Señoras del Leño

This week has turned into a week of lists, haha. This is the second installment of my "Crummy Human Being" series. Be sure to check out the first one as well. The world is full of awesomeness, and it's also full of awesome, ummm, how do I put this... opportunities to be decent and better human beings. Over the last couple years, I have been keeping a funny list with the intent to write a blog post about all the little rules for basic human decency I come across. Most of these are just observances of people and situations. A few are things I knew I could have done better. Anyways, I finally pulled the list up and realized it was *super* long (the count was 99) so I decided to share it 33 rules at a time so that your eyes don't permanently glaze over. My Second 33 Rules to Not be a Crummy Human Being Don't automatically reply, "I know" every time someone points out you're wrong. You just come off as insecure. Don't ever accelerate to beat pedestrians. Especially parents walking with their kids. It's not going to kill you to get where you're going seven seconds later. But it might kill them. If you're a guy, and all the urinals are in use, wait for one to come open. Don't go pee all over the sit-down toilet because you're too important to wait for another guy to zip up his pants. Smile at strangers when you make eye contact. Don't hurry and look away. Somehow, somewhere along the way, we all started treating each other like we're diseased. When you're walking by a group of people awkwardly trying to take a photo of themselves, stop and offer to take it for them. Then tell them how damn sexy they all are when you're done. When you're out to dinner with your friends, insist that you pick up the tab once in a while. A free meal makes anyone feel special. When someone pays you a compliment, say thank you. Don't immediately tell them why another part of you sucks. For example, "you are so fun to be around." "Haha, you obviously don't know the real me then." When someone compliments something you're wearing, say thank you. Don't immediately tell them how you got such a good deal on it or how you wouldn't usually wear something like that. You deserve nice things too. Hold the door open for people. And smile as they walk by. If you think someone is beautiful, tell them they are beautiful. It doesn't mean you want to have sex with them. If you have three hundred coupons you want to run, warn the people behind you in the checkout line. When you're at the bank, fill out your own deposit slip. Bank tellers don't want to do it for you. Even if someone is ten or twenty seconds away, hold the elevator door for them. You'll still get where you need to go. When you're on the subway. Or bus. Or train. Or elevator. Let people off before you push your way on. When you pass a homeless person, try talking to them. They always have some wild stories to tell and they almost always love having someone to tell them to. When the group you're with starts dancing, don't stand on the sidelines. It makes everyone more self conscious. Just jump in and remember, somewhere some white guy like me is doing a lot worse than you and loving it. CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE Don't ever ask a woman if she's pregnant. Trust me. When someone makes a mistake on the road, don't get angry and make obscene hand gestures. Give them a friendly wave that says, "it's okay, sometimes I'm a dummy too." When someone says something that pushes one of your buttons, stop, and count to twenty. Then respond. If the only response you can think of is one of anger, again… try quacking at them instead. When someone does something that makes you so mad you write a looooooong email about it, DO NOT HIT SEND until you've gotten at least one night of sleep first. Just writing it is usually all we really need to do. Don't insist that your opinion is right. Opinions are never right and they're never wrong. They're just opinions.

Yesterday, I ticked off a LOT of you by telling you about my things to splurge on when I'm poor list. I also had a LOT of you climbing onto your roofs just to sing my accolades. That to me is a good day of blogging. Today, let's just laugh. I don't want anyone having a heart attack, and this time of year roofs can be slippery and dangerous. My late sister Carissa (she had Down's Syndrome) loved telling jokes. She carried her little joke books around and loved to make people laugh. Her favorite joke was the one in the image above. How do you make a tissue dance? You put a little boogie into it. I never have awesome jokes. People say, "tell me a joke," and my mind always goes blank. I'm a wit man. I like to make humor on the fly. But when I'm an old fart I know the wit won't be as witty as it used to be, and I decided I need to start building an armoire of short jokes now that I can tell my kids and grandkids and great grandkids. Right after I die, I want to pop my eyes open all the sudden and just as I fade away into eternity say, "bury me with that music I wrote when I was younger." They'll say, "why?!" I'll say, "I might as well spend my time underground decomposing." Okay. That wasn't my joke. My Grandma Ann always has a joke up her sleeve. It doesn't matter the topic of conversation. Last night she told us that joke about Beethoven. And she told us three or four other priceless jokes over the course of the evening. And I just want to be like her when I'm old. And like Carissa. So, I asked you all on my Facebook page for your Best. Short jokes. Ever. And you delivered. In fact, you delivered a few posts worth of them. Haha. So thank you. I will now be a funny old man someday. Oh, and some of them were a leeeeettle bit naughty. Or politically incorrect. Or just plain wrong. I pushed those to the last page so that those of you who aren't as "free spirited" as someone like me can skip them if you like. BEST. SHORT JOKES. EVER. How do you make a tissue dance? You put a little boogie in it. Why did the policeman smell bad? He was on duty. Why does Snoop Dogg carry an umbrella? FO DRIZZLE! Why can't you hear a pterodactyl in the bathroom? Because it has a silent pee. What did the Zen Buddist say to the hotdog vendor? Make me one with everything. What kind of bees make milk instead of honey? Boobies. Horse walks into a bar. Bartender says, "Why the long face?" A mushroom walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Hey, get out of here! We don't serve mushrooms here". Mushroom says, "why not? I'm a fungai!" I never make mistakes...I thought I did once; but I was wrong. What's Beethoven's favorite fruit?...Ba-na-na-naaa! What did the little fish say when he swam into a wall? DAM! Knock knock. Who's there? Smell mop. (finish this joke in your head) Where does a sheep go for a haircut? To the baaaaa baaaaa shop! What does a nosey pepper do? Gets jalapeno business! CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE What do you call a deer with no eyes? No eye deer. What's the last thing that goes thru a bug's mind as he hits the windshield? His butt. Knock knock- who's there? Dwayne. Dwayne who? Dwayne the tub I'm dwounding! The past, present and future walk into a bar. It was tense. What goes "ha ha thump"? A man laughing his head off. What did the grape say when he was pinched? Nothing, he gave a little wine. What's brown and sticky? A stick! Why are pirates so mean? I don't know, they just arrrrrrrrr! Why was Tigger looking in the toilet? He was looking for Pooh! What do you get when you throw a piano down a mine shaft? A flat miner. Have you heard about the cannibal that passed his brother in the forest? Who's there?" ... "Control freak. Okay now you say, 'Control freak who?" What do you call cheese that's not yours? It's nacho cheese. What do you get when you put a candle in a suit of armor? A knight light. Have you heard about corduroy pillows?! They're making headlines!

I have waltzed with riches more than once in my life. I have tangoed with poverty a time or two as well. Usually I find myself dancing along somewhere in the middle, definitely not rich enough to spend a ton on the finer things, and not poor enough that I can't enjoy life at all. In 2011, I was really, really down (financially). I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to make money blogging and I had become so obsessed with my money problems that I began clamping down on everything so tightly that there wasn't much fun to be had anymore. Things got very depressing. I mean, I would wake up and use less toothpaste than I wanted just to save money, and then I would brush my teeth without water to save money. I would take a luke-warm shower in the morning to save money. While in the shower, I would wash my hair with the dollar per bottle shampoo, and barely use any of that so that I could save money there, too. For breakfast I'd pour myself some cold cereal from a giant bag. Getting it in a box was too expensive. Getting any healthy cold cereal was definitely too expensive. At one point, I ate my cereal with water instead of milk for a week straight before I finally couldn't choke it down anymore. And so my day went on. All day, every day was spent thinking about how to save money, literally worrying about how pennies here and there would stack up. I got more unhealthy, more down, and more desperate as time went on. It seemed my financial life was spinning down and down and down. I couldn't help but go to bed at night and think, I'm too poor to even sleep. And then one day, one of my equally poor friends started telling me about this incredible facial she had received the day before. It sounded really expensive. "How can you afford that?" I asked her. She just laughed. "I can't. But I just started this thing where I'm forcing myself not to live like a poor person every once in a while so that I don't forget what I'm working toward." And that's when it hit me. I had somehow begun living the life of a chronically poor man, instead of the life I personally wanted to be living. My energy and time was being focused into making it possible to be poor, and not into making things better for myself. And for me personally, that wasn't okay. So I decided to follow her lead and make a list for myself. I went home and thought of all my favorite things I used to barely be thankful for when I was "rich." Things I'd just toss money toward any time I had the chance. I came up with about fifty or sixty items, and then I narrowed it down to ten, and I hung it on my wall with the title (scribbled at the top), 10 things I will force myself to splurge on at least once in the next year. I promised myself that I would find a way to do each of those things, even if it meant washing cars or mowing lawns or cleaning up dog crap to make them happen. And over the next year, I did them. All of them. 10 Things I Make Myself Splurge On At Least Once a Year 1. A hundred dollar pair of jeans. Having a pair of jeans that actually fits you, is sexy, and that you love will make all the difference on your tough days. And the best part is, they don't shrink and they don't wear out in less than a year like other pants do. Just make sure you wait to wear them for the first time until you have a day that you just don't want to get out of bed. Then watch how quickly new, sexy jeans will turn your day around. 2. A nice steak. And I'm talking $50-$100 per head steakhouse nice. Food is usually the first thing we start trying to save money on when we're poor, and after being neglected, your body and your tastebuds really need some love. And have you ever had a premium steak like that? The kind that is sizzling even as you take the bite toward your mouth? The kind that you can practically rest your knife on and watch it sink through? The kind that somehow actually melts against your tongue?

Yesterday, Marcey, one of my readers, shared a link to a Yahoo News post, which shared an image that Reddit user chellylauren posted on her page five days ago, and which I'm now going to share with all of you. Did you follow all that? LOL. I can barely follow it myself. Anyway, chellylauren posted the image and said, "In a girls' bathroom stall at my university, girls have written about some of their most horrifying life experiences. This week, somebody replied." Then she posted an image of the anonymous reply. I thought it was such a beautiful human moment that I wanted to share it with all of you. Click on the image to read it, or I've transcribed it here: To the girl who was raped: You are so strong. I cannot fathom the pain you must have gone through. The fact that you have the bravery to write it (even on a bathroom wall) gives me hope. To the girl with eating disorders: I promise you, although I don't know you, you are beautiful, you deserve your health. You deserve freedom from that hell. To the girl with the alcoholic father: I am so sorry for the agony it must cause. Again, such courage is remarkable you must be such a strong person to see such pain. To the girl whose father died: Missing them never goes away. The ache of their absence never goes away. But the love they had, the memories you share surely must last. I am sure, out of the bottom of my heart, the people who have left you in this world are exceptionally proud of the person you are. Every time I see these walls, these confessions, I feel so blessed to know I have the privilege of seeing them. Your moments, these secrets, are all precious even though they are sad. To all of you (including those I did not mention, and those who have not yet written) -You are worthy. -You are strong. -You are brave. -You are loved. -Somebody cares. Someone had scribbled their own quick reply at the bottom which was poignant all by itself. "To the person who wrote this, thank you." Whoever wrote this note, this is beautiful you. You're a bathroom stall angel. Dan Pearce, Single Dad Laughing

A very dear friend of mine has been struggling with some big life and marriage decisions lately. I haven't known really what to say so I sat down this morning and wrote this poem for her. Love you girl. Dan

The world is full of awesomeness, and it's also full of awesome, ummm, how do I put this... opportunities to be decent and better human beings. Over the last couple years, I have been keeping a funny list with the intent to write a blog post about a...

I admittedly was very hungry and doped up on cold medicine when I wrote this. Blame the people who got me sick. Anyway, they say daily mantras will make your day (and your life) so much better, so here are the top ten mantras you should say every… single… day.