If you sprinkle when you tinkle...

While I have perfected my etiquette for dinner parties, interviews, and other meetings in which crossed legs and properly placed fancy napkins are a requirement, I can also admit that behind closed doors I'm another gal. There have been several Sunday mornings in which I've spent hunched over a toilet with my fingers down my throat trying to relieve my body of the dehydration and pain caused by the previous nights' consumption of vodka shots and keg stands. If you catch me making the still-half-asleep-walk from the bedroom to the bathroom in the morning, chances are my sweatpants have fallen to my ankles before my arrival because of my preference to ancient, ex-boyfriend attire versus a pink, silky nighty. I burp without excusing myself (in front of people), I creatively construct sentences that put new meaning to the word "profane", and I am like a 6 year old when it comes to trying to convince me to take a shower. However, I always flush the toilet.

When exactly was it that the slightest amount of parental coaching and the ever-popular handle on the side of America's toilets stopped being enough to remind us humans that the rest of the population don't want to see our fecal matter? Why is it that more than 50% of the public bathrooms I've had the honor of peeing in now come equipped with some clip-art detailed notice on "what to do next"?

And ladies, how exactly is it that we manage to sprinkle when we tinkle? Perhaps I'm anatomically incorrect, but the last time I went I don't recall the ability to get it anywhere else. Can we, too, write our names in the snow?

Perhaps my weary, part-time job days of latex gloved hands scrubbing the unknown off of that familiar white ceramic have come to an expiration. However, the signs that direct us on what to do in places rarely occupied by those who are still being potty trained, have become a category of their own.

A quick Google search of "funny bathroom signs" will get your mind off of the days work for a good 20 minutes, so allow me to show you some I find completely unnecessary, and others that are just hysterical:

The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street

if you have not seen this episode of The Twilight Zone, I suggest you take this opportunity in the next 25 minutes to do so. If you're at work, at the library, or at school.. put your head phones in. If you're at home, stop refreshing your facebook page and take a look.

This portrays an alternative view of human behavior, one in which I find far too accurate. We could learn a lesson or two from Mr. Rod Serling...


Watch 22. The Twilight Zone - The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street in Entertainment Videos  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

"Dreams are real while they last -- can we say more of life?" Ch. 13 p. 311

she does this thing in bed...

the perils of moving and the lack thereof.

Main Entry: ¹move

Pronunciation: \ˈmüv\

Function: verb

(1): to go or pass to another place or in a certain direction with a continuous motion <moved into the shade>

(2): to proceed toward a certain state or condition <moving up the executive ladder>

(3): to become transferred during play move along diagonally adjacent squares>

(4): to keep pace <moving with the times> b: to start away from some point or place

whether it's moving across the country, across the dance floor, or across a plethora of tangled blankets to get out of bed, i am either far too eager or far too hesitant to do so.

I'm not going to move across the country, that's for sure. i had a bad experience in LA, and by bad experience i mean I was under-aged and with my mom on Rodeo Drive for a week.

However, I am preparing for another move in residency (mentally, at least). In this case, I am far, far too eager. I wake up in the morning, and when I'm here in this house I just want to get out, start the day, take a damn shower and blow dry my hair! let's get on with it already! I want to meet new people and try new things and go places alone so that strangers will approach me first to ask the time. I'll make small talk with the guy wearing fingerless black gloves in hopes of learning about his 7 years in art school just because I'm so sick of standing still. I sit on my 10 year old desktop DELL and look up flight prices to places like Austin and Berlin and Bucharest. I drive to the grocery store and spend money on vegetables I've already got tons of at home just to feel like I went somewhere. I watch Bromance at the pub on Monday nights and tell people I don't get MTV at my house so I can feel like I've gotten someplace. I am desperate to get out of this place, and it doesn't make me laugh but it certainly makes me look askance as if the corners of my ceiling are visions into my past, and i recall feeling this same, desirous feeling of just wanting to get the fuck out.

I am a mover. If nothing else, I am a mover.

And the last time I moved (in the sense of relocating where I have a "bedroom") I wasn't nearly as certain as I am now. I consider myself certain, despite what certain people say.

I consider myself so certain because when I wake up there, I wake up next to one of my best friends. We wake up and the last thing on my mind is moving. We have an almost routine practice of rambling the most ridiculous and senseless thoughts that have emerged from the array of dreams still fresh on our mind, which never fails to result in outbursts of laughter. And then eventually someone realizes that the day is awaiting our so fresh and so clean arrival. Showers are taken, the bed is made, the coffee is brewed, and eventually a subconsciously cooperative gathering over vintage couches and camel lights results in plans for the day. The entire household are people I look forward to watching walk through the door frame. Every person I bump into is an exciting encounter which will inevitably prompt plans for the rest of the day. Here? If i looked good in baseball caps I'd wear one to mask my identity from having to walk into yet another repetitive and boring situation. But my relatively newly discovered destination contains moves of a different kind; they are a product of wanting to experience life with each other. They are not, as they are here, an attempt to move away from where I am standing.

I hate to admit that I feel like the time goes by excruciatingly slow here, while the time is never long enough there.

And that is a large part of why I am continuing this move through life. I am passing to another place, and I'm certain that it is the right place for now. I am also certain that it will be in a continuous motion. Because I am a mover; I fall in love with people and places and plants and pubs and conversations and seasons and streets and different shades of eye shadow far too often to allow myself to commit to anything.

Or should i say anywhere.

nerds, unite!

defining the opposite of nostalgia

tyrannosaurus rex

I was running as if I'd never smoked a cigarette or hollowed-out cigar full of marijuana in my life. Running with stride, picking up massive speed every time each foot slammed against the earth. I looked down only for a fraction of a second to see the ball of my foot touch down and take off, wondering where in that hell of a closet did I find these awful running shoes? But then back to focus; his stalk was at least 10x greater than mine, so when i go through with this I can only pray to inherit one of those inexplicable adrenaline rushes that will save both of our lives. The kind that make weak soccer moms lift up their mini-vans in order to save their squirming kid underneath.

I was almost there, I could see them now, and I spotted the one I would target. Closer, and closer, my mind was long rid of the consequences and aimed directly at my victim. And then I was there and could not even think of stopping. I grabbed it's hindlimb for a brief second, knocking the 5 ton creature off of its balance in order to give me enough time to run back in the opposite direction.

"tag! you're it!" that's exactly what it felt like.

The long stretch of open green lead to nothing other than a small playground in the distance. My adrenaline had kicked in, pumping through my veins and making the flat ground feel like one of those bouncy-floors at the Discovery Zone. Each step launched me into the air, if only for a foot, to leap further and faster to some form of safety; my playground.

I was there, but the creature wasn't far behind me and I didn't have much time to think of my next move. I raced up the steps, my heart beating wildly as if it would explode inside of my chest, looking frantically for the highest part of the jungle gym. The top of that slide, that would be perfect. And so i laid my body over the top of the bright yellow slide holding my panting tongue, squeezing my shaking eyes shut, and using meditative practices learned in high school psychology class to try to slow down my heart rate. At this point it was beating so viciously that you could hear it boom boom/boom boom/boom boom, pounding through my chest and onto the hollow plastic beneath me.

And then I heard him, attempting to be just as slick and sly and quiet and sneaky as me. I heard him crushing the wood chips below with those monstrous feet, gasping heavily through his clenched jaw of razor sharp fangs, spewing saliva from the spaces between with each breath. My heart was much quieter now, but he could smell me. I scrunched up like an inch worm, hunching my back and writhing closer to the top of the slide... but he was a predator and he heard every move i made and with that he slammed his right claw up through the slide, piercing the plastic as if it were nothing stronger than a sheet of paper. MILLIMETERS from my stomach, i glared in horror at the eye of the beast through the hole, continuously realizing that I had no plan whatsoever. He knew where I was now so silence was no longer an issue. I scrambled, yelping and flailing limbs with each ceaseless stab through the plastic that held every intention of ending my life. I scrambled to my feet, acting solely on my own defensive instinct, realizing the slide would no longer do as a safe haven, if it even ever did. I looked up and there was higher point I could climb to, something I had not noticed earlier. But just as I clasped my sweaty palms around the two green metal bars in attempt to hoist myself up to safety, the tyrannosaurus rex stormed up the slide like the bully in the fourth grade. The traction of the slide and the bottoms of his feet were matched perfectly, not allowing for even a second of a head start on my behalf.

And I had nothing. I had no time to look for another place to run, I had no time to step backwards, I had no time to figure out a way to defend myself so I screamed "STOP!" and just as the dinosaur was about to charge at my throat and rip me to shreds, he followed my demands and stopped. His head tilted to the side, resembling a curious old golden retriever, waiting for my next request. "I don't want to do this anymore! I can't!" I screamed, assuming this dinosaur knew exactly what I was saying. Apparently he did, because he stuck out his tiny, silly looking arm as if to call it a truce and walk away. So I shook his hand, the both of us huffing and puffing from all the excitement, and there was a sense of calmness. I knew the chase was over. Then he galloped down the stairs of the playground and before i could squint hard enough to see him run off into the sunset, he was gone.

Some nights I dream about people, and loving them, and some nights I dream about relationships, and them falling apart. Some nights I dream about my childhood and friends i haven't talked to in 10 years. Other nights, I dream about games of tag with prehistoric creatures. Last night was one of those nights.