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I come from a long line of sit sleepers. What exactly are “sit sleepers”, you ask? Well, imma tell you. When you’re a sit sleeper, there’s a 98% chance that you will fall asleep within ten minutes of sitting down. The likelihood increases when you’re in a comfy armchair, it’s warm and cozy, and you’ve had any alcohol whatsoever. If you’re laying down, forget it-you’ve missed the entire episode of Orange is the New Black.
I noticed I came from a family of sit sleepers early on with my grandmother. When I was kid, we got to spend the entire summer at the cabin on Coeur d’ Alene Lake in Northern Idaho. The best part of this wasn’t the long summer days filled with swimming, boating, and lounging in the sun. No, the best part was that I got to sleep in my grandma’s bed. It was the best sleep spot in the cabin. The other room was the “boys’ dorm”, filled with bunk beds and farts. It was gross.
Without fail, the moment my grandma got settled in, covers just right, and with her current book, she was snoring. Except, it wasn’t just snoring. It was something entirely different. See, my beautiful grandmother took her teeth out at night. I still remember those weird, waxy looking chompers floating in a glass on her nightstand. Because her teeth weren’t in when she fell asleep, book opened on her face, it sounded like the subtle flapping of a flag in the wind.
It was always really entertaining to bet on how many minutes, seconds it’d be until I’d hear the flapping.
The entire time we had the light on to read, I’d slightly nudge her and she’d sputter awake and continue reading right where she left off. I remember really being concerned that she’d never get through her book. Somehow she did. The marvels of this world are endless.
The best part of this whole nighttime ritual was that sometimes I’d tell her she was sleeping. Every time, she’d swear up and down that she hadn’t been sleeping.
I’d say, “Grandma, your book was on your face!”
She’d say, “That’s how I read best.”
Oh, how I miss the nights I’d nudge my grandmother to say, “Grandma! Your lips are flapping again!”
Of course, my mother was gifted with sit sleeping. One of my fondest memories is of our nighttime reading. No matter how late, how tired, how stressed, my mom read to us from infacy. As we got older, my brother and I read to her. Each stage had a different level of narcolepsy-like sleeping spells.
Some nights, my mom would be in the middle of a sentence and suddenly, the book and her head would fall, and she would be quietly snoring.
“Mom!”
“I’m awake!”
Then, she’d pick up right where she left off.
When we grew into voracious readers ourselves, we started to read to Mom. That was hilarious, because with no book to hold, and nothing to do other than lay and listen, she was usually snoring before we could even get through a page.
If we ever have my mom watch Harry Potter, she’d likely say, “Why is this vaguely familiar to me?”
We’d answer with, “Well, mom, we only read the entire series!”
A fun little aside about my mom and falling asleep in inopportune situations:
Not only has my mom fallen asleep during reading and during every.single.movie. she’s ever watched, she’s also been known to fall asleep while eating. Yup. You read that right. I wasn’t going to mention that it was likely due to some medication she was taking for her back, but either way, she fell asleep while eating a burrito. Except that’s only what she thought she was eating. She said she was eating her lunch and the damn tortilla would just not cut. She said she hacked and hacked away with her plastic fork, but no luck. Eventually, she decided to just gnaw at it with her teeth. At this point, she woke up/came to and realized she was eating her paper plate. I ask her to tell this story at least a couple times a year, because it’s just too good.
I always thought falling asleep the second one sits was an old person thing. Well, at 33 years old, I can tell you it’s not!
Guys, I have become a sit sleeper something fierce!
I’ve seen two movies over break, and during both of them I’ve fallen asleep.
Like, fell asleep and woke myself up snoring.
Yesterday, we went to see Rogue One at the luxury theater. I am fully convinced that those damn reclining seats have led to my demise.
I was all settled in-candy opened and ready to be demolished, napkins draped across my chest like an adult baby, and my contraband drink nestled safely between my ass and the seat.
I felt I had enough food to keep me awake. If I’m eating, I can’t be sleeping. It’s usually a foolproof plan.
Except, it wasn’t.
I finished my theater food too soon.
All of a sudden, I hear the crinkling of wrappers. It sounds like it is coming from inside my head.
It stops.
I go back to drooling all over my napkins as I try to keep at least one eye on the screen.
Suddenly, the sound again.
What the actual eff?
I suddenly realize it’s the girl next to me. She’s been crumpling her candy wrappers like inside my ear.
I’m aghast. I’m shocked.
How could someone be so rude?
Then. I realize.
She was crumpling her wrappers next to my head, because I was snoring.
My head was leaned to her side, my mouth was gaping, and I was snoring in her face.
Who is this person I’ve become?
At this rate, I’ll be ten times as bad as both my grandmother and mother combined.
HELP!!
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Tag: blogging
5 Reasons Why I'm Failing at Adulting
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1.When my students do or say something turdly, I really, just once, want to say, “I know you are, but what am I?” I know… but it would be so awesome to give them a little dose of the ridiculous excuses/responses/attitudes they give me every.single.day.
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2. Every year when I renew my car registration, I don’t put the new sticker on my license plate until I get pulled over. It’s like tradition. It is just so hard and takes too much effort to wipe the dust and grime off of my license plate and place the new sticker over the 10 that are already there, about to fall off. Pure unadulterated laziness.
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3. Every month, since I was 11 (why, God?) Aunt Flo has visited. One would think that after three decades of this ridiculousness, I would know to be prepared. Yet, every month, I ruin a pair of panties and I have to waddle into the store, with an entire roll of toilet paper wrapped around the crotch of my underwear.
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4. I love to wait until the bitter end before a credit card payment is due. That way, the extra money I was planning on using to pay down some of the debt can be used to buy new shoes or way too many Salted Caramel Mocha Frappuccinos far before I have to make the payment. Winning.
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5. I buy bananas for one sole purpose: I like to watch things slowly wither and die. For what other purpose do bananas serve? I sure as hell never eat them.
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I Was An Asshole
I was a strange, precocious child. I was the kid that makes every teacher silently mouth, “What the fuck” several times a day. I never stopped talking. I also did weird, inquisitive things, and I said, probably, thirty times a day, “Mom, watch me do this!” I was annoying with a capital unbearable.
I recently shared a memory on Facebook about a time when I was envious of the dog’s dinner. I’ll just share a screenshot:
If it was ever any wonder where I got my random weirdness from, I think the mystery has been solved. When I shared this memory the other day with my mom, this is what she said:
“Oh, I thought canned dog food looked really good, too. In fact, back when I was a kid, they put barley in it and it looked almost exactly like beef and barley soup, before the water was added. So, um, I would eat it.”
Along with salivating over the disgusting can of wet dog food, I would also sneak butter. Half of the stick of butter would be missing from the butter dish all the time. I would escape to the hall closet with my prize, and it was usually blamed on my dad. Win!
I think this is a testament as to why I’m weird and fat.
So, this random smell-induced memory led me on a nostalgic trip down memory lane about all of the weird things I did as a kid.
Care to hitch a ride?
1. I was fascinated by penises at an early age.
I was quickly barred from bathing with my boy cousin when we were just innocent babes, because whenever they put us together in a bathtub, I thought his little member must have been a fun pull toy. His little face would be in agony and his eyes big as saucers, and they’d realize pervy baby Katie had her fist clenched over his pee pee again.
My dad stopped taking me places solo, because inevitably I’d have to go to the bathroom (I used to have to visit the bathroom at every single place we went to-creepy, random gas station and all), and, obviously, he couldn’t let a young child go in the restroom by themselves. So, I’d have to accompany him in the mens’ room. That was a recipe for disaster from the get-go.
After I did my thing, he needed to use the restroom too. He told me to stand in one place, where he could see my feet as he was in the stall. Almost immediately after he closed the stall door, my feet disappeared.
Where did he find me?
On hands and knees, under the urinals, staring up at the men using them.
To this day, I still pray they just didn’t see the little girl with stark black pigtails under the urinal when they unleashed their no-nos.
That was my first adult penis, I just didn’t know it at the time.
My dad was appalled and stopped taking me anywhere, other than the drive thru, by himself from that day forward.
2. I was way too interested in urinals (obviously).
When I was a toddler, up until I started Kindergarten, I went to a daycare called, Thumpers. When it was potty time, they would line up the boys and girls in separate lines. Even then, at such young ages, the girls took twice as long as the boys. As such, they would have to let the girls start going in the boys’ bathroom, or the girls would be in the line for the restroom all day. I always volunteered, or I would push myself to the front of the line, so I could go to the boys’ bathroom. I was always so jealous that they got to stand up to pee, and use such a strange apparatus to do so.
Well, one day, a kid pooped in the urinal. Since I had pushed my way into the boys’ bathroom that day, I got to see the offending excrement with my own two eyes. I immediately ratted out my cousin (the same poor kid who almost got his weiner ripped off by yours truly).
I had no obvious proof, but it had to be him.
Still, to this day, I swear it was him, only now he punches me and holds me on the ground with his giant Popeye arms. It’s kind of scary. I never learn.
3. I had really fun bad ideas.
Speaking of Thumpers, it was there that I did the only truly naughty thing I’ve ever done in my entire life.
One of my favorite teachers was this older lady named, Doris. She was so nice and fair. I really don’t know why I chose her as my victim.
One day, as she was putting my lunchbox in the refrigerator and I was just standing there, right behind her, twirling a thumbtack between my thumb and pointer finger, I did it.
Let me explain a little better. I was following her a little too closely, and when she bent to squeeze my lunchbox into the fridge, her ass was just millimeters from my face. And I had a tack.
So, I did it.
I stuck the tack deep into her rump.
I really don’t know why I felt that was a good idea, because I spent literally all day in time out. It was then that I realized being bad did not pay off.
4. I had a loud speaking voice.
My mom’s second favorite story to tell about me involves penises (again), my favorite soda, and KFC.
I was pretty young when this happened, so it’s still thought of as a cute, kids-will-say-the-darnedest-things-outburst.
We went out for a special dinner at the local KFC (we didn’t go out much. Not because we were super poor, but because it wasn’t the thing back then to eat out all the time). I was very adamant about making sure I got what I wanted all the time, especially when we ate out. I think I told my mom thirty times that I wanted Dr. Pepper, but I was still afraid she maybe missed hearing me somehow.
As my mom went up to the counter to order, from across the busy, family-filled restaurant, came my booming voice, because I had to make sure…
“Mom, I’ll have a Dr. Pecker!!”
I couldn’t properly pronounce “pepper” and due to the urgency of the matter (she might have accidentally gotten me water-gasp), that’s how it came out.
I’m always sure to embarrass, still to this day.
5. My surprised reaction was (is) a loud, “whoa!”
As we’ve learned, it was always a crap shoot taking me anywhere. I might shout “penis!” in a quiet library, or maybe I’d be lost and then found on the ground of a restroom, staring up at a man’s taint. You never knew, and I think that was the real danger that was being around me as a child.
Around the same time that the “Dr. Pecker” incident occurred, I struck again. Why my parents took me anywhere was beyond me.
I was never shy about pointing out painfully embarrassing things about people and things. I was a real asshole. So, the fact that the #1 embarrassing Katie story occurred at a buffet, is almost too obvious. It’s almost like my parents wanted me to shout to someone random, clear across the room, “Why do you have red dots all over your face?!”
After nervously scouting the entire restaurant, my mom was cautiously optimistic about where we were seated. It appeared there was no one around us that stood out in any real, obvious way.
She was able to relax for precisely two minutes.
Then, of course, I needed to use the restroom, which was obviously on the opposite side of the restaurant.
The trip to the bathroom was uneventful. Then, my mom saw them.
They were immense. I want to say they took up several chairs between the two of them. My mom knew her jerk of a kid would say something mortifying.
She did everything she could to keep my attention away from them during the trip back, but I turned to look behind me.
And, just like that, all of my mom’s efforts were in vain.
“WHOA!”
It reverberated off the ceramic dishes and cheap metal cutlery. It made a ripple effect in the lumpy gravy at the buffet stand. A tacky reproduction of The Birth of Venus fell off the wall. It was heard by the entire restaurant.
I’ll just skip to the part where I had to apologize to the couple, even though I didn’t know that what I had done was wrong. My mother’s only wish was that they thought my “whoa” was in reaction to their oxygen tanks, and not their behemoth size.
I think these stories of what an utter embarrassment and pain in the ass I was is likely why I don’t think I want kids. I know my karma comes in the form of a deceptively cute, but terrifyingly mortifying child. I’ll just pass on that, thanks.
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Reasons Why I'm Fat #2,347 and Other News
I’m working on a post on Friday at 1 in the afternoon*, because I’ve been in bed for two days still feeling like I’m swinging in a yoga silk.
Ugh.
It started last week. At the end of class, when we wrapped up like fat vampires (well, I’m the fat vampire) to cool down, the new instructor moved us so we spun in our coffins of carnival-ride-hell. It was absolutely terrible.
Terrible.
Just thinking about it now makes me want to vom. Ugh. Bleck!
This past Wednesday, I asked the instructor not to make me sway *there it is again. Excuse me while I calm down my gag reflex*
Everything was fine until she forgot. She realized just seconds later and got me to stop moving, but the damage was already done.
That whole night I had dreams of all sorts of nauseating things. I’d detail them, but I just can’t without my head spinning.
The next morning, I barely got out of the shower alive. I’m a real wuss when it comes to fitness and committing to eating plans, but I’m simply not one to call in sick all the time. However, there was just no way I’d make it in. I could barely stand for five minutes without feeling like I was in a fun house of horrors.
As a teacher, it’s usually just easier to suffer through the pain than to put in for a sub, create last minute sub plans, and ask your already-overworked-fellow teachers to help you out.
This meme knows:
However, sometimes it’s the difference between barfing during your Number Talk and barfing with dignity in the privacy of your own bathroom.
Already, long story short, I think aerial yoga is making me motion sick.
Seriously, this just fucking figures.
Right when I feel my body feeling tighter. Right when my arms have less swing. Right when I’m feeling a definition in my sausage legs, the fitness that can be thanked for this miraculous change makes me physically ill.
I try to get fit, but fit don’t want this.
Fuck it all. Seriously.
In other news, I guess there are worse things than fitness being attributed to sudden illness, because I got a message on Plenty of Fish by…
Adult Baby
Friends, when I received my first message from this “guy”, I thought he was the first truly honest dude on a dating site.
Instead of finding out after you’re already invested, he’s kind enough to lay it all out, right in his username.
Adult Baby says to me:
I will pour myself a bowl of cereal, get more on the table and floor than in my bowl, and I won’t even notice.
I can’t hold down a job, unless posting horribly written Yelp reviews about massage parlors that offer happy endings counts as a job.
You will have to clean up after me, because I’ve never bought a cleaning supply in my life. Not even a trash can. Is that a cleaning supply?
This is what I thought. For a quick minute, I thought maybe he was kind of secretly smart and almost kind for being just so outright about his immaturity.
Then, the term “Adult Baby” was explained to me.
I’ll never be the same again.
Just google it. Just.google.it.
I am pretty much convinced that every dude on every dating site out there just wants to get in your pants or they want you to change their pants.
I’ll pass.
I thought for a quick minute that maybe they weren’t all creeps, because I was talking to a really intelligent and witty guy. It was more than just talking. We met for drinks and he took me to sushi. Other than talking way too much and being incredibly long-winded, he seemed like someone I could really see myself getting to know. He knew how to form a complete sentence. He knew who Gary Oldman was. He had a job. It seemed like a win. When I didn’t respond to his endless sexual innuendo jokes that obviously meant he was trying to talk sex, he was suddenly not interested. Cool, bro.
They seem to all be like this.
I’m just…
I don’t even know. Maybe I’ll know in my next blog post.
Well, I’m off to Google, “exercise that won’t make me motion sick” and to delete the dating site apps on my phone. Or, do I keep them for the sole purpose of endless entertainment?
What a varied and exciting life I lead.
*Obviously it’s not Friday anymore. Even more obviously, I’m a total procrastinator and didn’t finish my post on said Friday.
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Decision Made
Well, I did it. I sent the email declining the job offer. Before anyone tells me I just lost an incredible opportunity, let me first be clear about a few things:
1. I’ve learned throughout this process that I need to stop taking to heart how others feel when what I really need to be doing is listening more intently to my own beat.
2. It’s really fucking expensive to move to another country, and until you know my finances intimately, you don’t really know. You know?
I don’t mean to sound rude, but it’s really, really hard to make such a huge decision when left and right you’re told that money doesn’t matter, or that you’re wussing out because you don’t want to be going down the road to bankruptcy town. All of my young adult years I went about my business as if money didn’t matter and it led to serious problems. I cannot continue down that path.
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Decisions-Not My Forte
Happy Friday Eve, beautiful people.
This past Monday I was offered a teaching position at a school in Surrey. Surrey in freaking ENGLAND.
I can’t even put into words how I felt, but I can say, it was a mix of insane excitement and utter fear.
The rest of this week I have been a mess of decision-making-crazy.
Most of you are probably wondering what decision I even have to make. HELLO? ENGLAND?
Well, after several email correspondences, I have been given my final salary offer, and well…
I am disappointed to say the least.
I had wrongly assumed that the cost of living would be pretty relative to here in the U.S. and that is just plain not the case. The cost of flats in Southern England is astronomical. I mean, twice the cost of apartments in my area. For me, paying half of the rent, the costs I am looking at are more than three times what I am currently paying.
This wouldn’t be too horrible except for the fact that I will be taking a $3000 pay cut. What is absolutely insane is that the salary they offered me was incredibly generous and a HUGE step up from what I am currently making, but with the high tax amount taken out, I will be paid significantly less.
I don’t even know what to say.
I will have to some more crunching of numbers, but so far, it isn’t looking good.
Because I am someone who thinks with their heart and far too often I am idealistic in how I view the world, I had assumed that I could move to a different country, do the same work I do here, and it would work swimmingly. Well, that is not the real world. Not even close.
Not only am I a heart-thinker, I am also one who has a lot of debt and minimal savings.
Just to get my fat ass and my few possessions across the pond it will cost a fortune. And I am a broke as a joke teacher.
It isn’t over yet, I may be able to figure something out (like, maybe I can sell a kidney).
So, now I ask you all, what would you do? Would you go into further debt to move to another country? Would you be OK with being seriously broke just to experience another culture? Would you live well under your normal comfort zone in order to experience a serious adventure?
I need opinions and maybe some moral support. Something. Anything.
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Spanx You Very Much
Ugh, Monday again. Didn’t we just have Monday last week?
If you are feeling like you can hardly bring yourself to get out of bed, or the thought of expending the energy it takes to bring your coffee cup to your lips makes you wish it was, at the very least, Tuesday, you might need a little boost. A boost in the form of a good, hearty belly laugh. Check out my latest post on Shopper Lottie. I can guarantee that it will at least make you chuckle. Also, don’t forget to let me know if I forgot anything in the comments over at SL.
Spanx A Lot
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Leggings All Day, Erryday
Hey, Lovelies! My latest post is up over at Shopper Lottie. Let me know if I forgot something in the comment section. The layout and features at Shopper Lottie are fabulous. If you already enjoy reading articles over there, join to make sure you never miss a thing. Also, you would be supporting me- total win-win.
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What Fresh Hell Is This?
“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” Except, you’re not talking to your dog, but your thighs, and instead of a magical land, you’ve arrived in some kind of fresh hell. Yes, yes. These are your 30s.
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Inverness
This is a post I wrote years ago about a beautiful spot I discovered in Inverness, Scotland. There is not a day that goes by that I do not think of that trip. I yearn to go back. I left a piece of my heart in the British Isles, that’s for sure.
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