Category: First-World Problems

This would be the category in which I bitch about my ridiculously privileged life.

Tell I What You Think

Wading through those muddy waters of grammar again….

Do you see anything wrong with the following sentences?

He wrote to Sarah and I to tell us he was OK.

They rode with Bob and I to the concert.

Everyone from my students to my peers to Our Esteemed President, Barack Obama, is a little confused about when to use the pronoun ‘I’. I think people over-use it because they think it sounds distinguished. But to me, it sounds wrong.

For example, I’ve heard Obama say things like, This has been a great experience for Michelle and I.

My friends even say, She came to Rob and I’s party.

(shiver)

But take the other person out of the equation for a second. Would you ever say, This has been a great experience for I or She came to I’s party?

No. You’d say “for me” and “to my party”. Thus, you should say, This has been a great experience for Michelle and me, and She came to Rob’s and my party.

When is it appropriate to use the pronoun ‘I’?

  • When it’s the subject of your sentence: Michelle and I had a great experience. 
  • …Even if the subject comes after the verb ‘to be’: It is I. 
  • After ‘than’: She is stronger than I. (This one could be confusing, but just think, She is stronger than I am. You wouldn’t say “stronger than me am”.)

This is I’s understanding of the rules. Am me right or wrong on this one?

Ten Things I Like About My Body and Those of My Laydeez

Last week, you may remember, Coach Ashley gave us the difficult assignment of coming up with ten things we liked about our bodies. I came up with five:

1. Nice eyes.

2. Rhythm.

3. Coordination.

4. Freckled shoulders.

5. Strong back.

That’s where I ran out of ideas. But I’ve thought more about it, and I’m taking a mulligan.

6. I’m shaped like an hourglass. (Must…resist…urge…to add…disclaimer.)

7. I can make funny expressions with my face.

8. I can do 1,500 push-ups in 30 days.

9. I can mimic most accents. (It’s something my body can do! My brain and mouth are parts of my body.)

10. All right, all right. MY ASS. In a spirit of if-you-can’t-beat-’em-join-’em, I’m hereby giving up not liking my butt and choosing to like it. I did that with bananas and the guitar riff of “The Piña Colada Song”—I can do it with this.

Now! The funner part of the assignment! What do I like about my CrossFit laydeez’ bodies? Well!

Colleen: Legs.

All the way down to the floor.

And a voice that…actually, you hear that? That’s Colleen’s voice. You can hear it from anywhere.

Bea: I’m attacking pull-ups in July the way I did push-ups in June because I want to be able to do pull-ups like Bea. She’s a great, hulking beast in a teeny-tiny package.

Also, she’s a photographer with a GREAT EYE. I’m not a visual person myself, so I’m lucky if I actually get the subject of my photos in the frame. Her photos look like a magical magic person took them.

Melinda: This woman, before she started kung-fuing breast cancer, did the Metro Dash. That’s an event where you run, flip tires, climb up and over walls…!

And I love her giggle. So I say, “Goddammit!” a lot because it makes her giggle.

Also, she’s currently kung-fuing breast cancer, and looks awesome in a head-wrap. And she let me feel her falsies last night.

Lindsay: Lindsay is

so

very

hot.

I mean, damn. Gorgeous face. Nice curves. Hot-for-teacher glasses.

Nelly: Woman is strong. She can pick up very, very heavy things.

She has perfectly imperfect teeth. (Seriously, I love them. She smiles and, I don’t know, it’s beautiful and unexpected.)

And she does an amazing donkey kick burpee.

Ashley: Every part of her is perfectly rounded and firm. Everything on her body looks on purpose. I want that.

I learned a lot from doing this assignment. (1) My body is a tool, a pretty awesome one. It gets me where I need to go and can do some cool stuff. (2) Sometimes I need an extension on my homework assignments. And (3) my CrossFit Laydeez are smokin’.

I Win at eBay

Remember how I told you guys you better hook me up with some synopses and analyses of major works of English literature? Well, y’all are all fired.

Except Margo who gave me three in-person lessons on poetry. Or, as I like to say it, POW-tree.

And Kate, who helped me create some study objectives.

And Big E, who discussed lit with me over lunch and lent me a bunch of her grad school books.

And Cat, who recommended a really good poetry text with which to study and listed everything she read in high school so I could write it down.

And my dad, who gave me what I call the nuclear option: if I don’t understand the exam question, I’m just going to write, “If anything’s consistent about Shakespeare, it’s silly fucking plots.”

Everybody else, though, you’re all fired. But NEVER MIND. I figured out a way to pass.

That’s not even all of them.

Ten Things I Like About Myself

Ten things I like. About myself.

Ten things. I like. About myself.

This is a tough bit of homework, assigned by Coach Ashley to a bunch of us female CrossFit bloggers who, she noticed, tend to engage in a lot of conversations with ourselves in which we disparage our looks, bodies, and physical abilities. The requirement: ten things you like about or can do with your body. Not character traits. They don’t count.

What I noticed as I brainstormed was that wanted to qualify all of my ideas. Like, I smile with my whole face, but my teeth slant inward in a wholly unattractive way. Or, if they weren’t quite so square, my feet would be really cute.

I figured that disclaimers went against the spirit of the thing so I really concentrated to try to come up with things. Here we go:

1. I have nice eyes. They’re a cool color which morphs from blue to green to grey and back depending on what I’m wearing. When I’m not wearing mascara, which is all but about two nights a month, people think I am. When I am wearing mascara, people accuse me of wearing false eyelashes.

2. I’ve got rhythm. I’ve always loved to dance, and even today, I don’t listen to music while doing anything else because, if it’s on, I want to be dancing, and if I can’t be dancing, I get cranky.

3. (Related to #2) I’m coordinated. If you give me something to do with my body, and I have the strength, I’ll do it—often on the first try but definitely within a shorter time frame than the next guy.

4. My shoulders are all freckly. I know that’s just sun exposure, but I think it’s cute.

5. I have a strong back. Always have had. I gave a piggyback ride to my best friend’s 210-pound stepdad. When I was twelve.

6.

…

…

That’s all I got! And even as I wrote the list, which took two days, I felt compelled to document the myriad qualities and attributes that annoy or disgust me about myself. In fact, wait a minute.

Yep. Took me about 90 seconds to list an even dozen.

I think I’m gonna get a bad grade on my homework.

P.S. Here’s Nelly’s , Ashley’s, Colleen’s, Lindsay’s,  Bea’s and the bad-assest cancer-beating Melinda’s posts.

P.P.S. I was encouraged to include my ass in this list, but the assignment was things I like about myself. Not things others like about me. Or parts of me that are visible from space kinda like the Great Wall of China.

I Wish the Gum Trick Worked in Other Situations

I took Violet to the vet school this morning. She’s so sweet and scared when she goes in there. The student examined her, then called in the doc. Could be a number of things, she said.

1. She might have tendonitis. The other anti-inflammatory I had been giving her might not work for her, so if it’s tendonitis, we could try a different one.

2. She might have an inflammation caused by her immune system, called synovitis. That could be treated with steroid injections to the joint.

3. It could be an infection around the plate and screws. I thought this would be the best-case scenario; antibiotics and poof! infection gone. Turns out, if it’s an infection, the antibiotics will work, but when I stop giving them to her, the infection will come back.

I remember, before I had my wisdom teeth out, the orthodontist said something about how a spot will develop a biofilm and just keep getting re-infected. Guessing that’s the same thing.

Anyway, if that’s the case, if the antibiotics work, they’ll need to take the plate and screws out.

I failed at the second one.

Will she be OK?, I sniffled. They said she would; she doesn’t need the plate and screws anymore.

How much? $1,200.

Wah.

So this morning, they were going to sedate and x-ray her. Again. To see if it was an infection or tendonitis. How much? About two-fifty.

WAH BUT OK, DO IT.

I had actually left the hospital when the vet called me back and said she had consulted with another doctor, and they could try a course of antibiotics first and see.

So I went back and picked up a bunch of pills which were $3.50 each. I want them to work. Because I want my baby girl to stop limping. I want her to feel better. Yet if they work, I’m fucked.

Boo hoo hoo.

You Dog-Blasted Ornery No-Account Varmint

Violet’s been on Trazodone for a long time now to keep her calm while the knee heals.

(By the way, I went to my vet on Thursday. “No, it’s not normal for her to be limping still. Call the vet school.” I called the vet school. “We’re closed Thursday and Friday to move to our new facility.”

Rattin rittin hittin bloatsum!)

You may remember when I tried to switch to Benadryl for a day. Fail.

Anyway, she’s been tranq’ed up for months. Yesterday, I ran out of peanut butter to smear on the pills, and I was gonna go to the grocery store, but then I didn’t, and then I forgot to give her her quaaludes. Guess what happened.

Those were prescription sunglasses.

This morning, I tossed her pills in ranch dressing, and she slurped ’em down. Wish I’d thought of that yesterday.

Phrases from Your Profile* Which Automatically Disqualify You from My Dating Pool

not much of a reader

There’s nothing wrong with not being a reader. I just can’t imagine we could hold a mutually interesting conversation.

My relationship with my creator

Again, nothing wrong with that, and I’ve got no problem with a dude who believes in a Higher Power, but if you call It “your creator”, chances are you’re way farther along the religion spectrum than I am, and I think religion is one of those things like ‘desire for children’ where, in order to have a relationship, two people have to be relatively close.

i love to laugh

Seriously? Who writes this? Raise your hand if you hate to laugh. Or even if you’re kinda take-it-or-leave-it on the whole laughter issue.

Nobody.

That’s because everybody loves to laugh. Saying “I love to laugh” is like saying “I really enjoy orgasms”. Yeah, so does the rest of the human race, dumbass.

My reproductive organs

Let me qualify that. If you say that you overcame cancer of your reproductive organs, that’s one thing. However, if this phrase is in the section of your profile titled “Six Things I Couldn’t Live Without”…no.

I like a woman with some booty lol.

Oh, cruelest of ironies! I’ve got the booty and I lol about it regularly. What a wonder to find someone who appreciates it. Yet the fact that you write that on your dating profile makes me want to punch you in your reproductive organs.

*These are all phrases taken verbatim from OKCupid profiles. Fortunately not all from the same profile because that person would be the worst possible match for me. No, wait a minute. Forgot I already found him.