Attempting To Animate My Life. Or At Least My Blog.

So, tonight my friend Aysha requested/demanded politely that I do a Christmas blog, and that it include paint pictures. I thought to myself "Yeah, of course. A Christmas blog should be simple enough. Time with family always provides golden material for funny stories." My next thought was "Paint pictures...Sure! I can handle that." So, I downloaded Paintbrush and started playing around. Drawing circles and smiley faces. Simple.

At this point I'm thinking "Yeah! I'm Master of Paintbrush! I can draw smiley faces and circles!" Then I realized making pictures to go along with what I write might need to be a little more involved than circles and smiles. Smiley faces are awesome, and they totally can capture the emotion of "I'm two dimensionally happy!" but they don't quite do justice to emotions more complex than than.

On a completely unrelated side-note, my sister and I just spent about 10 minutes throwing Starburst® wrappers at one another. (Mature, I know.) Totally nailed her square in the center of the nose with one. Bullseye style. I was proud of my achievement. Because I was so happy about that, I'll try to relate it to the topic of the post and include a happy face that I drew.

Yup, drew this one all by myself. If I had a proud face, I'd insert that too.

Anyway, so after mastering the smiley face, I figured I should probably start practicing drawing people. Or something that might resemble a person anyway. Art has never been my strong suit. At all. In sixth grade art class, we had to make something out of clay that was a combination of an animal and a fruit or vegetable. My creation? A little gem I called The Porcupumpkin. Yup. My little sixth grade genius mind decided to combine a porcupine and a pumpkin. Almost solely for the fact that a pumpkin was one of the roundest fruits or veggies I could think of at the time, and round was basically equivalent to simple in my mind. Pretty much I rolled out a ball of clay for the body, blobbed out a goofy looking head, slapped some shady legs on it, and flattened out something that looked a heck of a lot more like a beaver tail than a porcupine tail. (Wait...as I write this, I'm trying to remember if porcupines even have tails...Oh. Yup. Google images saved the day. They do. Should have remembered that on my own, but I haven't really had reason to think about porcupines lately. Or for several years for that matter.)

Anywho, the thing is atrocious. First of all, the body is orange obviously. Pumpkin. I hate the color orange. No offense to anyone whose favorite color might be orange. But this orange was a special brand of ugly. Next, the legs, head, and tail are brown. Like...poop brown. So the whole thing is just a bad color combination. To top it all off, I stuck a little stupid looking stem on top of the body. It's really just a mess. Funniest thing is, I was proud of that mutant. So I gave it to my dad. To this day, it's still sitting in his office at work, proudly declaring its message to the world: "Joanna has no future in the art industry!" Although it does make me happy that my dad really seems to love that thing for whatever reason. He recently moved from one office to another, and in the move, Porcupumpkin was injured. Its tail broke off. My dad was seriously concerned it would get lost, so he made sure my mom put the body and tail in a cup and took it home so she could glue it back on. Once repaired, Porcupumpkin returned to the office. Maybe one day I'll go to my dad's office and take a picture of it so I can share the horror/joy with you all.

That was a long story to explain just how bad my art skills have always been. So it really came as no surprise to me when I started trying to draw people on Paintbrush and they turned out pretty horrifyingly bad. Like...deformed. Disproportional and just...creepy. I'm going to keep practicing so that maybe when I get around to that Christmas blog I'll have something semi-decent to show, but for now, here you go. (Especially you, Aysha. This is my Christmas Eve gift to you.) This is a picture of my sister and I. I've labeled the figures for you so you can tell who is who. You'll need the labels, because neither of them resemble us at all. Also, it's clear I put more effort into "me." By the time I got to "Laura" I was no longer concerned with "proper" limbs and such. Enjoy.

We Laughed 'Til We Cried And Put A Hat On Our Dog

My sister is one of the coolest kids I know. Yeah, sure, she's 14 now, so she likes to think she's no longer a kid, but sometimes I still could swear she's only 7, so she's a kid to me. Probably always will be. Today, Laura, our dad and I went Christmas shopping for our mom. We do it every year, just the three of us. It's always a good time, but what Laura and I look forward to the most is wrapping all the gifts for mom. Our dad is too creative for simple "To Sally, From Jeff" tags on the gifts. He likes to think of tags that will give a clue about what the gift is. So, for example, one year a box of movies was "To Sally, From Ron Howard." (You know, the director. Get it?) Or a pretty standard one is "To Sally, From Pepe le Pew" when it's perfume. (Aren't we clever?)

We haven't gotten around to the gift tags yet, but Laura and I did get all the gifts wrapped, and let me tell you, THAT was a good time. Mom and Dad went to see a musical at MSU, so we were home alone. We cranked up some tunes, busted out the wrapping supplies, and got to work. Since we need dad for thinking up all the funny tags, our solution is to put sticky notes on the gifts after they're wrapped so we don't forget what they are. Here's where we started to get silly. There were no gifts to label at the moment, so I took a sticky note, wrote "Dog" on it, and stuck it on our dog, Maggie. Next, I took another one and wrote "Sister" and stuck it on Laura's forehead. She then thought it would be hilarious to stick one on me. My label? "Loser." So loving.

After we were done labeling each other, we got back to wrapping. A little while later, we obviously felt the need for a mid-wrapping photo shoot. As usual, THAT got silly as well. We took a bunch of pictures of ourselves making dumb faces, then got back to work. Mostly. I grabbed my camera again, shoved it right in Laura's face and ended up with one of the most hilarious pictures of her I have ever seen in my life. Right as I looked at it, our parents called, and I was laughing too hard to answer the phone, so Laura did, giving me a couple of precious minutes in which I could savor the glory of that horrible, alien-faced image of my normally adorable sister. By the time she got off the phone and came back, I was lying on the floor, near tears. She asked "What's wrong with you?" and I responded with some difficulty through my laughter "This is one of the funniest pictures I have ever seen!" Maybe you had to be there, maybe I was just in a weird mood, and maybe it's only funny because it was SO unexpectedly awful, but it struck me as something special. At the risk of being murdered by my sister, here is the picture. (Although it's already on Facebook, so I guess she can't be too mad about this.)

Usually my sister looks something like this:

You know...like some teen model. (P.S.-Aren't we so cute? This was Thanksgiving.)

When comparing the two, I think it becomes a little more obvious why that first picture is so funny. It looks nothing like her. Finally, after keeping the picture to myself for a few more moments of laughter, I allowed her to see it. She thought it was hilarious too, so we burst into a new round of laughter. Together this time. As I'm sure everyone knows, laughing with someone is about 2,398,471.251 times better than laughing alone. (Yeah, I calculated that number out mathematically. Don't bother trying to do it yourself, it will take way too long. Just trust me on this.) Anyway, the combination of both of us laughing together was just too much, and we dissolved into tears. Well, Laura just sort of teared up. Me? I was sobbing. Tears rolling down my face. Proof:

See that? Real tears. (And yes, that's the same sweater from the above Thanksgiving picture. Weird.)

After calming ourselves (well, mostly myself) down, we finished wrapping, gathered our things, and carried a few gifts up to put under the tree. Then, naturally, we sat down to upload the pictures to Facebook. When our parents got home, we wanted to show our mom the hats we bought today. They're super cute, unfortunately we didn't take any pictures yet, so again, you'll just have to trust me. Well, that's sort of a lie. We did take some pictures of Laura's hat. Just not of Laura wearing it. No...we decided to put the hat on Maggie and take pictures of her wearing it. Maggie is one of the chillest dogs I know. We can get away with a lot of crap with her. Unless she has something edible. Or even something she thinks is edible. She'll eat almost anything. Popsicle sticks, corn cobs, charcoal...heck, she even tried to eat a battery one time, and about bit my arm off when I tried to get it away from her. (Not literally of course, because I definitely didn't even lose a finger, but she was not a happy dog.) Otherwise, when food isn't in the picture, it's pretty much anything goes with her.

So, we took this hat--which has a seal face on it by the way--and put it on Maggie. She. looked. AWESOME! Also ridiculous and slightly embarrassed, but she didn't try to get it off, so maybe she actually liked it. It is a pretty adorable, and toasty warm, hat. One funny quirk about Maggie is that she doesn't seem to like having her picture taken. She always seems to know the exact moment the picture is going to take, and chooses that moment to turn away. So it was a little difficult to get a good picture of her in the hat, but we managed.

We caught her mid-nose lick in this one.

Evidence of her embarrassment.

This one is pretty darn good! Thanks for cooperating, Maggers!

Sprains, Waffles, and Toilet Paper Emergencies

I'm starting in right away on my prediction that 95% of my posts will involve my roommates. Yesterday was a day full of excitement, stress, laughter, minor disasters, and more laughter. Generally our room is full of hilarity and highly quotable moments, and yesterday was no exception. 

First of all, there was a snow fight out on the chapel lawn. Not a snowball fight, because apparently the snow was not the proper packing consistency for creating snowballs. I wasn't in attendance, but I heard all about it when my roommates all returned. I would have gone, but I was trying to motivate myself to write a paper. Anyway, so my roommates come back, and Mallory is limping. She got tackled in the snow fight and jacked up her ankle. It's not broken, just some sort of sprain. Nonetheless, she's limping all over the place and we basically ordered her to stay immobile the rest of the night. Mallory does not like to be immobile. But for her best interest, we insisted.

At this point, we're all hungry. Mallory then calls to me "Hey Joanna! Would you like to have waffles for dinner?" to which I reply "Sure!" Mallory then informs me that I am going to be responsible for making the waffles. This is significant. Because I don't cook. Mallory is usually the cook around here, so the idea of me making any meal is something like a joke. However, I wanted to help my poor, crippled roommate, so I agreed and starting mixing up the batter. I managed to dump a significant amount of the powdered mix on the counter, bowl, and myself, so that was the first obstacle. Secondly, apparently I'm the only one who likes my waffle batter fairly thick. Mallory and Katie both said it was too thick and that it needed more water. So here we go. Two clear examples of why I never cook. I spill things and can't make waffle batter reach the "correct" consistency. 

Anyway, waffles were eventually made, and Katie, Kelsey and I were doing our best to serve Mallory in her invalid state. First I almost put on too much butter. Next I don't put on enough peanut butter. Then the syrup needs to cover the whole waffle, but there also needs to be a "syrup jacuzzi" for dipping purposes. I thought I doled out a fairly significant amount of syrup, but more was required. After that was all settled, the rest of us began enjoying our own waffles. It was then that Mal began lamenting once more about her invalid state. Sitting with her tray of food, her leg propped up with ice and towels wrapped around it, she says this little gem: "I feel like a 300 pound woman who just sits in front of the tv, eating her tv dinner, while watching her favorite soap." Cue laughter.

In between the sprain and the waffles, another minor disaster occurred. Sitting around trying to be productive, Kelsey suddenly announces to all of us that she has to go to the bathroom. Naturally, being the obliging people we are, we think this is acceptable and allow her to go. Moments after she gets into the bathroom we suddenly hear a loud and desperate cry of "OH NO!!" As soon as I heard it, I followed suit with my own exclamation of "OH NO!!" because I knew exactly what the conflict was. 

Earlier that day, I had used the bathroom and finished off our supply of toilet paper. Being the only one in the room at the time, I decided I'd leave a friendly note simply saying "TP=Gone." I actually wrote it out before I realized this was silly, and I should just go get more toilet paper. However, instead of actually doing so, I was distracted by the act of throwing away my sticky note message, and then putting the pad of sticky notes back where it belonged. Ridiculous, but that was enough to make me forget I needed to go get toilet paper. I went about the rest of my afternoon as normal, the toilet paper issue completely, blissfully lost from memory. Until I heard that "OH NO!!" Knowing I had caused the situation, I thought it was only fitting that I be the one to correct it. As fast as I could, I ran upstairs, grabbed three rolls of toilet paper from the supply closet, and hurried back to our room. Since poor Kelsey was left stranded in the bathroom, my only option was to simply walk in and hand her a roll. Which I did. (I also stored the two extra in the cupboard before leaving. Kelsey didn't mind.) Cue more laughter.

On a related note, this is not the first toilet paper shortage we've experienced, but it was the first to leave one of us stranded.

On a completely unrelated note, tonight we got on the topic of the scary, bright blue mustang statue at the Denver Airport. It's seriously freaky. Point being, Katie supplied me with this fantastic musing: "If someone woke me up in the middle of the night and showed me that picture (see below), I'd probably scream." Sweet dreams everyone. :)

So...I'm A Blogger Now

It's almost 2am, and here I am. Not doing what I should be doing. Though this will probably end up being much more fun than what I should be doing. As for what that is, there are two very good choices: 1) Studying and 2) Sleeping. I chose option #3, which shouldn't even exist: write a blog. So here I am.

The name of my blog comes half from the fact that I have been abnormally thirsty today. Seriously, I think I'm on glass of water #5 of the day, probably three of which were in the last hour. I realize a normal, healthy human is supposed to drink eight glasses a day or whatever. I don't usually do that. So this much water consumption in one day is strange for me. I figure I'm dehydrated. Hence, the first half of the name. The second half comes from the obvious fact that I'm procrastinating. Hard core. It's finals week. So naturally, it's the week I decide "Hey, I think I'll start a blog."

In all honesty, I've been toying with this idea for a while. I've just never gotten up the nerve to do it. I think to myself "Wow, my life is funny. I should blog this crap," then almost immediately after that thought flits through my mind, I think "Who would read this crap?" I guess it doesn't really matter if anyone reads this or not. It'll probably just be therapeutic for me. Catharsis or whatever. I can be kind of neurotic sometimes. I've realized this over the past few years. I guess college can do that to people. Not that I haven't loved college. I have, but sometimes I look at myself and think "Whoah. Since when do I do that?" I blame dorm life.

One nice perk of being a Senior though (Heck yeah. Senior already. But for real...since when am I old enough for that?!) is that I get to live in the apartment-style dorm this year. I've got three pretty fantastic roommates who may or may not end up making up 95% of my blog posts. At least until I graduate and move on to "bigger and better" things. I think that "bigger and better" part is debatable. I'm convinced these past four years have been my biggest and best so far. Let's see you top undergrad, Life!

I guess since this is my first post, I'll keep it short. Testing the waters so-to-speak. I don't literally do that though. I have a thing about water. I'll blog about it sometime I guess. Neuroses might make for a good post. So anyway, if you are reading this, welcome! Thanks for dropping by! Come back sometime. Bring a friend. Leave a comment. Whatever you want to do. Or not do. You don't have to do anything I guess. But who knows, I might just become the next internet superstar thanks to you.