READER QUESTIONS: Shining Bright Like a Diamond During the Mayan Apocalypse
I recently asked my Facebook friends and Twitter followers to submit any questions they had about, well, anything in the whole entire world that they wanted to discuss. The response was overwhelming, but luckily I had time to answer all two of the questions! Here we go.
Heather O. asked, “What are you doing to prepare for the end of the world on Friday?”
Thanks for your question, Heather! Unlike this fine reader of my blog, some of you may be unaware of the impending Mayan apocalypse which is said to occur on December 21, 2012, as that is when the Mayan calendar ends. Frankly, I don’t know why everyone is making such a big stink about this calendar “running out.” Every year our modern calendars run out and we go to a store and buy another one. It’s not that big of a deal, except when it comes to deciding whether your new calendar will be filled with pictures of landscapes, waterfalls, Elvis, or cats.
To prepare for this possible day of reckoning, I have done a few things. First, I’ve listened to the song “Diamonds” by Rihanna a lot. That actually has nothing to do with preparing for the end of the world, but the song has over 88 million hits on YouTube and roughly five thousand of them are from me. I feel like that’s an accomplishment that should be mentioned before the world ends. (For more on this topic, see the next question below.) Second, I got my teeth cleaned by the world’s best dentist. This may not seem like a super important end-of-the-world task, but I beg to differ. When the last flame of destruction is extinguished on this earth, I will come back to life to star on one of the many popular zombie TV shows. Although I may be a zombie, I will also be a TV star, thus requiring bright pearly whites. Finally, I’ve had five nosebleeds. Those who know me also know I do not enjoy the sight of blood, so perhaps my chronic nosebleeds will prepare me for the carnage I’m sure to see while the world is imploding. Personally, I think it has more to do with a recent sinus infection diagnosis I received which probably caused dry nasal passages. Either way, it was a dramatic and terrifying few days for me. It’s possible that I cried three times even though I’m almost 22 years old.
Okay, obviously I’ve done nothing to prepare for the end of the world. And based on the last few days of my life described here, perhaps I should welcome the end with open arms!
Anonymous asked, “How do I shine bright like a perfectly cut diamond?”
Thanks for your question, Anonymous! To give any other readers of this post a little background for your question, Barbados-based singer and modern day philosopher Rihanna has a new single entitled “Diamonds.” In it, she tells us to “shine bright like a diamond” in addition to reminding us that we are “beautiful like diamonds in the sky.” These words will undoubtedly join countless other lyrics in the Rihanna Song Hall of Fame, where phrases like “we found love in a hopeless place,” “come here rude boy, boy can you get it up,” “oh na na, what’s my name,” and “sex in the air, I don’t care, I love the smell of it” have become legends.
The meaning of these inspiring words can be interpreted in a number of ways. That’s what happens when a song is built on such deep and meaningful metaphors. However, to me, shining bright like a diamond means a few things. It means you are enjoying your life, even the most mundane aspects like nosebleeds. Now, I might not have enjoyed my nosebleeds, but I enjoyed being true to my emotions and allowing myself to feel the sorrow, fear, and anxiety the sight of blood put me through. It also means you can do anything you dream of doing. It means you can embrace what makes you beautiful and flaunt it. It means you’re willing to lose all music-taste credibility by admitting you like this song. But mostly it means you’ve downed two long islands and have another in your hand while the other hand clutches a karaoke mic and you’re ready to bring down the house. That’s what shining bright like a diamond means to me, and I hope you’ll agree, dear reader.
Welp, that’s all for now. If you have a question or topic for discussion, simply click here and let me know. Merry Christmas!
Let’s Talk About Our Feelings
Recently, I asked my Facebook friends if there was anything on their minds that they wanted to share with another human being. You know, questions, concerns, or general thoughts about life on this earth. I was lucky enough to receive two very important questions that I will now add my own thoughts to.
First Question: Where did Hostess come up with their product names? Twinkies? Ding Dongs? Ho Ho’s?
Thank you for your thoughts, anonymous reader, although I think you are in fact not anonymous. Rather, I believe this question was submitted by Dawn, the mother of my nearly two-year-old, street fighting niece. Seriously, do not mess with that kid.
Anyway, I must admit that a brief glance at the catalogue of Hostess snacks does sound more like childish nicknames for the lower anatomy. This caused me to delve into some research about the Hostess Company, which of course means I went straight to Wikipedia. I found out that Hostess was started in the 30s and became a larger company as the decades wore on, buying up other bread and pastry companies.
Aside from the previously mentioned Twinkies, Ding Dongs, and Ho Hos, there are a few other names I take offense to. Mainly, the “mini-muffins.” Just what do you mean by muffin, Hostess? Are you talking about a lady muffin? Because Lady Gaga sure means lady muffin when she mentions it in her song “Poker Face.”
The most popular snack cake, the Twinkie, was invented by James Alexander Dewar in Illinois at one of the Hostess factories. He claims to have gotten the name from a billboard he once saw for “Twinkle Toe Shoes.” Uh… I don’t know about you guys, but that explanation is sounding a little weak to me. Perhaps Hostess simply named their innocent snack cakes fun names so as to attract business, only to have those names develop a different meaning as the snacks became intensely popular. We may never know. Especially because Hostess has filed bankruptcy two times in the last four years.
And never forget that if you’ve had too many snack cakes in one day, you can always try to use that as a reason to get out of cold blooded murder.
Second Question: Left lane slow drivers. WTF??? Seriously, why do people not understand how to drive?
Driving requires a lot of information to be packed into our minds, and just as with Science, English, Math, or History, some people are better at it than others. I ask you to recall that weird realization when you’re making friends with someone and you come to see that they do something differently than you. Something really, really basic. For example, the way they put away their freshly washed socks or how they hold their pencil. It’s a little bit of a mind-boggling feeling. Now, take that feeling and speed it up by 60 mph and put everyone in a metal (I use that word loosely) can on wheels. That’s called road rage, and we all have varying degrees of it at different times.
Sure, maybe it would help if there was one set of rules for driving instead of slight differences from state to state, but in the end it’s really just the difference between drivers. Unfortunately, a lot of drivers don’t think of the left lane as a passing lane. They think of it as the I-Have-A-Left-Turn-In-Five-Miles, Let-Me-Get-Over-Now lane.
There are also a number of drivers who get prematurely angry. To explain this statement, allow me to describe an event that sometimes happens to me on the road. I am passing a semi on the left. Suddenly, I see a fast approaching colored blob in one of my mirrors thanks to my peripheral vision. I then glance in the mirror, only to see that a car is going 90 mph and is really upset that I’m not also going 20 mph over the speed limit. If I could talk to this person, I would explain to him or her that I don’t want to go that fast because a) I’m not real into dying young if I can at all help it and b) I’m too poor to constantly pay gigantic speeding tickets. However, I’m unable to convey my feelings to them in a clear and concise hand gesture, as they are lucky enough to do to me.
Driving is crazy. It requires us to be in close quarters with strangers who think and do things differently than us. Because of that, annoyances like the one submitted by this dear and thoughtful reader will always occur.
(Note: If you have a question you’d like to offer up for discussion, please be sure to ask me!)
Reader Questions: Wal-Mart
An anonymous reader recently submitted a question.
He or she said, “Why is it that when I walk into any* Wal-Mart it always smells like Open Ass? (*This happens to me at any Wal-Mart I go to.)”
Here is my response to this wonderful and curious thinker:
I am so flattered that you would trust me to explain this important issue. When one sets out to broach this subject, one must also determine the definition of “open ass.” However, I wouldn’t suggest Googling the phrase, as the search would most likely turn up disturbing, perhaps even kinky, results. Instead, I turned to my friend Urban Dictionary, which lists the top definition of “open ass” as a phrase “used to describe an unpleasant smell.”
It’s funny that you used this phrase to describe a trip to Wal-Mart, as I just had a run-in with an open ass at Meijer, a Wal-Mart competitor, less than 24 hours ago. Near the pharmacy department, a woman stood in line and continually stuck her hand down the back of her pants, reaching as far as to cup the underside of her butt cheek. It was shocking, but made sense as she was wearing elastic ankle sweatpants. (They can easily create a false sense of comfort in public places.)
Anyway, to get to the point, there are a few reasons Wal-Mart stores, no matter the location, tend to smell like a rotting anus. First, there’s often a fast food restaurant located at the front of the store. In the two Wal-Marts I go to, there’s a Subway and a McDonalds. It’s my opinion that the smell of rising bread (in the case of Subway) and souls slowly being crushed (in the case of McDonalds) don’t mix well with the overwhelming scent of lead-filled, manufactured goods from overseas. Second, the low prices of the megastore attract those who think they have trouble affording soap. Notice I said think, because a bar of soap costs 99 cents. I know this because in high school I once visited my local dollar store researching the price so as to better understand why up and coming grade levels of students chose to smell like shit. I also thought about buying bars of soap and throwing it at them in the hallway, but reconsidered after imagining the TV movie that would surely be produced, with me as the villain, based on the tale.
To recap, the fast food restaurants mixed with shoppers who choose to not bathe are most likely the source of your complaint. Let’s hope NBC commissions a new batch of their popular PSAs, “The More You Know,” with public sanitary issues as the message!!!
Bethany’s Guide to the Holidays (Part II)
I recently received a few anonymous questions after my last post entitled “Bethany’s Guide to the Holidays.”
“Dear Bethany,
You are a crafty young woman with lots of insight so I thought you might be able to help me with some fun things to do for my holiday ‘work/staff’ party I’m having at my home. The staff consists of menopausal women, one young and one older single man, and one married man with children (the gym teacher). I was thinking charades, cards, Christmas music, spirits, and NO talk of school or students. Any further suggestions?
White Head from Strawtown”
Dear White Head,
Thanks for all of the compliments. I’m glad to give you some advice on this situation. You seem to be a little worried that the crowd is lopsided, what with all of the menopausal women that will be present. But I say you shouldn’t be concerned. When I hear “the staff consists mostly of menopausal women,” I might as well be hearing, “this party is going to be insanely awesome.” Just because these women have run out of eggs doesn’t mean they don’t know how to party. When a chicken can’t lay an egg, is it any less of a chicken? NO. If you slaughtered it, glazed it with BBQ sauce, and grilled it, would it not still taste like a chicken? IT WOULD. I’ve known a lot of menopausal women in my short lifetime, and nearly all of them have been very wise. And someday, I will be a menopausal woman myself. (Sometimes I worry that “someday” will come too soon and I will never be able to bear children.)
I suggest laying out a few felt vests, fabric paint, sequins, a glue gun, and cat patches. That will keep your menopausal crowd busy. It will also allow them each to leave with a useful party favor. Now, the Christmas music, cards, and spirits sound great. However I can’t say that I support Charades. To me, Charades is a sacred game to be played only with close friends, as it can be embarrassing when you aren’t comfortable with the people you’re playing with. Also, why absolutely “NO talk of school or students?” I would think that’d be the best part of working at a school (the gossiping, that is). You know that kid who is always annoying everyone? TALK ABOUT HIM AND HIS CRAZY MOTHER until the sun comes up. You deserve it, and frankly the kid deserves it, too.
Best of luck & Merry Christmas!
“What are you asking for for Christmas?”
Dear Curious Christmaser,
Because you didn’t include a fun name utilizing alliteration, I made one up for you. I have a few things on my Christmas list, but I really toned it down this year considering I am now in my 20s. So I asked my parents for a couple of items that are probably going to make anyone reading this laugh at me. First, I asked for some pens. A pack of this specific pen I read about online. It’s supposedly really great and doesn’t bleed or smear, but is still a gel pen! I love scribbling down anxiety-fueled reminders to myself so I’m looking forward to this gift. I also asked for a few DVDs. I won’t bore you with all of titles but one that I asked for is called Torn Curtain. It’s a Hitchcock film starring Paul Newman and Julie Andrews. It’s not considered one of Hitchcock’s best, but it’s still really good. I mean, I will watch anything with Paul Newman’s beautiful face in it. And Julie Andrews is probably the classiest woman ever. Other than that I asked for a book, a CD, and some printer paper… yeah.
“Do you pick your nose?”
Dear Nosey About My Nostrils,
I also made up a fun name for your question since you didn’t include one. Anyway, the answer to this question is yes. I have picked my nose before and I will do it again. Anyone on this earth who claims to have never picked their nose is lying and we all know it. Generally, I pick my nose with a tissue. I often do this in public and it embarrasses those I’m with and scares those I’m around. I do not care. To me, covering my finger with a tissue and reaching for the boogers in my nostrils is the best and only way to do it.
“Can you give any relationship advice… for my dog?”
Dear Dating Dog,
Yes, I can give some advice to your dog. First, I would like to know if it is a female or male. But because you didn’t include that information, I will have to throw out some all-around dog dating advice.
If the dog is a male, it should do what a lot of other male dogs do and sniff and lick the private parts of any other living thing. Dogs are so crazy about getting up in people’s business, but they’re even worse when it comes to their fellow animals. My male dog has a particular liking for other male dogs and sometimes my male cat! Despite his obvious homosexuality, he had a hard time getting the message out to my parents that he is gay. So, I helped my dog out by repeatedly telling my parents that he is gay. They’ve had a hard time understanding my dog and his story, but I think they’ll eventually come around.
Now, if your dog is female, tell that bitch (not a curse word, in this instance) to act like other female dogs and be both annoyed and bored when a male dog turns his attentions on her.
“Do you fart a lot?”
Dear Furiously Curious About My Farts,
Yes, I fart a lot. I’ve mentioned in a previous post that I believe when I die and reach the pearly gates, God will tell me I spent a significant percentage of my life farting. I’ve been known to accidentally fart with my bedroom door open, allowing my roommates only feet away to hear every fluctuation in tempo, pitch, and dynamic. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, my roommate is able to tell I’m awake due to the loud farting noises coming from my room. This is my life. I cannot help it. I was born and bred a farter. When my parents and I hang out in the living room, it’s a non-stop farting fest. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. So yeah, any guys reading this: CALL ME!
Do you have a question you’d like me to answer? Simply click here. I’d be glad to help you!
Bethany’s Guide To The Holidays (Part I)
Hello, everyone! Welcome to a special blog post dedicated to one of the busiest and most celebrated times of the year: Christmas. If you’ve looked at the internet at all in the last month or so, you’ve probably seen some articles boasting the best ham recipe and directions for sinful lemon bars. FORGET THOSE FREAKS. I’ll tell you what’s really up with the holidays.
You may be wondering what makes me qualified to hand out such advice. Well, aside from being in my early 20s, having no children nor a spouse, and living in a small basement apartment, I have also never hosted a holiday get-together and have limited baking and cooking skills. So I’m obviously qualified for this sort of advice-giving. Now I will answer reader submitted questions that I didn’t fabricate in order to address holiday issues.
“Dear Bethany,
The other day I was living my life, when suddenly I looked around me and everyone seemed so happy and chipper about the holidays. Then, I dramatically looked at myself in a mirror and realized that I wasn’t smiling. I was grimacing. I’m normally not a Scrooge or Grinch during the Christmas season. What’s happening?
Sincerely,
Deeply Depressed in Delaware”
Well, my devoted reader, the answer is simple: you are suffering from seasonal depression. This is a type of depression that apparently strikes people during the winter months as it is cold, dark, and well, depressing this time of year. As a person who requires little natural sunlight to live, I can say that I’m not sure that lack of sunlight is the real source of seasonal depression. I think people are afflicted by this because everybody makes a big stinking deal about November, December, and New Year’s. Then, on January 2nd, the collective morale of all earth citizens suddenly drops because there are no holidays on the horizon. Think about it, the next holiday people have to “look forward to” is Valentine’s Day, which we all know is super annoying and should really be called “Single People Cry Day.” My advice to you is to pet a sweet little kitten at your local animal shelter, watch a hilarious movie that has little to nothing to do with love in the story line, and avoid dollar stores as they can sometimes make a depressed mood even worse.
“Dear Bethany,
First, I must say that you are very cool. It’s surprising that people aren’t dying to be your friend. Anyway, I’m hosting my very first family get-together this Christmas. I’ve never hosted any sort of event on such a large scale, and I’m utterly lost and confused about where to begin! What do I need to do to make this event a success?
HELP!
Lost and Looney in Long Island”
Thank you so much, Looney. You might be intrigued to learn that I’m not as popular as you think. Weirdly, glancing at the clock every 3 minutes and hardly speaking in class leaves little time to make new friends. Anyway, there are a few basic things you can do. First, you must delegate. Do not, I repeat, do NOT let your extended family and their filthy, sticky children arrive at your house without a food dish. You can be polite and ask them what they’d like to bring, but perhaps you’d like to decide what you want to make first. Maybe you choose to make the ham, mashed potatoes, and gravy. That leaves a variety of food options for your family to bring such as green bean casserole, macaroni and cheese, pies, soda pop, etc. Make sure you have enough seating and be sure to have enough plates, silverware, and cups on hand. Make sure the bathrooms are clean and then lock the doors to all of the other rooms in your house as your nosey extended family doesn’t need access. Set out a deck of cards or a puzzle, turn on a Christmas movie channel, and try to enjoy the day.
“Dear Bethany,
I suffer from terrible social anxiety, and I’m not looking forward to being cramped in a living room with my crazy extended family for hours on end. They always hound me about why I don’t have a boyfriend and it’s embarrassing. We all know they’re secretly assuming I’m a lesbian just because my love life isn’t blooming. I sometimes wonder if I should just find a hobo on the street, give him a shave and a shower, and pay him to pretend to be my boyfriend, all so my family will leave me alone. Do you think I should follow through with my hobo plan?
Thanks,
Sad and Single in Seatt-OMG AUNT SUSAN I’M NOT GAY WHY DID YOU BUY ME A RAINBOW FLAG FOR CHRISTMAS?!”
Wow, what an interesting situation that is. Never forget that nothing is wrong with you, even if you don’t have a blossoming love life. In fact, if you ever feel down, simply go to Google and type in half of a question. You’ll be amazed by the autofill results that pop up and instantly feel better about yourself. (See below)
Also, I’m not sure if your hobo plan is the best idea, only because it sounds kind of dangerous. Consider paying a male friend to pretend to be your boyfriend. Or, better yet, go to your local mall and buy a fake diamond ring or bracelet or something. When your nosey family sees it, they’re bound to ask where you got it. That’s when you tell them all about your “boyfriend,” whom is just a character you’ve made up. It might be a good idea to sort out all of the details of your fake boyfriend ahead of time. This way, you aren’t caught off-guard when your family asks where he’s from and what his name is. You’ll be prepared to say, “His name is Rob and he’s from Calabasas, California. His sisters are in the reality TV industry.” Then, when they ask you if you’re talking about Rob Kardashian, tell them “no!” and give them a dirty look. Then quickly say that Rob’s last name is Smith and his sisters are nuns. That will get them off of your trail of lies. Good luck!
Well, that’s all I have time to answer for now. If you have a holiday question you’d like me to answer, scroll to the top of the page and click “ask.” I’d be glad to help you! Merry Christmas!
