The Man Hug

I'm going to be honest here (ha like I'm ever not...) but I find men hugging really funny. Not all the time, dang I'm not a extremist who has no heart! (jk sorry I'm a little post-midterm hyper :) There are those times when guys hug and you can just tell that they have this connection (not in a weird way) and it's all awesome.

And then there are the times when this doesn't happen. 

Most the time things just get awkward real quick. And I'm talking awkward in the way the word 'awkward' is awkward. One hugging party is maybe a little more into it, or the hug lingers a little long, but either way I think it's hilarious. And yes I find awkwardness utterly fascinating and cannot help laughing even when it's not appropriate. Today I witnessed the epitome of this type of man hug. I was walking behind this guy who saw a friend of his and they hugged. Well the first guy hugged for a little too long I guess because the second guy (who was facing me) unhooked his arms and started patting the other guys back. And this was patting like they "hey good buddy....I'm going to pat you because anything else is just weird" kind of pat. HA! And then he got this look on his face that was somewhere between a friendly smile and a grimace of pure discomfort. This moment was pure manna from heaven for my stressed, midterm crunching brain and I couldn't help laughing. Ah the joy of witnessing that other people are just as weird as me.

the antics of youth.....kinda

This post was inspired by two different things. First I was talking to my sister the other day about the crazy things that her 3-year-old daughter does. This conversation got us thinking about the insane things we did when we were kids where either our parent's weren't around (or probably more accurately we didn't know they were there) and the thoughts our parents must have had that they were raising complete fools. Oh how they must have worried about our future....
: ).

The second inspiration came this past weekend when I went to Washington D.C. to visit my best friend Lauren. We have been best friends our entire lives so many of the previous antics involved her as well. Whenever we get together though we talk pretty much 24 hours a day so there are many opportunities for moments when my brain goes a different (and completely wrong) direction than the conversation. So in the interest of a humility, and the fact that these stories just make me laugh, I thought I'd share.

First uh...ya. I uh...... I ate butter. Just plain butter. Like a spoonful. I have no idea why. I think back and remember not liking it at all, but for some reason thinking I should and so I just ate it. Abbey though ate flour and water and food coloring which I submit is even weirder. Pretty sure as a result of this though, now I'm a little weird about butter. I can really do without it in most situations. Ha ha I can just imagine my mom or dad maybe watching that and thinking I was not the smartest of their children....

I read a lot as a child. Lauren and I read a lot. But we never wanted to just read. We had to read in interesting locations. Our favorite was my parents shower. We would drag in I am pretty sure every pillow I possessed and a bunch of blankets and a stack of about 50 books and just read. Sometimes sleeping too.

Also in that shower we would take Berenstain Bear books, paper, and colored pencils, then trace over the pictures and the words, and claim we had made our own book, complete with our names as authors (the only things not traced). Copyright laws meant nothing to us. 

My family had a small garden along the side of our house and one of my favorite summer activities was to go out and help my mom tend to it. I thought weeding was fun, watering was the absolute best and manure was just something the plants needed (pretty sure my mom left out what it is on purpose). Taking care of the hollyhocks was my favorite activity. I had a complex about thinning the carrots though. I knew that it was necessary so that the carrots could grow big and strong. But every time I pulled out the little ones that would get in the way of this, I was convinced I was killing baby carrots. I was a little afraid I would go to hell because I murdered baby carrots quite often. Mom would always tell me to put them in the compost pile but I had trouble letting them go.

Whenever we went to stores or paid for anything of any kind, my mom or dad would pay with cash and I had a game. I would race the cash register to figure out how much change my parents would be getting back. They paid $5 for a $3.84 product? Bam $1.16 change. Surprisingly enough (or sadly enough given my current profession and nerd status), I would most often win this battle. I still do this.

And then there are the times where I hear what's being said and I just don't process correctly. When I was little I used to bug my older sisters all the time to come play with me, especially once we got our trampoline. I remember Abbey was always in her room doing something at her desk and I'd ask her to come play and she'd tell me "in a minute". I would then respond "one one thousand, okay it's been a minute!" But not only would I say this to speed the process along.... I truly believed that was a minute. And they never corrected me!!! Every time I'd say it, Abbey would just tell me one more minute!

And to end, the classic from the past weekend: Lauren was telling me about her great uncle who lives somewhere in Costa Rica or something like that in a hut. Then she tells me "a hut, with no windows or doors!" She kept talking about the hut and the mosquito netting over his bed whatever. I'm sure you all are following this quite well but I was having a problem with the story. I could not figure out the no windows, no doors thing. So I interject "how did he get in? Did they build it around him?" Because for some reason instead of following along with a hut on the beautiful beach next to clear blue waters as having NO walls, all I could think was bamboo hut walls with no windows and no doors! It was then that Laur gives me the strangest look, then starts laughing pretty hysterically and says she's no longer going to tell people I'm getting my PhD. I don't think I will either....

While I pretty much love stories like this, both about me and about anyone else, what I really love, and what I'd like to know the most is what my parents (or whoever else happens to witness my 'moments') thinks. Ha ha ha ha I'm sure their still wondering about my intelligence.

Out of the woodwork....

I went to the gym last night at about 10 pm so perhaps this is my fault. But ALL the weirdos go to the gym that late. Honestly, predominantly all the people at the gym fall into two categories.*

(1) The Crahazy workout guys who are pretty psycho about their work out routines.  These boys travel in packs of about 3 or more. They laugh a lot but mostly only when their buddy is crying out in pain because he's on his 300th rep. Curiously they also only wear the gay shirts that are sleeveless, but not just sleeveless. Oh no, these are the shirts that also have no sides and are only connected in a thin band around the waist. This I believe is to show off to all the other psycho guys how good their abs look from the side. But maybe it's really for good air flow...I'm not sure as I will never wear one.

(2) The girls. I wish that there was a sound byte function so you could actually hear how I'm saying the word 'girls'. It would be extremely high pitched valley-girlish and might include a foot pop. These are the girls who go to the gym in clothing that in all societies is not considered actual clothing. And they don't really have the look for it anyway. They also travel in packs curiously enough. Their workout consists of doing every possible weight or exercise but for only about 30 seconds. No joke, last night I saw a girl get all ready for sit-ups, do ONE, and then get up and move on to squats where she did 3. Feel the burn sweetheart. I also got a dirty look because I was on the same machine for 50 minutes and I guess she wanted her 30 seconds....


One thing both groups have in common is that they could all benefit from a personal training session. If for no other purpose then to show them the proper weight lifting technique. For instance, when doing a squat the most terrible thing you can do is extend your knees out past your toes. Well apparently no one shared.... I'm pretty sure they're all doing more harm then good. But that could just be my impression. Also throwing the weights around with no semblance of control doesn't really exhibit the finesse you think of when someone has a lot of strength.


Mostly I was just shocked at the oddness of these gym going people. I was there for an hour and a half and was pretty sad the entire time that I was there by myself and had no one to comment to. I think next time I'll go at a different time.

*I say not all because granted I was there and while I did feel like a weirdo by association, my being rejects that I am actually this weird

Olympic Feva

I'm in the midst of a friendly debate with Cor about the Olympics.  This year are the Winter Olympics.  We were discussing the opening ceremonies and Cor mentioned that the Winter Olympics just make her miss the Summer Olympics.  I disagree as the Winter games are in fact my favorite.  Disclaimer: I do love the Summer games, Winter is just my favorite.  She thinks they're boring.  So I thought I'd lay out her argument and then give mine since texting this to her was fairly tedious and annoying.

Why Cor thinks Summer is better:
* Cory is a summer person.
* There's too much snow in the winter games.
* Summer has swimming, running, water polo, and volleyball to offer.
* Snow activities get boring to watch whereas swimming is more interesting.

My Reasons:
* I am a winter person.
* There's a broader range of activities in winter. I sometimes feel that the summer games is only swimming and running and I get tired of that.
* People seem a little happier in the winter games, I mean take any interview with the snowboarders and  you come away thinking they've done drugs at least once, and they'd just be fun to hang out with. 
* Watching curling in the middle of the night while writing a paper is better than watching gigantic hideous looking men weight lift.


Points we will concede:
Cor - Ribbon dancing is not a damn sport.  There are more ridiculous sports in summer.
H - Ski jumping is so boring.  All the people look the same and the weird announcer telling me about the minute change between an open hand and a closed hand doesn't help.  It makes me miss diving.


So we'll never agree on this because fundamentally Cor likes heat and I like cold.  And we're okay with that.  I still love her.  But it got me thinking about whether or not other people have such strong opinions about this or if it's just us.  It could be us because we're pretty opinionated people, but I still wonder.

Today....

Today has been a wonderful terrible day all rolled up in one. Crazy how stuff like that works. And I'm in the mood to talk it out so here we go. And thanks for listening ahead of time :)
Today I spent a lot of time at work which was totally fine but for some reason it just gave me way to much energy. I had to do about 50 push ups to work it all out...well kind of. Mostly I just needed to get my mind off of the phone call my momma gave me.

About three weeks ago my grandma fell down some stairs and broke her elbow and had to have surgery. She was getting better, I talked to her on Saturday, but I guess today she fell again. Only this time she broke her femur (I've done this before, it's terrible) and she has to have a really complicated surgery and she won't be able to walk for 6 weeks. I truly despise the feeling of not being abl to do anything. My momma sounds so sad and I'm worried about her and about my grandma too. It's just crazy how fast things happen. How fast your life can change. Or how fast your perception of life can change. Maybe that's more appropriate.

So that was hard. Is still hard. I don't know. I'm scattered. But at the same time I am now SOOOOOO ridiculously excited and happy for my best friend in the world who got engaged tonight! She's been dating her fiance for four years and from the beginning it just made me happy to see them together. They're fantastic together and her being happy makes me just as happy! I totally approve of Jimmy, especially after Lauren and I putting him through the experience of meeting my papa bear : ). What a fantastic way to end a weird day right?!

Love is so amazing to watch. We should realize it more in our lives and not take it for granted. Because you never know how fast life can change on you.

Daily Dose of Randomness

I was sitting in my math class today (obviously listening intently) and this observation came to mind. We have desks that look like this:

The little 'desk' part is honestly about four inches wide. It's pretty ridiculous in terms of functionality. But my observation was "what if you're left handed". Well the answer is you're screwed. Utterly screwed. I started looking around and everyone in my class was apparently right handed.... or they just don't take notes. Sorry, you lose. No notes. Who came up with this? Sure it saves space but really....lame.