Category Archives: About a Freak

March 11, 2013 · 1:00 pm

Relaxing the Nerd

history George Washington Avalon Tolkien booksI’ve never denied that I’m a huge nerd. There’s just no point.

For reasons that are varied and debatable, nerds such as myself find great satisfaction in cultural items that contain myth and magic, and it is preferable that these things be wrapped in a package that offers elements of the epic and obscurely historical.

Case in point: Tolkien stories, and the movies inspired by them. This past Saturday, we finally saw The Hobbit. While I have great respect for an author (especially one who didn’t take himself too seriously), and appreciate the purist view regarding its ideal of preservation, I just have to say that I freaking love the Peter Jackson interpretations, and I don’t care if that makes me uncool. And yes, I’ve read the books.

Continue reading →

Leave a Comment

Filed under About a Freak

Tagged as , , , , , ,

August 17, 2012 · 1:00 pm

“After” Jenkins, by Mark Twain

Mark Twain portraitI always enjoy Mark Twain’s short stories. He seems to have a thing about glass eyes, and I think it’s hilarious.

Today, I give you the piece “After” Jenkins, which recounts the dress of ladies at a ball, parodying newspaper society columns:

A grand affair of a ball–the Pioneers’–came off at the Occidental some time ago. The following notes of the costumes worn by the belles of the occasion may not be uninteresting to the general reader, and Jerkins may get an idea therefrom:

Mrs. W. M. was attired in an elegant ‘pate de foie gras,’ made expressly for her, and was greatly admired. Miss S. had her hair done up. She was the center of attraction for the envy of all the ladies. Mrs. G. W. was tastefully dressed in a ‘tout ensemble,’ and was greeted with deafening applause wherever she went. Mrs. C. N. was superbly arrayed in white kid gloves. Her modest and engaging manner accorded well with the unpretending simplicity of her costume and caused her to be regarded with absorbing interest by every one.

Continue reading →

Leave a Comment

Filed under About a Freak

Tagged as , , , ,

June 18, 2012 · 1:00 pm

Cavewoman Goes to Kohl’s

cavewoman with clubI know it sounds ridiculous, but department stores and shopping malls make me feel like a neanderthal.

As a work-at-home new mom in a one-car family, I don’t get out much. If I am out to shop, it’s most likely for food and other necessities. So, I can navigate the grocery store and local quick stops.

But if there aren’t grid like aisles and an airy produce section, I’m easily confused.

Fortunately, I’ve never been a fan of the mall or big box stores, so avoiding them is generally not too tough.

Over the weekend, however, I ventured to Kohl’s to buy a bridal gift from a friend’s registry.

Continue reading →

2 Comments

Filed under About a Freak

Tagged as , , , , , ,

December 16, 2011 · 1:00 pm

Short Short: Olive, Oliver and Olivia

creepy triplets dollOlive, Oliver and Olivia were triplets. Aside from their well-shaped names, there was nothing balanced about them.

Olive was the oldest of the three, and only had one leg. She was also missing two fingers on her left hand.

Oliver, the middle triplet, was said to be her counterpart with extra digits on each hand and extremely long limbs.

Olivia was the graced child, the “normal” one, the baby bear – not too big, not too small and just the right number of appendages. Of course, the fact that she had only one eye and an extra nostril detracted a bit from her apparent perfection.

Continue reading →

2 Comments

Filed under About a Freak

Tagged as , , , ,

October 7, 2011 · 1:00 pm

Short Short: Mae

For some reason, whenever I do these short short character things, they turn out mildly disturbing. Hmmm…

*

Mae stood at the top of the stairs, watching the delicate body of her classmate tumble down the steps to the marble floor below. She wasn’t even making any noise, other than that of her flesh and bones bumping against the rails and edges on her way down.

She wouldn’t die or anything, of that Mae was certain. The flight to the first floor was only 10 steps or so, and plenty of students fell down them in the rushes to classes and meals. No, the nuns would fuss about her, clean her up and let her spend the rest of the day curled up in front of the one television in the school, probably with a plate of cookies and her ugly stuffed teddy bear.

Continue reading →

Leave a Comment

Filed under About a Freak

Tagged as , , , ,

September 19, 2011 · 1:00 pm

Deep Fried Snickers Bars are Irish…?

It’s true – I ate a deep fried Snickers bar… on a stick. It was tasty, strange, and probably a bad idea. No regrets though. No regrets.

Around this time every September, the Michigan Irish Festival throws down in Muskegon, MI, which is along the shores of Lake Michigan. I’ve been attending for a few years now, and let’s just say that this year was by far the tamest for yours truly (as my case of 9-month incubatitis doesn’t allow alcohol consumption). I didn’t climb up any bridges, dance foolishly with a stout in my hand or skin my knees trying to “save” a drunk friend from getting run over by cars.

I did, however, eat way too much greasy food. A lesson was later learned by means of jittery nerves and heartburn. The full list is too embarrassing to relate here, but you’ll be happy to know that the fried chocolate bar was truly the crowning glory of the binge. I’d been waiting all week to enjoy a dessert – any dessert – at the festival. Though I hadn’t anticipated experiencing something that looked like a corn dog and tasted like Paula Dean’s version of a quirky treat.

Continue reading →

Leave a Comment

Filed under About a Freak

Tagged as , , , , , ,

August 15, 2011 · 1:00 pm

My Boyfriend, He Be a Rockstar

This is my husband. He plays keyboard in a band when he’s not handling dead bodies at the airport or rocking out on our upright grand.

Sometimes I like to call him my boyfriend. He was my boyfriend for five years, when we were young and so in love – good times. We’re still young and (even more) in  love, but now and then it’s fun to feel younger and in newer love. You get it.

Anyway, this is him, and I want to take a second to spotlight him as the most important person in my life. He’s truly a rockstar husband.

Continue reading →

2 Comments

Filed under About a Freak

Tagged as , , , ,

February 10, 2011 · 10:13 pm

The Night I Met Lurch

My husband works second shift in a cargo office at our local airport. My 9-5 is just minutes down the road, and I occasionally visit him afterward for a dinner date.

What is airline cargo, you ask? Parts? Tools? Merchandise? Yes. Pets too? Most certainly. Many pure-bred puppies and kittens spend frustrated hours caged-up in his office, nicely complementing the stank of stale cigar already hanging in the air.

But you may not guess what the most common type of cargo is – the shipments that take up most of my husband’s time, and are so large that they must be driven in a cart from air craft to cargo office to customer vehicle.

Continue reading →

11 Comments

Filed under About a Freak, Death etc..

Tagged as , , , , , ,

October 8, 2010 · 12:02 am

Beastly, Part 2 of 2

I knew I’d get around to it eventually. When I posted Beastly, Part I, I did not realize that my life would be taken over by my decision to become a vegetarian.

Fortunately, I have my husband to remind me that it is bad manners and poor self-marketing to leave a story unfinished.

So now, after long delay and several empty promises, I give you Beastly, Part II:

The extensive wine cellar was the only thing that got AnaMadeline through the next few days.

Continue reading →

Leave a Comment

Filed under About a Freak, Sex of Sorts

Tagged as

June 13, 2010 · 4:27 pm

Beastly, Part 1 of 2

AnaMadeline hated everything about Brute.

She hated the cheap musk cologne masking his animal stink, which reminded her of a petting zoo orgy.

She detested his forced table manner delicacy – all that napkin folding and pinky lifting.

She loathed the fine clothes covering his monstrous form.

Mostly, she hated the way he looked at her, his yellow, seeping eyes wide with mock innocence when he spoke to her, heavy lidded and staring when he thought she was distracted.

“I have fleas you know,” she said once. “And a third nipple.”

Continue reading →

Leave a Comment

Filed under About a Freak, Sex of Sorts

Tagged as , , , ,