Day Thirty: Ignore Today. (Anailuj)

Today is Halloween and I kind of did ignore it (although I'm pretty sure the book means to ignore today as far as these exhausting tasks go. I was actually not even going to make a post for today, but I wanted to talk about myself instead). I love Halloween to an almost unreasonable degree, but I celebrated it yesterday and did Dio de los Muertos things today. Dio de los Muertos is the Mexican Day of the Dead, and it is rad. I made quesadillas and listened to salsa music with my friend Amanda.

I would like to take this moment to place a personal ad in this blog.

Single female seeks single male with whom to dance to salsa music.
Must be capable of cooking while enjoying the exotic sounds of
Central America. No cats.

Salsa music is very near and dear to my heart for reasons I'd rather not discuss, and I feel like if there's such thing as soulmates, mine would also enjoy spontaneous salsa parties for two, and have the ability to salsa dance gracefully and skillfully, perfectly in sync with me even though we don't actually know how to salsa dance.

*Sigh*

P.S: A very happy Samhain (pronounced "SOW-in") to our pagan readers...if we have any.
P.P.S.: Sometimes girls do pretty good covers of Danzig songs.

Day Twenty-Nine: Dial a Phone Number at Random and Read This Script with a Deep Southern Accent (Anailuj)

The book gives this LONG script that's all about Jesus and how cool he is. I know I was supposed to just pick a random phone number, but I thought it would be so much more fun to call my brother instead! But I couldn't use my phone, obvs, because he would know it was me. So I used John's.
My brother answered the phone, but hung up after "You know, without God, without Jesus, we have no hope. Why? Well, because we know that the standard of God's righteousness is Law, a law of the Ten Commandments..."

So I called again. This time he did not pick up, so I left a message. Unfortunately the message time ran out by the time I got to "...having to slay a lamb for your sins would definitely keep a man on guard not to sin too much because otherwise he would lose his livestock pretty quick, wouldn't he? Well anyway, (praise be unto God)...."
So I called again and finished the script. I'm very persistant.

I concluded the fun times by showing my brother the script and asking if it sounded familiar.
"Hey," he exclaimed with an air of recognition, even revelation. "I was getting calls from this today!...Oh."
The biggest mystery for him was where in the world I was calling from. Apparently getting a call from an unfamiliar area code is the MOST CONFUSING THING IN THE WORLD.

Day Twenty-eight: Plan Your Death Row Meal (Yellenahs)

There are so many things I want to eat before I die! I want all of them! I just love food.

For an appetizer I would like taco dip with tortilla chips, and then a salad. A delicious dinner salad, like from the Olive Garden. Probably that one precisely. They have the best salad. Oh and breadsticks. I want Olive Garden salad and breadsitcks. Taco dip is kind of an entirely different region but whatever.

For dinner I would like 1.2 pounds of asparagus because it's my favorite, mashed red potatoes with the skins left on, that really delicious garlic bread that they make at the bakery at the grocery store and put in a silver bag that says "Garlic Bread," and my grandma's macaroni salad. It must be specifically the grocery store garlic bread and grandma's mac salad or IT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH. For the protein I would like my mother to make me some fried chicken the special delicious way she does it with special sauce. I love special sauce. Wanna know what's in it? TOO BAD, it's a secret.

For dessert I would like some delicious chocolate, preferably milk but I really like dark, too. I would like one of grandma's cut-out cookies. Tiramisu. Mint chocolate chip ice cream. And maybe something else that I have not yet thought of. I REALLY like dessert. OH pumpkin cheesecake! Yes, that shall be my last dessert. I would like some fruit thrown in there too, because I really like fruit.

Throughout the meal I will be sippin' on apple cider, and I'll probably take a white chocolate mocha with my dessert, thank you.

Commence mission: die happy.

Day Twenty-Eight: Choose Your Final Meal on Death Row

Can you ask for a particular person to cook your final meal? Because I don't want my last food on this Earth (before I'm reincarnated by a marine mammal) to be prepared by some crappy prison chef. I want my mommy to make it! I want my mommy to make me a final meal consiting of a smorgasbord of my favorite childhood meals. Macaroni and cheese, chicken pepperkosh with dumplings, veggie lasagne, butternut squash soup, and stuffed bell peppers.
I also want a salad. But I do not want my mommy to make the salad. I have a thing where I don't really dig on my mom's salads, even though everyone else raves about them. I only like salads from restaurants. It doesn't even really matter which one. I love plain, iceberg lttuce restaurant salads. With ranch or italian dressing. But the best restaurant salad I ever had was from The White Linen Tea House, and it had mandarin oranges, raspberries, and a strawberry vinagrette dressing on it. Delicious.

To drink I want a Dr. Pepper and a water with lemon.
And dessert would be apple crisp from Denny's with vanilla ice cream, and dessert chai, also from White Linen Tea House.

Days Twenty-six and Twenty-seven

Day Twenty-six: Choose What You'd Like to be Reincarnated As

Now, I know that the point of reincarnation is to move up in the cosmic world. You're supposed to be reincarnated as a higher life form so you're closer to Nirvana. Who doesn't want to be close to Nirvana?

What I really want to be reincarnated as is a boy. But only if when I die after being a boy, I get to remember both my lifetime as a girl and as a boy, so that I can compare them and make a fair decision as to which I prefer.

This is not to say that a being male is a higher life form, because it MOST certainly is not. However, I always want to see what it'd be like to be on that side. I love being female, especially because I get to wear pretty make up and get my way because I have awesome boobs. But being a boy seems pretty easy and fun. I always felt that I'd make a pretty good guy. I'd enjoy it, and I think I'd be nice without being the kind of guy who's stuck in "nice guys always finish last." Sometimes, though, I just want to be able to wake up ten minutes before I have to be somewhere and still look fine without wearing make up or putting on pretty clothes. Oh, and my clothes would ALWAYS fit and I wouldn't have to try on 17 pairs of jeans to find some that don't squeeze in all the wrong places and sag in all the others.

If I HAVE to be a higher life form, I would be a cat. Now, I know that a lot of you hate cats, but I happen to love them and I think they're a higher life form. Or maybe a horse! They're so pretty and wonderful. Kitties and horsies! Yay!

Day Twenty-seven: Don't Use the Words "Yes" or "No"

When I woke up in the morning and discovered this rule, I figured it was pretty much impossible. I don't talk that much during the day usually, except for that yesterday I sort of did. But I think I did okay not saying yes or no too much. When I remembered not to, I thought back to some of the most recent things I had said and discovered that I hadn't used them.

Mostly I forgot about it. Except for when I was texting Anailuj, and I used the word "indeed" a lot instead of saying "yeah" or "yes." I like to say indeed better, anyway. It's a good word.

I think it's pretty possible to get through a day without saying those all-powerful words. It's so convenient to have them, but if we didn't I think we would probably still survive as a race.

Day Twenty-Seven: Don't Use the Words "Yes" or "No" (Anailuj)

I thought this would be easy because I do so little talking during my school day, but the words yes and no, and their derivatives, "nah" and "yeah" just come so naturally it was impossible to keep them from leaving my mouth.
Especially when I got to work where I'm constantly telling the kids "No, don't hit him," "No, get off of that," "No, don't eat that," "No, don't scream," or "No, don't jump on me."
It was fun thinking of alternatives for those two words, but I usually forgot to use them. Here's the one's I came up with:
NO:
negatory
nu-uh
nope
never
I should think not!


YES:
certainly
indubitably
without a doubt
concur
oui
preciscely
indeed
ja

Day Twenty-Six: Choose What You'd Prefer to Be Reincarnated As (Anailuj)

I would definitely want to be reincarnated as a Humpback whale. Or dolphin. I'm a swimmer, and no one knows better than a swimmer that humans are just not made for the water. We're clumsy and bulky and we don't belong there. But animals like these ones swim more gracefully and with less effort than we walk on land. We evolved to be bipedal land animals, but they don't seem to have evolved to fit into any role, they seem like they were always the way they are, and their environment fits into them, not the other way around.
Whales are the biggest creatures on this Earth since the dinosaurs. But you don't see them rushing anywhere like a giant angry tank, or tearing into anything with big nasty claws and teeth. They just are. they swim around and sift through the water for krill and take care of their families. They travel together and sleep together. The whale's motto is Live and Let Be. Nothing bothers the whale. It's so immersed in serenity and what I'm pretty sure is all-knowingness, all of our stupid human troubles are just a blip on the cosmic map of the whale's world.
And have you ever seen dolphins play? They were made for play. It's their job. They don't know what work is, or hate. Even things that are necessary for them to stay alive, like catching fish, are just games to them.

Anyway, that's all assuming that by the time it's my turn to be reincarnated we haven't managed to wipe out all the dolphns and whales. And it's assuming I deserve to be reincarnated as a dolphin or whale. The whole logic behind the belief of reincarnation is that if you do well in this life, you chock up lots of good karma by fulfilling all your dharmic obligations, you come back as a higher life-form. But if you're crappy to other people and you never try to better yourself, you come back as a lower life-form, like a a snail, or a bacterium, or Shirley Phelps.
So here's hoping I do well enough to get to be a whale in my next life. Because I'm pretty sure whales get a lot closer to Nirvana, or the Atman, or Heaven, or becoming a Bodhisatva (or whatever you want to call the final state of peace for the mind, body, and soul) in their wise and wonderful pondering of the infinite nature of the universe than any human ever did.