stop N Go. He is there EVERY single time I go there but he rarely talks back to me. So today’s challenge was an effort to get him to talk to ME. I went in to purchase a Diet Coke and said “Hi, it’s totally crazy that I don’t know your name, right?” Smile. Silence. “I’m Kelly.”
He replies, “I remember when you guys moved in, it’s been about six months now?” Still no name out of my friendly Stop N Go cashier. So, I tried another tactic.
“Do you work every day open to close? I’ve never been in here when you’re not working. I feel like I should know your name.”

He smiles. Tells me his name.

Edited to add: I confess, five days later…. I went in this morning to get a soda. He said “Hello, Kelly!” and I smiled and waved… and I don’t for the life of me remember. So I feel like a heel….. while I may have succeeded at introducing myself to a stranger, I felt like a dipshit for failing to recall his name.