Category: The Estate

Wherein I share about my 747-square-foot manse and its grounds.

30 Days

I’ve been attempting to focus on the abundance in my life, rather than participating my usual Trance of Scarcity. The meditation (see Day 25) definitely helps, but I also thought I’d tweet one of those annoying 30 Days of Thankfulness things, except try to make it not-annoying.

The most difficult part was not coming up with things for which I felt grateful—I got plenty. The most difficult part was staying within 140 characters. You know how I like to babble on. The teacher of a writing workshop I took last year said, “You’ve got 25-30% too much fat.”

I was like, “DON’T I KNOW IT. Wait, you mean my writing?” He was right. I need to trim it down…

Arg! If I wanted to go on a word diet, I would’ve been a poet!

But I did it for thirty days. (NB: The following is not poetry. It’s just skinny prose.)

That 4-year-old, man. She’s dramatic and sassy, she wants what she wants, and she’s in the 8th percentile for height. In other words, she’s me. Hahaha. No, she’s not. She’s her. She’s her own person. But kind of me. I yub her.

This girl. She does something to my heart.
This girl. She does something to my heart.

This goes for both my parents. My parents showed the fuck up.

I’m still bad at crying (i.e., I need to do more of it and less eating/checking Facebook/self-flagellation/etc.), but I have good role models (namely, Cat, EJ, and Melissa).

(Typo: That was supposed to be Day 13.)

When the doc actually felt it, she goes—I shit you not, “Yeah, you got a lot of lumps and bumps, and this one doesn’t feel any different from the other ones.” :/

Also, if they do hate me as a result, that’s their own goddamn problem.

It’s a good job. I just wish I got paid more and didn’t have to deal with so much bullshit. I guess that’s everybody, right? Except I really should get paid more.

Every so often I consider it, dry-heave, and un-consider it.

I’m hosting the StorySLAM on December 11, folks! Come on out!

So, in today’s ironic news, when I need to unplug, I use an iPhone app. It’s called Get Some Headspace, and I highly recommend it. The dude who leads the meditation is a former Buddhist monk, and he sounds a tiny bit like the Geico Gecko so everybody wins.

Terrified of jinxing it, but there’s an amazing woman who has created a passion project, and we met, and it was awesome, and she’s invited me to be part of her team, and I hope I can keep up.

I watched 5 episodes of Game of Thrones in the middle of the day yesterday, true story.

As you can see, I’m thankful for a lot of things, including those of you who’re reading. Happy rest-of-your-holidays!

Signed,

Lumpytits

Wildlife

Couple years ago, I was in my house when a car alarm started going off intermittently. I was pretty steamed about it too because it was 11:00 on a school night. The alarm would ring out for a minute or so and then go quiet, and as sooooooon as I was drifting off to sleep, it would go off again. Finally, I pulled on my bathrobe and went to the back door to see if I could see where it was coming from.

And I could totally see where it was coming from because it was coming from MY CAR. Which was weird because my car didn’t have an alarm.

At least, I didn’t know it had one, but turned out, it had a panic function, which would flash the lights and sound the horn over and over if you hit the button on the fob.

But I hadn’t hit the button on the fob.

I grabbed my keychain and stabbed at the red button with the exclamation mark, but the noise wouldn’t stop. Until it did—phew—and then after a random interval (three seconds to four minutes), it would start again.

I got in and started the car. The cacophony stopped! Blessed silence! That lasted until I turned the engine off. Aaaaaaaargh!

At that point, I was worried my neighbors were going to burn my house down so I drove down to the pawn shop on the corner—my neighborhood is very classy—and called Durham P.D. and told them my car was possessed.

The dispatch was like, “Uh… this doesn’t seem like an emergency,” and I was like, “No… but yeah, can you please send somebody because I don’t know what to do k thx.”

I sat there for 20 minutes with the engine running, and then within 30 seconds of each other, four officers in three patrol cars showed up. I explained what was going on and turned off the engine, and we stood there.

A minute went by.

And I was like, “Oh fuck, it’s not gonna do it. I’m gonna look like a crazy asshole who calls 911 because she’s lonely.”

Me, tugging at collar: “Heh heh, I swear it was…”

It went off, thank god. The cops witnessed my poltergeist.

One of them popped the hood, opened the fuse box, and took out the horn fuse, which stopped the alarm. He said I wouldn’t be able to honk my horn, and I said that was A-OK. I thanked all the officers profusely and returned to my house without fear of an attack by an angry mob of my neighbors.

The next day I took my car to the mechanic, and when he looked inside the fuse box, he found pieces of acorns and cigarette butts. Turns out, the squirrels that lived in my pin oak had been wildin’ out under the hood of my Subaru. Eatin’ acorns, smokin’, and chewin’ fuse wires.

I told you my neighborhood was classy. Watch out if you come over—the squirrels around here are hoodlums.

The birds are goddamn vandals too.
The birds are goddamn vandals too.

Because You Come Here for the Lawn Mower Stories

Story #1:

The kids and I were talking about conflict and how it shows up in literature, Character vs. Character, or Character vs. Self, occasionally Character vs. Society, and sometimes Character vs. Nature. We’d get that last one in a lot of adventure stories, we figured out, and often it was a matter of the character’s survival.

I tossed out how most of us have conflict with nature at times, just not usually for survival, usually just because it gets in the way of what we want to do. I mentioned how I’d wanted to mow the lawn the day before but it had started raining so I was out of luck.

Boy: Wait. Why were you gonna mow the lawn?

Me: Because the grass was getting long.

Boy: But why were you gonna mow it?

Me: …Because it’s my lawn. Who else is gonna mow it?

Boy: That’s not normal.

Me: I mow my lawn every week. I’d say that’s pretty normal for me.

Girl: What he means is, you’re a girl.

Me: Well, I’m a woman, but so what? There’s no man around at my house, but even if there was, I have two arms that work and two legs that work. I own that house and that yard and that lawn mower. I like the way it looks when I finish and the smell of cut grass in the air. Why wouldn’t I mow my own lawn?

Boy: (agape)

Amy Scott, blowing up gender paradigms for kids since 2002.

Story #2:

I finally got around to taking a whack at the lawn on Sunday. A neighbor I’d never seen nor spoken to approached, stopped, and waved. I killed the engine and said hey.

Guy: I’m coming over to ask the question we all been wanting to know.

Me: Yeah, what’s that?

Guy: Why are you not married?

Me: I guess I haven’t found him yet.

Guy: Second question, do you date black boys?*

Me: If I like him enough, I’ll date anybody.

Guy: So when are we going to lunch?

So,

(a) I hate that African-American people in this day and age still feel like they need to ask *this question, and I hate even more that some people would say no;

(b) I need to take some improv classes because I had nothing. I think I said, “Psh. Let me get back to this yard”; and

(c) Dan NJ, Kate K., all-a-yous, I believe you now. I am clearly goddamn irresistible when I mow the lawn.

You Guys, It’s My 4-Year Blogiversary (with Retrobruxist Friday 8/2/13)

I’ll be accepting your gifts of linen, silk, fruit, flowers, and/or electrical appliances. Thank you. You’re too kind.

Three years ago, as one commenter said, I was paying off some bad karma.

I learned two years ago that what I was doing had a name: the Valsalva Maneuver.

A year ago, I was having one of those ducks-but-water moments. I finally bought one of those reusable ones. Today, when I arrived back at the classroom with my mug in hand:

Student: You sure do like coffee.
Me: I sure do like being caffeinated.

What you may have missed on Fat CrossFitter: I get pretty excited about dinner too.

Happy Retrobruxist Friday, y’all.

 

 

Retrobruxist Friday 7/5/13

I have no idea what I'm doing helicopter

Hahahaha! Me and that dog. We have no idea what we’re doing. Based on the <crickets> from my readers on the Road Trip Soundtrack series, I clearly need an editor. Would you like to be my editor? Or teach this poor dog to fly a helicopter right-side-up?

Three years ago, I wrote about… my road trip soundtrack.

I won at eBay two years ago.

A year ago, somebody littered porn in my yard.

What you might’ve missed on Fat CrossFitter: I illuminated the formula for every British talent show clip on the Internet, and I gave all those the-cake-doesn’t-jump-into-your-mouthers a gentle reminder.

Happy Retrobruxist Friday, y’all.

And You Act Like One Too

Last summer, I posted on Facebook something like, “When I’m mowing the lawn, why do the guys in my neighborhood think that I’m putting on some sort of show for them?”

A guy-friend later told me it “sounded like a bit of a humble-brag” to him, and as soon as he said that—of course it did. But that’s not at all what I meant.

I don’t mow the lawn in a bikini. I’m usually in my workout clothes, post-WOD, because what the hell, I’m already stinky—let’s do this thing. So I’m out there, dripping sweat, hair disheveled, wrestling with my gas-powered cheapo. It’s not sexy. It’s not attractive. It’s not graceful, or even out of the ordinary (this is 2013, right?—women do all kinds of crazy things, like work outside the home and stuff, right?). What I’m saying is I can’t imagine it’s nice or interesting in any way to watch.

And yet.

They hang their heads out their windows. They slow down. They stare. I’m some kind of zoo animal.

Yesterday a dude stopped his car and gawked at me.

I gave him my best stankface, and he shlooped his head back into his car and drove away. But part of me wanted to turn off the mower and pretend to fling poo at him.

Retrobruxist Friday 6/whatdayisit?/2013

I was driving along this afternoon with all the windows down—yesterday’s squall having blown the heat and humidity elsewhere, thank god—listening to Top 40 radio, and I realized

Life is so, so good

Of course, all it took was trying on two sports bras to crush my soul.

You take the good, you take the bad, I guess.

Three years ago, I learned when puberty begins.

Two years ago, I altered my to-do list, and good things happened. Well, one good thing happened.

Last year this time, I learned whether my dogs were good guard dogs.

What you may have missed on Fat CrossFitter: I did the Filthy Fifty for the third time, and I’m genuinely scared/have a very first-world problem.

Happy Retrobruxist Friday, y’all.

Retrobruxist Friday 5/24/13, or I Am Rad

June 5. That’s when I cancel my Match subscription. Twelve more days.

The only reason I’m keeping my nose above water is my friends. My friends are pretty great.

Not Scary Spice

He added, “We are all rooting SO HARD for you.” And I know they are.

Dan NJ wrote: Since it’s been at least a month since I said so- can I remind you of the Avogadro’s number of awesome particles that make up, and emanate from, you?  These particular elements represent a periodic table of Amy’s awesomeness, and are subdivided into categories such as brilliance, loveliness, kick-assedness, nice-assedness, and noble gases.  (The last one is pure speculation on my part…)

And a little faerie (possibly named Megalu) writes pro-me statements on the sticky notes on my desk every time she comes over, which I find later and stick to my computer monitor.

IMG_5456

IMG_5455

 

And all these words of encouragement serve to remind me that, no matter what happens in my love life, I most definitely have love in my life. Thank you, friends, and I love you all.

**********

Three years ago, I cheered you up with some stellar knock-knock jokes.

Some people love my teaching stories; others enjoy the tragically delicious dating stuff. But there are those who just really revel in the fact that I’m, to quote a friend, “bad at lawnmowers”, e.g. this post from two years ago.

You know how Google’s informal motto is “Don’t be evil”. I wish that sentiment could be codified into all companies’ bylaws. Alas, as I mentioned a year ago, insurance companies are nothing but dens of thieves.

What you may have missed on Fat CrossFitter: Who gets to define my fatness, and my two cents on the problem with progress.

Happy Retrobruxist Friday, y’all.