Flashback Friday: In search of a punchline challenge

I have this disco song that has been careening about in what passes for my brain the last couple of days.

I think the band was Imagination, and the song is appropriately titled Flashback.

Flashback!  To the days when the nights were young.

Flashback!  We could do no wrong.

Hmn.  Today is Flashback Friday.  Coincidence?

Yeah.  Probably.

 

Friday, January 23, 2009
Wanted: A Punch Line
A friend of mine recently texted me saying she’d been reading my blog and, OMG, enjoying it!!! Who’d have thought?

Thanks. I’m touched. Really. There’s a dirty joke in there, sure, but if you are reading into it then shame on you. Seriously, I love hearing that there are people out there who read my blog and don’t think I’m a lunatic.

Anyway, back to my point. I do have one, most of the time. She then texted me the following:

Anita: What’s the difference between a blog and a diary?

The whole text. Sounded like a good punchline was in the offing.

Me: Is this a joke? I don’t know, what’s the difference between and blog and a diary?

Anita: No joke. Just wondering.

Hey, I feel gypped now. I need a punchline to tear my mind from the thought. Something dirty, or lame or some kind of ending to this story!!!

So, I sense a challenge people….

Sadly, that was back in the day when I could count the number of people reading my blog on one hand, and apparently my readers were dull, boring people and no one rose to the challenge.  I’ve so moved beyond that.  I got 47 hits on August 22, 2011, a mind boggling high for Janie’s Place.

I know for a fact I have a much wittier and obliging level of blog friends now -Yay for me!!- and perhaps after 2 and a half years this feeling of being left in the lurch can be put to rest by your amazing literary and comedic talents.  The challenge is set.  Perhaps we can even have a prize for the best offering.

Happy Friday!

Flashback Friday: A little dose of PMA

Reading my old blog shows an ugly side of me and a very ugly time of my life. However, this little gem is a testament to the spirit that pulled me through the worst of times and helped me get my life back on track.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Have I Mentioned How Much I Love My Job?

I have a pretty cool job. Although at times it can be a little, well, gross, at least it is the kind of job that I can go to and not feel resentful that it is taking time away from my life. It is something I can feel good about doing.

For those of you who don’t know, I work for a home health company and I go to homes of seniors and handicapped people and help them with tasks of daily living and provide companionship.

Sometimes I have to clean houses or do laundry, which can be the gross part, but sometimes I just sit and visit with a lonely old person. Last night I got called in to sub for a co-worker who was sick. I actually got paid to sit with a very pleasant elderly gentleman and watch Dancing with the Stars and the news. It was oddly pleasant and relaxing after a tough couple of days at home with the spud.

Occasionally we forget that we have a lot to offer the world, and by getting out helping others we in the end are helping ourselves.

I miss having a job. I miss earning money. I miss feeling good about myself.

School has been kicking my ass these last few weeks. I find I have not been my usual self; a tired, depressed, frustrated and cranky person bearing an unflattering resemblance to a Janie I thought I’d left behind. But this too will pass.

Happy Friday, friends!

Flashback Friday rants at the world

I am tired. Very very tired. When Janie gets tired she becomes highly unpleasant to be around. I pity my family. I console myself that I’m doing this for them. What being a weepy miserable bitch? No. Going to school which makes me a weepy miserable bitch. What also makes me miserable is having to admit I can’t hack it.

It has been an ugly week at casa del Jones.

So I dug up a Flashback Friday post which seems in keeping with my cranky mood. And, is also poignant as fall has finally fallen and it’s back to long pants in the Great White North.

Friday, September 19, 2008
Fashion Police Should Eat More Donuts….
I want to know who it is who was the brain trust who decided that the only way you can get pants that come up above your belly button is to get the kind that taper at your ankle and make you look like an ice cream cone. Not attractive.

So just excuse the Hell out of me Stacey London and Clinton Kelley when I say that the new “low” rise look is just not cutting it for me. I seem to recall the fashion gurus saying a few years ago on an episode of “What Not to Wear” that tucking your shirt into high rise pants makes one look like Erkel, but last I checked, tucking your shirt into pants that barely cover one’s underpants looks pretty stupid too.

Anyone over the age of 25, and even the younger set who have given birth, does not need to have low rise pants with their stretched out mommy bellies hanging out. I might have had a nice enough belly to expose for about 60 seconds while I was in my early twenties, but still I didn’t see the point in having my thong strap or my belly button flashing the world.

Now, I am not skinny, but neither am I fat. I am pleasingly plump perhaps, but come on people. In order to cover my hind end and fit in my thighs, the size I have to buy invariably is about 4 inches too big in my waist. Low rise pants just do not stay up on that nameless area some where above my hips and below my waist. They are forever sliding down. No amount of ass will keep them up, and wearing a belt just makes me look like I’m wearing ill fitting pants that gap up in bunches around the belt. Ugly and uncomfortable. And, if I am lucky enough to not have them sliding off my ass, it seems like they bunch up in the little roll of loose skin below my belly button left over from 9 months of carrying a 25 pound watermelon in my uterus, then when I wear a snug fitting blouse you can see my belly button “dent” and it makes my little flap of skin look like a monstrous amount of whale blubber. Who looks good in these pants? Only super skinny teeny boppers.

But if a person like me with an amply rotund behind can’t keep her pants up, what to the really skinny chicks do? Tape them on?

Let’s be reasonable here. Who, other than the dorkiest she-geeks, actually tucks their shirts into blue jeans? Are you listening clothing designers and fashion police? Make us boot leg and straight leg jeans with real waists! Give me the old fashioned traditional high rise pants that keep my mommy flap concealed and keep my pants from falling off my ass because the waist opening is smaller than the hip opening!

If I win the lottery I am starting my own line of jeans that actually make sense for the body of a mature motherly female who wants to look nice, but not expose her flesh to all humanity.

Why am I carrying on you may ask?

Yesterday I was in a rush to get to work and needed to change from my “moving” duds. I grabbed the only clean pair of “nice” pants that were in my dresser (the rest are still hanging on the basement clothesline from when I last washed, about a week ago). Unfortunately, they were a pair that when cinched tightly enough to actually keep the pants on was extremely uncomfortable from the insane amount of bunched up denim between the belt and my gut, and that without a belt would not stay up. So, I either had to spend the whole evening at work feeling “bound up” or like I had gansta pants.

I hate fashion. And, I have now officially stayed up way too late to rant on and on about something as stupid as fashion.

I have a physics test today which has me scared shitless. There is no math involved, but I am afraid because I am so tired I think the neurons in my brain have melted and oozed out my ears. At least today I have a comfortable pair of jeans, which come all the way up to my waist, fashion police be damned. If I’m going down in a ball of physics flames I’m going to do it comfortably.

I also apologize for the foulness of my language. It tends to degrade as the exhaustion multiplies. I’m sure there’s some law of physics which could explain it, but I’m too tired to try and form a good joke.

May your Friday wear not bind and you get more sleep than me.

Does this count as a guilty pleasure, or a funny habit?

So on Monday, as part of my 10 funny habits or guilty pleasures post, I revealed I am a scarfaholic. I am reminded of an old post for Flashback Friday that has to do with my scarf addiction.

Excerpt from Sunday, November 29, 2009:

So you may all wonder why I am choosing to post a photo of my closet.

See, this morning as I was checking my email, Leif wanders into my room and notices my open closet wherein my collection of scarves resides. I love scarves. I wear them all, all the time. I have even been known to wear 2 at a time. Don’t laugh. I live in the Great White North where not only can they make stylish fashion statements, but they are highly practical.

Leif: So I suppose if I ever needed to escape from the house I could tie all your scarves together and make a rope to climb down.

Me: Mmmmhmmm.

Leif: You know, you should take a picture of this and put it on your blog.

So, I did. Of course, that was nearly two years ago. My scarf collection has grown. I have no new photo to show you the extent of my fashion accessory explosion as it has been parceled out to multiple storage locations (to protect it from being pressed into service as an emergency escape ladder and for lack of storage space in my bedroom closet) and alas I am too busy to collect them all and take a photograph right now. Rest assured, it is impressive.

I also feel compelled to add that Leif has been won over to the warm, snuggly side of scarfism. He’s stolen a few scarves of mine for himself (the olive drab and brown scarves, natch) and I finally finished crocheting his red and black scarf in time for the Christmas after this flashback post originally aired.

If my vote counts for anything, I say it’s a guilty pleasure.

Flashback Friday and the Rabbit Lathe Workers Union 101

Continuing the fun of Flashback Friday, here’s a quirky post from my glory days when I was actually employed and not throwing money into the black hole of Higher Education at rates too scary to contemplate. Enjoy!

Wanted: Experienced Rabbit to Work Mini Carrot Lathe
Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Today coworker #1 had a birthday. As per usual, a potluck was chosen as the celebration method of choice. Coworker #3 brought a relish tray with those tiny pre cut and peeled carrots. Sitting there at lunch grazing, I began to wonder how they get the carrots into that shape.

Me: Say, do you suppose that they have mini lathes to peel and shape these carrots?

Co worker #2: No wonder why it’s so much more expensive to buy these, can you imagine the man hours it must take to process these?

Me: Can you imagine listing carrot lathe operator as your job title?

CW#2: Maybe they use rabbits.

Me: Rabbits?

CW#2: Yeah, maybe they just have a warehouse full of rabbits gnawing the carrots down to size. Green Giant could be the world’s largest rabbit employer.

Me: Good grief! Mini carrot shaving sweat houses. Maybe we could get Rachel Ray to play Norma Rae in the rabbit version of the movie.

CW#2: Maybe it would be a great job if you’re a rabbit. All the carrot shavings you can eat.

Me: Maybe they don’t use rabbits. Maybe they use beavers. That would make sense, after all. Take a long hard carrot, shove it in the gaping maw of a beaver, and in moments your carrot’s shape shrinks to a fraction of it’s former size. And, beavers are used to spitting out what they can’t swallow.

*pause*

Me: Maybe we took this analogy a bit too far….

That was actually a really great job. Don’t get me wrong, it really, really had it’s moments when you understood the depth and breadth of the phrase, “gone postal.” Over all though, it was a really great job. Way, way better than being unemployed and going to University. *Sigh* I also miss Co Worker #2.

Because I’m not clever enough to come up with these things on my own…

…  I’m stealing the fun ideas of others.

I’ve been enjoying Begging the Answer lately.  Apparently Angela has instituted Flashback Friday.  Fun idea.

Once upon a time when my readership consisted of people who posed as my friends and I was in a dark, scary place I had a blog at a different address.  I’m feeling much better these days, but after seeing the first Flashback Friday at Angela’s digs, I got nostalgic for my old bloghome.  So I spent the last couple hours digging through the archives.  And I discovered:

Wow.  I was dark and screwed up.

But amid the scariness there were a few gems of funniness, snark and insight.  So I’m hoping Angela will be persuaded that imitation is the highest form of flattery and be thrilled when I steal her idea.

Flashback Post:

Friday, January 29, 2010

And That Your Honor, Is When She Killed Him…

So can you tell me about the murder weapon?

It might have been the cast iron skillet, Your Honor.

It might have been, but you’re not sure.

Well, so many kitchen gadgets were flying through the air at once that I can’t say for certain which one exactly resulted in the killing blow.

Strolling down memory lane has been both fun and enlightening.  I honestly can’t remember what inspired this, but there is an element of darkly funny that intrigued me.  Just who was that other Janie Jones?  Stick around.  I’ll replay some more next Friday.