delightfully topsy-turvy
I’m not talking about Justin, who is one of the two people I follow on Twitter.
I’m talking about the site of the same name, which has gems such as these
I went through a McDonald’s drive thru and said “I can has cheeseburger?” There was a pause before I heard “Nom Nom Nom” on the other end. IMMD
My six year old came into the room and asked me if I remembered when I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. IMMD.
Does anyone get the Signals catalog? Or am I the only bleeding heart sucker that donates to my local NPR station and is on the mailing list? Because when that thing arrives, it is, like, the happiest day around here. Because the stuff in that catalog is HILARIOUS. And I’m not just talking about the leg lamp from A Christmas Story. Do you not know what I’m talking about? Here.
The other day when the catalog arrived I basically followed Mr. Zoo around the house, reading him excerpts. The poor guy had just biked home from work and had taken the dogs on a walk, was starving and all “uh huh, yeah, funny, uh huh” while serving himself dinner, and I’m basically haranguing him with crap like the Monet and Van Gogh Tees! STYLISH! And the Binary Code Clock. Clearly for the person who has everything else under the sun and then some.
I do think some of their stuff is wicked cool. Like:
and:
Which I described to Mr. Z by saying “This is kind of cool! Da Vinci’s journal of inventions in pop-up book form! They took his inventions and made them into pop-ups in this book!” because I apparently like to describe things by using the exact same words just in a different order. BRILLIANT. They also have some cool recycled stuff. And, of course, the weiner dog pillow(s).
My favorite, though, is the message tees. OMG. There is little I love more than a good message tee.
And do not even get me started on the Chopin Bored and Chopin Bag. Yeah, they went there! Oh! And their reusable water bottle:
And their “what goes around comes around” ring. A RING. BECAUSE IT’S ROUND. GET IT? I KNOW.
I did, however, put this basket on my wish list. Because it is freaking cool. Advantage: Signals catalog. Well played, Public Television. Well played.
I used to have this roommate and friend who was kind of a bitch (hence, the “used to” part of that sentence). She was one of those people who said things like “Look, I’m just an honest person. I just tell it like it is, and if people don’t like it, that’s their problem.” Except for her, it wasn’t about being honest so much as it was about being rude and callous while insisting people just accept it in the name of her special brand of honesty. Needless to say she was slightly… what’s a nice way to say crazy here irrational. Not to mention her definition of honesty didn’t include remaining faithful to her husband, but hey, WHATEVER, right?! Anyway. This particular person did quite a number on me during our friendship, and while I am willing to take my share of responsibility because people don’t steamroll you unless you let them, I still have some kind of residual trauma when it comes to her and, apparently, the use of the phrase “hey, I’m just being honest.”
I discovered about a week ago that a friend of mine had been pissed at me for 10 days over an extremely benign (in my opinion, obviously, but guess what – this is my blog, not hers) comment I texted her. A comment that was CLEARLY a joke even if I hadn’t added the requisite “:P” emoticon to drive home the point that I was joking (which I did). For the sake of this post, taking into account the type of friendship we’ve had the past nine or so years, we’ll say the comment was something akin to “I like TV.” That wasn’t the comment, the actual comment might be considered too crude for some people’s friendships, but considering the crassness of this particular friend and the way we’ve always traded insults and jokes, my text might as well have been something that harmless and universally unoffensive. At least, it certainly was in my mind, given our history. I am actually still at a loss over what set her off. I mean, it’s TV. Who doesn’t like TV? Seriously, Internet, that’s how inane her reaction is to me. It’s just TV, for the love of Mike!
So yeah, I don’t get what pissed her off to the extent that it took her 10 days to tell me she was angry but that she was “just being honest.” I don’t get it so much that here we are, over a week later, and although I apologized, I haven’t been able to say anything else to her, because now I’M angry. Because her response to my “I like TV” comment was something I, at the time, took as a joke because SEE EARLIER “:P” EMOTICON WHERE I THOUGHT WE WERE JOKING, but then realizing that she was angry and not joking, her response, which for the sake of this post we’ll call “I HATE ANYONE WHO LIKES TV,” is just something I can’t imagine saying to a friend in any seriousness. Add to that the fact that I had also just told her (after the offensive “I like TV” text) that I was a bummed about something specific that she did not and STILL has not acknowledged, and I can’t help but wonder if I’ve misjudged this friendship. I’m trying to put myself in a place of mind where a friend makes me so angry that I tell them I HATE ANYONE WHO LIKES TV and then on top of that, neglect to reach out to them when they tell me they’re worried/depressed, and you know what? I can’t get there. I can’t get to that place where any one I have cared about would piss me off with a handful of words THAT much that I would drop the ball that way.
I don’t like being petty, and I certainly do not like participating in such high-school-esque drama at my advanced age of 37. I know that people make mistakes, have bad days, are allowed to be irritated with their friends once in a while. I do feel like it’s OK that friendships fade as people change. I also feel like when people show you who they are you need to pay attention to that. I’m not saying unequivocally that I’m right and she’s wrong. I just can’t figure out what, at this point, I am willing to let go.
