Everybody, Everybody

The summer after I graduated from high school, my friend Matt told me about a hilarious website. I went home and looked it up, and watched my first Strong Bad Email on a computer without sound. It was less amusing that way, but when I did find a computer that worked, I became an instant fan.

homestarrunner.com is a site that features cartoons made by “The Brothers Chaps,” Mike and Matt Chapman. The stars of these cartoons are several characters that look as if the brothers took a sketchbook full of doodles and picked out the silliest ones to give a voice (by Matt and Mike’s wife Missy) and personality (animated by Mike) to.

There is a button in the top right corner of the main page with the words “first time here?” on it. A short cartoon plays, and Homestar Runner welcomes you to the webpage. Or he tries to. Eventually Strong Bad shoves him aside, stating, “You don’t know it yet, but I’m the reason you’re here. Seriously.” Homestar sticks his head back in, adding, “It’s true!"

The site began in 2000, with several cartoons featuring Homestar Runner and his pal Pom Pom, with bad guys Strong Bad, Strong Mad, and The Cheat, in addition to several background characters. When I first discovered the site, they had already begun Strong Bad Emails, but they had just barely reached 50 emails.

It would take a very careful observer to measure how much of my speech comes from homestarrunner.com quotes. I only notice when I’m quoting something when I change my voice to do it. I notice I’m quoting H*R.com when I sing, “Y-O-U-R! Y-O-U-apostrophe-R-E! They’re as different as night and day-hey! Don’t you think that night and day are different? What’s wrong with you?” (From the easter egg in the local news sbemail). But I don’t necessarily pay attention to the fact that I’m quoting from the website when I say things like “I’m hesitant” (from an episode of Teen Girl Squad).

Occasionally I will get a text message from my brother which says something like: “Marzipan, look. This is Goatface. I have a goat for a face. Like, not that I have a goat’s head for a face or that my head is a goat’s head; my face is an entire goat.” (From Marzipan’s Answering Machine #12.) I will often respond with the next line, or something that the quote reminds me of, like, “You know good’n’well that I’ve dreamt of bein’ in a Goatface Club ever since I was a moderately-sized baby!"

My first year in college, one of my friends and I would watch sbemail #58 every night before we went to bed. “Trogdor was a maaaan... I mean, he was a dragon-man... or maybe he was just a dragon... but he was still TROGDOR!!!” This also influenced our language: we began to pronounce “dragon” with the g and r switched. We even called innocent dragons that had nothing to do with homestarrunner.com “dagron”s.

The only person who did not seem to be dying to exchange quotes with me and watch the cartoons over and over with me was my husband. He’d shrug and say “eh, I just don’t find it that funny.” To which I would respond, gesturing at the computer screen, “but it’s hilarious!” At least he didn’t mind that I continued to constantly consume the site’s new content as well as the old. One day I walked into the living room to find Strong Bad on the computer screen, and to my amazement, my husband was sitting in front of it. He submitted to questioning, & sheepishly admitted, “I guess I kinda like it."

Tragically, in 2009, the updates began to drop off. The Brothers Chaps were moving on and up to bigger and better things. Together with Telltale Games, they made a five episode Strong Bad video game. Strong Bad is also featured in Poker Night at the Inventory (alongside Tycho of Penny Arcade, The Heavy from Team Fortress, and Max of Sam & Max), a game where the user plays poker with and listens to the chat between the other players.

Those who troll the Homestar Wiki still watch vigilantly for updates. I’ve never been one of those fans who yell things like “HOW DARE YOU GO ON A HIATUS FROM WORKING HARD TO SHARE FREE CONTENT ON THE INTERNET, YOU TERRIBLE PERSON!!!!1!” I don’t often check the website anymore, but when I do it’s not just to see if there’s something new.

I usually go to homestarrunner.com to watch old cartoons and remember the fun times that were had when I was first watching them or sharing them with someone else. If The Brothers Chaps decide that they want to start making more cartoons starring the H*R crew, I’ll be there. If they never do again, that won’t stop me from enjoying what they’ve already shared.

But don't take my word for it. I think that everybody, everybody will enjoy at least some part of homestarrunner.com. And if you do, let me know. I will give you the highest of fives. (Except for you, Nebulon. No one likes your style.)

A Page on Chocolate

I was sitting at the kitchen table as my mother was in raptures about chocolate. She was always great about attempting to inspire me to do my homework, but this time the act of inspiring me became what I turned in.

Neither she nor I can remember now exactly what the assignment was, only that it involved candy; probably a one page writing assignment about my favorite kind of Valentine or Easter candy. I wasn’t completely bereft of source material, I just wasn’t sure that it would fill up a page.

I was always freaking out about the amount I was assigned to write in sixth grade. It wasn’t until I was a senior in college that I learned that if I quit fussing, calmed down, and just wrote until I was finished saying what I wanted to say that I would usually write enough for the necessary page count. Sometimes I would write more than necessary, and sometimes less, but in those instances at least I knew that I had said all I needed to. In sixth grade, even with my big handwriting, I was still twitchy about being able to fill up a page.

My favorite kind of Easter candy isn’t all that interesting, since it’s the same answer I would give if someone asked me what my favorite Halloween candy is, or my favorite Christmas candy... I like Reese’s Peanut Butter cups. Egg shaped ones at Easter, pumpkin shaped ones at Halloween, tree shaped ones at Christmas, and Reese’s Peanut Butter cups shaped ones for every other day of the year. The first time I was pregnant, the only thing I wanted to eat when I got off work was a handful of mini Reese’s Peanut Butter cups.

Miss Haefle assigned us at least one writing assignment in our writing journals every week, and it was never usually longer than one page. I usually fretted about whatever topic had been assigned, and my mother would usually prod me with questions to help me think of what to fill the page with.

Uninspired, I sat there while she tried to entice me with thoughts of chocolate, but my unenthusiastic monosyllabic responses sent her into a tirade about the differences between dark and milk chocolate, the audacity of sullying the chocolate with nuts or other foreign objects, and her own preference for one brand over another.

The page slowly filled up as I copied down all of these thoughts, my mouth half open in amazement. I was fairly certain she never talked that enthusiastically about me, and I added that thought. By the time she was finished talking about chocolate, I was finished writing my assignment. Sure, I like chocolate, but apparently not as much as my mother does.

She and I always laugh about that scene when we remember it. I can still see her standing there by the sink, flourishing her wrist while she talked about Hershey’s Kisses. She distracted me enough to make me forget about my apprehension for the assigned length of my homework and inspired me to enjoy doing it, even if it was just a page on chocolate.

Spring Means Yardwork

I love taking a drive (or a walk) through a lovely Spring afternoon. The sun is shining, birds are singing, and a lovely breeze drifts by, bringing the scent of flowers and recently mown grass.

On glorious days such as this, I get started thinking about what kind of plants and trees I want to have when my husband and I decide it’s time to own some land of our own. Mostly it’s things that were in the backyard when I was a kid: lilac bushes, some spiraea, peonies, and of course some apple trees, a few raspberry bushes, and maybe a little strawberry patch. I would love to have several flower beds, and a nice sized garden during the summer. Sweet corn tastes the best when it was growing half an hour ago.

When I was a kid, we lived in a great big house on a huge lot that took up a good quarter of a block. There was a huge front yard, a gigantic backyard, and tons of room to run on either side of the house. I can remember my dad mowing the lawn while we picked up sticks ahead of him.

My dad now owns lots of his own lawns. He has rental properties all over town, and so it’s snow and ice removal in the winter and lawn care during the rest of the year. My brothers help him out; my youngest brother has been known to drive around all summer with a couple of mowers in the back of his truck, for grass clipping emergencies.

Earlier this week I walked through the yard of the house where my parents live, picking up all of the sticks I could see and dumping them in my dad’s old trailer, which is held together through the sheer force of his will. My dad came behind me with the lawn mower for the first grass cutting of the year. It was a nice workout and I got pretty sweaty, despite the fact that it was nice and cloudy and even rained a little bit.

I’ll be very excited to hit the home & garden center to choose the plants that we will plant in our own yard someday. Our kids will hopefully be big enough by then to pick up the sticks.

Being Mommy

It is amazing how your priorities change when you become a parent. You are suddenly so invested in taking care of another human being that your own basic needs become secondary.

You know you are a mother when a nursing bra and a pair of old athletic shorts are the outfit you wear all day. You consider this “getting dressed."

You know you are a mother when you brag to your friends or your mom that you "got to take a shower today!" You are confused when they don’t offer to give you a high five.

You know you are a mother when you are okay with wandering around with spit up, slobber, and mucus on your shirt. You are disdainful of your partner when he changes a t-shirt with the tiniest evidence of baby kisses on it. (Plus, that’s just more laundry to do.)

It’s very difficult to solve the dilemma of showing off your child. On one hand, you and your child are most comfortable at home, but your home is most likely a mess, so having people over would not be your first choice. Leaving your home to visit with friends or family at a restaurant, church, or a nice clean house sounds like a good idea, but by the time you get out the door, you may be looking back at your house thinking that it may have been easier to just clean it instead.

You never really realize how much stuff you need to take with you when leaving the house with a small child until you’re 20 minutes late getting out the door the first time after bringing the baby home. I could list them all out here, but I would most likely forget a few things, and if you aren’t a parent you wouldn’t believe me anyway. Suffice it to say that it is an insanely high amount of things, and increases exponentially with the amount of children you have. The ridiculous thing is that while you’re packing these things into 6 or 8 bags, you know that they are all things you need, or at least would be really good to have in case of any number of varying accidents.

You know you are a mother when you read something like this and nod along in complete agreement. For everyone else: maybe someday you’ll understand. For those of you who won’t, I’m sorry for you. Being a parent is the best thing in the world. Even with the yucky noses.

Passion for the Past: a Rant

“Go to the gym!"

It was no wonder that when I graduated from high school I could not tell you a single historical fact that I had not already learned in elementary school: I heard the phrase “go to the gym” more often than any actual historical information in my high school history classes. Our teacher hadn’t gone to the trouble of establishing discipline in his classes, and so the students saw them as a joke.

Often he would release us to go run our energy off instead of trying to shout us down. On the days he actually did feel like teaching a lesson, we would get screamed at until we sat down, bewildered, and were forced to take notes. The next day we would be back to talking to our friends, hurriedly finishing math homework for later (just try to cross the math teacher), or joshing around with the teacher.

Sometimes he would try to get us involved in taking notes by asking one of the students to write them up on the board for the others as he read them. My brother tells a story of one such instance, where instead of helping, he rambunctiously scribbled gibberish on the board for half the class before the brownnoser in the class spoke up, “Mr. Bell, Jason’s not writing anything!” after which the class was sent to the gym.

I have no idea how he got away with teaching for so long; the only explanation I have is that he lacked the passion for history to inspire it in his students and we were content to learn nothing if it meant we could have one more hour of the day to use as a study hall or to play basketball. The only year I learned anything in history class is the year we spent watching Ken Burns’ Civil War documentary.

I was dazzled when I sat down for the first lecture of my Western Civilization class at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Facts were being presented to me, but it was in such a way that I didn’t mind scribbling them all down. I also spent just as much time taking notes as I did recording hilarious things the professor would say, from pithy rhymes to help us remember dates to Monty Python quotes. I had no idea that a history lesson could be so much fun. Shortly thereafter, I skipped down to the Arts & Sciences office to declare a major, vaguely wondering why I had always hated history class in high school.

In the years that followed I found that not every history professor was the same. Some gave you the facts without any embellishment. Those lectures were pretty boring, but I still learned. One professor added so much about her trips to the country she was an expert in that I never knew what to take notes on and what to listen to while politely nodding. This was torturous, and what was even worse was having to take the class again after I failed it the first time.

The best professors were definitely the ones with the passion for history that you could actually see in their eyes: when Dr. Gorman talked about Caesar, when Dr. Levin prattled on about Elizabeth I, and when Dr. Witte ranted about the injustices inflicted on the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by the Belgians.

It makes me so sad that I could have been loving history all through high school, but instead I was in the gym, sitting on the bleachers gossiping with my friends.

So thank you, Dr. Gorman, for stimulating my interest in Ancient Greece and Rome. Thank you, Dr. Levin, for reminding me why I love being a history major. And thank you, Dr. Witte, for inspiring me to become a history major in the first place.

And if anybody sees Mr. Bell, tell him I’ve got a punch reserved for his face that’s about 15 years overdue.

Being Sick

My throat hurts!

When I was a kid, being sick meant snuggling. My mom would baby us: hug us, feel our foreheads, and just generally made sure we knew that she would do everything she could for us until we felt better. All we had to do was sleep and eat something if we felt up to it.

Now, as an adult with my own kids, feeling icky and cuddling with my Mommy is not an option (mostly because she’s 500 miles away). Instead, my husband has to use a sick day to stay home to look after the girls while I pass out and then maybe eat something if I’m feeling up to it.

The first time my husband got really sick, I was a bit alarmed. Not because when I felt his forehead he was burning up, but more because he didn't want me to feel his forehead. He also didn’t appreciate my attempts to get him something to drink, maybe some soup... he just wanted me to leave him alone, and went so far as to growl at me to get out. Both of us were confused: I wanted to take care of him like my mom did for me, and he didn’t get why I wouldn’t just go to the store to get him some orange juice and sprite like his mom would have.

I understand a bit better now what he wants me to do when he is sick. I can ask if he wants something to drink, or urge him to eat, but not so much that he gets annoyed. Mostly he wants me to take away empty cups or remake cold tea and let him sleep.   
When I’m sick, I give him instructions. “Come over here and feel my forehead. Now give me a hug. I’ll tell you when to stop. Don’t worry about the laundry, I’ll do it later.” Then he leaves me to sleep, so I call my mom.

"Mommy, my throat hurts!” I say.

She says, “My baby!” and I instantly feel a little better.

Crafty

Almost everyone in the world has a hobby. There are those who painstakingly build miniature worlds just the right scale for a tiny train to travel through. Others carefully assemble and paint small replicas of soldiers to place on a tabletop battlefield in order to mock fight the replicas put together and painted by their opponents. Some people spend hours working on skills, such as juggling or dancing, in order to entertain others. Hobbies are things we work at in our spare time in order to enjoy the outcome.

Most hobbies, especially arts and crafts, require more than just yourself. One can’t knit without needles. The worst part about a hobby is that you often don’t get paid for it. On top of that, the materials required to do it are usually expensive. When you’re finally finished with a project, there’s the problem of what to do with it. One can only have so many cross stitched pillows before they have to be gotten rid of somehow.

Many of my hobbies have fallen into the “crafting” category. I enjoy the process of creating things, and as a kid, my Aunt Andrea made sure I had plenty of opportunities. She was a frequent customer of Klutz Press, and it seemed like for every Christmas and every birthday I got craft kits. The great thing about stuff from Klutz is that not only do you get an instruction book, but you also get materials so that you can start immediately.

I got a kit to make things out of polymer clay in elementary school. I made miniature food, tons of beads, and a paperweight shaped like a truck for my dad. (I wanted to put “DATSUN” on the tailgate, a nickname I had for him, but it ended up being too small; I barely fit the word “DAD” on it.)

In junior high I got a book on how to make hemp necklaces. They were very popular at the time, but since I didn’t use it immediately, by the time I got the book out and started making them, no one wanted to buy them from me (they were very willing to accept them as gifts, however). The nice part about the necklaces was that I could use all of the clay beads I had made when I was younger. I even got out my clay kit and made more. I spent less time doing that than I spent in the bead aisles of the local craft stores, though.

Later in high school I recieved a beaded ring kit, complete with a rainbow assortment of tiny translucent plastic beads and a spool of wire. I immediately started on the ideas presented by the instruction book, but my friends were no more eager to pay for these trinkets than they were to pony up the cash for the necklaces. At some point a friend and I had started using embroidery floss to make necklaces, and I was able to use the same beads for these more delicate necklaces as I was for the beaded rings.

When my husband and I graduated from college, I didn’t order graduation announcements. Instead I bought some cards with the university crest on them from the university bookstore and some nice pens and wrote every single one of the graduation announcements out by hand. I enjoyed it, and I doubt I could have found a printer that wouldn’t have charged me tons to print my BA in History information alongside my husband’s BEE in Electrical Engineering information.

I fell in with some cardmaking types after we moved to Colorado (far less dangerous than falling in with a biker gang, but possibly more expensive). Card making is Scrapbooking’s little sister; both hobbies use a lot of the same materials, but a card project is finished more quickly than a scrapbooking project. The awesome thing about card making is that you don’t have to agonize over what to do with the finished product, since you usually begin the project with the knowledge of who is going to receive it. I used these newly acquired skills and ideas to make birth announcements for myself and for a friend. My encouraging Aunt Andrea had given me a paper making kit in while I was in college, but I haven’t used it yet. Now that I’ve unearthed it from the various moving boxes, I’ll be able to use it to make card paper instead of buying paper at the craft store.

My mother has taken up crocheting recently, and so my sister-in-law and I did, too. We go “yarning” together, walking up and down the craft store aisles bursting with yarn, choosing the prettiest colors, the most interesting yarn. My sister-in-law has also taught herself to knit, and she is not often seen without her crafting bag and some interesting project coming to life in her hands.

I have several boxes full of leftover crafting products. Old clay beads, bags full of hemp cord and embroidery floss, tupperware stuffed with glass and plastic beads, and spools of wire. Another box is full of yarn leftover from a recent project in addition to a small box with cardmaking materials in it. There is one box dedicated to finished hemp and embroidery floss necklaces, made by me and my friend Elizabeth. I’m not sure how much we spent on the materials to make them in the first place, but if I could get them sold, she and I would be splitting quite a large amount of money.

Sometimes I wonder if there’s a market for them anymore. Elizabeth and I took them to a couple of different craft fairs, but barely made up the amount it had cost us to set up a table in the first place. Today, smart crafters use etsy. You can find just about anything there; it’s “your place to buy and sell all things handmade, vintage, and supplies."

I enjoy all my crafting hobbies. I love the process of creating something, whether it’s a piece of jewelry or a huge, thick blanket. While I have spent far more money on the materials to make things than I have made money on them, I still like to craft. And someday, I’ll give away or sell the things I’ve made.

Anybody want to buy a necklace?