Vennsday - The Things We Yell

Recently, I've been intaking a lot of internet, so I feel like I should output some internet as well.  This means that you guys get to look at some Venn Diagrams!  Right here!

Imagine that you're in a car with three other full-grown adults, and you drive by a pack of llamas.  Somebody is definitely going to yell "Llamas!!"  Or maybe you're at work, just minding your own business, doing some spreadsheeting, and all of a sudden your boss starts yelling "Raccoon!  Raccoon!"  You don't think this is weird, in fact, you're a little jealous that you didn't get to yell what type of animal it was at that animal.  We don't do this with other things; you're not sitting at your desk, minding your own business, yelling "Spreadsheet!  Spreadsheet!  Coffee!  Food crumbs that I should probably clean out of my keyboard!"  I assume we do this because as children we were rewarded with love and affection for correctly naming animals by our parents, and we still feel a little surge of affirmation when we do it now... and also, you know, llamas!!¹

Yelling is not condoned in Eugene.  If you yell, you're probably a stooge for the patriarchy and you're definitely oppressing somebody's vagina, so maybe you could just take a deep breath, remember this is a safe space, and start using some "I feel" statements in a calm, low voice.  Unless this is about the University of Oregon ducks.  In which case, why aren't you yelling??  Don't you even CARE about how awesome they are???!!??!  You could walk up to a group of strangers on the street, yell in their faces "GO DUCKS," and they would be super psyched about it, and zero vaginas would be oppressed.   

When I get excited, I talk louder and louder until I'm full-on yelling.  It's almost gotten me kicked out of town a few times.  And it's not about cool stuff, it's about storm drainage or maybe the sweet orange color of my calculator².  I would pity my lady friend for having to deal with this, but she does it, too.  I'm pretty sure we're known in local restaurants as the couple who yells about our dinner and the incredible job the CHEF HAS DONE WITH THE SEASONING.

¹The first thing I do when I get home every day is find my two cats and yell "CATS" at them.  Maybe I do this for the affirmation, or maybe I do it because I like reinforcing their identities for them, or maybe I just do it because I think it's inexplicably hilarious.
²Obviously these things are actually super cool.  I just didn't want to make you feel jealous about my incredible swale knowledge or that one time I chose an orange calculator instead of a black one.

I Live Here Monday

My awesome and less profane friend has an awesome and less profane blog, Stowaway.  She has a weekly feature called "My Kind of Town Monday," which made me want to do something similar.  I don't really take nice pictures, though, or really love the city I'm living in.¹

Also, I don't think I can commit to another weekly update, with the other two crappy weekly features I have and the wine club wines that I have to drink every month and waking up every day...  I'm a busy person, basically.

On the other hand, sometimes shit gets hilarious here in Eugene.  So, I will have a whenever-I-feel-like-it Monday feature called "I live here" Monday, and I'll talk about a funny sight that I saw or how a crazy transient² greeted me or how I bought a snobby Eugene ten dollar beer and then spilled half of it down my shirt, making my shirt worth twice its former value.

Here's the first thing you need to know about Eugene:

People here love college football.  Really, really love it.  In a survey that I just conducted³, 72% of respondents said they loved Ducks Football more than their first born children, 14% didn't have any children because they had traded them for season tickets, 11% just screamed "GO DUCKS," and 3% were total NPR-listening nerds who are about to get beat up and have their gluten-free tempeh sandwiches stolen.

So, if you visit the place I live, I suggest you learn how to do the Oregon "O," which is a totally innocent suggestion and absolutely does not mean vagina in sign language.

¹How many Eugenians did I just offend?  It's not terrible, it's just... uh, not my kind of town.

²We don't call them homeless or hobos or bums here... we call them transients.  This is because we assume they are transitioning between homes or maybe between cities.  This is wishful thinking.  At best, they are transitioning between hits of meth.

³I did not conduct a survey.