Further Adventures in Hydration

I've started drinking water with a PURPOSE.  It's a journey.  Here are some excerpts from my hydration journal¹.

Day 1

9:00 am I just found out that my girlfriend drinks a lot of water.  I bet I could drink more.

9:02 am  The internet just told me that the most water I can absorb is about 8 oz every fifteen minutes.  That's the amount of water I will drink.

10:03 am  Staff meeting!  I hope it's short, I'm only bringing one pint of water with me.

10:45 am  Oh god, it ran late, I'll chug 16 oz of water to make up for it!

11:30 am  I feel weird.  It couldn't be the 75 ounces of water I've had to drink.

12:15 pm  My girlfriend points out that maybe I'm messing with my salt.  I think she's probably trying to win the water drinking competition she didn't know we are having.

12:16 pm  I pick up a vitamin water, just in case she has a point.  Maybe it will help with the (totally unrelated) dizziness.

12:50 pm  I realize my vitamin water has no salt in it.

12:51 pm  I'm pretty sure I'm dying.

1:00 pm  [Illegible] fries [illegible]

6:34 pm  I don't remember the last five hours, but it appears that I have installed a salt-lick in my back yard.  I'm going to go to sleep.

Day 2

8:50 am  Oh crap!  I forgot about the water competition!

9:15 am  Wait, didn't I figure out that chugging 32 oz of water in under a half hour is bad?  Eh, I'm sure it will be fine.

10:07 am  ALL I EVER DO IS PEE.

11:10 am  Is it possible to drown inside your own body?

1:15 pm  It feels like there's a tempest inside my belly.  I like to sway back and forth and feel the water slosh and hear all the enzymes scream "TSUNAMI" as they try to digest my lunch.

1:23 pm  I have developed an UNNATURAL FONDNESS for caps.  I am unsure if THIS IS AT ALL RELATED.

1:37 pm  I wikipedia "hydration."  It has many words that I don't understand, which frightens and confuses me.

1:58 pm  Blogging about hydration has made me dangerously close to what I have come to know as dehydration².

Ok, I've only been drinking water for two days.  So that's all I have.  I expect by tomorrow afternoon, I will have been distracted by something new.  If you'd like to keep your own hydration journal, I suggest you get off the internet and go make some friends.  Because, seriously, is drinking water the most exciting thing you have going on?³

¹I don't keep a hydration journal.  That would be lame.  I just made up these excerpts for the sake of humor.

²I assume that not peeing for close to ten minutes is a sign of dehydration.

³Did I just insult my own blog entry?

Haiku Friday - The Zoo

That Sounds More Threatening Than I Meant It To

Mr. Elephant,

I think you could jump this fence

Soon, I will fix that

Nothing Ruins A Cuteness High Quite Like Poo

I took a picture

Right as the tiny penguin

Decided to poop

Oh, Was That Your Baby I Just Made Into A Delicious Curry?

The three mountain goats

Stopped their chewing and faced me

Murder in their eyes

WHY DON'T YOU WANT TO CUDDLE, SUN BEAR?

I learned that sun bears

Are the smallest Portland has

But their claws still hurt

Plus, You're Way Less Fun To Club

Nothing personal

But you sea lions are just

Fat, less-cute fur seals

Vennsday - God Loves You And Your Need For Booze

Well, it seems that the Venn Diagram Dinocorn has finally started working again.  That lazy bastard.  And!  With its new enhanced dinosaur powers, it is using more color!

These are exciting times, people.

Let's get to it.

This is also a nice diagram of my entire diet.  Anyways, you could show yourself to be a good, solid guy from Illinois by literally eating meat 'n potatoes.  That sounds pretty tasty, if slightly bland.  Or, you could be a 14-year-old who has decided that meat is evil and is eating only cheese sandwiches.  Without the meat is evil part, that sounds like Thursday to me¹.  But, put all those magical yet common ingredients together, and you have what some² would call nirvana: the cheeseburger.  I just had one two hours ago, and you know what?  I want more.  Thanks for loving me, God!³

Best quote of the week:  "More debates, more vetting of candidates because we know the mistake made in our country four years ago was having a candidate that was not vetted." - Sarah Palin.  Ah, she consistently reminds me why I listen to political podcasts.  It is less funny to think about any kind of could-have-been face off between her and Ahmadinejad.  They would have both agreed that there were no gay people in their jurisdictions, been creepily folksy, and then hunted each other with helicopters.  Final thought: Tea Parties started becoming way less fun when they decided that maybe Newt Gingrich should be president.

I'm bringing it all together here, for a nice clean wrap-up.  It looks like it's about food and drink and then SURPRISE it's about politics.  That, kids, is how you make an old-fashioned, or as we call them at my house, Anna's maybe-three-more-of-these-will-make-thinly-veiled-racism-funny⁴ juice.

¹Wednesday obviously being the day that I spend working on my blog instead of grocery shopping.
²Ok, just me.

³I'm not saying that God doesn't love Jewish people, I'm just saying that he wants them to be miserable and hungry.

⁴They didn't.

I Live Here Monday - Matrix Rain Talking

Well, winter has arrived.  Rain, rain, rain, flooding, muddy floors, etc.  In everywhere except the Pacific Northwest, rain does not require an entirely different wardrobe.  You can wear a nice warm jacket, and use an umbrella to stay dry.  Here, though, rain doesn't fall-it hovers.  You walk into it, so if you're not wearing something waterproof, you're going to end up soaked.  Umbrellas are just a fun way of shouting "tourist!"

Good rain jackets have hoods.  Hoods which do weird, weird things to us:

Summer!  Two friends are walking and chatting, enjoying the day.  They can observe each other's body language and reactions using their peripheral vision or, when necessary, a head turn.  They understand each other perfectly, and they end the day happy.

But then... the rains come.  Plants die, clouds flip you the bird, and they start living off just coffee and beer.  Of course, they still go for walks with friends, because it's Eugene and outdoor activities are required.  But!  They keep getting into fights because they can't see each other.  They are pretty much invisible to the other one.  Maybe one of them even got hit by a bus ten minutes ago; the other one won't know because his hood is in the way.  They can turn their heads as much as they want, but those hoods obey the jackets, so it will not turn with them.

After a couple days, they learn that they need to turn their whole shoulders in order to see each other.  But a simple turn makes them FACE TO FACE, which is considered a confrontation.  People here don't do well with direct confrontation.  Feelings of fear and anger and sadness are aroused, leading to processing.  Lots and lots of processing.

To avoid all this, they have to twist their bodies both to face the person they're walking with and away from that person, so as to avoid confrontation.  This means that during conversation, their bodies are twisted like Neo's in the Matrix when he's dodging bullets.  I don't even want to think about what it does to their backs, but it sure is a great core work-out.

Haiku Friday - We'll Miss You, Rick Perry

It Seems Like A Bad Idea To Piss Off Gay Soldiers, Right?
Remember that time
You dressed like a lesbian
For your gay bashing?

Although It Is True That If You're 21 on November 12th, You Can Vote
Before your next run
Brush up on the voting age
And election date

Sarah Palin's Wolves and Helicopters Thing Was Much More Impressive
Hunting coyotes
With a laser-sighted gun -
Are you a bad shot?

Commerce, Education, and Energy
Haikus go five and
Seven syllables, and then...
What's the last? Uh... Oops

That Only Works If You're Governor Of Texas AND Have A Powerful Father
It's not that I think
That you're stupid, it's just that...
Oh, fine, yes I do

Dinocorns Against SOPA - CENSORED VENNSDAY

Guys, something awesome happened today, and then something terrible.

I was searching under my desk for the fruits of my Magical Venn Unicorn's labor and discovered that it had gotten into the radioactive dinosaur fossils (I should probably find a better place for them).  I was worried about the health of my unicorn, but it turns out that the radiation and dinosaur DNA made it into a SUPER AWESOME CREATURE: the Dinocorn¹.

"Yay!" said I to myself, "I'll post this to my blog, and everyone will be happy!"

But, when I went to post, this happened:

Certain members of Congress want to keep you guys from seeing Dinocorns.  Don't let them win.

Let's agree that censorship is bad.  It's especially bad when it's post-its covering up a sweet drawing of a Dinocorn.

Find out of your local representatives are against SOPA - if they're not, contact them and tell them they should be.  Your internet enjoyment depends on it.

Haiku Friday - Hipsters

Or Is That Just Your Sperm Count Dropping

Are your skinny jeans

Squeezing out all of life's joy,

Despondent hipster?

It's Like 10,000 Spoons When All You Have Is A Bunch Of Ice Cream and 9,999 Friends

How much irony

Before the cycle completes

At sincerity

Please Repeat Yourself, But This Time Without The Assault On My Eyes

I couldn't hear you

Over your neon Ray-Bans

And sparkly leggings

Today's Special Is Condescension-Braised Short Ribs

Hipsters make great food

It's bitterly seasoned with

Disdainful service

Or Maybe You Fell Into A Vat Of Electric Razors And Pomade?

Tell me that mustache

Is an elaborate joke

That I just don't get

Vennsday Thursday - Circles! Ovals! More Circles!

For two weeks, I had tiny little sketches of Venn Diagrams sitting on my desk, and I just didn't put them into a legible form.  Until now.

We'll learn about costumes, the definition of sadness (hint: it's the opposite of bacon), and how nature is awesome.  Oh, you'll learn about some of my ridiculous fears, too.  If only for that, read on!

I confess, I have never been to a midnight premiere of anything.  That sentence brings sadness to my heart.  On the other hand, I'm probably never going to dress up to see a movie (unless it's in The Bloggess Style).  Geeky question:  Who wins in Jedi vs. Wizards?  Grab a case of beer, and talk about that with your buddies.

This Venn Diagram is like the circles of hell, or at the very least circles of sadness.  Know what I love?  Cheese.  Know what else I love?  Carbs, all of them.  Even if I couldn't have carbs or cheese, I would still be happy because at least I could eat bacon.  On the other side of the spectrum, there's my mom, who, I can only assume, cries herself to sleep every night with low-sodium tears.  She told me she was going on a low-carb vegan diet, and I think I stared at her for three minutes silently before asking what she can eat.  (Answer: kale and disappointment).

"Swans are all the way in the "badass animals" circle and dinosaurs are only half in - what are you, high?"... is probably what you're saying right now.  I stand by it.  There are probably some non-badass dinosaurs, that like went around being vegan and worked as dinosaur accountants or something.  But swans, dude, swans are insane.  They are territorial and their wings can break your leg.  I'm serious.  Do not mess with those motherfuckers.  Sometimes I try to make super badass mythical creatures up, and today I was like "What if they mixed the scariness that is swans with dinosaurs, that would be INSANE" and then I realized... nature did that already!  Nature is awesome.  I hope it wants to be Facebook friends with me.

I (Used To) Live Here Monday - Meijer

I am not going to do Meijer justice.  I am going to leave you saying "I don't get it, isn't it just like some weird Michigan version of Walmart or Fred Meyer?"  And for that, I am sorry.  Maybe the best thing to do is to find someone from Michigan who has moved away, and ask them about Meijer.  There is a 93% chance they'll tear up a little bit.

If God dies, he's going to end up at Meijer and wonder why heaven sucks so much.

At Meijer, they sell everything, and they do it cheaply.  Need clothes?  Go to Meijer.  Need furniture?  Go to Meijer.  Need a fountain for your garden?  Go to Meijer.  Need any kind of food or drink?  Go to Meijer.  Need a black-market baby?  Go to the inky shadows behind Meijer¹.

I like lists.  Here's a breakdown of Meijer vs. Walmart, in fancy table form.

Important Issue	Meijer	Wal*mart
Literacy	Silent "j" - badass.  Silent letters are like the ninjas of spelling.	Silent *.  * isn't even a letter, so this all results in confusion and decreased American literacy.
Miracles	I have not seen it happen myself, but I'm pretty sure Meijer is where Jesus learned to turn water into wine.	Every time someone buys a three sizes too-small tube-top, a guardian angel dies.
Greeters	Happy and kind.  Possibly on some kind of upper.	Kidnapped from nursing homes.
Ad campaign	A million reasons, a single store (this jingle gets stuck in my head every time I go home).	A smiley face that makes everyone want to punch smiley faces in the... uh... face.
Rainbows	In the middle of every Meijer, there is a field full of unicorns and rainbows. And, right next to it, there is a cheaper Meijer Brand field full of 5-color rainbows and a horse with a birthday hat on the front of its forehead.	Wal*mart hates gay people.
Mechanical Pony Rides	One cent.  Adults not prohibited (officially).	Null set (which means the sobbing of tiny, innocent children.  And me.)

In short, Meijer is where happiness and love come from.  It's why Michiganders are so friendly.

If you ever visit Michigan, go to Meijer.  Just don't get the Meijer brand mac 'n cheese... it tastes like burning tires and genocide.

¹On that note, weird things happen in the Meijer parking lot after 11 pm.  Park close and stay in the light.

Haiku Friday - My Childhood

Jesus on a dinosaur, I have been slacking on my blog.  No Vennsday, and here it is, after 5 on the east coast on a Friday, and I have not posted an haiku yet.  I haven't even had a footnote in weeks.  Life has been insanity since landing back here on the west coast... and by that, obviously, I mean that work has been insanity, and then I have fallen asleep by 8:00 every night.

But!  Right now!  I am turning my life around, starting with some calming and peaceful haiku about my childhood.


Really, Those Are The First Two Questions Almost Always
I went to prep school
No, it was not all women
Yes, it was Hogwarts

But Everyone Pretended I Didn't Know Until Last Year
Youngest child perils:
I knew Santa was a myth
Before I was five

My Sisters Still Think It's Unfair (But You Killed Santa!)
Youngest child awesomes:
Washing way fewer dishes
Watching more TV

The Syllabus Called It "Religion"
Catholic Schooling
Classes in math, reading, and
Homophobia

That First Line Should Probably Be Commemorated On A Sampler Or Something
Mom and Dad were right
I really wanted a dog
Just not to walk it