Month: November 2017

My Week 166: Ich Liebster dich, Du Liebster mich

 

Well, it’s been a crazy week, which is to say much more crazy than normal. I don’t talk about it much here, since I try to keep my blog life and my ‘other’ life separate, mostly so that the people I work with don’t realize that I’m a LOT weirder and way more swear-y than they think I am, but I actually also write Young Adult Fiction, and my first novel was just published. On Tuesday, I was contacted by a local newspaper for an interview, and on Wednesday, I appeared not only on-line but also on the front page of the hard copy paper, like the WHOLE front page, with my picture literally a foot high. Slow news day, I guess, but my publisher was over the moon. But on top of all that, the ‘blog me’ also had a great week, because I was nominated for a Liebster Award by my blogger friend R.S. Noel, Creative Writer Who Thinks and Dreams in Realism, whose blog can be found here: https://rsnoel.com

R.S. Noel is an outstanding young blogger whose writing is carefully crafted and lovely. He writes fiction and non-fiction, focusing often on philosophy (but never in a boring way like Socrates) or music, or simply the aspects of his own life which have taught him important lessons. You need to read him–he’s honest and insightful.

Anyway, I was thrilled when he told me that he’d nominated me for a Liebster Award, and now I have to follow the rules set out whereby I answer the questions he posed. I’ll also be nominating 5 other bloggers that I admire, but you’ll have to read MY sh*t first, because it’s my damn award.

Question 1: Why did you start your own blog?

About 4 years ago, I was going through a hard time. If you’ve read me for a while, you’ll know that I used to work with a group of extremely nasty people. The harassment, especially by two of my male colleagues, was so terrible that I didn’t know what to do. So to save myself and my sanity, I started focusing on the funny things that were happening each week, and started writing them down. I already had a WordPress site that I’d been using professionally, but I completely revamped and reinvented it so that I could share my humour with the world, which also explains why the blog is mydangblog but the domain is educationalmentorship.com–I can’t for the life of me figure out how to change it and I quite often forget that Educationalmentorship is actually me because it sounds way too professional and fancy. But being able to do that, to shove aside the negativity and revel in life’s absurdities, is what drives me to write. Even though I’ve changed jobs and now work with some awesome people, I still write the blog because humour is important to me.

Question 2: If you could travel back in time, what time period would you visit and why?

That’s a tough one. We all romanticize the past to a certain extent, but the truth is that things were pretty smelly before deodorant and sewage treatment plants were invented, and most time periods were extremely violent. I guess if you pushed me, I’d say…I’ll get back to this one. OK, I’ve done all the other questions. I’m still stuck. OK—dinosaurs. I would want to see dinosaurs with my own eyes. Then I could help museums by letting them know whether or not dinosaurs had skin or feathers. I’d be incredibly popular amongst the paleontology set.

Question 3: Favourite food/drink?

Bacon-wrapped filet mignon and white wine. Yeah, I know you’re supposed to drink red wine with red meat, but I’m a rebel. I don’t care what the snooty waiter thinks. I live life MY way, and my way is Chardonnay.

Question 4: Who is the most influential person in your life (famous or not)?

My daughter, K. I’ve become a better person because of her, because I want her to be proud of me.

Question 5: What is your favourite animal?

I have two. I adore dogs, and my favourite dog is Titus, my 100 pound black Labrador. He’s got the sweetest personality on the planet, and he’s a killer with the witty one-liners. I could talk to him all day. My fictional favourite animal is the Zebrasus, which is a cross between a zebra and Pegasus. They smoke cigars and wear Mardi Gras beads because they’re cool and sassy.

Question 6: What is your favourite season and why?

Summer, because I’m always cold, and summer is the only time of the year when I don’t have to put the seat heater on in my car.

Question 7: If you could have one superpower, what would it be?

I would want the power to cut off people’s internet permanently when they say stupid things on social media. I can hear someone saying, “But mydangblog, who are you to judge what’s stupid or not?” To which I reply, “That’s stupid. You’re cut off.” I’d be f*cking GREAT at judging that. Think of how much more we would ALL enjoy social media if the racists, sexists, homophobes, and general assholes were relegated back to being the town idiots who sit in local bars, where people are too busy having a good time to pay attention to their drunken musings. Also, I would like invisibility, because that would just be fun.

Question 8: What is your top Bucket-List item? Why?

I would have said “being a published novelist” but that’s just happened, so I’m going to say “moving to a country property with a river or creek, or some type of flowing water”. I want to sit on the bank of a stream in the sunshine, listening to the birds and thinking about how beautiful the world truly is. Ken and I used to have a property like that but we sold it because the house was so close to the road that we couldn’t open our windows without feeling like we were actually on the asphalt. But I miss the water.

Question 9: Who is your favourite musical artist?

Dave Grohl from Foo Fighters. He’s a musical genius and a really good guy. If you want to know more about how I really feel, read My Week 42: Kanye Vs. Dave and Dad. There’s a T-chart, so you know it’s very scientific:

Question 10: What has been your most rewarding moment as a blogger?

Every time I get a new follower, I feel incredibly blessed. If I can make one person laugh a day, then I have fulfilled my purpose and kept good faith with myself.

And now, in no particular order, are the fellow bloggers that I’m nominating for the 2017 Liebster award:

Freethinkers Anonymous

The Problem with Ciara is…

Greater Than Gravity

Spooky Action At A Distance

The Rise and Fall of Harry Hamid

And here are the ten questions that I have for you, my dear nominees:

1) Why do you write?
2) Which of your own blog posts should people read if they want to really know you?
3) Best hybrid animal and why?
4) Flowers or chocolate?
5) What was your favourite childhood toy?
6) What is one thing about your life that you would change?
7) Who is your favourite writer?
8) Are you crafty? (Either ‘cunning’ or ‘able to make crafts’)
9) What movie do you like to watch over and over? Why?
10) What makes you laugh?

Thanks again to R.S. Noel for the nomination, and to all the other bloggers and readers out there who make up this amazing and supportive community!

My Week 165: All I Want For Christmas Is A Transporter–But Not A Robot Cat

Yesterday, I turned 52. I keep thinking of myself as middle-aged, although if this is the middle, I want some kind of guarantee that I’m going to live to see 104. At what point do you stop being ‘middle-aged’, like what age is no longer realistic to double? 104 years old doesn’t seem like an impossibility any more, given advances in the medical field and the fact that people are more healthy than ever. A colleague from work lost her grandmother a while back, who had just turned 101, and the whole family was shocked because she was in such good health. Whereas, in 1850, most people could be expected to kick it before they turned 40, so I guess we’ve come far from the days of scurvy and black lung disease. And I say ‘I guess’, because frankly, I’m a little disappointed with the future I was promised when I was young. Not my own personal future, which has been pretty awesome, but the general future that was envisioned by cartoons, TV shows, and novelists, and which has completely failed to live up to expectations.

1) A couple of weeks ago, I was at a workshop, and we were invited to discuss what we thought the future would look like. Other people at the table were jabbering on about “entrepreneurship” and “global competencies”, but I was like, “Transporters. What’s the point of even HAVING a future if there aren’t any transporters to magically take you wherever you want to go?” Then the guy next to me whispered, “I don’t think you’re getting this” but I was like “NO. I TOTALLY get it. Star Trek built up my expectations, then betrayed me.” I mean, think of all the technologies that Star Trek predicted that we now have: doors that slide open when you stand in front of them, holograms, supercomputers that talk back to you, and a whole lotta other useless sh*t. But the one thing, the ONE THING that would really make MY life easier would be a transporter. Why have the science people been focusing their attention on building fancy coffee makers and rechargeable vacuums? I’ll bet James Dyson could figure out a way to transport astronauts to the International Space Station on a sub-molecular level if he put as much thought into a transporter as he did into a hand dryer. Why do I need to drive a car to the airport, get on a plane, and arrive in Paris 7 hours later, when I could just say “Teleportez-moi, Monsieur Scott!”?

2) Also, where are the goddamn flying cars? It’s bad enough that I can’t miraculously appear in Paris whenever I want, but my car doesn’t even FLY. Damn you, George Jetson. It’s 2017, and the best we can do is a ‘driverless’ Uber, which is just making a bad idea worse. And even worse is the fact that we still use dinosaur blood to run our stupid, non-flying cars, instead of electricity, like somehow, electric cars will destroy the world as we know it, or at least take money out of the pockets of billionaires.

3) When I was 6, I was obsessed with Aquaman. I was convinced that, by the time I grew up, there would actually be biodomes under the ocean where people could live in harmony with the creatures of the sea. I asked my gran one morning if she thought it would happen soon, and she said, “Never. People will never live under the sea.” And while her bad attitude made me angry, I knew that one day I would be vindicated. And I’m still waiting for that day to come. The only scientific advance that the people who created Aquaman are actually responsible for is casting Jason Momoa in the new Justice League movie, in which he will carry a sparkly trident and ride a shark. Yet I still can’t breathe underwater.

4) Where is my robot butler? I’ve made my peace with never having a monkey butler, despite recently having my hopes raised (I still think of you fondly, Ralph Van Wooster, and all the hijinks we would have gotten up to), but there is still nary a sign of the artificial intelligence that all the movies have been promising since I was a child. There are smart phones and smart homes and GPS in our cars and Siri/Cortana/Alexa, but where is the actual physical embodiment of the mechanical person who will do my bidding? The best we’ve come up with is a robot CAT. Why would I EVER want a robot that lies in front of the fireplace all day, sleeps next to my face at night, and surprises me by peeing on my rugs when it’s “in a mood”? Real cats can be dicks enough—why are we creating mechanical ones? And don’t be all like “Oh, come on, mydangblog, cats are so sweet.” Here’s what I had to deal with the other day:

Me: OK, I’m going out. I have to be at the car dealership in 15 minutes, so see you guys later.
Titus: OK, bye!!
Raven: I need to get into the kitchen. Open the gate.
Me: Sigh. Hurry up…What are you doing?
Raven: The dog is panting too hard. It’s off-putting.
Me: Don’t walk away from me. Do you want into the kitchen or not?
Raven: Yes. Open the gate.
Me: Here. It’s open. Let’s go!
Raven (sits back down): Nuh.
Me: I don’t have time for your bullsh*t, Raven! Fine—stay back here.
Raven (under breath): Boy, are you going to be surprised when you get home.

Let’s just forget robot cats and focus on robot monkey butlers. Then EVERYBODY wins.

5) Space Tourism. This might possibly be the greatest disappointment of them all. When I was a kid, people lived on the moon, they colonized Mars, and they travelled around the galaxy exploring strange new worlds. The actual real-life Voyager 1 was launched in 1977, and 40 years later, it’s JUST ABOUT to leave our solar system. Me, I want warp speed. We could have invented this a long time ago, but apparently scientists were too busy making blankets with arms in them, LED multicoloured flashing scarves, and realistic wind-up mice (“Watch their tails whir while they scurry across your floor!”). And yes, I DID just get my Bits and Pieces Christmas catalogue, and NO, there’s nothing future-y in it. Although you can relieve the stress you feel about not being able to live in a subdivision on Mars by purchasing a set of basketball net hats so that you and a co-worker can shoot balls at each other, although I think Human Resources might have an issue with that. It’s been almost 50 years since we first put a dude on the moon—how hard can it be to put a middle-aged woman on Uranus? (I am SO sorry about that one, but I couldn’t resist. I may be 52 physically, but I’m pretty much 13 years old in my head.)

All in all, by this point in time, I was really hoping that the world would have been more like Gene Roddenberry’s vision than George Orwell’s. Luckily, I still have another 52 years left, and Christmas is coming, so this middle-aged girl can dream.

My Week 163: Titus Has a Hallowe’en Surprise For Us

Hallowe’en Surprise

Me: I can’t believe that, out of all the candy you gave out, all we have left are a bunch of mini-Mr. Goodbars and Wunderbars. I’ve never even heard of either of them. What happened to all the Aeros and Kitkats?!
 Ken: I don’t know. I tried to be random…
Me: What the hell is a Wunderbar anyway?
Ken: Ooh, it’s yummy. It tastes like chocolate and butter.
Me: What?! That’s gross. Give me one…ohhh, that’s actually quite tasty. But still. What happened to all the candy?
Ken: I left some packets of Swedish berries on the counter for you. Just because you ate them already, don’t get mad at me.
Me: No, you didn’t. There were ZERO packages of any type of decent candy on the counter.
Ken: Yes, I DID. They were right there…
Titus (clears throat): Ahem. I thought those were for me.
Me: You ate my Swedish Berries?
Titus: Were they yours? They were delicious.
Me: Were there any Fuzzy Peaches?
Titus: There may or may not have been some Fuzzy Peaches.
Me: Dammit—I love the Fuzzy Peaches!
Ken: What happened to the wrappers? I don’t see them anywhere.
Titus: Oh, you’ll be seeing them eventually. Trick or treat.