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Vomithounds: You Better Be Good, or You’ll Be Gone
“Vomithounds: You Better Be Good, or You’ll Be Gone” (methinks this gel has a vomit habit)* Earlier this week, Girl was suffering from an undiagnosed Fever ‘N Ague. We knew she had a high temperature. We could see her glassy eyes and flushed cheeks from our vantage point across the room, safely out of germ-jumping…
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I’m Only A Paper Loon
“I’m Only a Paper Loon” Most days, I don’t think enough. I just kind of put the car in drive and let it take me places. Or if I’m in the kitchen, and I see a Cheerio on the floor, I instinctively bend to pick it up. Sometimes I eat it. Sometimes I put it…
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Bite Me
“Bite Me” This much is a given: I need to lower my body into a large vat of rubbing alchohol and remain suspended there for some minutes. What has not yet been decided are the logistics of the lowering. Obviously, I need some sort of harness, right? And while I suppose a bathtub could suffice…
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Ah, Sweet Relief
About six years ago, my dad was staying with us for a week. After a few days, I saw a post-it note stuck to the front of a book he was reading. Naturally, because I am governed by a set of conveniently-flexible boundaries, I went right over and plucked it off the cover. In my…
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Stop Trying to Chop Off Your Sister’s Head with Your New Toy Axe While She’s Vomiting onto the Floor of the Shuttle
So we did it. Guatemala hosted us well and remains intact, despite our tear across its kidneys. All in all, I’d say we had a near-perfect two weeks there, particularly considering our respective ages, the ever-present noise of cars, birds, firecrackers, and drunken revellers, and the kids’ certainty that they would never, ever eat…
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More Centrally American
This may be my last post for a couple of weeks, for Byron and I, some months back, bolstered by a few shots of whiskey slammed down during a State of the Union address (by the end, we were channeling David Byrne, chopping on our arms, and slurring, “This is not our beautiful country”), decided…
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The Best You Can Hope for in the Hoosegow is a Sealy Posturpedic
Consider this story of misdirected holiday hopes, broadcast last week on NPR: Richard Perez of Lake Station, Indiana, wanted to impress his beloved wife by giving her a plasma television this Christmas. The rub was that he didn’t actually feel compelled to *pay* for the TV. At this point, a little Grinchian ingenuity kicked in,…
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An Acceptional Tail
I read and grade papers for a living. While I was recently compelled to poke a hole in my eardrum with a mechanical pencil when I read the 9,543rd paper on “why bow hunting rocks,” for the most part, my job has its perks: a great schedule, lots of autonomy, and an office door that…
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Downward-Facing ADHD Doggie: Frantic Yoga
“Downward-Facing ADHD Doggie: Frantic Yoga” I may pride myself on being a hearty soul, but the truth is that I host a puny inner wuss, a very small person who lives inside me and who doesn’t like scary or creepy things like: voles; people knocking on my front door wearing crisp white shirts and neckties,…
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East or West, My Couch Is Best
More adventures from the “Jocelyn As Idiot Runner” Files: I am the kind of person who can get lost between my house and my job (where I’ve worked for six years). I can take a wrong street on my way to Cub Foods and end up doing an 18-point turn to back myself away from…
