Retroactive Weirdness

January 1, 2014October 2, 2018 / Diane Henders / 34 Comments

This probably isn’t a revelation to anybody else, but I was a bit surprised this week when I realized the extent of my own weirdness.

I maintain a file of ideas and thought-snippets for my blog. When something strikes me as odd or funny or disturbing, I pop it into the file. Most of the 60 or so entries are only a sentence or two, and in the spirit of year-end cleanup I decided it was time to develop some of them into blog posts.

What’s more, I realized this post would fall on New Year’s Day.

“Well,” thought I, “What a fine opportunity to wrap up the year with a retrospective of some of the oddments I’ve discovered.”

Little did I know what a can of worms I was opening. Here are a few of the items that amused me this year:

I discovered that it’s impossible to brush my teeth without making my nose wiggle. And now that I’ve noticed it, it’s impossible to ignore. I try, but I can’t look away. Then I end up giggling and spluttering toothpaste everywhere.

I discovered that studies have been performed to determine how often people fart in a day. That in itself tickled my funnybone, but when I found out that the testing apparatus included mylar underpants to trap and measure the emissions, I cracked up. There’s just something hilarious about mylar underpants with a hose attached…

Also on that topic, I discovered that there is actually such a thing as fart-absorbing underwear with a built-in carbon filter. It’s purported to control odour effectively, but there’s no word on how well it muffles the sound effects. I guess you just have to blame the barking spiders for those.

And then there’s Poopourri, which, frankly, is right at the top of my “disturbing” list for many reasons, all of which are illustrated by this commercial. Yes, this is actually a real product, and apparently it’s supposed to work. I just… I got nothin’.

If you’ve managed to recover from that, here’s another goody I’ve been meaning to share with you, my poor suffering victims faithful readers: In a small town named Torrington about an hour northeast of Calgary, there is a Gopher Hole Museum. This museum consists entirely of dioramas containing dead, stuffed gophers dressed up and posed in various activities of human life. Don’t believe me? Check it out: http://gopherholemuseum.ca/dioramas/ And yes, I went to see it, because it just had to be done.

Last but by no means least on the roster of weirdness, I discovered that it is apparently profitable to hoard food items long past the point where they are safe to consume or even possible to contemplate without gagging. Yes, some guy sold a 20-year-old bottle of McDonald’s McJordan BBQ sauce for $10,000: http://sports.nationalpost.com/2012/10/17/an-anonymous-buyer-spent-10000-on-20-year-old-mcjordan-barbeque-sauce/

More to the point; some wack-job bought a 20-year-old bottle of McDonald’s McJordan BBQ sauce for $10,000. One word: Eeuwwww.

I guess I’d better go excavate under the couch cushions and see if I can find some fossilized potato-chip crumbs. They’ve gotta be worth something. Or maybe a half-squished piece of two-year-old popcorn that looks like the face of some religious icon…

Come on, ‘fess up! Somewhere in the back of your cupboard, you’re hoarding a box of Kraft dinner from 1972 that’s worth at least a grand. Right? …Right…?

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I’m on the road this morning, so I’ll be back to reply to comments a little later in the day. Talk to you soon!

The ABC of Me

December 25, 2013October 2, 2018 / Diane Henders / 22 Comments

Many thanks to Shree over The Heartsongs Blog for nominating me for the Awesome Blog Content award a few weeks ago! If you haven’t visited Shree yet, you should – when she’s not writing thought-provoking posts, she’s doing beautiful artwork and mandalas like the one she drew for the ABC award above.

Due to time constraints and my innate laziness, when I receive a blog award I generally link back to a couple of my earlier posts here and here. After all, I figure there’s only so much anybody really wants to know about me, and I think we’re all grateful if I don’t veer off into “too much information”.

But this is a format I haven’t done before and I thought it was fun. And I couldn’t resist Shree’s beautiful hand-drawn award!

So here goes:

A – Animals. Love ‘em all! Yes, even snakes. And especially cats, frogs, and salamanders.

B – Books. I’m an addict. I start to get the shakes if I don’t have at least three books waiting to be read.

C – Cars. I like driving them and working on them. Someday I’ll finish restoring my ’53 Chevy…

D – Dresses. All forms of dressing up are to be avoided whenever possible.

E – Eh. Yep, I’m Canadian.

F – Food. At any hour of the day or night!

G – Gardening. I’m incapable of leaving a patch of soil undisturbed.

H – Home. My favourite place.

I – Infantile. My sense of humour.

J – Jokes. I love any kind of wordplay, even puns. Okay, I’ll admit it. Especially puns.

K – Keystone. I grew up in Canada’s “Keystone Province”: Manitoba.

L – Laugh. I do that a lot. Frequently when I shouldn’t.

M – Milk. My favourite beverage. Yes, I like it even better than beer. Shocking, I know.

N – Nudity. Just checking to see if you’re still reading…

O – Onomatopoeia. A mostly-useless word that refuses to leave my brain, taking up valuable memory space along with my grandparents’ phone number from 1970 and my very first credit card number. You’d think there would be a way to purge that stuff and fill the space with something more useful. Like maybe some current phone numbers.

P – Popular. What I wasn’t in school.

Q – Queen… and Quantum. I love a huge variety of music, and Bohemian Rhapsody is one of my favourites. Plus I’m a science geek, so I’m giving you a twofer! Click here for “Bohemian Gravity”

R – Restaurant. I love eating in restaurants, particularly ones that serve food I can’t (or won’t) make myself.

S – Silence. Ahhhh…

T – Tools. I love tools. Automotive tools, carpentry tools, cooking tools, you name it. Tools, books, and food are the three types of purchase that never need justification in our house.

U – Urban. The opposite of where I like to live.

V – Vivere. My favourite Andrea Bocelli album. Here’s my favourite track from the album, coincidentally also a “V” – Vivo Per Lei:

W – Wild. My imagination.

X – Xenophobic, I ain’t.

Y – Yellow. My favourite colour.

Z – Zoo. What it’s like inside my brain…

And now for the obligations of the award:

The rules for receiving the ABC award are:

1) Thank and link back to who nominated you: Done!

2) Say something about yourself with a word or a phrase beginning with each letter of the alphabet. Done!

3) And of course nominate some other bloggers for the award.

It seems as though a lot of the bloggers I’ve enjoyed in the past have vanished. I always find new ones to enjoy, but today I thought it would be nice to recognize and compliment my favourite long-time bloggers. Here they are:

Within The Sphere (The Blogger Formerly Known As AquaTom)

I know a lot of these bloggers don’t generally accept/participate in blog awards, and that’s perfectly fine – I mean this as a compliment, not an obligation.

If you celebrate Christmas, I wish you a very merry one!

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Update: Winners have been drawn for the Spy, Spy Away book giveaway contest – click here to check ’em out!

Semi-Defective

October 9, 2013 / Diane Henders / 23 Comments

Lately my brain has been semi-defective. It works most of the time, but every now and then it shorts out, leaving me standing there wondering what the hell I’d intended to do moments ago. Or I go to do one thing and end up doing something else entirely.

I hope it’s because I’m in the final intense writing phase of Book 7 and all my spare brain power is used up. I really hope it’s not permanent. And I really, really hope aliens didn’t sneak into my bedroom while I was asleep and swap out my brain for a substandard model. ‘Cause everybody knows there’s a big market for good used brains around Halloween, so it would make sense to manufacture some cheaper semi-defective ones.

I mean, really, there are lots of things that are apparently manufactured to be intentionally inferior.

Take cotton swabs, for example – one of my pet peeves. Any time I buy a generic brand, one end of the swab has a nice soft cotton tip and the other end is a hard plastic stick with a few shreds of cotton adhering to it, just enough to blunt the edges so it doesn’t actually slice the inside of my ear to pieces.

(Don’t bother reprimanding me for sticking cotton swabs in my ears. I know I’m not supposed to, but I’m a rebel. Sometimes I go out doors marked ‘In Only’. Sometimes I drink milk that’s a day past its ‘Best Before’ date. So sticking cotton swabs in my ears? I laugh in the face of danger! Ha-ha!)

Anyway…

If Q-Tips® can make cotton swabs with nice soft cotton tips on both ends, why are all generic cotton swabs semi-defective? Do aliens open up every single package and remove the cotton from one end of each swab?

Or is there a special cut-rate supplier for semi-defective manufacturing equipment?

I imagine the following sales pitch from SemDef Corporation: “Yeah, you could buy a machine that actually works, but for half the price, you can have a machine that only works half the time. Is that a deal or what?”

Which actually explains a lot about the generic food market, too. You know what I mean. If you buy Cheerios®, you get yummy Cheerios®. If you buy generic oatie-o cereal, you get something that tastes like the cardboard box it’s packed in.

It has the same ingredient list. There’s no sawdust or wallpaper paste in there. Not even the leftover cotton from the semi-defective swabs. So that means either they’ve somehow managed to screw up a simple recipe past the point of recognition, OR…

…SemDef also sells substandard food products: “Why spend extra money for top quality oats? For half the price, you can get oats that have been left out in the rain for a few days. All you have to do is scrape off the mouldy bits and ignore the grasshopper corpses, and you’re all set. Really, you’re going to process them past the point of recognition anyway. Who’ll know?”

Okay, I just grossed myself out.

And I’ve created a rambling blog post that connects cotton swabs, aliens, breakfast cereal, and grasshoppers. Yet another sabotage by my semi-defective brain.

Damn those aliens anyway.

Not A Cartoonist. Obviously.

August 11, 2013 / Diane Henders / 32 Comments

…but I’ve been having fun drawing cartoons lately anyway. And I figured, what the heck, why not post them? I don’t know if I have enough time or inspiration to do regular Sunday funnies, but I’ve got a few floating around my computer.

Here’s one for today:

Short And Silly

July 10, 2013August 5, 2013 / Diane Henders / 38 Comments

Y’know what? We’ve all been working too hard lately. I’m on vacation this week, so I’m going to give you a break, too – not much reading required.

Happy Summer!

We’re All Free! And Naked!

June 5, 2013 / Diane Henders / 34 Comments

Peer pressure is a terrible thing. I’ve been successfully resisting it for months, but my resolve has slowly eroded under the relentless burden of my readers’ expectations. So here it is; the post you’ve (apparently) all been waiting for: “We’re All Free! And Naked!”

Don’t look at me like that. Hell, I don’t know what I’m talking about, either.

“We’re all free! and naked!” has been the top search phrase that has brought people to my blog ever since I posted “We’re All Naked” back in January. (If you’ve just arrived here because you searched “We’re all free! and naked!”, I’ll apologize in advance – “We’re All Naked” does include a link to some mostly-obscured YouTube nudity, but unless you’re turned on by drunk hairy naked guys singing scatological lyrics, it’s probably not what you’re looking for.)

Back to the topic at hand: Since January, “We’re all free! and naked!” has brought people here four times more often than my next most popular search term (my name). And every week, the numbers keep going up.

I ignored the phenomenon for several months, afraid of what I might find if I delved into it too deeply. I assumed it was just a temporary aberration, but it’s still there. Still far and away the top search phrase that brings people to my blog.

When I finally gathered sufficient courage to search it myself, the search engines only returned a link to my own post, “We’re All Naked”. So what the hell is everybody looking for? I know I hold the dubious distinction of being the top search engine result for “Polar Bear Sex Club”, but at least I did actually use those words.

‘Free and naked’, not so much. But it’s gotta be something pretty specific. Even the punctuation is the same, over and over and over.

So if you got here by searching “We’re All Free! And Naked!”, I’m sorry I can’t be of more help. If you’re looking for nudie pictures, you’ll be sorely disappointed. (Though probably not as disappointed as if I’d actually posted some. Trust me, you don’t want to see that.)

My books have some hot scenes in them, but somehow I suspect that’s not what you’re looking for, either.

If you’re looking for support for a cause, I’m all for freedom and I have no particular objection to nudity, unless it’s my own nudity. In that case, I have to apply all sorts of caveats involving protection from sunshine, rain, snow, wind, bug bites, allergy-producing plants, prickly foliage, splintery wood, hot/cold/sharp objects, overly interested observers, and a plethora of other conditions that essentially limit my nudity to “indoors in privacy”.

Anyway, if you’re one of the folks who came looking for something else, and if you’re still reading, I’m sorry you didn’t find what you’re looking for. But welcome anyway. Who knows, if you look around here a bit, you might get a chuckle or two for your trouble.

And please tell me what you were really looking for. If that many people are searching for it, it must be good.

Hope you find it…

This Poop Requires Cultured Decoding

May 29, 2013 / Diane Henders / 25 Comments

Yes, it’s that time again! I’ve mined the rich vein of entertainment that is my blog spam.

Earlier I noted that my spam seemed to be getting more hostile, but fortunately that trend has flatlined. Maybe they read my blog post and took my jibes to heart?

Nah, I know. Spammers never actually read anything, as this one admits: “I like to party, not look artilecs up online. You made it happen.” – Glad I could be of service, though it’s unclear whether I influenced his/her propensity for partying or looking up artilecs. But at least I’m good for something.

This spammer agrees: “Thank you for the auspicious writeup. It in fact was a amusement account it. Look advanced to far added agreeable from you! However, how could we communicate?” – All I can say is ‘How indeed?’

But it’s nice that they want to keep in touch. This spammer did, too: “Would you be fascinated by exchanging hyperlinks?” – Well, “fascinated” wouldn’t be my exact word…

But they’re encouraging: “If you keep up the great work I’ll visit your weblog again.” – Am I the only one who spots the logic problem here? How will they know if I’m keeping up the great work unless they visit again? What if they visit and I’m just spewing useless crap? (Well, more useless crap than usual.) Have they found a way to retroactively un-visit my blog? If they have, I hope they share, ‘cause there are a few experiences and visuals I’d love to be able to un-visit.

Like this one: “When you change the timing belt, dressed in pink with a pink Hermes leather on the playground…” – Wait, you guys have been spying on me, haven’t you? I knew I should have worn my black leather the last time I changed my timing belt. Pink shows the grease so badly.

And here’s more proof that I’m under surveillance: “You look absolutely stunning with your natural hair!” – Remind me to save my unnatural hair for Halloween and full moons.

Sometimes my spammers wax informative: “Not we are all born with a backbone but you can turn just one in”. – Good news for the spineless wimps of the world.

And speaking of good news, “The good news is, bonobos”. – Well, thank heaven! Without that knowledge, I just don’t know if I could have gone on.

But there’s more good news: “I have read so many articles or reviews on the topic of the blogger lovers…” – Wait, blogger lovers?!? We get groupies? Why haven’t I heard about this before? And where are mine? Please don’t tell me I’ve been missing out on major groupie action. I mean, seriously, we all know bloggers are the rock stars of the internet… um, the sex symbols of cyberspace… um… eh, never mind.

Some spammers look up to me as a valuable source of advice: “What Happens To A Boy If She Takes Viagra?” – Erm… I think we may have to start with the basics here. You see, there’s this thing called “gender”. Boys are “he”…

Which leads nicely into a discussion of the birds and the bees: “Your individual stuffs nice. All the time deal with it up!” – At least I think they’re referring to the birds and the bees. It certainly sounds suggestive.

But it’s hard to be sure. After all, as my latest visitor sagely observed, “This poop requires cultured decoding.”

And ain’t that the truth?

Play Nicely, Kids… Please.

May 24, 2013 / Diane Henders / 30 Comments

I’m climbing up on my soapbox today, so if you’re looking for funnies you’ll probably want to skip back to Sometimes Words Fail Me. I’ll return to my regularly scheduled silliness on the 29^th.

I just finished reading a blogger’s vitriolic review of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight. I don’t know Ms. Meyer and I’m not a Twilight fan, but…

The blogger eviscerated Twilight with razor-like precision. And then she got out her chainsaw and her hobnailed boots and waded into the remains, leaving a bloodbath in her wake. It was brutal and ugly.

It made me sad.

I believe negative reviews are valuable. They help create realistic expectations for our potential readers while steering away the people who aren’t likely to enjoy our work. We learn from criticism and become better writers because of it.

That said, even an objectively-stated negative review rips out little pieces of an author’s guts and cauterizes the wounds with a small, fierce flame. We accept that as the price of admission. We put on our big-kid underwear in the morning, and we go out knowing that getting knocked down is part of the game.

But a blistering, hate-filled attack drains the lifeblood from our hearts and the joy from our souls. And it’s pointless, except maybe to provide some twisted satisfaction for the attacker. Abusive screaming isn’t an effective teaching method. It doesn’t make us better; it just makes us bleed.

I wonder if this blogger stopped to consider Stephanie Meyer while she was writing her rant. Not ‘Stephanie-Meyer-The-Bestselling-Author’; just Stephanie Meyer, a human being with same desire for respect and acceptance as everyone else.

Imagine what it’s like to be told that the product of your heart and soul; the result of your weeks/months/years of effort and sacrifice and self-doubt and triumph… is worse than garbage. Should never have been allowed to exist. Deserves to be ridiculed and held up as a shameful example.

Ms. Meyer has thousands of glowing reviews to soften the sting, but I can’t help thinking about a debut author receiving that venomous review on the day she lost her ‘real’ job and the car died and her teenager screamed “I hate you!”

Maybe that blogger is a reasonably nice person who got carried away and simply didn’t stop to think about the author (and fans) who might be hurt by her words.

Or maybe she’s a bully making a pathetic and cowardly attempt to elevate herself by trampling another human being beneath her feet.

I hope it’s the former.

I don’t expect to like everything I read, and I don’t expect everyone to like what I write. Poisonous reviews have been a reality since the first caveman daubed some mud on a rock wall and his neighbour yelled, “What the hell is that crap?” (Or maybe it sounded more like ‘Ug poo-poo!’. I’m guessing here.)

I’m certainly not suggesting we should suppress negative reviews to protect authors’ poor, fragile egos. That would harm both readers and writers.

But it makes me sad when I read such deliberate cruelty.

Why inject more ugliness into the world? Isn’t there enough already?

*Sigh* 😦

Sometimes Words Fail Me…

May 22, 2013August 5, 2013 / Diane Henders / 21 Comments

…and then I draw stick people.

This post is a prime example of the Little Guy With Pitchfork in action. The exchange went something like this:

Me: Time to write a blog post!

LGWP: You should draw a comic strip instead.

Me: I’m a writer, not a cartoonist.

LGWP: You can draw stick people. C’mon, it’ll be fun!

Me: Well… yeah… I can draw stick people… kinda… *yells* Little Guy With Wings! Where are you? I need you!

*distant sound of the theme song from Jeopardy*

LGWP: Ha! Don’t be such a wuss. I bet you’re too chicken to even try. (Note: The LGWP is a tricky little bastard, and he knows how to push my buttons – see Doin’ It On A Dare.)

Me: Why you little… I’ll show you! *grabs felt pen*

The trouble is, the LGWP is not only tricky, he’s frequently right. I do want cookies and popcorn. The house and the laundry do need attention. And there are only so many omelets you can eat because they’re easy to make at the last minute. (Though I did have a particularly yummy one last night, with bacon, zucchini, onions, peppers, salsa, and feta cheese…)

Anyway, it was fun drawing this strip, but it also took me about ten times as long as writing a regular blog post.

So where was my LGWW all this time? Drinking beer and watching Jeopardy, apparently. I never saw so much as a feather.

It’s so hard to get good help these days.

Does anybody else have an LGWP? Or a better LGWW than mine?

Suitably Embarrassed

April 17, 2013 / Diane Henders / 47 Comments

A while ago Carrie Rubin posted “My Closet Has Skeletons – Literally”, in which she offered blog awards to those brave enough to post photos of their own closet-cleanout detritus.

I can’t resist the opportunity to accumulate blogging awards and public humiliation simultaneously, so here goes…

I hate waste and clutter. I can’t count the number of times I’ve cleaned out my closet over the years, ruthlessly culling clothes and shipping them off to charity. If it doesn’t fit right, isn’t in style, or I haven’t worn it recently, out it goes, no matter how much I paid for it or how much I loved it at the time.

But every now and then I get caught in an embarrassing bout of hoarding.

I got this suit sometime in the late 80s or early 90s; I can’t remember. The pants still fit, which leads me to believe that it looked just as ridiculous when I wore it regularly as it does now. The photo fails to capture the enormous bagginess of the rear. (The pants’ rear, not mine. I have no ass to speak of.)

But it’s linen (the suit, I mean). It feels wonderful and I love the colour (it’s nicer than the photo). And, hello, it still fits twenty-odd years later.

Please excuse my geeky expressions – as I’ve noted before, I’m NOT photogenic. And I have never worn the suit in public with white socks, either. Promise.

Somehow the suit has survived all those culls even though I know:

a) it doesn’t look good on me now;

b) it probably never looked good on me;

c) it’s not fashionable;

d) it probably wasn’t fashionable when I wore it;

e) the probability of it ever becoming fashionable is roughly on par with the probability of Oprah hiring me as her fashion consultant; and

f) even if it did become fashionable again, I probably wouldn’t wear it because, let’s face it, it doesn’t look good on me.

So I tried it on, snickered, got Hubby to snap those incriminating photos… and then tenderly tucked it back into my closet.

I’m embarrassed.

Hubby is my exact opposite.

He putters happily around his man-cave surrounded by his “stuff”. He’s completely unfazed by the knowledge that he’ll likely never need, use, or even look at 90% of the stuff he’s hoarding. He might need it someday, and that’s good enough for him.

And I acknowledge the wisdom of his approach every time I throw something away and then discover I need it two days after the garbage truck has come and gone.

But I can’t overcome my need to organize and throw away. Except for my linen suit.

I prefer to call this “loyalty”, not “irrational hoarding”.

Are you a thrower-outer or a pack rat? And please tell me I’m not the only one clinging to an unsuitable, unflattering, useless item…

P.S. I’m still in Manitoba this week, and I thought I’d offer you folks in southern climes a small opportunity to gloat. Welcome to mid-April in southern Canada: