thoughts

The "suggested serving" for most of the canned food that I buy should just be a picture of the can itself, with the lid off.

anecdotes from my childhood

As an infant, I slept in a half-pulled-out dresser drawer. When this was brought up later, my parents insisted, "You liked it in there!"

anecdotes from my childhood

My brother once enlisted my help to clean, stretch, and preserve a rat pelt. He had skinned the rat himself.

We used bar soap, an overturned coffee table and twine, and salt (respectively).

anecdotes from my childhood

When I was a baby, my father skied with me on his back in a child carrier, to save on childcare costs.

message received

I've been working, side-by-side with a co-worker, on an interesting bug for the past few days. Today our conversation veered into light bickering, and she mentioned that we probably sound like siblings. I agreed, and asked her if she has any siblings.

She said, "No, but I have a cousin who I hate."

my brother strikes again

My brother found me a hilarious math video on YouTube. Do you know the intersection of math and humour? It is narrow.

I watched it several times and laughed until I cried.

Now the last time this particular brother made me laugh this hard, was at the end of a long day at the beach. We were kids, and it was a bit of a hike back up to the cabin. So we were carrying the beach things back up. My father and uncle carried the rowboat, I had an armful of lawn chairs, and my brother picked up a single fucking oar.

Our father called up to him, "Son, you'll be carrying more than that!"

And Dan turned around, held up the oar, and said, "Yes, I'll be carrying more. I'll be carrying ...m'oar."

Not only did I drop the lawn chairs when I fell down laughing, but I somehow remembered this joke in my sleep and woke up laughing again, to the sound of my father pounding on the cabin wall, and yelling, "STOP LAUGHING IT'S NOT THAT GOOD OF A JOKE."

Influence

When I was 14, my father gave me a book called "Influence: How and Why People Agree to Things". It demonstrated when one is being manipulated, with the presumed goal (I don't think I ever finished the book) of being able to stop oneself from being manipulated, and ultimately, manipulate others.

Well, it worked. The first part did. I was able to learn and apply just enough of the book's contents to identify when I was being manipulated, whilst having absolutely none of the confidence or skills to prevent or stop the manipulation from happening. I simply became aware of the specific chain of events that led to my being a doormat.

Anyway, I'm cleaning someone's garage this weekend.