New and Improved Stereotypes

As one-half of an interracial marriage, and as someone with an innate sense of justice and equality, I'm interested in how and why we develop and perpetuate stereotypes. Well, here's a website full of "new and improved stereotypes to teach your kids." And might I just say, they got these so right...

• Black People Can Extinguish A Fire Just by Dissing It (During the great Chicago fire of 1871, it took nearly 100 men implying the inferno's mother was promiscuous to smother the blaze.)
• White People Secretly Know How to Breathe Underwater (But they won't teach anyone else.)

There's a new and improved stereotype for everyone: the Irish, Germans, Belgians, Jews, Asian men, New Yorkers, and left-handed people, just to name a few. Go have a laugh.

How people without kids spend Halloween

We could have embraced our fading youth and dressed up all sexy and silly, hit any one of the local bars holding costume contests, and enjoyed ghoulish cocktails. Or we could have gone all domestic and made a nice corn chowder and some caramel apples. We even could have watched "The Great Pumpkin" while carving a few of our own. Instead, we spent Halloween acting like 78-year-olds. (And we didn't even need costumes!)

James started the afternoon with a trip to the doctor for an annual check-up, where he narrowly escaped a prostate exam after explaining to the nurse that he wasn't there for quite such a comprehensive physical. "Yeah," she said. "We don't usually do them on guys under 40."

I joined him at the hospital to keep him company while he waited to get blood work done. He was in and out in a few minutes, but then we waited for nearly an hour for someone to call him for another test, only to find out that the young, cleavage-showing Cleopatra (complete with headdress) hadn't ordered it.

By the time we were done at the hospital, James was starving, having just fasted for over 12 hours for the blood work. I told him we could go wherever he wanted to eat. We made our way to Bob Evans, where we were at the front-end of the Early Bird crowd. We fit right in with our beef tips and noodles, pot roast sandwich, and coleslaw.

Next we drove across the street to Rite Aid so James could drop off a prescription and I could get a brace for my wrist, which I'd somehow hurt while taking pillow cases off of pillows and then chasing after the cat. (I'm lucky it's just a sprain. Bones get brittle as we age.) While at the pharmacy, I decided to pick up some Preparation-H Medicated Wipes, since I'd noticed earlier in the day that we were running low.

James and I lurked around Rite Aid, waiting for his prescription to be filled. While perusing the wide array of dental floss currently on the market, I turned to him and said, "We've really had a geriatric Halloween."

"Maybe when we get home you can rub some BENGAY on me," he said.

Trick or treat, everybody. Trick or treat.

Whispering Sweet Nothings

James, also known as The Husband, has a habit of talking out loud just as he starts to fall asleep. A lot of the time this consists of grunts and mumbles and surprised "huh!" sounds. But just as often, I get snippets of narrative that make me wish I could see inside his mind.

He freaked me out the first time this happened, since he sounded wide awake when he said, "Look at that guy in the yellow coat!"

Here are two of his most recent gems:

They got these chairs on the boat of life, next to the birthing and deathing sections.... Do you want to let the hot air balloons off from there?

It's going to be tough as pie to eat all the jovial cookie treats!

There's wisdom and profundity in these, I'm sure of it.

How Did You Find Me?

Awhile back I admitted to being a wee bit obsessed with my Google Analytics numbers, especially the map that shows where my readers live. I've calmed down a bit in the checking-my-stats-multiple-times-a-day-department, but I still love to look at the map overlay and see that I have some regular readers in Canada, England, and all around the States. And I still get excited when a new city or country shows up on the map. It's like stamp collecting, only interesting.

Geography aside, today I want to talk about search terms and keywords. According to my statistics, this blog has received 115 visits from 100 keywords since I installed Google Analytics back in March. And oh the keywords that have been used! Some make a lot of sense. Things like "The Word Cellar" or "McGuiggan" have brought a few people here. But others, like "bombastic example sentence" and "Michael Jackson cream" are a bit unexpected.

Appreciated. But unexpected.

Here is a collection of some of the more noteworthy words and phrases that have landed people on this blog.

First bra stories are disturbingly popular:

• 1st bra
• "first bra"
• first bra stories
• "fifth grade" "first bra"
• "first bra" "video"
• "first bra" "stories”
• first training bra

The kits and their litter box shenanigans garnered some modest attention:

• litterless litter box
• cat box litterless
• home made pee soup (I have a hunch that this was a typo on the part of the searcher.)

The topic of sororities is the most popular item by far:

• sorority humiliation stories
• "joining a sorority"
• christians and sororities
• christians in sororities
• fake sorority
• first impressions count sorority
• glad i didn't pledge a sorority
• pounding the pledges
• sorority pledge humiliation
• sorority pledge week stories
• sorority poem excuses
• sorority secret language used during underground pledging

Not too surprisingly , terms like word, cellar, and stories are popular. But look what configurations they get into:

• 55 word stories
• alternatives for the word said
• another word for cellar bar
• creepy cellar stories and poems
• empty cellar syndrome
• how do you write the word hello in chinese
• illustrated short pillow stories
• in the cellar eating sour fruit poem
• morning word to tell a lady
• sad dinosaur story
• sayings with the word summer in it
• spirit cellar phones
• bees and the cellar phone
• "what is so interesting about the word" "serendipity"
• what kind of stories do knitters tell?
• words and stories suitable for jewish weddings

Here are some of the more random, amusing, and confusing search terms:

• "chicks dig pink" shirt
• "michael jackson cream"
• "od' und leer das meer" translation
• "yellow junipers"
• at.the.drive.in band photography
• bombastic example sentence
• public humiliation husband
• english accent smarter
• regret rolling off his tongue
• "retail" "how can i help you"
• immigrant quotes at seeing statue of liberty
• "sniffles" "buffy the vampire slayer" "cold sick"
• fall arrives so suddenly, no time to mourn the summer
• i choose my friends only far too well, i'm up on the pavement they're all down in the cellar

An Exercise in Overkill (Or, Stick with what you know)

For those of you keeping abreast of the shoe situation:

Did you know that Shoes.com has free shipping? And free returns? It's like having a shoe store in your home!

So in a last minute panic to find footwear for BlogHer, I ordered seven pairs of shoes. Seven. (Note to procrastinators: Rush shipping ain't free. Argh.)

Here are the shoes I ordered, hoping to find one or two pairs that worked:

Here are the shoes I actually took to BlogHer. (Note: Only two of the Shoes.com brood made the cut.) (Also note peeping toe with French pedicure cuteness at bottom of frame.)

And here are the shoes I actually wore at BlogHer:

Two pair of flip-flops that I already owned!

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to package up six pairs of shoes for a free return trip. (The Skechers may get to stay, I'm still not sure.)