37 posts tagged “qotd”
What makes your best friend so special?
Submitted by Jessmiloo.
She's hilarious and makes me laugh all the time. She's also really brave, willing to be honest and open with her emotions (in contrast to me, the emotional snapping turtle). She's practical and down-to-earth, which is also a good contrast with me, the up-in-the-clouds dreamer. She reminds me that I have to do things like, oh, live in reality and pay my phone bill, and I remind her that life isn't just black and white and that she can put sparkles in her hair.
People seem to think I look like Lucy Lawless, though I don't think it's especially accurate. However, anyone who wants to compare me to Xena can feel free, since it's flattering.What celebrity do you most often get told you resemble?
Submitted by Leets.
What's the story behind a time when you got locked out?
This happened in August of 2004 and I sent an email out to friends and family about it, but it's still a funny story.
It's one in the morning and you're about to go to bed
when you notice that your trash is full. You think
you'll be a good little housekeeper and empty the
trash, taking it out to the can in the garage. So you
grab the trash and head outside to your garage (which
is just off your porch but NOT connected to your
house) and the second the door shuts behind you, you
realize that you've just locked yourself out of the
house. At one o'clock in the morning. In your
nightgown.
Now, your house is a very sturdy house. It's not like
your apartment, where if you wiggle the windows enough
they'll slide open. No, your house might as well be
Fort Knox.
Also, all of your neighbors are elderly and most
definitely not awake at one in the morning. And you
don't know any of them well enough to come pounding on
their door in your nightgown and scare the bejesus out
of them so you can use their phone to call an
all-night locksmith. You don't even know if there ARE
all night locksmiths, though you imagine there must
be.
So you take a deep breath. You wiggle your door
handle. You've got plate glass on either side of your
door and you suspect that it's expensive to replace so
you're not messing with it. Besides, it's something
like an inch thick, and you doubt that you'll be able
to break it even if you tried.
Oh, you happen to have a Louisville Slugger in your
garage because you haven't unpacked the odds and ends
into your house, yet, and after dropping off the trash
you gather the baseball bat, a metal picture frame, an
old newspaper, and a roll of packing tape. You've got
a plan, though you're not sure you're going to
actually go through with it.
You keep getting the giggles, because it's just too
fucking crazy. You're barefoot, in your nightgown, in
the middle of the night and right next to your house
is a wash where coyotes run, and the other night you
had a bobcat in the very front yard where you're now
standing. At least, you thought it was a bobcat when
you were safely inside, now that you're outside you're
starting to think that maybe it was a mountain lion.
Your front entry area looks like this: there's an
adobe fence around your small front yard with an iron
gate. To the left of the gate and the adobe fence is
your garage. Walking straight ahead, through the iron
gate and past the garage is an arched wrought-iron
door that you never lock because you need a key to
open it from both sides and it makes you nervous that
you wouldn't be able to get out if your house caught
on fire.
Through the arched wrought-iron door is a little entry
area with your front door straight ahead, and your
bedroom window to the right. Your front door still
won't open. Your bedroom window won't budge. You're
laughing your ass off and you think if you do what
you're thinking you're going to do that the neighbors
will call the cops and you'll be shot to death on your
own property for brandishing a roll of tape and a
picture of you holding your college roommate's plump
nephew while he gnaws on a Toblerone.
You tape a square on your bedroom window where, once
opened, you'll be able to reach both window latches.
You slice open your screen with the sharp corner of
the metal picture frame. You tape the newspaper over
the strike-zone square to muffle the noise. You heft
the bat over your shoulder. You've always been a heavy
hitter. You have to put the bat down because you're
laughing so hard.
Finally, you regain your composure, hold the bat out
and tap the end of it against the strike zone, move it
slowly back and forth for a moment before you heft the
bat over your shoulder, take a deep breath, and CRACK!
It wasn't as loud as you thought it would be. The
newspaper really worked to dampen the sound. You're
giggling as you wrap another thick sheet of newspaper
around your arm so you can reach in and undo the
window latches without slicing up your skin.
Your dog, who has been watching at the front door the
whole time, is too startled to bark.
You listen for a moment for the sounds of a cop car
sliding stealthily up the street before you climb
through your window. You'd hate to get shot so close
to victory.
It's actually rather anti-climatic. No cop cars. No
stern voice over the loudspeaker saying, "Step away
from the window, ma'am, and put that picture frame on
the ground where we can see it." No panicked drawing of
guns when they see that not only do you have a roll of
tape, you've got newspaper, too.
You climb inside, avoiding the broken glass, and you
shoo your cats out of your room. You put on shoes and
grab a pair of gloves and clean up the glass, patch
the window with cardboard and tape, go outside and
patch the other side of the window with cardboard and
tape. You lock the arched wrought iron door for the
first time since you've lived there. You clean up your
front porch, head back inside, and you leave yourself
a Post-It note right above the door knob. You seal it
on with packing tape for good measure. It's not a long
note, it's just one word: KEYS! Because it wouldn't be
as funny as the first time if you forgot again.
What are five books that changed your life?
Inspired by Ms. Genevieve.
This book just ripped me apart from the first page, as both a reader and a writer.
Another one that ripped me open--but in a good way.
I'm not a very deep person, really, so it's hard for me to find the words, but this books is the closest thing I've ever found that represents the way I go through life--in the face of meaningless tragedy and absurdity, cling to your humanity and realize that the power you have is the power of your choices. Even if someone holds a gun to your head, you've got a choice--just not a good one.
And, OK, so that's more than five books that changed my life, but come on. I'm a writer. What do you expect? I could go on all day like this.
What do you do to ensure you get a good night's sleep?
Submitted by Jacob's Ladder.
I don't really need much to get a good night's sleep. All I have to do is get a good day's work in, make sure I don't have caffeine after 3pm, and then just get into bed. I read while falling asleep, which sometimes backfires since if the book's really good, I fight to stay awake and finish it instead of just putting it down and passing out like I should.
How many bones have you broken? Yours or someone else's?
I've actually never broken a bone, though I do have a nice dent in the front of my right tibia, about two inches below my kneecap, from tripping up granite stairs--twice. The first time I was a sophomore in high school and the second time I was a junior in college. You can totally feel the dent if you run your finger over the bone right there, but the bone didn't crack or anything.
Considering how clumsy I am and how many falls I've taken, I'm surprised I haven't broken a bone. I've fallen out of trees and off horses, flipped over fences, tripped and fallen flat on my face numerous times. Maybe all that milk I drank as a kid really did help give me strong bones.
How are you ringing in the New Year tonight?
Well, I already rang in the New Year last night. I went out to a bar with my friends Nicole and Dave. It was Dave's first time in a bar, let alone a gay bar, and he was nervous and didn't know what to order from the cute bartender and didn't feel comfortable dancing, etc. Luckily for him, I'm an old woman and don't really care what other people think of me so I just asked the cute bartender to make Dave something strong and fruity because that's what he likes. Then I forced him to dance, and he was pretty good but he didn't notice all the cute boys scoping him out. Nicole and I both thought he was just ignoring them because of nerves, but he honestly didn't see them and was all depressed later that we hadn't pointed them out to him.
Actually, now that I think about it, I pretty much ordered both Nicole and Dave around the whole night. It's exhausting making sure everybody's having fun. =P Like Nicole told him, "If you want to go to a bar and just hang out, I'll take you, but if you want to have fun, we need Sarah along." Because they're both in their early 20s and therefore haven't yet learned that, really, who cares? Somebody doesn't like the way I dance then they shouldn't watch me dance. Somebody doesn't think my drink is "cool" enough or whatever can just deal with it because I like my Grey Goose and tonics, thank you very much. Neither one of them wanted to wear New Year's hats, either, because they might look silly. Dude, I was all excited about looking silly and wore my cheap paper tiara all night long. Also, I just like tiaras. I think it's easier for them to have fun when they don't have to decide if it's OK to dance or not since I'm jumping up and grabbing their hands and dragging them onto the dance floor, leaving them no choice.
Anyway, I had vodka tonics and Nicole had cosmos and Dave had a couple big fruity drinks that may have been hurricaines, and we danced to bad pop and techno. I ran in to a couple people I knew from work and then it was midnight and the ballons fell and we left shortly afterwards because the bar was just packed by then, so much so that you couldn't move in any direction without getting somebody's elbow in your ribs or back.
Then we went back to Nicole's and chilled for a while and I was sobered up by 1:30, so I drove home and went to sleep. Happy 2007!
What comedian makes you pee your pants laughing?
Submitted by pookieb.
Everybody's going to give the same answer, but I do have to say Dane Cook. His bit during Vicious Circle about crying by yourself had me laughing so hard I couldn't breathe, and it's reassuring to know that I wasn't the only kid who was scared of the Kool-Aid man.
Eddie Izzard is a close second, as is Margaret Cho, Lewis Black, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy's standup from the 80s and early 90s, Ellen DeGeneres, and Ron White.
What is your favorite scent?
Submitted by Erinen.
The scent of fresh cut lilacs is my absolute favorite, hands down. However, I also love the smells of fresh coffee, peppermint, fresh cut grass, and just-peeled oranges.
Books, movies, music; what's in your top 5 right now?
