humans are funny

Author: laurenne

  • Your brain is full of pipes and coins.

    I went on a date with a scientist about two years ago. It was like any normal date except we spent the night debating whether or not humans have free will. I have to say it was good first date fodder. I mean, how many fucking times can you really talk about where you’re from?

    His logical science mind said that humans most certainly do NOT have free will because we have DNA and that determines things we cannot control. And he had some other arguments too, but my brain could only comprehend one-third of what he was saying. He was smart. Not that I’m not smart, but I just realized the other day that I’ve been saying the word ‘parable’ wrong my whole life. Why didn’t people correct me?

    After last week, I feel like I can say for sure that humans DO have free will. Or, they CAN have free will if they choose.

    Last week, I spent fifty-six hours in therapy. Not because I’m insane, although maybe.

    I signed up on a whim last year to get a Master’s Degree in Spiritual Psychology.
    Yes, a whim. Some people go skinny dipping on a whim. I get a Masters– man, I’m a hoot.

    When I’m finished with school in 2012, I will be certified not to be a psychologist, but a life coach. I don’t want to be a life coach. I’m sitting on my couch right now wondering what smells so weird, and my insurance keeps threatening to cancel me if I don’t pay on time. I really doubt I’m in the best place to coach other people about life. I am more interested in studying my own mind. I guess that could be considered narcissistic, yet another reason I could never be a life coach (Yes, continue telling me your problems, I’m just going to look in this mirror here.).

    I haven’t told too many people about my studies because it’s really hard to explain what is spiritual psychology. I define it as figuring out how we got so fucked up and why. This brings me to my next conclusion: We’re all fucked up.

    It’s okay. At least we’re all fucked up together.

    Last week was our six-day culmination of our first year. There are three-hundred people in the class, and we break into groups of three to have mini-therapy sessions. This kind of therapy is very cause/effect. I might tell my ‘coach’ that I find myself nervous in social situations. And she has to search my mind and figure out that I’m nervous because I am doubting myself. And then together we figure out the source of the self-doubt. When I’m the ‘client,’ it’s like my brain is a big game of Super Mario Bros, and together we have to find the princess. We go through the pipes and we gather lots of pennies. And when we finally get to the princess, we realize she’s really a dad who was depressed and told me to go away when I was little (not sure why he’s wearing a dress and tiara. My dad was gay but not a transvestite). That dad spits out fireballs of inferiority from his eyes, so you gotta watch out. But if we press A+B +SELECT, we can stop the fireballs. And then we can forgive the dad because he didn’t do anything on purpose.

    It might sound confusing and woo-woo, but I really think it’s the way to free will. Otherwise, we don’t have free will. We want to write a book or have a healthy relationship or move across country, but we can’t because we’re held back by fear or we can’t stop smoking pot or we’re lazy. We have to become aware of all those blocks to finally be free.

    It’s so easy to feel nervous and have a few drinks to make it go away for a night. It’s much more courageous to figure out where it came from and fix it. Heal it. Make it go away forever. If we are aware of why our brains are doing what they’re doing, then we can choose to follow them or not. It’s a choice. But it’s a really tough choice to make because in order make it, we have to be willing to go to the dark places in our minds, play lots of Super Mario Bros, wear hippie clothes, and deal with the stigma of possibly being a life coach.

    I realize you may not have been wondering about your free will at all. That’s okay too. Perhaps if we go on a first date, we can talk all about figs and then I can write a post all about figs two years later. Anything can happen, my friends. Anything.

  • I can unbend you, Bender.

    My problems with men started in 1985. I was five. I watched The Breakfast Club, and there was Judd Nelson. He was tough, misunderstood, rough around the edges. And there I was, in my Strawberry Shortcake pajamas: innocent, blonde, with chocolate on my face. I wanted him.

    Because I was sure I could change him.

    Yes. Even at five, I was sure I would be able to help/fix/change any boyfriend.
    Even when my pajamas had feet in them, I just knew that my idea of who someone should be was obviously so much better than who they actually were. Ha! It would be cute except it’s not.

    The point is, I wanted Judd Nelson. I wanted to bring him home to play Barbies (if you know what I mean), be my husband, and perhaps help me with my lemonade stand on weekends (we’d make it a family business). I would teach him that he didn’t have to be so judgmental and harsh and mean to others, and we would get on famously. He wouldn’t even remember Molly Ringwald. She wore pearls. Gross.

    And then I grew up and started wearing bras. And Judd Nelson went on and did whatever he did. My dream of taming that particular badass fluttered away as I transferred it to several other boyfriends.

    And then there was a Taboo Tales show this past week (You GOTTA read this review!! EEEeee!!). And Judd Nelson himself sat down next to me. WHAT?! I mean, WHAT?! I no longer felt the urge to play Barbies with him (if you know what I mean), but there he was in all his badass glory, wearing the signature blazer of the eighties with long tails and rolled up sleeves. He came to watch MY show. I had seen him in HIS show in 1985, and there he was driving around LA to come and see MY show! WHAT!!!? When I watched The Breakfast Club, I only had to grab the Beta tape from Ken’s World of Video. I win!

    JUDD NELSON came to my show.

    AND THEN… After the show, he came to talk directly to me.
    He walked straight up to me and said, “I read your blog. I really enjoyed the piece about your mom on Father’s Day.”
    I barely avoided hyperventilating and butt sweat.
    WHAT?!
    Okay, I know celebrities are just people and that Judd Nelson is not any better than I am because he made a John Hughes movie twenty-six years ago or because he knows Emilio Estevez or because he has an eighties blazer. I’m more interested in the fact that I fantasized about him so long ago. And there he was jumping into my life. I hesitate to say I have arrived because Judd Nelson reads my blog. It’s just that I can’t get over how life can change. One day we’re in Strawberry Shortcake pajamas, and in an instant, we’re hobnobbing in Hollywood. One day we’re homeless, and the next we’re famous for having a golden voice. One day we’re cleaning toilets and the next we’re cleaning windows. Okay, that last one was a horrible example. But you get what I mean: Life is crazily unpredictable. And that’s the best part about it.

    The message here is that you never know. And life can change. So if you’re feeling despair, just remember that your time is coming. You could soon be praised by an eighties star as well. I heard Pauly Shore is looking for blogs to read.

  • …and then the shoelaces tied themselves around a bird and then 5,000 spoons came out of nowhere and then I woke up.

    I have poison ivy. It’s between my fingers, in my collarbone, lining my bikini area (don’t ask) and swarming my ankles. It feels like my skin is trying to crawl off my bones while angsty fire ants puke into my pores. But poison ivy is a weird thing to have. It’s Bubonic plague-ish in that you don’t really hear about it much. Yet it’s not contagious or weird enough for anybody to be interested in it. You can’t really see it on my skin. It’s boring. All it does is make me itch. And nobody really cares about whether you’re itching.

    I have an itch.

    See? Boring.

    Telling people you have poison ivy is like telling them about your dreams. Listening to the average dream conversation: Oh my god. I had this crazy dream where I was on this rainbow and then this eagle came and there was a sea of shoelaces and bla bla bla bla bla.

    Sorry, avid dream tellers. You’ve heard it here first: Nobody cares about your shoelaces.

    I know poison ivy falls in the dream category because my mom gets poison ivy every year. It usually sounds like “I have poison ivy and it itches so much and bla bla bla bla.” If only it caused blindness or a deformation, then I might care. Instead of treating her with compassion, I’ve often thought, ‘What an idiot. How can she get poison ivy again?’ Apparently, it’s really easy. You can actually get the itch just by walking by the plant. It grows in our backyard, and our plants wear costumes so they don’t look like the average poisonous perpetrator.

    So, I have poison ivy and it itches and bla bla bla.

    My friend says he plays a game with his friends. They try to top each other with boring personal information.

    I need a car wash.
    I have a hang nail.
    I just ate an apple.
    I bought a pair of pants.
    I am trying a new brand of milk.
    I like spaghetti.

    I had a dream.
    I have an itch.

    Snooze.

    I have a theory about these tidbits. I don’t think they were always so unimportant. Remember in Wuthering Heights (I can’t believe I’m referencing Wuthering Heights again. I really hated that book.) when they’re stuck in the winter and their lives were so boring because it was 1845 and they didn’t have internet or skinny jeans? They could talk about a hang nail for hours because what else were they going to do? Now, our brains are so used to taking important calls on our mobile phones and buying shoes online and wishing to win the Publishers’ Clearing House and weighing the pros and cons of showering.

    A hang nail has a lot of competition.

    By ignoring these personal tidbits, we’re making people feel unheard and therefore encouraging them to exaggerate or do anything for attention like be on Reality TV or be Lady Gaga. Our mundane-rendering is the very reason Lady Gaga wears meat. She tried to tell her friends once that she burned the roof of her mouth, and they didn’t bat an eye until she skinned twelve squirrels and hung them from her nipples.  My stance on this topic is that our decision to ignore our friends’ poison ivies is leading to attention-whoring. The good part is that we have the power to stop it. Let’s make the boring important again. Let’s tell the world we went to Target today or opened the upstairs bedroom window or cried for hours about being single.

    We have the power to to change the world by simply caring about hang nails. I swear. This is not just a plea for sympathy for my poison-filled pores. It’s a revolt.

    Tell me, friends: What is your mundane? Tell me, and I will do my best to pretend that I care.

  • I’m a beaver beacon. A large one.

    I have become a beacon for those curious about vaginas. This is not where I thought my life would take me, but somehow I’m here. It’s not a bad spot. I could be a beacon for feces eaters or hatemongers or artichoke whisperers. But, nope. It’s curious coochie searchers. I found this out when I wandered into the ‘keyword’ analytical area of my blog yesterday and saw that most strangers find their way to this blog by searching “quarters in pussy,” “vagina smells like ham,” “my mothers pussy smells like fish,” and “I have small object stuck in my vagina how can I get it out.” Some people also find me by searching “pants in denmark” or “padded bra addict,” but that happens much less often.

    Thank you, Google, for sending me all these curious crotch crawlers. I am honored, although I did not create this blog to become a lighthouse in the overwhelming sea of vaginal investigators. Not at all. In the over three-hundred entries posted here, only three mention the nether regions: this one about vulvaroma, this one about foreign objects, and this one about fluids slipping onto Hollywood dance floors. That is a mere one percent of my repertoire. Not enough to have such a gaggle of scissor sisters directed my way. I want to put it out there that I’m not an expert. I must also come clean to the curious and tell you: my vagina is not even in use. I saw a tumbleweed roll past it this morning.

    Still, I accept my post.

    Plus, those in need of crotchal info bring traffic and boost my ego. I’ll take it. Since I don’t want my one percent to be so much of a let down when they arrive, I would like to add one more post to the vaginal trifecta here on Humans are Funny.  While I’ve covered foreign objects and promiscuity and odors, I haven’t covered size. I might as well. Because I need traffic. Because people are curious. And because I happened upon a very disturbing revelation.

    There is a tampon alternative these days. I will not try to describe it here because you don’t really want to know about it unless you happen to be in the market for a tampon alternative. And also because I already tried to describe it in writing, and I scared myself. If you want to check it out, you can go to the divacup.com yourself. But, all you need to know is that it goes in the same place as the tampon, but it’s not a tampon.
    What’s most disturbing is that there are two sizes: SMALL– for people under 30. AND LARGE: for people over 30.
    That’s it. Two sizes.
    No matter what.
    Even if you haven’t had a baby.
    Even if you do kegel exercises daily.
    Even if your man tells you how tight you are.
    If you’re over 30, you’re considered large.

    “We recommend Model 2 if you are 30 or over 30 years old, because as we age, our hips naturally widen and the vaginal muscles lose elasticity. Because the vaginal muscles hold The DivaCup in place, it is important to use Model 2 if you are over 30, even if you have not had childbirth.

    Even if you are a very small-framed woman with no children, and you are over 30, you should still purchase the Model 2.”

    Great. Thanks, DivaCup, for the lack of sugar on that coat. You could have just told me that sleeping with me feels like a Pringles sleeve.

    Now I understand why men go for younger chicks. Their skin is porcelain-like and wrinkle free. They think ALF lunchbox collections are quirky and vintage. Their vaginal walls are tighter NO MATTER WHAT. But a twenty-year-old girl learned about the eighties from Wikipedia, okay? And her car insurance costs more. And she lacks character and wisdom. Yeah. And flavor and experience. If lower insurance rates with a little flavor and a little wisdom isn’t argument enough to date a thirty-year-old with sagging vaginal walls, I don’t know what is. Holler.

    And this concludes the vagina series on Humans Are Funny.

  • Thanks, Racism.

    When I was a kid, I went to my friend’s house and heard her dad complaining about the ‘mulanyans.’ The “fucking mulanyans.” I had no idea what that meant, so I asked my friend while we were playing Barbies. She whispered as if it were a sin to say it: black people.

    The Urban Dictionary defines “mulanyan” as “a term used in place of the ‘N word’ by VERY racist Italians.”
    I guess my friend’s dad was a very racist Italian. Sadly, I think my town is full of them.
    In high school, my ‘Racism Sucks’ poster was ripped down at every single party I threw.  That old poster got more wrinkly by the party, but I insisted on putting it back up.

    Because Racism Sucks.
    But now I’m having second thoughts.
    Racism may not suck all the time.
    Racism can be funny. And helpful.

    I was sitting at a bar in my hometown of Addison, IL last week when a bunch of Italian gentlemen joined me. I’ve often compared my town to The Jersey Shore because of the large population of Italians, Affliction shirts, fake nails, and tans. We just don’t have a shore.

    “Are you Italian?” One mobster guy asked me.
    “Twenty-five percent,” I said. Ew. Why did I even answer this man?
    “What’s the other?”
    “Spanish and…”
    “I’m sorry,” he said before I could finish.

    He was sorry I’m not 100% Italian. To him, anybody who is not Italian should be sorry.

    And I was sorry. Sorry that anyone has ever let themselves get upset over comments like these. Because, come on. They’re so ignorant they’re just funny. So I laughed in this man’s face. And laughed some more. I don’t want to make fun of the overweight Italian man who later set off an M80 inside the bar and has the audacity to think that nobody is better than he. That would be stooping to his level. But if he’s anything like some of the kids I went to school with, he’s just as Italian as someone who has never been to Italy and only knows one Italian word: Mulanyan.

    I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t admit to using the ‘Are you Italian?’ or the ‘What are you?’ back when I was hitting on guys at the 18-and-over clubs. But, I was EIGHTEEN! I thought that’s how you hit on guys because that’s how I learned. Now I simply say, “Excuse me. Nice sweater. Are you still single or are you divorced yet?”

    I wouldn’t be all up in arms about my town’s racism (or is it ethnicism?) problem if it had just happened that night, but I met a similar mobster fella at a bar the following night too. (It’s really the only thing to do besides the movie theater or the Applebee’s.)

    “Are you Italian?” he asked me.
    “I’m American,” I answered. “What is with that question? Why do men here care so much about whether or not I’m Italian?”
    “Relax, Sweetie,” he said. “ I was just trying to give you a compliment.

    A compliment!
    Oh man. I couldn’t take it. Again, I laughed and laughed.

    I’m not mad at the prejudices here. I’m simply thankful that they’re helping me weed out potential dates so easily. From the very first line, I know that I’m not interested. Growing up here has unfortunately attracted me to short, dark, hairy men. But thanks to racism, I can kick the bad ones to the curb before they get up the driveway.

    “No, I’m not Italian. And, NO, I don’t want to date you.”

    Thanks, Racism. You don’t suck all the time.