Anotherhopelessenglishmajor's Blog

My holiday shopping list

anotherhopelessenglishmajor — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:32:59 +0000

Well, it’s official. As a grad student with no job, I’m completely broke. It’s especially depressing because, while some people’s favorite part of the holidays is the food or the christmas carols, my favorite part is picking out the perfect gifts for my friends and family, wrapping them creatively (last year was the year of the phone book pages wrapping paper) and watching their faces when they open them. Without money, how am I ever going to make the holidays special this year?

Well, I’ve found a way. This year will be the year of the gag gift that is still awesome (typically less than $20, more often even less) wrapped in newspaper (which I get free for being a college student) with stencils or ribbons. It may sound lame, but I plan to make it fun. Maybe I’m alone in this logic, but I would so much rather receive a gift that makes me laugh or creates an hour of conversation than a gift that emptied my best friend’s piggy bank. Plus, I’ve always had a soft spot for little, special things that nobody else has. Trust me, you won’t be seeing many other people with these gifts this December. Let me assure you, I would be excited to receive any one of the gifts on this list (I’m fine with whatever stigma that gives me). So here it is! This year’s holiday shopping list for people who are low on cash and high on humor.

Click on the images to go directly to the websites where you can buy them.

Everybody gets a paper cut eventually, right? That makes this gift both fun and useful. I want these. Who wouldn't want these? Urbanoutfitters.com

...or if mustaches really aren't your thing, these bandages have fortunes on them. urbanoutfitters.com

obscene bandages? urbanoutfitters.com

…and for those of you who weren’t fully satisfied with my weird bandage collection, urbanoutfitters.com has more than just these. the bacon bandage comes immediately to mind…

My husband and I were bored one night, so I picked a random movie from iTunes and rented it. This movie is slightly political but also really funny and clever. Amazon.com

Now, don't go thinking this is a kids' gift. My husband would have a stroke over these. Amazon.com

Watermelon flash drive. Awesome. Bonanzle.com

Or, my personal favorite, from usbgeek.com...

a decapitated teddy bear!

Go ahead and try to tell me you don't want one of these. I dare you.

"Frozen smile" from Amazon.com...

The finished product.

Charity Pot moisturizer helps save the world. Literally. From http://www.lushusa.com/shop/products/body/hand-body-creams/charity-pot

For the creative tree-decorator. Call me crazy, but they're kind of pretty too, aren't they? From amazon.com

Would you pay $5.99 for a hotdog ornament? 'Cause I definitely would. http://www.piedpipergiftshop.com

That's right. It's a microwaveable s'mores maker! wrapables.com

ABC (already been chewed) cookie cutters make hilarious gingerbread men. amazon.com

It's the pastasaurus pasta server from perpetualkid.com

I'm two seconds away from buying this bag for myself. perpetualkid.com

Holy toast! This one just made me laugh. perpetualkid.com

I just love the idea of turning all of my inanimate objects into faces. Wouldn't it make stapling or looking at the clock more entertaining? Perpetualkid.com

And last, but not least, MONSTERHANDS. For kids perhaps? Or adults, if you're shopping for somebody like me. Perpetualkid.com

Now, wasn’t that fun?

Creep

anotherhopelessenglishmajor — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 21:38:09 +0000

It’s a rainy Sunday in Kansas. The forecast is showing snow for tomorrow. Sundays reek of upcoming deadlines, and today is especially rank. I made a list of upcoming due dates thinking it would make my life seem more manageable. Oh, how wrong I was.

There is a three-step process for dealing with Sunday blues.

Step one: Loathing.

Step two: Diversion

…like making your cat a hoodie out of your old Postal Service t-shirt that shrunk in the wash:

No hood yet. Still a work in progress.

I don’t have a sewing machine, so I did all the stitching by hand. Multiple needle stab wounds and a few hand cramps later, it’s almost done. Now if only she found it as entertaining as I do.

And finally, step three: Cheering up.

www.laughters.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/cutedog.jpg/

Notice none of those steps involved me studying. May your Sunday be more productive than mine.

On being old and married

anotherhopelessenglishmajor — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 19:11:37 +0000

My 24th birthday was three days ago, and this time it felt different. For the past few years, I’ve been claiming that birthdays don’t matter to me anymore. Let’s face it, after 21 it’s all downhill birthday-wise, except for 25 when I will finally be able to fulfill my lifelong dream of renting cars (which I’ve recently been told isn’t even the case…so there goes my exciting 25th). This year, however, I reached a landmark. I actually didn’t care. I dozed off before midnight the night before – although my husband woke me up at exactly 12:00 to shout “happpy birthdaaaaay”, which, this year, felt more aggravating than rewarding. I’m a graduate student. Don’t mess with my REM.

I didn’t plan a big dinner, and most of my friends are many, many miles away. I attended my least favorite class and never felt the urge to mention to any of my classmates that November 11th was an important day for me. My husband forced me to pick a dinner for him to make me (stroganoff, delicious), and I was asleep by 11:00 that night.

There is a moment in every person’s life when Christmas becomes more chore than fun and Halloween becomes more driving hazard (between the hours of 6 and 9) than excuse to dress like a prostitute. I’ve passed both of those landmarks, and finally, this year, I passed the it’s-my-birthday-and-everybody-must-know-about-it-and-praise-me landmark.

Despite all my alleged growing up, I had two reasons to be giddy and act like a kid on my birthday this year.

1. I have finally found the world’s best brownies-from-scratch recipe. I made them, then promptly made a second batch for my in-laws who visited yesterday. Seriously. Yum.

Only six ingredients, and one of them is chocolate chunks. Drool

For the recipe, go here (or click the link to the left): http://blog.cooklikeyourgrandmother.com/2009/07/how-to-make-perfect-brownies.html

I’m may not be a Halloween whore, but I am a whore for a good brownie, so seriously – make these. And you’re welcome.

2. I have the best, best, best parents in the world. I know this, because they tell me they’re proud of me, they ask before they visit, and they gave me my favorite birthday present to date. A beautiful Canon S90. Unless you love cameras as much as I do, you’ll never be able to fully appreciate the beauty of this technological masterpiece, but suffice it to say I am in love.

Glorious, no?

In the past 24 hours, I haven’t read a single class assignment, but I did manage to read half of the owners’ manual for this sucker.

Sad? Maybe. Awesome? Definitely.

I’ve been playing around with it for the past few days, and even though I still don’t really know what I’m doing, some of the pictures it takes make me look like I’m not just another point-and-shoot novice. Check it out.

The first picture: the box it arrived in.

Next, my cat, Finley. She's wearing a protective cone. Long story. It made kind of a cool design though. I'm sure she'd beg to differ

I came across a photo series on LIFE's website of Picasso drawing with light. Of course, his light drawings were more involved than the heart my husband drew, but I thought it would be fun to try. We used a reading light...because we're real students.

And finally, a fan. Because why not?

I look forward to a hundred (or more, I’m feeling optimistic) birthdays to come. As long as they’re blessed with homemade brownies and beautiful photographs.

If you want to check out the LIFE series I mentioned earlier, go here or click the link to the left: http://www.life.com/image/50695728/in-gallery/24871

Another day, another blog

anotherhopelessenglishmajor — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:41:26 +0000

A few days ago, I was in my morning class yawning and wishing I was still in bed as I do every Monday and Wednesday. My professor told us that we would be having a guest speaker. I had flashbacks from the photography guest speaker who made us sit on the floor and stand on our chairs (Jesus, I barely made it out of bed this morning, why in God’s name would you think I’d want to EXERCISE?) to see the teeny-tiny classroom from a different perspective, and the grammar guest speaker who spent about an hour and a half defining different parts of speech and then creating a “grammar tree” on the white board that I refused to take down in my notes. Ugh. Guest speakers.

Not two minutes later, this 40-year-old blonde bombshell bursts (too many b’s?) into the classroom dressed in a zebra print dress, high-high-high heels and bright red lipstick. She starts terrorizing each of us by demanding to know who we are, where we’ve been and where we’re going in life – we’re all so thrown off by the fact that this woman 1. is a professor (way too hot to be that smart), 2. has this much energy right now, and 3. has apparently taught a class BEFORE ours this morning. People who are on top of things and happy about it make me groan.

When she gets to me, I tell her I want to write for an entertainment or music magazine. She asks me, “So you’re a music expert or something?” To which I can only mutter something about knowing a little bit about current music and being really into folky chick music right now (which I only sort of am, but I felt the need to verify that I actually DO listen to music to this woman). Immediately, she looks around the room and says, “Who can quiz Lindsey on something music-related?” Luckily, my classmates are all terrified like I am, and the one poor soul who could bring himself to speak said something not really related to our conversation, like “What’s 4/4 time?”

Eventually, she left me alone to torture my classmates, but before she did, she asked me why I didn’t have a blog. Um…why DON’T I have a blog? So I made one because I’m a slave to a big bully in red lipstick. I’m not sure I have much wisdom to share, but for now, I’ll leave you with this:

and this:

What’s the last thing that goes through a bug’s head when it hits a windshield?

Its butt.

Go Here or click the link to the left: http://www.dumbjokesthatarefunny.com/

If you make it to the one with “jalapeno” in it, you’ll know why I spent an hour last night giggling.