Welcome to Forgotonia

You Don’t Sweat Much for a Fat Girl: Observations on Life from the Shallow End of the Pool by Celia Rivenbark

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

First of all, at least judging by the author’s photo next to her bio, she is decidedly not fat. So, that kind of annoys me.

And there’s a very “kiss my grits” style of sassy-ness in each entry, and at least for the first couple of entries, I found it kind of cloying.

Having said that, I like writers who analyzes or satirize the seemingly trifling elements of popular culture, (despite the fact that it means their material may not exactly hold up after 10 years because of the contemporary references). I admire writers who aren’t afraid of that possibility of dated-ness (and therefor use as comedic material such cultural fare as the Gosselins and other TLC-show subjects, Twitter over-sharers, and the way Betty Draper treats her fictional children).

I also tried, for two full years, to emulate a newspaper column in a style similar to what Rivenbark is doing, so, I respect and admire her ability to entertain with anything she chooses as her subject matter. I would definitely read more of her stuff, even if I occasionally think the Southern-fried grits-kissing attitude feels a little over the top). I would give this a 3.5 or 3.75 stars.

View all my reviews

(Or: You know you’re a nerd when)

1. You start listening to Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! on NPR.
2. You start scheduling housecleaning around the 10 a.m. Saturday airing of Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! on your local station.
3. You start missing several weekends’ worth of Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! because you are traveling on weekends (and also because, to be honest, you really don’t clean), and: you actually find yourself fretting about it.
4. You begin downloading podcasts of Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!, and you have genuine feelings of joy and delight at being able to catch up on missed episodes.
5. You walk laps on the track with Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! playing on your iPod, and when one of the panelists says something funn, you laugh out loud (in front of other people). Yes, you have become that person.
6. You begin conversations with friends and family like this: “This past weekend? On Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! ? They were talking about how….”
7. You are asked something about your what kind of a career you’d like later in life, and you actually struggle to keep from saying “panelist on, and/or writer for, Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!*

*and also “Sound Opinions.” For all thee above.

(cue the Blue Oyster Cult music…)

Yes, this snowman is real, and yes, there is also another snowman with an empty case of beer for a hat (on a nearby street in Macomb).

(Saw this via a friend’s facebook comment and had to share for my out-of-town friends.)

When my Seattle family members were here in Forgotonia this past weekend for my grandmother’s memorial service, we spent some time walking around the courthouse square in Carthage (my hometown).

Among the many, many interesting items we saw in the display windows of the sad, now-empty stores (or the weirdly re-purposed ones),

(a geode display in the old Royalty’s, for one example;

a spooky sleep-apnea-mask display in the old Sherrick’s Drug Store for another,

oh! And the bedpans right up front in the still-functioning McHugh’s Drug Store)

was this rather entertaining sign for…well, g’head, give it a read:

Um, thanks..?

I don’t mean to indicate that he’s like, as bad as Will Ferrell or anything.

But he was wearing flip flops until December.

Today, he sent me this link from the Onion saying “This is what my workplace is like” and I truly had to LOL.

Ok, I feel slightly guilty about posting this. (I did, after all, serve on the newsroom staff of a paper that once printed a recipe for Hot Crap Dip. Yes, you read that right.)

And I understand all too well the understaffed, overworked nature of newsrooms these days.

But my sophomoric sense of humor just can’t let this one slide. Tee heee.;)

Ooops!

I feel kinda sorry for this reporter, as well as for the editor(s) who didn’t catch it. (Check out snopes.com for more on the matter.) (Thanks to esteemed reader in Monmouth for pointing this one out to me.)

I also can’t help but wonder if the guy in the story ever calls local bars saying “I need Amanda Hugginkiss” !

Do you ever have moments that seem absolutely freaking scripted? Like there’s some force out there watching you and listening to what you say you’re going to do, and then just as you’re about to do it, rubs its hands together greedily and says, “Ah, but that’s what you thought you were going to do! Ha ha ha ha, eat that.”

This is what happened to me.

Metals are a Girl’s Best Friend

I have been waiting all year—scratch that, for close to 2 years now—for the annual jewelry sale put on by the art students at WIU. I’m talking about the students’ actual final-project artwork, which happens to be jewelry. (Not, like, a Lia Sophia party.)

A few years ago, I went to the sale to check it out, and I was impressed by a lot of what I saw. But I was also a bit shocked by the price of some of the items. (Not that the jewelry wasn’t worth it–I just hadn’t known what to expect.)

So I decided to do something radical— try to save up.

Perhaps I should explain here that I am the kind of person who, if you handed me a box full of diamond rings, would trade them in for cash. I would rather wear sterling silver costume jewelry than anything truly valuable. And the funky stuff that undergrad art majors make is right up my alley. Give me hammered silver, twisted-up metal, and stones-on-silver-slides, over diamonds any day, baby. (Yeah, my bf is probably not too upset about this.)

The Heat is (not) On

Anyway, I tried to stop buying costume jewelry all last year, saving up instead for one quality piece at the spring-semester sale.

But It never came. They didn’t have one last year for some reason.

So I wait and wait some more, and then finally it’s the end-of-fall-semester sale this week. And what happens? The first day of the sale—like, as I’m on my way to the art gallery—the freaking heat in my car stops working.

In December. In Illinois.

So I take it into the shop, and, a few hours later, have to drop $100.

After School Special

As I was writing out the check—a check for a heater blower motor resistor or some such nonsense, rather than for a funky piece of handcrafted jewelry—I felt like any moment, this narrator from a cheesy high school health-class film reel was suddenly going to appear and start speaking to an imaginary camera:

“You see folks, that was what we like to call an example of Adult Priorities. Now, before we begin to move on to our next chapter, Income Taxes and Other Reasons to Stay a Kid Forever, let’s review how our dramatized situation unfolded…”

Boo, adult life, poop on you!

Yesterday I took advantage of the nice weather (read: procrastinated on writing a paper) to do something I’ve needed to do for months: I attacked the inside of my car with the dust buster.

When I was down there underneath the driver’s seat reaching for the nooks and crannies, I found enough peanuts, almonds, raisins, cereal flakes, and M&M’s to provide sustenance for a small village.

Or at least make a trail mix as a kind of “repurposed” holiday gift. Y’know, preserve resources and all that. Mmm, will you be the lucky recipient???

The following was originally aired as a commentary on Tri States Public Radio, the NPR member station for Macomb, IL.

(Listen to the audio version online on Tri State Public Radio’s web site)

Every summer during fair season, I want to be a kid again. But it has nothing to do with cotton candy or riding rides. It’s the kids in the livestock barns. When I see little girls who know how to lasso, I want a re-do of my own childhood.

I had every opportunity to develop farm-cred. My parents put me and my sister in 4-H. And I actually lived on a farm, unlike the rest of the kids in our club, which was called the Peppy Peppers.

But the town kids, somehow, were the ones who showed hogs and cows come fair-time.
Me? I did Drawing. And Photography.

My sister didn’t show animals, either, but she did crochet and counter-cross-stitch her way to the state fair. The best I ever did was a blue ribbon for a latch-hook rug but I made it from a kit I bought at Ben Franklin. (All my 4-H work, I made sure, could be done in front of the AC and the TV.)

Dad must have begun to notice his daughters were getting away from the fundamentals of farm life. Because one day he came in for supper announcing he had a surprise for us.

We ran out into the front yard, me hoping for a new 10-speed. Or a pool.

But it was a goat. A little black billy goat.

And instantly, it charged at me. It was being affectionate, but I screamed. “Get it off me!”

My sister laughed. She thought it was cute. So we’ll say she was the one who picked out his name.

Dad came outside with an old Pepsi bottle he had filled with milk and topped with a gray rubber nipple. He got hold of the goat, tipped back his little head, and gently yet forcefully got it to suckle.

I guessed it was kind of cute (standing still).

Later, there was a knock at the kitchen door. (That’s a big deal when you live out in the country.)

Mom went to see who it could be. But no one was there.

She was still looking out when there was another knock.

“Wait a minute.” Mom peered down through the top half of the screen door. “Aha!”
Michael Jackson had gotten out of his pen and was bashing his little head against the metal.

“It’s the goat!” we giggled. “You’re so silly, Michael Jackson!”

Later in the summer, my sister and I had an official chore: to rub a stinky ointment on the goat’s head twice a day. I guess it was like goat Orajel for horn cutting pain. Or maybe horn control.

But we couldn’t get it on him. It was impossible to get him to stand still. He was like a four-legged, black-furred junebug, banging constantly against his pen and against the kitchen door, because he always got out.

Soon, Dad was the one doing horn-deterrent duty.

We didn’t have him a whole summer. Did we even have him a full month? I think Dad finally foisted him off on our cousins, who were also farm kids though I’m not sure why they were expected to do better at keeping him in his pen than we had.

Now I realize the Michael Jackson episode was a foreshadowing of the poor excuse for a farmer’s daughter I was to become. The few times I was ever asked to do chores like walk beans I whined my way out of them.

I could have learned a lesson about raising animals, a small step in keeping our family’s farming tradition from fading away. But what I really cared about was getting into town, where my friends had cable, so I could watch MTV.

The next summer at the fair, I showed not a cow or a sow but a comic strip about a little girl who tries to get out of doing her homework.

These days, I regret that I never learned any of the 4-H skills that would come in handy in real life. (Last time I checked, you can’t latch-hook a button back onto your blouse.) But I have to accept the fact that when I was actually in 4-H and had the chance to learn about farm life, it just wasn’t me.

I guess I couldn’t help it any more than Michael Jackson could help not wanting to stay in his pen.

What I really wanted was to moonwalk, not walk beans.

Or,

“The epitome of what Tornado Ali hopes to never become.”

Or

….come up with your very own caption and leave it here!