Category Archives: Realizations

I Just Realized, You Don’t Really Know Me.

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Eco light bulb

This epiphany was a lot more eco-friendly than the last one.

I had another epiphany. You’re probably thinking, “Wait, didn’t she just have an epiphany like two days ago?” The answer is yes. Yes I did. Then, today, I had another. So that makes my epiphany count two for the last week. Impressive, no?

Anyway, I was talking about how much I love writing this blog and how marvelous my readers are when I realized that we really don’t know that much about one another. I plan on rectifying that today. What follows are the must know facts about Girl on the Contrary aka me.

1. My favorite actor is Alan Alda. I love him with my whole heart. Comedy, drama, writing. The man is a true legend.

2. My favorite author is Kurt Vonnegut. Although, you probably already knew that.

3. I could eat Italian food everyday of my life.

4. I practice yoga twice a day. Morning and night. I am SO zen.

5. I love hand-written cards or notes.

6. I miss Uganda every single day that I’m not there.

7. I have two dogs. A boy named Hansel and a girl named Liesel.

8. I love frozen yogurt.

9. If I had a cagillion dollars, I would spend my entire life traveling the world and writing about it.

10. My favorite book isn’t by my favorite author. My favorite book is Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski.

11. I absolutely love the Ricky Gervais show “Extras” and watch and re-watch the episodes all the time.

12. When I have a really truly terrible day, all I want to do is watch Disney movies.

13. I re-read all 7 Chronicles of Narnia every December. I was given the box set of the books when I was 10 and have been reading them every since. One of the best Christmas gifts ever!

14. My favorite color is green.

15. I drink lots and lots of tea.

16. I attempt to make every thing I say a song lyric. That includes singing it. Another little known fact is, my sister absolutely hates that I do this.

17. No matter how spicy something I’m eating is, I add Tabasco.

18. My favorite piece of furniture is a brown rocking recliner. My Popsie used to rock me in it when I was a baby and when I was 20 and going through one of the hardest times of my life, he gave it to me. It is both comforting and comfortable. Also, so retro.

19. When at a Starbucks, I always order a non-fat chai tea latte. It’s my drink.

20. I really want a chia pet.

21. I have always wanted to wear a tuxedo.

22. In the case of a zombie apocalype, I think I’m screwed.

23. No one ever expects it of me, but I am a HUGE American football fan. I also love football aka soccer with an equal passion. If it’s called football anywhere in the world, chances are I LOVE it.

24. I could play board games all day long.

25. I really really love marshmallows.

I feel like if I write more than 25 facts down then I am just being self-indulgent so you will just have to learn the rest over time. What I would love to hear about now are some little known or well known (totally up to you how known you want your facts to be) facts about you, my darling readers. Please share! I’m in quite a sharing mood today.

I Hope They Let Me Blog At The Asylum.

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Mad Hatter

I went to Starbucks the other day. I walked in, I stood in line. I noticed that people were sort of smiling at me in an indulgent way- the way you look at a child when they are telling a less than amusing story but you want to encourage them to continue so you just smile and try to follow along. Then, I realized something. They weren’t smiling at me indulgently, they were smiling at me uncomfortably. All the people in line at Starbucks were very uncomfortable. And it was because of me. What could I have done, you might wonder, to make all of these people (and there were a lot of people in there) so uncomfortable? At first, I had no idea, and then I realized something. I. WAS. SINGING. I was singing out loud. I was singing at loud at Starbucks. Granted, it was a great song I was singing- and really they should thank me for exposing them to such stellar music. All the same though, I can understand why they were uncomfortable. I mean, being around people who are clearly bonkers can be awkward. I accept that- I just never realized that what I really needed to accept was that I was the one who was bonkers. But clearly, I am absolutely mad. I was singing in public and didn’t even realize it. Again, it was a great song, but still.

I’m not sure if this is the worst part or the best part, but I wasn’t all that embarrassed. I just sort of shrugged, ordered my coffee, and went my merry way. At least some people got a good story out of it. But you know, I’m wondering, if at some point, I should be worried because this incident all by itself is hilarious and harmless but coupled with last weeks “dancing” I am starting to question my sanity. Am I becoming more Mad Hatter and less Alice? When people refer to me as “eccentric” (which I’ve always taken as an immense compliment) do they really mean “insane’?

My Mom says no. She says that it’s great that I am so uninhibited. I’m thinking that maybe I should get some inhibitions. Then, my Mom reminded me that I had enough inhibitions in middle school to last me a lifetime. The lady makes a good point.

The Mad Hatter and Alice weren’t all that different anyway. All the same, I really hope they let me blog at the asylum.

Killer Birds!!!

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scary crow

Devil bird.

I was just sitting in my fourth floor office, working away like the little worker bee I am when all of the sudden a huge scary face appeared in my window. My heart skipped a beat, I jumped about a mile in the air, and an almost inaudible screech escaped my lips. I was startled to say the least. Luckily, reason soon returned and I realized quickly it couldn’t be a face in the window- I work on the fourth floor. Unless someone has jumped a few steps in evolution and is now capable of flying there is no way a face could be in my window. Or you know, I guess it could have been a window-washer but flying makes for a much better story. Anyway, I guess it doesn’t really matter since it wasn’t a person at all, I’m just saying a flying person would be cool.

What that scary face actually was, was a devil crow bent on my destruction. That bird was so scary it actually scared the hell into me instead of out of me. And it just kept coming back and flying right at my window and terrifying me. This bird was like super smart/evil. It was using my peripheral vision against me. It’s like the devil crow knew I could only catch a quick view of it and that I might misinterpret that quick view as something like an evil floating face, or ghost, or evil sprite. Which, by the way, are all really reasonable conclusions to jump to when images of things appear in your window. And the devil crow knew this. It knew me. It knew all my thoughts and fears and hopes and dreams and was trying to use them against me. Like Freddy Krueger uses dreams against people to kill them. That’s Freddy Krueger right? I don’t really watch scary movies because my imagination is already pretty overactive and a little twisted and I don’t really need to add more things to freak myself out with. The point is that the devil bird was some kind of evil genius bird that for some reason unbeknownst to me was hell-bent on scaring me to death. And maybe possessing my soul. I’m not too clear on the details.

The worst part was the devil bird brought friends. More and more evil birds flew at my window. And now I think I’m cursed. I mean, that many devil birds outside your office window means you’re cursed right? I’m totally cursed. These birds want blood. My blood. Aw geez. This is bad you guys. Death by killer devil birds.

The Birds

Not even Alfred Hitchcock could figure out a way for me to get out of this. I’m doomed.

Starving Children Jokes Cross the Line.

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Crossing the Line

This rock and I have a lot in common.

Who knew I had a line? Not me.

So, I’m writing some posts and just sort of spouting off and not editing myself (not that I ever edit myself because trust me, I don’t). When I read back over what I had just written and it was something along these lines, “maybe, if you read my blog, you are feeding a starving child.” And as I read that and realized that I had actually written it- I thought “Ok contrary one, starving children jokes cross the line.” and then I thought in response to that, “Wait, I have a line???”  I mean, I never say things that really offend people (like discriminatory things) but I have often been heard saying things that one might think of as “off-color” you know, like things that aren’t offensive but are nonetheless inappropriate or cringe-worthy. Occasionally things that have been referred to as “harsh” but boy oh boy when I read what I wrote about starving children- I had to step back and re-evaluate my life.

I’m not going to blog about what I found when I re-evaluated my life because I don’t want to freak you out. I mean, usually I’m not worried about whether or not you’re freaked out- but the new Girl on the Contrary is very worried about freaking you out. Because I freaked myself out a little bit. There is a lot of crazy stuff in this head of mine. You only get a small dose of it. Oops, I may have just freaked you out. Ok- the new new Girl on the Contrary is going to try really hard not to freak you out. Probably. Although my trying hard might mean I will try hard until I forget about it. Which might be tomorrow. Or sooner. Sorry.

So, just so we are clear. Starving children jokes absolutely cross the line. Please make a note of that. Because reading this blog does not feed any children. It doesn’t even feed me.

The Freshly Pressed Roller-Coaster or Irony Sucks

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Roller Coaster

It's just like this- only faster

Exactly one week ago today, I was Freshly Pressed.  I was truly astonished. Completely taken off guard. And above all overjoyed. I felt giddy all day long, I couldn’t believe the number of visits I was getting and I really couldn’t believe the amount of comments. It was a true blogging high.

But with every high comes a low. Not really that low of a low but a low nonetheless ( I mean like it’s lower than the high but not by that  much). It was hard to watch my stats fall the next day and the next and the next. And even though my blog is still receiving more views than ever before (and trust me I am thankful for every one of them) I am feeling a lot of pressure (self-imposed) to continue writing Freshly Pressed worthy posts. And that is hard. And you have to wonder, does WordPress hate my blog? Because it seems like WordPress should know about all the pressure that  comes with being Freshly Pressed. And maybe they put on you Freshly Pressed to totally burn you out so they never have to see your blog that they hate again. And then I have to wonder, am I being neurotic and ridiculous? And the answer to that is yes.

The thing about the Freshly Pressed roller-coaster is that it is really fast but it is also like the best roller-coaster ever (because you really avoid that stomach in your throat feeling). So you want to ride it again. And again. But it isn’t up to you- just because you like the roller-coaster doesn’t mean you get to ride it again. You have to earn it. But it’s hard to predict what will earn it and what won’t. So I guess the moral to this story is that being Freshly Pressed is brilliant but you will want more and more of that brilliance and you could really screw yourself up working to get more of it. So don’t screw yourself up. Keep cool, write what you write, and do you to the fullest (I heard a really douchey guy say that once but I can’t help but repeat it in this instance, forgive me). Also, this is all advice I’m giving myself (because if I write it and then look at it later it will be like someone else is telling me and then maybe I will take the advice.) but I hope it helps other people too (because I’m really generous and well-meaning).

And now I’m realizing that this post isn’t very funny and funny is what got me on Freshly Pressed. So it’s like I’m writing a post about trying to maintain a certain standard and that post is actually below the standards I’m writing about. Balls. Irony sucks.

Totally.

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Totally

MichelArt.net

I’m trying very hard not to say the word “totally” anymore. Why? Because I had a rare moment of clarity the other day and realized I sound like the movie Valley Girl. This movie is absolutely wonderfully awful. A classic. And though I may enjoy watching it, I would rather lose my voice permanently than sounds like any of the girls in this movie. Here are some examples of the things they say…

” Like, totally.”

“Totally to the max!”

“Gag me with a spoon. Totally.”

Notice a trend? It’s the word “totally”. And I have “totally” been saying “totally” way too often. I don’t know how it wormed it’s way into my speech like a language parasite but it definitely did. All of the sudden I am emphasizing everything I say with the word “totally”. It’s like my sentence doesn’t mean as much if I don’t have a “totally” in it. Terrible. Shameful. Ridiculous.

I realized this embarrassing fact about myself at work when I was in a meeting with a client. All of the sudden it hit me that I had just used the word “totally” 3 times in the same sentence. Gag. I couldn’t even believe what I was hearing myself say. The more I talked the more I realized I sounded like the world’s most ridiculous woman in the world. I was, like totally, humiliating myself to the max, ya’ll. Really.

It’s not that I have a problem with the word totally per se. I just think it is overused and abused in the the English language. I just don’t want to sound like a high school cheerleader because (shocker) I’m not a high school cheerleader. I’m a grown-up (ok I can hear you laughing from here…) I’m at least a somehow grown-up so I should try and speak like a somehow grown-up. Right? Actually, the more I think about it the more I realize I sound very little like a grown-up most of the time. Huh. I’m having another lightbulb moment……

Ok- new goal is not to eradicate “totally” from my speech all the time, just from my client meetings. Forget being a grown-up I want to be a high school cheerleader! (I really don’t want be a high school cheerleader)

You see how I changed my mind in the middle of this post? That’s why they call me contrary. And so it is.

The Dory Theory

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I have a theory on life. It’s really brilliant. It’s called the Dory theory. It goes a little something like this- “just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming…”

If you didn’t get the Finding Nemo reference then I don’t know why you are reading my blog. You probably don’t belong here if you haven’t seen that movie. Or maybe you do. Maybe you need my blog for that very reason. Who’s to say? Go ahead and keep reading.

In life, you just have to keep swimming. If you stop swimming you will die, like sharks. I don’t know how you you feel about it but I think dying like a shark is probably in the top 10 of worst ways to die. I mean, they can breathe under water and they still drown- and then they just float there and then killer whales eat them and then killer whales poop them out and then fish eat the killer whale shark poop and then those fish poop out the shark poop and plankton eat the shark fish poop. Dreadful. And sad. Poor sharks. I’m sorry to get so graphic but I really wanted to emphasize how important it is to keep swimming.

Dory Finding NemoMaybe, if you are a mermaid this doesn’t seem like such a hard thing to do. Touche mermaid- you have a point. For those of us who aren’t mermaids (and I’m just guessing here but I think the majority of us aren’t mermaids) we have a harder time of it. I think what makes it so hard is that it doesn’t involve actual swimming- I mean it could if you were like shipwrecked and in the middle of the ocean because you would definitely need to be literally swimming in that scenario- but what I mean really is to keep going. Keep living even when it seems impossible and you are overwhelmed by everything. I guess my motto could be “just keep living” but that sounds lame and isn’t metaphorical and doesn’t have a song associated with it.

And sometimes things are really awful and you just want to stay in bed all day watching reality TV (which, let’s be honest makes everything worse) and eating ice cream. But you can’t do that. I mean sure, maybe if it’s like a weekend then it would be ok but on Monday you just have to start swimming again. Why? I don’t know because that’s life. Because I said so? Maybe. Not convinced? Yeah, I’m doing a pretty bad job of explaining it.

What I mean is that if you keep swimming- keep living as best you can- then things will get better. I promise (in a non-binding sort of way). That isn’t to say nothing bad will happen, I know bad things happen all the time and sometimes they happen to me but I just sing the just keep swimming song to myself and carry on. Because at the very least, when things suck, you at least get a song out of it. In fact, maybe I should change my motto to “just sing a song.” That works too.

Ok- so to recap, you should just keep swimming and sing songs. This may be the best life motto ever. And I’m giving it to you for free. Which I think makes me qualified for sainthood when I die.

Catholic St. Dympna

Saint Girl on the Contrary.

Really this is Saint Dympna. Patron saint of the mentally ill, incest victims, and runaways. I may go to hell for this.

I Have A Complicated Relationship With My DVR

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I love DVR. I love being able to record all of my favorite shows and then watch them when I have time. I really really love DVR. I am obsessed, however, with keeping it cleaned out. As soon as a show has been watched it MUST be deleted. I literally feel uncomfortable when my DVR has too many shows recorded. I want to watch and then erase all of them.  At this point I get as much joy out of erasing the shows as I do watching them. Which, I’m pretty sure is a weird personality disorder issue. I just love having a clean DVR.

This would perhaps not be so bizarre if I felt this way about cleaning and organization throughout all areas of my life. Not so. I like to describe my room as “chaotically organized” which is to say, it isn’t organized to anyone else in the world except me. My desk at work is organized but I’m sure it looks like a bag of skittles threw-up to anyone else (I like everything to be color coded). So why am I so obsessed with cleaning out my DVR? Why would I want something I love to record shows on to be empty?

I have earned myself the reputation of being the “DVR Police” with my family. They thinks it’s insane funny how concerned I am with an organized DVR. In fact, my precious Father likes to hit record for the most random and ridiculous shows like Mega Piranha so that next time I check my recorded shows I have three times as many as I did the day before. It literally makes me cringe to think about it. He thinks it’s hilarious.

Here is another thought, why do I worry about my relationship with my DVR? It’s an inanimate object. It doesn’t feel rejection or emptiness. Unless it has some secret brain of it’s own- then I will totally be the first to die when the robots take over because I’m sure I have really hurt my DVRs feelings. However, even the threat of robot domination and people death won’t convince me to leave recordings in my DVR. I think I really have a problem.

Immaturity in the Workplace- I Endorse It.

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One time someone told me I was mature. So, if I understand the rules of maturity, that means I get to refer to myself as mature for the rest of my life, because someone else called me that first so it’s not like an ego thing but now I get to own it. I think that’s, like, the first rule of maturity. Probably.

On another note, I acted incredibly immaturely at work yesterday. But since someone else called me mature once I can never be considered immature as whole- I just acted immaturely in this instance. That is the second rule of maturity. Anyway I’m working on a project for a pharmaceutical company and I had to research erectile dysfunction. ED. Impotence. Needless to say, it made me laugh. Like a lot. Every keyword I researched was hilarious- at least it was to me, I mean, I am more than sure it is not at all funny to the men experiencing it. I would like to apologize to them for my insensitivity. The term erectile dysfunction isn’t funny in itself- it sounds too medical to be funny, but all the terms surrounding it are very funny- to me- when I’m being immature. Anyway, I kept being all giggly and I’m sure my boss and everyone else thought I wasn’t really working but it’s like- hey man, if you’re going to assign me (the only women in the office) to the erectile dysfunction project you better be prepared for giggles. Sheesh. The funniest part of the whole thing was that I ended up being super productive and because my giggle juices were flowing I was really happy the whole day. Basically, I have discovered the best way to make people work really hard- give them projects about things that make them laugh. If you use this idea you owe me 3 million dollars. It’s only fair.

In fact, I was in such a good mood that even though I totally thought I was being insulted (which I wasn’t) by a male friend, I didn’t even say anything about it. Usually I call people out on that shiz. This is how the conversation went down (backstory: I have recently been very ill and have lost 15lbs because I was unable to eat anything for 2 weeks, true story)

Friend: You do look a lot better though.

Me: (Inside my head I was pretty sure he was saying I looked better since losing the weight and that I looked grossbuckets before and now that I was starved for 2 weeks I actually looked decent enough to comment on) Oh, Thanks.

Friend: You are definitely acting like you feel better and you have a lot more color than on Monday.

Me: Oh, you meant I look better like healthier not better because I’m skinnier.

Friend: Of course. Sometimes you’re crazy.

Me: Indeed.

I’m so glad I didn’t immediately go on the defensive because I wasn’t even being insulted. Usually I feel pretty sure I’m being insulted so I attack like a mama bear whose cub is being molested by a puma (I don’t know if this actually happens in nature). Anyway laughing at penises all day makes me less defensive about my appearance. And also makes me more productive. I learned a really important lesson today. Immaturity is directly connected to work productivity and general amiability. So really, I owe erectile dysfunction a pretty big thank you.

* Note: I would give you a list of the keywords that made me laugh the hardest but I really believe in doing your own research- stop trying to mooch off my immaturity people.

This One Is Dedicated to the Underdog.

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We all know about Cinderella, Rudy, and The Miracle on Ice (if you don’t know, this is when the United States defeated communism with hockey). These are all classic tales of the underdog. They had no chance of success or happiness but then they worked really hard, or had a fairy godmother, or were supported on the shoulders of political propaganda and they somehow against all odds achieved their goals. Yay world! But can we really still call them underdogs? I mean they were underdogs but after nabbing the prince, playing for Notre Dame, and winning an Olympic gold medal you can’t really consider them underdogs anymore.

Today, I would like to highlight some not as familiar underdogs who remained underdogs. Those who because of overwhelming odds were never able to reach their full potential. I want to give recognition to real underdogs.

1. Did you know Popeye the Sailor Man had nephews? I didn’t until yesterday. Their names are Pipeye, Peepeye, Pupeye, and… wait for it….Poopeye. Seriously. Poop-eye. I mean the kid never had a chance. Imagine when he grew-up and was interviewing for jobs…

Poopeye: Hello sir, my name is Poopeye.

Employer: Is this a joke?

Popeye's NephewsPoopeye: No sir, that’s my name.

Employer: Get out.

Poor thing, he probably never got a job and then ended up homeless and addicted to crack cocaine because it was the only thing that could possibly make him forget his name was Poopeye. How much does your Mother have to hate you to name you Poopeye? This is a true underdog story, take note Cinderella.

2. ‘Z’ is the least used letter in the English language. This is just plain tragic. Even ‘Q’ who can’t go anywhere without  it’s clingy girlfriend ‘U’ looks down on ‘Z’. Last in the alphabet and last in language. So, in honor of ‘Z’ who I don’t believe gets enough credit for anchoring the alphabet, I am going to use as many words with the letter ‘Z’ as I can today.  Also, I think we don’t use the word pizzazz enough and I know it would make ‘Z’ feel so much better if we all tried to incorporate it into our vocabulary. And use jazz hands more often because there are two ‘Z’s’ in it and also the letter ‘Z’ really likes broadway musicals and showy displays of personality.

The letter Z

3. There is a type of jellyfish that is immortal. Well, at least theoretically immortal, they can still be killed or die of disease but if neither of those things happen then they will live forever and ever. Most people would say there is no way this jellyfish is an underdog but I disagree. They have to reach sexual maturity and then revert back to infancy. It’s like no more curfew, dating whoever they want, drinking beer with other invertebrates and then -WHAM- back to breast feeding and nap taking. They taste freedom and then have it yanked away from them. I don’t know if their memory stays with them but I hope it doesn’t because then they have to live all their lives with all the pain from their previous lives and it’s like, hey man, when does the cycle of sorrow end? I mean they probably have seen some pretty messed up stuff in all that time and then they just have to relive it indefinitely or until they are murdered or infected with something. I feel sorry for them. And then I thought, *lightbulb* maybe that’s why they sting people so that we can feel just a little bit of the pain they feel every day. But then I thought about how I really don’t condone acting out violently against others just because you have had rough time of life. Still an underdog though. That’s a lesson learned today, just because you’re immortal doesn’t make you immune to being an underdog. (Note: Yes, I know I personified this jellyfish but I don’t think that really matters because, hey, immortal jellyfish.)

Turritopsis Nutricula Immortal Jellyfish

Are you an underdog? Well, then all I can say is I hope you are more like Cinderella than Poopeye.

Happy National Iced Tea Day! That’s right UK- we take our tea with ice. In your face.