Category: In Which We Mock Ourselves

Here is my arm. The bruise at the top exactly matches the edge of my home office chair armrest. It showed up last Friday. When the lower bruise arrived this morning, I spent some time lining my arm up with the edge of the desk, the rest of the armrest, the laptop. Until I recognized…

I had lunch with a friend today. Me: “Gary complains all the time. ALL the time.” (Followed by an imitation of Gary complaining.) Friend: “I was just thinking about another person who complains all the time.” (Followed by very concerning examples of those complaints.) Me: (Doubles-down on griping about Gary. Gives numerous examples and asides.)…

I have not touched the novel since November 2024. If you had asked me in the past few months why I wasn’t working on it I would have said that there was an entire chapter that was only five words long and I didn’t have the heart to gin up an entire chapter. Spoiler: If…

Longtime reader(s) (joke courtesy of Big Dot) — you will remember that I have tracked my wattle as far back as 2008. Last week I glanced at my reflection in the Phone and thought, “Well, that isn’t too — Oh, Jesus!” That bit at the end was when I caught sight of the Wattle. The…

First off, the weather is romantic. It’s my favorite type of day: soft and rainy. Rained all day, in fact, so I cannot do my gardening tasks. And what do you do on a rainy day but stay inside and sip tea? BUT YOU CAN’T BECAUSE YOU HAVE FOOLISHLY DECIDED TO STRAIGHTEN YOUR TEETH YOU…

Technology has come to my aid in the last few days. My car was at a parking meter. I almost didn’t park there because I didn’t have any change. Because it’s the 1960s in my head, I suppose. Luckily I realized I could probably use a card. Then, I walked two blocks and thought, “Did…

Friend #3 groused that I was skipping the impending music trivia night in favor of my previous engagement to watch The Magic Flute. ”Like you can’t watch Mozart on YouTube,” she complained. “You have to go to the opera.” ”Well actually,” I said, because all the most insufferable sentences start with that, “Opera season is…

I always thought Mom was very against a divorce from Jerry. The narrative I heard was that she visited Saint Louis, then met up with my (step)Dad again, and henceforth was heartily pro-divorce. Well, the new letters have revealed that Mom filed for divorce from my father Jerry six months before visiting Saint Louis. That…

This is a Facebook ad for a tiered chiffon skirt from H&M. “That’s a man modeling that skirt,” I thought, and it might be. H&M has started hiring trans people to model clothing. I love the inclusion, I do. But wasn’t it bad enough that I had to look as good as a model to…

Friend #3 is the only one of the Numbered Friends still at TeddyJ. And even that will not last for long: today was the first of her two (two!) two retirement parties. It was well attended by thirty coworkers from the last 18 years, and they all went around and shared stories of her generosity…