Wrap your head with this material...

When I was a kid, my parents had this policy that you could ask anything and get an honest answer. It went hand in hand with another policy of theirs, which was you could use any word as long as you knew what it meant. They'd quiz you occasionally too, just to make sure you were paying attention. "What's 'pissed off' mean, Karin?" "It means perturbed." I was a bit precocious. My parents rarely used the parental copout/freakout/I-don't-want-to-talk-about-this card of "I'll tell you when you're older." So I probably would have learned about sex pretty early no matter what. But as it turned out, I learned about sex from the movie Porky's. I was 4 or 5. In 1984, movies were a big treat. You couldn't just watch pop one in the DVD player at any time. You had to see it at the theater, or you had to wait for it to come out on network television. Most mommies reading this were probably born after 1984 so I'm giving a r...

I was a terrible dawdler when I was a kid. If there was a way to make it take longer, I did it. Not on purpose or anything. Its just that if I saw a toy, it would suddenly become more interesting when I was already supposed to have my boots on to leave. Or if I was waiting in the living room, the piano looked friendlier to play if I was supposed to be brushing my teeth. My worst time for dawdling was in the mornings. I was never a morning person. Even as a baby. My dad had me in before care and after care at a woman's house so he got me up really early every morning. And from the moment he woke me the first time to the moment we left the house it was constant nagging. I thought Karin-stop-dawdling was my AM name. So one winter morning when I was about 6 or 7, my dad woke me up and we began the routine. Only this morning, he told me that he wasn't going to wake me over and over, I'd better get up and get ready. He wasn't going to nag at me. So I got up. And ...

So my brain needs some emptying. So prolly don't try to follow this as any train of thought. Ever feel like someone's words can just strike you like lightning? Like they vaporize a part of you and the ashes are just a scar and every time you see them, that's what you feel? I think women's shoulders are really sexy. At all ages too. And not floozy, trashy sexy. Sophisticated, timeless, classy sexy. Beautiful. Wrists sometimes too. Its not like tits or butts where its the obvious spot, you have to look for it. Being aware of their beauty. I'm bad with question marks. I think them. I just forget to put them in the actual sentence. I hate fake smiling. But I do it all the time. Before I started fake smiling women were always mean to me. If you have a pretty face and aren't overly ingratiating, you come off as a bitch/snob/snot/mean/whatever. It sucks. I'm pretty sure its often why I don't want to go anywhere after work. I don't feel like...

I just slid across my kitchen floor in stockingfeet. I love sliding. If I'm walking and there's snow or ice on the ground, I will take a few hurried steps, rushing into a slide. The only thing better is when there's that skin of frozen that you can jump on and crunch beneath your feet. Oh, and crunchy, squeaky snow under sneakers: the really cold kind. In my first apartment, my roommate and I pledged all the floors and wouldn't let people wear shoes. I loved skidding across that floor. I remember sitting on a pillow and her pushing me around from room to room like a hockey puck. It was hard to stay on the pillow but worth it if you managed it. But nothing but nothing is better than sliding on snow. So I'm off to ski. Cross country that is. Too crowded for downhill today. Downhill'll wait till tomorrow. Nice and early. And on new snow. Happy New Year to you and yours. I hope you remember the little things you love, spend lots of time with people you l...

So out at the bar the other night I was telling this story about how my old roomate has TERRIBLE taste in men. To illustrate the point I was talking about this dude she was kind of into for a while. One morning I was up getting ready for school and found him sleeping naked on the couch. I shrugged and went off to class, figuring I'd ask her about it later. Come to find out he pissed her bed. AND did. not. wake. up. She kicked his ass out onto the couch and cleaned things up. So as I'm telling this story I finally figure out who this guy is that I got a friend request from on Facebook and am all "Holy shit, that's who he is." So I sent him this message: "Are you the one who slept in Christine's bed and I found you sleeping naked on my couch like 10 years ago? Cuz if so I'm definitely going to have to accept your friend request. That shit was funny."

So right after graduating from high school I was an exchange student in Sweden for a year. It was a very mixed bag and a very good experience. I knew no one. Being in another country all by yourself at 18 builds a lot of confidence. At the end of a year, though, I was very glad to come home. I missed my mom and round door knobs and velveeta and driving and seeing black people. In Sweden, I went to high school. Their high school system runs about a year longer than ours does and at the end you come out with more like an Associates Degree. All my high school friends in the mean time though had gone to college. We had a fantastic summer catching up. One girl had joined a sororiety, someone else had traveled the country in her car, another joined the military. And we came together for a summer of crazy adventures and reaquainting ourselves. One weekend we went out of town together for a weekend to a girlfriend's college town. We somehow managed to get into a bar and were qu...

So I tell stories in real life about my travels a lot cuz crazy shit happens to me when I travel. The trip with the most crazy shit to time spent ratio was to Chile in 2005. Like most of my big journeys, I went to Chile by myself. I was there for 2 months. People are always shocked at how much I travel by myself. Or that anyone would travel alone. Especially for extended periods of time. Especially to places where I don't speak the language. Especially being a cute blond. Especially when you're the person whose been known to travel without plans, reservations, a map, or knowing the language. But for me its the best way to go. You're the most open to meeting new people so you meet lots. You get plenty of alone thinking and writing time. You get to internalize your experience better. You get to do whatever YOU want. And mainly, the craziest and weirdest shit happens this way. My first two weeks in Chile were to be spent at a resort called Portillo. My profile ...

I'm slightly embarrassed to admit this, but I did a Facebook memory posting. Sounds sappy right? No. Here are my top ten of the responses, retold from my perspective. 10. (Dribbles) "You chasing me on all fours around Ox's fireplace." I have absolutely no doubt that this is completely true as he has a fireplace in the center of a round room. I also have absolutely no recollection of this. 9. (My brother-Speedmetal) "I guess I have to default to the story of hitting you in the head with a baseball bat. I was trying to learn to swing left handed and when the bat came around, THWOCK, there you were. I thought I crushed your skull or something and was in absolute hysterics. Mom heard the commotion and came out to the backyard. She looked at both of us unable to determine the problem and said, "Which one of you is hurt?"" 8. (My cousin) "My 21st birthday." This was the first time she met my husband. We went to a fancy dinner and then my c...

Why yes, yes he did. Muskrat sent me the following rules, which I will likely disregard 1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me." 2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions. 3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions. 4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post. 5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. Then, he sent me the following questions which I may or may not answer as I see fit to make up or avoid cuz its my blog and I'll lie if I want to. Its called "creative license," look it up. 1) Where do you find your Friday quotes? Real life, blogs, both? In Sweden, live little men called Tomtes, (pronounced tom-tahs,) They have beets for ears and live exclusively by hunting mushrooms. They are fueled by a vicious hatred of being confused with yard gnomes and therefore travel all their days, murdering and behead...

When I was around 6, my cousin told me that whenever you smell something, it's tiny particles of that thing floating into your nostrils. So when you smell poop, or even farts, its actually poo particles floating into your nose. I was pooping on the toilet at the time. First I plugged my nose. But then I was breathing through my mouth. Ahhhh!!!! Shit in my mouth!!!! I closed my mouth. I tried to hold my breath. Turning blue, I lifted my nightgown to cover my mouth and nose and breath. I panted a little. Then she said the particles are so small they can get through your nightgown. So then for about 10 years I tried to hold my breath every time while going for a world's record in fastest crapper so it wouldn't get in my nose or my mouth. Heaven forbid, she bring up this minutia while we're baking brownies. Twat.

I hear for your 100th post you're supposed to put up a list of 100 truths about you or something. I missed 100, so here's 101. Some confessions, some silly, some just tidbits... hope its worth a read 1. The first thing I do when I check into a hotel room is still to jump on the bed. 2. Mooning people on a major thoroughfare is a good way to cause an accident. 3. I won't explain how I know that. 4. Mooning a lineup of cars behind you out of a convertible on the way out of the senior talent show is a good way to make everyone think you're drunk when you're not. 5. I have taken a shower in the rain in my driveway back in the Lou. 6. More than once. 7. Swimming laps is a good way to clean out your sinuses 8. You can't think about it too hard. 6. When I was 7, my mom made me my very own ice skating rink in the back yard. 7. I still remember her coming into the kitchen to thaw her hands out after holding the hose over it. 8. I was guiltily happy she didn't ask...

One summer day when I was a little girl, probably 5 or 6, I go into the backyard only to find my kitty Morris, my much adored orange tabby who sleeps with me every night, playing with a mouse. This mouse is not a present for me like on previous occasions but food and entertainment for Morris. "Morris, no." I say batting him away from the mouse. First Morris tries slinking off with the mouse pretending to be in trouble for something else. Then he tries hovering over it like its not there. Finally I pick Morris up and carry him away. The mouse is seriously injured by now. Who knows how long Morris'd been playing with it. I stand looking at the mouse trying to think how to help. I know injured animals who can't survive are to be "put out of their misery" and I know what that means. I also know I can't wield a shovel (short arms and whatnot.) So I use my most powerful feature, my little leg. I try stepping on the mouse in order to do the humane th...

Because of my mother’s love of and interest in animals there were occasionally exceptional and strange animal situations at our house. There was the scorpion my brother brought home from college. There was the dead raccoon he found on his paper route that my mom and he dissected in the back yard. There was the iguana I was allowed to keep for the summer in high school who would whip his tail at my boyfriend but no one else unless there was cantaloupe in the room. But nothing was so memorable as the bunny we had one summer when my mom was in vet school. He was an experimental bunny which piqued my interested immediately. Experimental? “What was the experiment?” I asked. It seems our bunny was from a litter which had been taken out of their mother’s uterus and spent time in artificial uteruses inside male mice. Yeah, weird. They spent a week incubating in a male mouse then were moved back to the mother and born. Some survived, some didn’t. Bunny Foo Foo survive...