And that’s why I buy Girl Scout cookies from every girl of every age* who asks. Someone else bought the cookies 15-25 years ago when I was in Troop 39, Napa-Solano Council, so I could do all the things above and be in the same organization as these women and so many more over the past 100 years of Girl Scouting.

Now, it’s my turn.

You want to help, too? Girl Scout Cookie Finder.

*And if you weren’t around back in the dark ages when I posted it, here’s my blog on Ageism, Girl Scout Cookies, and the Internet.

[pause for nerds to chortle]

Unfortunately, I ran out of yarn at point 41. Therefore, this is named One Exit Left.

The strange thing for me has been the response to this pretty thing I made. I’m actually kind of sick of it, because it went from two stitches to DeargodamIdonewiththisrowyet length, but I wore it to work because HI I MADE THINGS!

And as I’m writing this, a coworker walked up behind me and said, “I WANT THAT SCARF”.

I told her, “You can take it off my cold, dead neck. And only if you want to fight my zombified corpse.”

(If you want all the gory details about yarn and needle size and such, click the picture and it’ll take you to the Ravelry project page)

This is Tortuguero Monument 6. It is a Mayan calendar, one of several that reckoned calendar and ritual dates differently. Each of those glyphs are an individual number. See that smashed bit in the bottom right hand corner?

That smashed bit, where you can’t read the numbers correctly?

That’s what damnfools are trying to scare your money out of you with by saying it predicts the ‘end of the world’.

What’s the fastest way to know you’re dealing with a damnfool?

Well, other than saying OMG THE WORLD IS GOING TO END IN 2012!!!, they’re using the Monolito de la Piedra del Sol to illustrate their scare tactics.

(Also if they refer to the Mayans as extinct. My buddy E would like to discuss that with them, but they probably can’t since they likely don’t speak the same Nahuatl (in English that language is called MAYAN) he grew up speaking in the Yucatan*.)

And then we have the sublime:

And then we have the just plain awesome.

I hope your day is merry and bright, mine is, as usual, very Californian.

Our intrepid heroine, MARY SUE, is on the phone with her parents while purposely dropping hundreds of stitches she had oh so carefully spent weeks putting into a shawl.

DAD
Oh, hey, what do you need for that Coca
Cola glaze you did on the ham that one time?

MARY SUE
A can of Coke and brown sugar.
[beat] Guess this means I’ll
be doing the ham on Christmas Eve?

DAD
Well, we liked it so much, figured you could do it again.

END SCENE

Don’t You Realize Fat Is Unhealthy?
If you scratch an article on the obesity! crisis! you will almost always find a press release from a company that’s developing a weight loss drug — or from a “research group” that’s funded by such companies.

The History of BMI and Why We Still Use It
Belgian polymath Adolphe Quetelet devised what we now know as the BMI equation in 1832 as a way to define the “normal man.” He never intended for the equation (weight equals height squared) to be used to determine body fat — his project was intended to describe the standard proportions of the human build.

Cut the Snarky Fashion Judgement Crap
I know it’s supposed to be a joke, ha ha, leggings are not pants is as important as the other issues, how funny. Only it’s not funny. It’s body policing. It’s classist, ableist, judgemental bullshit wrapped up in a fluff piece for a highly visible online women’s magazine.

Devouring the World
I really think a whole lot of thin people who eat restrictively — whether in a diagnosably disordered way or merely an “I AM GOOD! I EAT CELERY!” way — believe deep down that they are just barely keeping a lid on their own desire to devour the world. And they assume all fat people have just failed to keep a lid on the same desire — so if we go unpunished for that, we’re getting away with a “crime” they believe they work very hard not to commit.

The Fantasy of Being Thin
But exhortations like that don’t take into account magical thinking about thinness, which I suspect — and the quote above suggests — is really quite common. Because, you see, the Fantasy of Being Thin is not just about becoming small enough to be perceived as more acceptable. It is about becoming an entirely different person – one with far more courage, confidence, and luck than the fat you has.

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“Nike zip up jacket size large, for 15 year old boy.”

Someone else came over and took it.

“Shoes, size 8, for 10 year old girl.”

I was finishing up my coffee, but I had totally planned on sauntering over and seeing what was left. Eventually. It’s from Happy Cup. Good coffee.

“Superhero toy for 8 year old boy.”

My head snapped up and my arm shot in the air and I shouted, “DIBS!” Because, of course.

I took the little paper tag with the red satin ribbon and tucked it in my wallet for safekeeping. And then I headed for the nearest toy merchandizing outlet.

Standing in front of the wall of blister packs, the part of me that has a masters’ degree in Education wondered for a moment if I shouldn’t be looking for a more educational, less violent—

I don’t know what the next part of that sentence was going to be because the part of me that is a fangirl squeed and jumped up and down and shouted, “THERE’S KILLOWOG! AND HE’S ON *SALE*!”

I started sorting through the other figures on sale, and someone had tried that old trick of putting the one they wanted a few rows down and behind some unrelated ones. So Killowog and his good friend Hal Jordan were reunited in my shopping basket, at which point I decided to be an equal opportunity shopper and search through the Marvel figures.

An Ultimate Iron Man went in the basket to hang with Hal and Killowog, because Tony Stark is a flawed, marvelous genius and the armor was pretty cool. And then, there in the back, I saw Falcon.

Falcon. Preacher’s kid, orphan, former mob runner, is a superhero by night and a social worker by day in Harlem, where he grew up. My second favorite Avenger ever, after She-Hulk*.

I put him in my basket and went to look for a bag, giddy with delight. These weren’t just little plastic action figures. These were people I *know*. Yeah, sure, if you don’t believe in alternate realities and the Heinlein Solipsism Theory of the Multiverse, you’ll call them ‘fictional characters’. That still does not take away from the fact that, like Buddy the Elf, I wanted to jump up and down in the aisle of the store, point to these action figures and shout, “I KNOW HIM!”

I spent a lot of time looking for a bag to shove the toys in and toss some tissue on top, which is my standard ‘Look, I put effort in!’ wrapping procedure. Then I remembered, this is an eight year old. The best thing about being eight years old on gift giving holidays is ripping the hell out of the wrapping paper to see what’s inside. So I bought some paper, and some bows, and some tape, and thought about how awesome this was. A kid was going to open presents on Christmas, and they were going to be characters I care about.

I hope that this kid will learn to love these characters as much as I do, and for as long as I have. I hope they go on adventures together and do battle and save the universe and each other in ways only a child can invent.

And if not, well, I hope he likes ripping the paper off all these packages.

Yes, I am buying prewashed, pre-cut up vegetables at the salad bar at New Seasons. Yes, I am fully aware that right over there are the same unwashed, whole vegetables for a lower price. However, it’s worth the extra couple bucks a pound to:

1) not have to wash and cut these fucking things myself, because I don’t have the time or energy* to do so, and
2) not have to buy a giant head/pile/bag of [vegetable] and, because I’m a single person, have three quarters of it rot before I eat it, or half of it rot because I just can’t eat a whole fucking head/pile/bag of [vegetable] without going absolutely batshit.

Now, I am going to very pointedly refrain from looking into your cart and making assumptions about your lifestyle, and I would appreciate it in the future if you would extend me the same courtesy.

Your obscenity spewing correspondent,
Mary Sue

*I’m going to see someone later this month to figure out if I have SAD or if 2011 has just metaphorically punched me in the metaphorical kidneys so hard and often that I don’t have much energy to do anything except come home, sit on my arse, knit, and eat hummus out of the container**.
**Which I scoop up with little crispy bits of prewashed, pre-cut vegetables. And tortilla chips. And sometimes, if I am feeling fancy, pita bread.

Jonathan Coulton looks like my dad when he was younger, was in the same industry as my dad, and apparently has the same birthday as my dad.

Therefore, using the logic from those four years of college, Jonathan Coulton is my dad traveling forwards in time to make enough money to put me through school.

Yep. That’s it exactly.

Happy Birthday, Daddy.

…

(And JoCo.)