humans are funny

Author: laurenne

  • Oprah, hurry the F up.

    I won’t be blogging during the holiday because I am taking a break, like people should do over a holiday. I’m only going to eat a lot. And read a lot. And sit around a lot. Because I never do. And because I’ve spent lots of time in the last few weeks doing this:


    And this:

    That’s eating every meal at a desk in an ad agency. Some ad agencies really think you have nothing to do with your life besides come up with ways to make people buy things they don’t need. They schedule you to work every weekend and every night if you don’t stop them. I haven’t been stopping them. And that’s because I’m a whore for a paycheck.

    And also because I’m biding time before Oprah discovers this blog and decides to offer me my own show and magazine with a picture of me eating a sandwich on the cover of every issue. That’s going to happen, so I’m just waiting at the advertising agency until then. And I’m also celebrating America’s great holiday. I’m off to go eat a lot, do nothing, eat more, do more of nothing, and then have pie.

    Smell ya on the flipside. aka December 1st! WHAT? December already? Yes, already.

    Happy Day of Thanks & Giving

  • You would see the biggest gift would be from me…


    For my entire childhood, I lived on the wrong side of town. In hindsight I can see that the invisible dividing line through our town was a bunch of bologna, but in junior high I was obsessed with being the coolest and therefore mortified by the location of our house and its general design. Now, I see our house as the beautiful hard work of a single mother, but at the time it disgusted me. Our appliances were old. Our carpeting was brown. And our bathtub had stains in it.

    My friends had nicer houses, and I idolized them for it. They all seemed so normal– they passed friendship notebooks around and had really stylish bangs and parents that were still together and not gay. They all lived in close proximity on the OTHER side of town so they could get together more often without me. And Lawrence, my ego who totally lacks self-esteem, just KNEW they were gossiping all about my shitty house and my weird dad who wore leather vests.

    Acceptance from these girls meant more to me than my Beanie Baby collection. So, one day I convinced the entire clique to come over for a slumber party. I rejoiced when they all agreed. Even Tammy came; she was the prettiest one who had boobs first. We talked about boys and our vaginas. We gossiped about everyone at school.

    Then, things took a bad turn. One girl thought she saw a doggie toy on the floor and, when she picked it up, found that it was actually dog diarrhea. If that wasn’t bad enough, we awoke at daybreak, excited to start the day with pancakes. And there it was… a dead, rotting mouse next to Tammy’s perfectly perky head.

    A dead mouse.
    It scurried under us in the night and keeled over right next to the most popular girl’s head. Great.

    I already lived on the trashy side of town, and I had forced my friends to come over, touch dog poo, and sleep on mice.

    Horrifying.

    Worst slumber party ever.

    But it’s not because my house wasn’t perfect that my slumber party failed. It’s mainly because my friends weren’t really friends. They were judgmental and mean and not at all nurturing. I don’t blame the actual people for acting this way. For spreading rumors about my nipples or tricking me into sitting in chocolate pudding at lunch. I blame the age. All girls seem to go through this horrible time period of feeling ugly and treating people uglier. This time period alone is the main reason for my indecision about having kids. Ah! So scary.

    I’m proud to say that my friends today would have no problem waking up on a mouse at my slumber party. I mean, they might not be happy about it. But I wouldn’t fear that they’d go talk about me behind my back. I wouldn’t think they’d condemn me from hosting slumber parties. They would simply think it hilarious, and it would be a funny story to be told at any gathering and most assuredly at my wedding. Because true friends don’t really care if you have mice or if you buy all your clothes at TJ Maxx or if you stick your hand in your pants at the movies or if you live on the wrong side of town. Real friends accept you no matter what. NO MATTER WHAT. Even if you don’t have good bangs, which I still don’t.

    It took me a long time to find them, but I finally did. In college. At work. In random classes. On this very blog. I finally have those real friends who love me even after knowing me really really well… even after knowing I talk about poo and never clean out my trunk and don’t own underwear. My self-esteem changed and so did my friends. To mirror Ellen and the rest: it does get better.
    Phew.
    Seriously.

    Being a writer can be a lonely road. I am often holed up in my apartment for weeks. My friends get it. Once something gets published, it’s like I have my own PR system, as my Facebook friends distribute it like confetti. What support! They’re proud of me. And I’m proud of them too. And it feels so good. Love feels like swimming in a bowl of whip cream. Even the friends I have never met, who stop by here every week, bring me such inspiration and motivation with their own gifts that I love and accept. I feel so lucky to have all kinds of friends who color my life with so much love. So, thank you. For you, I am so so so grateful. I can’t imagine what life would be like if I still had to watch what I said or keep secrets or worry about what rumors you were cooking up.

    Please come have a slumber party any time (sans mice). You’re always invited (but give me some notice. I know you love me anyway, but still I’d like to be wearing clothes when you come).

    Thank you for being there. And being here. And being you. And being amazing.

  • The red fern grew in Japan, which is not really in China.

    When I arrived home from my around-the-world adventure last year, I felt like I knew what to do with my life. I’d been ashamed in Cambodia that I knew little about the holocaust there even though it happened in my very lifetime. Assuming other Americans my age were in a similar boat, I felt like my life’s purpose should be to write, the goal being to use humor to tell the world about the world.

    And then I started writing about Snooki and poo instead.

    But I am again renewed in my passion after seeing this gem from Lamebook:

    I’d like to first comment about how someone put a lot of time and thought into a Facebook app that tells you what kind of Asian you are. Umm…. actually, I’d like to not comment because I immediately imagine it asks racist questions like, ‘Do your parents own a convenience store, nail salon, or nothing because the Communist government won’t let them?’ Sorry. I know. Horrible. But, come on! What kind of app is that?

    Anyway, the more pressing issue is the chick who thinks that Japanese people are from China.
    The world needs help, my friends. Lots of help.

    But based on this guy’s Facebook profile,

    it seems that those who don’t read are kind of proud of it. If the only book I’d ever read was on the required list in junior high, I probably wouldn’t tell anybody. (But I’d also give books another chance. I mean… Where the Red Fern Grows? The only book? I can see why you may have been turned off, my friend, but at least try another. Read Maus if you have to. Geesh. [that’s a comic book- get it?])

    Now I’ve concluded that if I try to write more about the world, the people who need to read it won’t. Therefore, back to Snooki. I kind of miss her these days. And, OMG, let’s all plan a trip to China for sushi and kimonos.

  • 3six5 is a creative way to write 365

    The 3six5 is a project that records the happenings of a different person’s day every day. 365 days from 365 points of view– a collective recap of 2010.

    I’ve known my day was coming up for some time now. What pressure! It’s like a time capsule and my day, November 8th, would be my statement to the whole world for eternity (or the 1500 or so daily viewers). I’ve been overly hopeful about this opportunity because I knew anything I wrote would be better than the time capsule video I made in Miss Miller’s sixth grade class. We were supposed to say something meaningful to the camera, and instead I showed the camera how I could make my bellybutton talk by squeezing it open and closed.

    I wasn’t always this classy, ladies and gentlemen.

    Thankfully, that was probably recorded on a BETA tape, and it’s hopefully been rendered useless and lame by now.

    Here is my chance to make a bellybutton-free statement. I felt like doing something really cool that day like taking cocaine and going cliff diving, but I stuck to my original plans, and it worked out:

    {3six5}

  • News & history for aliens. Jurg.

    It’s much easier to appreciate how funny humans truly are if we try to explain our everyday goings on to those who don’t understand. Like aliens. If I had some aliens over for dinner and tried to explain human culture, they’d surely burst with laughter. Or just say, ‘jurrrrg.’ I don’t know.
    This is how I’d sum it all up:

    Jesus
    There once was a man who came to town and told everyone that his father lived in the sky and controlled the whole world. Some people didn’t believe him.
    Those people were persecuted then and even 2000 years later. Some of them escaped persecution and have become heads of Hollywood movie studios, but others are still really hated for collectively killing the son of the man in the sky thousands of years ago.

    Muhammed
    There are some people who worship a god. Nobody is allowed to draw this god even though they have no idea what he looks like because nobody who actually saw him ever drew him. It’s forbidden to even draw a fork or a wagon and say it’s this god. If you do, the worshippers will try to kill you.

    Abortion
    Sometimes, when a man makes a woman pregnant and she doesn’t want to be pregnant, a doctor takes a vacuum and sucks the baby out of her womb. In order to elect a president, the people of the United States need to know how the candidate feels about this vacuum.

    Media
    Certain things happen in the world. Humans need to know about it. We pay certain people a lot of money to get their hair styled to look like a brick and read about these events to a TV camera. Sometimes, they have nothing to report so they make up stories. Powerful people who don’t want anyone to know about their events persuade the people with brick hair to NOT talk about them. Also, there is competition among the people with brick hair, so they add details to their stories to sound better. And they love to use the word ‘exclusive.’

    Kim
    There is a man who rules a country called North Korea. He will not allow anyone to enter or exit his country. He doesn’t allow the people in his country to know anything about any other country even though there are 195 countries in the world. He does not even let them watch any people with brick hair. Instead, he shows them pictures of himself and tells everyone that he is the best.

    BP
    People use cars and trucks to move themselves around. But there are so many cars and trucks that the world is having a hard time keeping up with the demand for oil, which is what makes them run. Some oil companies decided to dig for oil in the middle of the ocean. And then everyone was really surprised when they spilled a lot of oil into the water.

    Lohan
    There is a girl who was in a few movies. None of them were that good or memorable. She put a lot of illegal and unhealthy chemicals in her body and got in trouble. Then, she put more illegal and unhealthy chemicals in her body and got in more trouble. She went to court and wrote ‘fuck you’ on her fingernail to insult the judge (‘fuck you’ is considered very rude.). Nobody knows why the people with the brick hair talk so much about this girl. But many people in the USA know more about this girl than all of the other things listed here.

    As is evident, Martha MacCallum reports on very significant issues of the day. She also carries one brick in her hair.