Is it worth wearing real clothes?

Pop quiz:

Reasons you should wear a stretchy headband:

a) It's a fashionable accessory for your outfit
b) To disguise that your hair hasn't been washed for 3 days
c) You just came from working out, where you needed to keep hair out of your face
d) You want to pretend that you just came from working out so people won't judge your lack of real, adult clothes
e) Just because you wanted to, who cares what anyone else thinks?

My brain tells me that correct answers include a, c, and e.

Follow-up bonus question: Which of those reasons were my basis for wearing a stretchy headband to the grocery store today? (Hint: None of the reasons that should be correct.)

(I mean I guess I shouldn't really care whether people think I've been working out or just haven't showered in 3 days and couldn't be bothered to wear anything more than workout clothes, but I do like to try and pretend to myself that I'm a real, functioning adult human. And part of that consists of convincing myself that other people will believe I'm a responsible adult, who showers and wears real clothes most of the time and gym clothes only when I'm working out, not all the time like socially-acceptable pajamas.)

Is weirdness genetic?

Or: My parents are rather strange and twisted

When I was younger, my parents used to sing to my sister and I. Mostly for things like bed time: "Bed time, for Katherine, and Emily!"

Sometimes for bath time: "Bath time, for Katherine, and Emily!"

Occasionally for other things, and sometimes they'd add another verse.

They did on rare occasions sing the original words to the song, but it was only very recently, when I actually watched "The Producers," that I made the connection and thought about exactly how strange it would sound to other people that my parents sang to us to the tune of "Springtime for Hitler."

(Alright, I spent way more time than I should have trying to figure out how to embed this video and start it at a particular time - no thanks to either Youtube or Blogger, because I'm doing everything they say should work and it doesn't seem to... Anyway, just start the video at 52 sec. to get the tune, if you don't already know it!)

(I'll give you a minute to imagine bed times of my youth.) (Also I chose this version because John Barrowman.)

My mom revealed that she was shocked the first time my dad did this. (This is me, making a completely unsurprised face that this was begun by my father.) Of course, that didn't stop her from joining in.

My tonsils may be trying to kill me

Warning: I'm talking about being ill in this post. So if medical stuff makes you squeamish, you might want to skip this one. Although it's really not that bad - there's no surgery, or profusely leaking bodily fluids, or broken anything... Read at your own risk, I guess?

My body hates me. In October, my tonsils came after me. I started feeling a little sick on a Wednesday - my throat was slightly sore. I assumed I was coming down with a cold. Thursday morning, it was definitely sore. And I decided to use all my energy baking cookies (because I'm terrible at making decisions when I'm sick. And because I'd promised my friend I'd make them for her birthday, and I keep my promises!). So work that evening was hellacious. I wrote a lamentation/ode to Nyquil. (Proving that suffering leads to the creation of art, if you can call this poem "art.")

A Sickness Lamentation

If only I had worked here

For more than three weeks.

I would have enough leave time

To just skip out

Early

And go home

And sleep.

The sleep of the dead,

A healing sleep,

A Nyquil sleep.

So when I wake up

I will feel new

And whole

And free of this plague.

My eyeballs won't hurt,

And my back will feel fine.

My constant desire

For hot fluids

Will have evaporated.

Oh, Nyquil!

Your beautiful, sleep-giving embrace

Waits to enfold me

In unknowing bliss.

The next three hours

Will feel like torture,

As I anticipate

Your sweet, medicated taste.

Yeah, "poet" is obviously not on my short list of "Jobs I'd be Awesome At."

Friday morning, the Nyquil had failed to produce my anticipated result of helping me sleep off my "cold." My throat felt so gross I skipped out on going to the fair for my friend's birthday to get more sleep. When I finally got up, I looked at my throat in the mirror and was terrified to see a huge white spot on my right tonsil. I gargled with salt water, which of course didn't get rid of the white patch. I drank some tea (which was way more helpful in soothing my throat than the salt water. I'm pretty sure the "gargle with warm salt water" sore throat remedy is just made of grossness and lies.). When I started feeling achy all over I took my temperature: 101°F. My natural response was to start panicking that I might have strep throat, and I didn't have enough leave time at work to take an extra day off, and it would look super sketchy to call in sick the day before my scheduled vacation day, and I wouldn't be able to go see my friends that weekend, and my entire life was going to be ruined, and…! (I was seriously freaking out about this situation, y'all.)

I managed to calm myself down ("Don't start freaking out until you know you actually have strep," I told myself) and I took myself to the doctor's office, where my temperature was down to 99 (woohoo!) and the quick strep test came back negative (Hallelujah!). But, as the doctor noted, it was pretty obvious my tonsils were infected because of the patches of bacteria, some of my lymph nodes being swollen and painful, and my tonsils being huge. Interestingly, they asked multiple times whether my tonsils were normally large, which I had no clue about because I generally only look at my tonsils when I'm sick and my throat is sore, so of course my tonsils are all swollen at those times! Honestly, I don't spend much time looking down my own throat when I'm feeling perfectly fine. (Subsequent checks seem to show that it's plausible I have largish tonsils anyway, but I don't really have any to compare them to, so I still don't know.)

Anyway, it turns out recurrent infections (e.g., getting strep throat every year for about 4 years - yep, did that) can leave you with abscesses in your tonsils in which bacteria - or sometimes food that you eat (that is seriously one of the most disgusting things I've ever heard) - can get stuck and lead to infection. Awesome. My tonsils are trying to kill me.

And then the doctor and the pharmacist colluded to kill me some more by prescribing antibiotics that came in horse pill form. Or possibly it's like Murphy's Law of Medicine - any condition involving a sore throat will be treated with the most gigantic pills available. But I managed to choke (sometimes literally) those suckers down and get cured! Yay! Now I've just got to continue keeping an eye on my tonsils in case they do this again and actually explode or something. (Not sure if that's actually something that might happen, but the doctor made possible future infections sound pretty dire, so I'm assuming exploding body parts would be involved. Or, y'know, just a tonsillectomy.)

Hopefully it's not contagious.

I think I have a terrible case of foot-in-mouth disease. I have become incapable of not saying something insensitive to my friends. For example:

I'm playing Munchkin (a card game. It's super-fun, look it up.) with my friends. I help a friend defeat a monster, but play a card that allows me to steal the levels she would have gained. As she's finishing her turn and marking our points and levels down...

Me: Did you remember to give yourself a level for defeating the monster?

K: *stare* You mean the levels you stole?

Me: *facepalm* Oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry!! I wasn't even thinking!!

Then, just last night, I was watching TV at my friend's house.

A: You know what I'd really like? A CookOut burger.

Me: I had one for dinner!

A: You really think now is the time to share that?!

Me: Oh, sorry!! I wasn't thinking! You could go get one…

A: I'm vegetarian!!

Me: Agh! *shamed*

So, yeah, I just can't win. Maybe I'll just stop talking altogether.

Today, I have zero willpower

Dear chocolate bunny,

"Oh, I'll just eat the ears," I told myself. But you were too delicious. I had to keep going.

"I'll stop after I finish off the head." No dice.

"Just the bow tie, then. This thing is supposed to be 2 servings, that'll be about half."

And still, you were too delicious. I kept going. And when there was only about a quarter of a rabbit left, I just had to admit to myself, I was going to finish you.

And then I had eaten an entire chocolate Easter bunny.

On the bright side, you were only 2.5 ounces of chocolate. And you only cost me 50 cents, since I bought you on post-Easter clearance today!

Anyway, thanks for demolishing my willpower. I hope there aren't any hard feelings, seeing as I think I paid you back by eating you totally.

Sincerely,
Katherine

P.S. Um, yeah, there was apparently a "63" at the end of my post title for a month and a half. Whoops.

Don't lie, you'd do it, too

So, I'm at Mellow Mushroom with some friends, because it's trivia night. (We totally kicked ass, and then blew most of our points in the final round, but we still came in second and got a gift certificate. Awesome. Also, I was the only person who knew that the the Strait of Hormuz connects the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Because I rock.)

Anyway, I'd already eaten dinner, so all I ordered was sweet tea and a brownie sundae. And that brownie sundae was pretty damn good. (Although I could have gone for a softer brownie. But the chocolate chips kind of made up for it.) They had arranged this dessert on a large triangular plate, with the brownie and ice cream (both topped with whipped cream) in the middle, and dollops of whipped cream at all the corners, and chocolate sauce drizzled over the entire plate. Amazing. I demolished it. Then, because I obviously wasn't going to let any of that deliciousness go to waste, I was scraping up the chocolate sauce and bits of melted ice cream and whipped cream. Our waitress came around to take up whatever plates and such we were finished with. She asked if I was done. I (naturally) said no.

She judged me. She judged me so hard. I could tell. (She asked if I wanted to keep "playing with" it. Um, not playing. Doing some serious eating, here, woman.)

It's cool, though. I have no regrets.

Except that I managed to drip chocolate sauce on my sweatshirt (I can't take myself anywhere!). And I have a food baby.

Overall, though, that dessert was a great decision. And honestly, madam waitress, I'm pretty sure if all you ordered at a restaurant was dessert, you'd milk it for all it was worth.

Just saying.

Wait, what?

Dear Mysterious Lollipop,

What, exactly, are you doing sitting on top of a book about bugs? Why are you even in the library in the first place? I don't even understand why you were just... sitting there. There was no one else even in that row!

Are you waiting for someone? Are you meant to be some sort of secret, coded message? If so, I'm glad I didn't pick you up. Are you meant for whoever finds you and wants a sugar boost? If that's the case, then it's too bad I left you there. Unfortunately for me, I don't eat random candy I find in the library in case it's carrying ebola or something. Otherwise, I totally would have grabbed you. Blue raspberry is delicious.

With confusion,

Katherine

(Yes, that is a blue raspberry Dum-dum sitting on top of a book about the Classification of some Order of Homoptera/Heteropta. Don't ask me. I don't know what it's doing there, either.)

The camping trip basically went like this:

Oh, hey, Georgia!

It was really great to see you, but apparently we weren't supposed to be here after all. I'll see you some other time.

Peace,
Katherine

---

Dear GPS,

Some of these dirt roads look pretty sketchy, are you sure we're going the right way?

Oh, wait, here's the campgrounds.

Thanks!
Katherine

---

Dear cell phone,

Why do you not get service? Now we can't get in touch with the other car, which also got lost. Way to make us drive a good 10 miles down the highway to get signal to actually get in touch with our friends.

No love,
Katherine

---

Dear waterfall,

You are gorgeous. Unfortunately, we can't camp right next to you because there is not enough space. Also, it's a little creepy that there's a memorial stone for "Timmy" next to the stream here.

See you later!
Katherine

---

Dear Lucy,

I'm super glad we spent so much time in Girl Scouts. How awesome is our fire? Very. And warm, which is nice. We basically rock. :-)

Go us!

---

Dear weather,

Why are you so cold?!?! I am seriously wearing 3 pairs of pants, 3 shirts, 2 pairs of socks, and a hat, plus I'm inside a fleece sleeping bag inside my big puffy sleeping bag. And my toes are still freezing. Actually, I'm not sure I can feel them. I could probably sleep a lot better if it wasn't like 40 degrees out.

I do appreciate the lack of rain, though.

Frostily,
Katherine

---

Dear car,

Thank you for heat. I can feel my toes again!

With warmest regards,
Katherine

---

Dear Self,

Stop procrastinating and take a shower already. You smell. Also, your clothes smell. It's time to do some laundry.

Sincerely,
Me

What a day...

Dear cockroach,

I have cut off your head. Please stop moving. This whole "I'm going to keep running around like a chicken cockroach with its head cut off" act is not amusing. Actually, it's pretty dang traumatizing. I'm probably going to have nightmares for weeks.

Why won't you just die?!?!

Sincerely,
Katherine

---

Dear Aldi,

Why do you close at 7? I need groceries! I am out of bread, and peanut butter, and I need cheese and milk. I suppose I can settle for Publix, but that means I have to spend more money. Is this because I don't tell you how much I love you enough? Well, I do. Please let me shop tomorrow!

Love,
Katherine

This afternoon was productive in some ways, but not in others

Dear Clemson University,

My mixed feelings for you continue. Today's example: your PE classes are all under the category "Leisure Skills". Granted, that does also include classes on photography and wood carving and jewelry making and CPR, but... the name "Leisure Skills", while endlessly amusing, does seem to downplay the importance of remaining physically fit and active - the title "Physical Education" does a better job of indicating the necessity of such courses in equipping students to remain active for life.

On the up side, you feature some intriguing courses not found at NC State. These include a wider variety of dance classes (belly dancing, 3 levels of shag and swing dancing, contra, and multiple levels of ballroom dancing, although there is a conspicuous lack of clogging), hunting and fishing classes (many courses involving rifles, actually, including getting hunting licenses, and how to tie flies for fishing), and lots of yoga classes (also, "Meditation and Relaxation" sounds great; I would look forward to the irony of stressing about an assessment in that class). It is disappointing that you don't have specific classes for basketball, volleyball, and softball, but combine them all with football in one course. Also, no badminton classes. That is a serious oversight. Though the billiards class might make up for that...

Still not in love with orange,

Katherine

Awesome!

Dear Newspaper Hat,

Where have you been all my life?! How did it take me this long to find you?! I don't think I ever want to stop making newspaper hats now...

Your awesomeness just makes my day infinitely better. Now I can be a pirate. Or just an awesome person with an awesome hat. :-)

Yours in mutual awesomeness,

Katherine

Pearls are not appropriate exercise attire

Dear girl at Zumba today,

I'm sure it's vital that you look your best during this high-intensity workout. You are probably one of those girls who never seems to sweat and looks perfect after working out (which is unfair and ridiculous, by the way). However, wearing pearls is crossing the line. Now you look like you're trying way too hard. (Also, aren't you worried they'll get messed up or broken??) Please cease this inexplicable behavior.

Sincerely,

Katherine