Come Here Often?

Maybe you should…I am a wealth of … something.  It is something that you surely need.

Anyway.

So yeah…pick up lines.  Have you ever used a really cheesy one…and it worked?

One night a girl I worked with printed out a whole list of pick-up lines and we went to a bar and took turns saying them to random guys.  It was really funny.  None of them were successful…but mostly because there were few of them we could say with a straight face.

I did rather enjoyed the look on the guy’s face who I smiled at … looked at his shoes … looked back up at his face and said, “Nice shoes…wanna *%#!”?  His mouth fell open and he just stared at me.  I shrugged and walked away.  He tried to stop me but I kept walking.  I laughed all the way out the door.

I grabbed a guy’s rear end and said, “Is this seat taken?”  He looked at me like I’d grown a second head.  I laughed and kept walking.  So much for using one liners from the internet.

From then on I used my own lines.  One night I saw a boy I thought was really pretty…and I’d had a few drinks and was feeling feisty…so I walked over, got really close and told him in his ear, “You are so pretty, you should not even be legal”.  He smiled…we talked…yeah, you know how it ends.  It wasn’t anything lasting but we hung out a few times.  So I call that a successful pick-up line.  I used that line a couple of other times…always meant what I said, but it was still a line.

Now…looking at this from the other direction, I’ve had some interesting ones used on me.  There is, of course, the famous one from a previous blog.  “Are those your real eyes?”  Ugh.  There was the guy who I almost smacked because he was tugging the back of my shirt and when I got mad and asked him WTF…he said he was trying to see if the tag on my shirt said “Made in Heaven” because I had the face of an angel.  My response was too impolite to repeat here. 

Pick-up lines make me laugh, for the most part.  Not a lot of people actually have “lines” these days.  Well…besides “Can I buy you a drink” because that one just never goes out of style.  Countless times, I have responded positively to “Can I buy you a drink?”  Especially if he was cute and I was broke.

Personally, I find that the better looking you are…the cheesier the line you can use and have it work.  I don’t think it’s about the line itself…I think it’s about the delivery.  If you deliver an incredibly cheesy line…with tongue firmly in cheek…knowing full well it’s a ridiculous thing to say but saying it with charm…it can work.  No matter how ridiculous the line is.  It’s all about delivery.  This is why Brad Pitt could walk up and say, “Did it hurt?  When you fell from Heaven?”  And most women would just blush and swoon and turn into Jello.  Those same women would roll their eyes and get completely ooked if Oily Haired, Acne Scar Rico Suave from next door did it.  So it’s mostly about delivery and also about that first bit of physical attraction.

So yeah…I’ve used a few duds and found a few winners.  To this day there’s still not much that works better than “Hi, I’m (name)”.  Honesty can really work, especially in this day and age.  People are considerably more suspicious these days so the days of the cheesy pick-up line are pretty much gone.

For the record, the first words my husband ever said to me were “Hi, I’m [name]”.  That was almost ten years ago.  Go figure.

Emergency Contacts.

Did you ever think about this?  Emergency contacts.  Who do you want contacted in the event that something happens to you?  Do you automatically choose your spouse?  If you’re not married, do you pick a friend?  A sibling?  It’s odd how your emergency contacts change as you age for most people.  Between 16 and 30 or so…there’s usually a parent on there.  After that it becomes the spouse.  And then eventually it becomes a child.  It’s so odd.

What do people do when they are not married, have no kids…and their parents die?  Do you really want a friend called if you have an emergency?  I can’t imagine my job calling one of my friends and saying “Is this the emergency contact for Lynn?  There’s been an accident.”  None of my friends would know what to do – other than call my husband.  Of course, I guess that’s the point.

But does the person who is your emergency contact know what to do in the event that they are called upon?  Do they know who to call or what to do?  Do they know that someone needs to go let your dog out or feed your cat?  Do they have a key to your house and are your emergency numbers and passwords written down somewhere in case you are not able to give them that?

It’s scary to think that something could happen to you and your financial world would crash around you because people don’t know where your information is.  It’s scary to think that that someone put their friend Joe as their emergency contact but Joe doesn’t have their mother’s phone number and doesn’t know that they just got a ferret that needs to be fed.

I thought recently about what would happen if I were to be in an accident or die suddenly.  No one knows any of my passwords.  I pay all my bills online – how would the bills get paid without me?  I keep in touch with most people via email and Facebook…how they be notified if something happened to me?  This led to my being distressed that if something happened to someone I know online…how would I ever find out?  They would just stop posting/emailing/whatever…and I’d never know.

I think maybe I need to write down a list of my passwords and how to find my information and who I’d want contacted in case anything happens to me.  I think I need to make sure my husband knows what to do to make sure everything is taken care of and that it’s not a complete unbearable burden on him.  I think I should make sure he does the same thing for me too.  It seems morbid but I would imagine it would save your family and loved ones a lot of trouble and worry.

I'm also glad that I am out of debt so that no one has to take on any debt if something happens to me.  Of course...there's no windfall of cash they will inherit...but at least no one gets my debts either.

I don't have a will.  I never thought about it because I don't really need one.  I don't have anything for anyone to inherit.  At least not anything that's worth a damn.  But sometimes I think I should leave a will of words.  A will that says all the things I want to say to people in the event that I never see them again.  Maybe I should put that on my To Do list as well.

Stressful things to think about on a random day at work.

I am a plethora of useless information.

It’s true.  I know some of the most random facts.  It’s funny how you work at a job and learn all these really weird, random facts that you never ever would have thought of before.

For years I used public restrooms and never gave a second thought to the paper towel dispensers or the toilet paper rolls.  They were just there and I used them and forgot them.  Then I went to work for a company that did packaging and janitorial supplies.  I learned all about different towel dispensers and different kinds of paper towels.  I learned about the different kinds of toilet paper and dispensers for that.  I learned about hand soap and just how cheap it can be and how most companies buy the really cheap crap that dries your skin and they really don’t save that much by doing it!  The point is…here we are in 2011 and I haven’t been with that company since 2008.  Still…to this day, I check out the dispensers in every public bathroom I go into.  I still recognize which ones are which and think of the sales pitches we were given for them.  I know who is incredibly cheap and who cares a little more about comfort.  Yes…this information is completely useless.

Before that I worked at an electrical supply company.  I learned all kinds of weird things about connectors and fuses and wire gauges.  I got a cool set of jumper cables from there and it was that job where I learned how to properly jump start a car.  I learned to use a heat gun and crimping tools and I spent some time in the purchasing department learning all about promotional items and camera ready art and set up charges for logo imprinting.  Once again…not a bit of it useful.  Well, except for knowing how to jump start a car.  That’s actually pretty handy.  Thanks Larry Farley!  But the rest of it?  I’ll never use this knowledge again.

My husband is fantastic at trivia.  When we play as a team at a board game with trivia, I will defer to him every time because he almost always knows the answers.  Why don’t board games ever ask you what the difference is between shrink wrap and stretch wrap?  Because hey, I know that!  Why don’t they ask if all hook and loop is Velcro?  Or if all facial tissue is Kleenex?  Or what a butt connector is?  Because hey…I know that!  Quick!  Somebody ask me what LED stands for!  Hint: It does NOT stand for “little explosive device”.  Hee…but that’s another story.  So yeah…if you ask me any of these questions…I have an answer!  But if you ask me who directed some random 1994 Blockbuster action film?  Yeah, I’ll look at my husband and bat my eyelashes because I know he’ll have the answer.

So before I close this random bit of rambling…I’ll drop some knowledge on you because I know you want it.

Kleenex and Velcro are name brands.  Not all facial tissue is Kleenex.  But because they are the most popular…everyone calls facial tissues “Kleenex”.  Same with Velcro.  The industry term is “hook and loop” and there are several different manufacturers.  Velcro is simply the one that started it all…thus people calling it all “Velcro”.

Shrink wrap is the crackly stuff that you wrap around your package and heat seal.  It has to run through a heat tunnel and it shrinks down to fit around your package.  Thus it’s being referred to as “shrink wrap”.  Stretch film is stretchy – go figure.  It stretches around your product to hold it place and once it’s stretched, it sticks to itself enough to hold but doesn’t stick to your product.   Many people refer to stretch wrap as shrink film but they are distinctly different products.

A butt connector is an electrical connector that is has a receptacle at both ends so you can put wire in each end and extend the length of one wire.  The two pieces of wire “butt up against each other”…thus making it…TA DA….a “butt connector”.

And oh yeah…L.E.D.?  Light Emitting Diode.

Now you too are a wealth of completely useless knowledge.  Go impress your friends!  I just did!

Size Matters

I’ve mostly always been a bigger gal.  I was never a size two…or four…or even six for that matter.  The smallest size I have worn in my adult life was about an 8.  I liked being that size.  It was nice.  But it didn’t last very long.  I like to eat.  I like food.  I like really bad, fattening food most of all.  On any given day, I crave chocolate like a junkie tapping a vein.  So basically I have always been a bigger gal.  I probably always will be.

When I was younger, I did get made fun of for it some.  Not horribly so…I was not “the fat kid”…I was just always a little puffier than average.  As an adult, I actually had a guy I liked tell me “I think that if you lost a little weight, you’d be really cute.”  At the time, I was a size 10-12…which, in my opinion, is not exactly huge.  But this guy liked the little size 2-4 girls.  Ok…that was his opinion so to each his own.  I’m ok with it.  Besides that…he turned out to be a really bad kisser and for me, all bets are off if you are a terrible kisser.  But that’s another story.

At one point I was a size 16-18.  I was really unhappy being that size.  I was uncomfortable and felt gross and hated the way I looked and much of the time I hid in boy clothes like military style BDU pants and big t-shirts.

Then I came across this whole BBW Fetish thing.  For those not “in the know”, that stands for Big Beautiful Women.  A term coined by men who dig big women and like to see them in sexy clothes … and in no clothes … and in lord knows what else.  I was kinda fascinated by this.  I did a little modeling for amateur photographers.  I got flattered a lot and told how hot I looked.  I enjoyed it for a while.  Regardless of this though…I was still uncomfortable and still didn’t like the way I looked.

So all these years later after fighting my weight my whole life and having a few cow jokes and being made fun of for being heavy…someone actually got onto me for not liking my weight.  They told me I should accept my size and love myself for who I am not what size my clothes were.  Well I appreciated it at first and was glad to know there were people out there who appreciated me no matter what.  There were people who found me beautiful and even sexy at that size.  How nice!  But then when I tried to lose weight – those same people picked on me the same way the skinny girls picked on me for being fat!

Now wait a minute.  Yes, I have a right to be fat and accept it and be ok with who I am.  Thank you.  I appreciate that.  However…it is ALSO my right to not be happy with it and to want to be thinner.  I feel physically better at size 10-12 than I do at size 16-18.  My clothes are more comfortable and it’s easier to sit in the car and on an airplane and things like this.  So why should I be berated for wanting to be smaller just because YOU have accepted your size and are ok with it?

If you accept your size – why can’t I go and find the size I want?  Why is that a problem for you?  If I am fat and you are thin – why do you need to make fun of me for being fat?  If I am trying to lose weight – why do you need to tell me I should not do it?  Oh…and while we’re at it…not all skinny people are happy either!  So why do people think it’s ok to make fun of skinny people just because thin is more popular?

So then we take the facts and we stop and we really look at it…and Light Bulb!  The truth comes out.  All of these women…the thin ones…the fat and happy ones…all the ones who have something to say…are ALL – DUN DUN DUN – INSECURE.

That’s right ladies and gentleman.  They are ALL insecure.  The skinny ones need to make fun of the fat ones because they are terrified they will get fat.  The fat and happy ones are insecure because their choice is unusual and they feel the need to constantly defend it.  The fat and unhappy girls want to make themselves feel better by making fun of the super skinny girls.  It all boils down to people being insecure and needing to defend themselves out of fear.

How do I know this?  I’ve done it too.  I’m human and defending our choices and ourselves is human nature.  This…and the fact that I just tend to understand people better than your average Joe on the street.  I should have been a psychologist or a therapist or something.  I’ve been told this a million times.  I’m too lazy to go back to school though.  Woops…tangent.

Back to the point we go.  Lots of people are unhappy about their size and lots of people are fine with whatever size they are.  It’s just a fact.  Some people are also delusional about their size and have these crazy “body dysmorphic disorders” that cause them to do really irrational and unhealthy things.  A lot of that is brought on by those insecure people who found it necessary to make them selves feel better by making fun of someone else.  How sad that we do this to each other. 

If you are too thin and you hate it – I hope you can fix it and make the choices required to be where you want to be.  If you are fat and you hate it – ditto.  If you are a BBW and you accept it and love it – more power to you.  Go be you.  But while you’re out being you…keep letting me be me and strive for my own goals.  In the end – it’s yourself you need to make happy.  While you may make yourself momentarily happy by making fun of someone else…eventually that’s going to come back and bite you right on your whatever size butt. 

Yes…I’d love to be a little size 4 with a flat stomach and arms that don’t continue to wave long after my hand stopped.  I’d also like to be taller, richer and have better hair.  The fact is – until my “Yay cake!” reaction ceases to be stronger than my “Oh my god, these pants are too tight” reaction…I’m just gonna be a heavy gal.  That’s my choice and what I have to live with.  So please don’t try to force me lose weight so I fit your thin and perfect mold.  Please don’t try to force me to accept the weight I am at if I don’t want to.  Please don’t try to make me feel bad either way.  I am the one I need to make happy.  Not you.

On a side note – I also feel that you should try to be healthy.  Being considerably over OR under weight can be very bad for your health.  Regardless of what the number on your tag or your scale says – you should try to be as healthy as possible on the inside so you can enjoy your life and the people around you can enjoy having you in their life.  Don’t assume that thin is healthy – as many people do.  Work toward a healthy you on the inside and deal with the outside as you will.  And whatever you do – consider the feelings of other people before you comment about their size.  Whether you think you are being encouraging (Accept your size, you’re beautiful!  But you’re so thin, how can YOU complain!) or not – think about what you’re saying and how it can feel.

Hi…I’m Lynn…I’m a size 12 and wish I was a size 6.  Are you gonna eat that?

Doomgirl, are you queer?

Why yes.  Yes, I am.

I hate that society takes really cool words and uses them inappropriately and then twists them into something evil or hateful and then we lose use of that word for fear that we will offend the people it was used against.  I truly believe that we have to begin using these words again to take away their negative connotation.  There are some words I just really want to take back!

I was chatting with a co-worker and stated that something was funny.  She asked me “Funny ha-ha or funny queer?”  I said “Funny queer??”  I wanted to know what she meant.  Of course, I did assume that she was asking me if I meant that it made me laugh or if I just thought it was odd.  And I was delighted by her use of the word considering how few people use it anymore.  Apparently she worked with some older men a few years ago that would say that.  “Funny ha-ha or funny queer?”    After this conversation with her…it just made me want to take back the word “queer”.

Queer is actually a great word.  I realize that you can say something is weird or odd or unusual and get the same point across.  But really roll the word “queer” around in your head for a minute.  It just really fits that certain bit of oddity that cannot truly be expressed with any of the other words you can use in it’s place.

It’s weird when my mother uses current slang.  Like when she saw a cute top in a store and out of her 63 year old mouth, tumbled the phrase, “I could rock that”.  I almost fell down laughing.  THAT is weird.  It’s odd when someone does something specifically different from the way everyone else does it, like eating their food in a circle around their plate.  It’s unusual to see a dog walking about on it’s hind legs for no reason.  All those descriptions make sense.  But sometimes…something is so completely out of place or out of the norm or just completely mystifying…that it is just…say it with me…queer.

A long time ago, in a land far, far away, in a world where people were even more scared of what was different than they are now…there were a small group of people who were…[whispers] homosexual.  It was so unusual…it was so strange to us…it was queer.  So someone got the bright idea to call them queer.  Then it became this weird noun.  You could BE a queer.  And then it became this hateful slur that got shouted and said as an insult…because people are stupid and insensitive and fear what they don’t understand.  Thus we lost a lovely word that had a very usable and unique meaning.

Now I mourn the loss of this interesting and useful word and wonder what it would take to bring this word back.  Restore it’s original meaning and put it back into circulation as the fantastic word it was before some idiot perverted it.

Guess what…I am a queer person.  I am not like everyone else and some of my differences are just downright QUEER.  That’s ok with me.

Queer.  Use it in a sentence.  Use it in a conversation with someone.  Let’s bring it back.  Let’s stop the abuse of the English language.  One neato word at a time.