Ghost hyena...

For my favorite person

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I cause explosive diarrhea.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about names.

Someone said a few days ago that they don't like me because my name is Alli. That is possibly the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, but then I got to wondering if she was on to something with the name thing.

I looked up my name in Urban Dictionary.

It had several meanings, including being a weight loss drug (I snickered a little at that, I won't lie...for several reasons...)

But this is what Alli said: (freak)one of the nicest ppl u will ever meet she is so nice and lovaly and she will always have a place in my heart.

It also said: The only FDA-approved diet pills sold at GNC. Gives you explosive, uncontrollable diarrhea, therefore, stay fat, its not worth it

No wonder I am not liked because of my name! I cause uncontrollable diarrhea! Stay away! (So basically, if this is true, then don't even begin to let me cook, I might give you food poisoning!)

So I looked up Eric...It says: The most amazing person in the entire universe. Everything about him is perfect! He's charming, handsome, intelligent, strong, romantic, funny...everything you want in a guy. It's impossible not to fall in love with him! Once you lay eyes on him, you will know from that very moment that you will never stop loving him.

This is possibly true. I will give it a 99.9% chance of trueness.

So I looked up Stephanie. Stephanie is very nice and caring towards everyone and she always has a smile on her face no matter what and even though she doesnt know it she is very beautiful and smart.

This was true. 100%

Then I decided to look up my other best friend Jesse to see...A kind boy who knows just what to say and when to say it. Often boys with this name end up charming any girl who they come in contact with.Sweet and innocent he is the perfect boy. Always lovable andcaring.

Well 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

Just kidding.

It was pretty accurate as well.

Then I realized, there must be something to this name thing!

Maybe it's in the same way as there is something to numerology or astrology.

Or maybe just the people who are worth writing a definition for on Urban Dictionary just do something absolutely incredible that makes you want to write a definition for them.

After typing that line I realized, I'm still the person that causes explosive diarrhea, so what's that sayin' about me?!

Yes Man!

I am what they would call “extra motivated”. It is like being the most amazing “yes man” ever. Except that I am a girl and this is also incredibly exhausting. I don't suggest being as motivated as I am.

It starts off after I have been sleeping really well and actually sleeping a good amount of hours per night for a few days. I wake up feeling extra motivated, happy, and excited about my day/week/month/year. It's this intense feeling of peace that comes from the depth of my soul (this is a trick!). I start making plans, taking on responsibilities that I am just SURE I have time to do.

This is how I ended up working 60 hours a week and in grad school and writing a blog and deciding to date.

Anyway, all of these things start snowballing and at first I am on a roll. I am doing 20 things at once and successfully. Every project is getting done ahead of time, I am developing new clinical interventions like a champ. Sure I will pass out meds 4 times this week. Oh you need me to work a triple double? Sure why not! Sixty-thousand papers are due? No problem I'll start writing immediately!

This goes on for exactly 2.5 days.

By this point it is too late to go back and try to fix the snowman that I have built out of responsibilities. So, since I am incredibly stubborn, I start to become determined to finish all my work. I've got that determined look on my face. People start asking me if I need help because I think at this point they begin to realize, “Oh shit, Alli really thinks she can be in all 100 of these places at once!”

For the first half of day #3, yes, I am in 100 places at once. But at noon, it falls apart. No one is where I need them to be organized to in order to get everything done. People are stuck in their rooms like God just dumped super glue on them to slow me down (or to drive me insane, this is yet to be determined).

This is where I stop doing anything at all.

I hide in corners eating candy (the little root beer barrels preferably if I can find them) or obsessively checking facebook/email on my phone.

Then I realize (if I am at work) that I am going to be leaving soon and I have done nothing except for devour the last of the candy.

Panic stage begins.

I begin running around frantically trying to finish everything. At this point I am too overcome with shame to be able to ask for help (you would feel shameful too if all you did was eat candy for an hour).

Finally, I have everything done and I leave...and when I mean leave, I mean I am running out the door leaving to get the eff out of there.

Then I come home. And I sit. And I do NOTHING. I will maybe clean up after myself a little bit, maybe I will stop by the bank on the way home, maybe I'll even pay some bills. But then you will find me trapped in front of the computer unable to move.

Here I sit now currently. Frozen. Unable to do anything except for look at things that are being linked to me by Soul Twin.

What a life :)

Torture, Terrorism, and Tormenting: How I Became A Dinosaur

I lived to terrorize as a child and I still enjoy tormenting my parents each and every opportunity I get.

It all began with my sister, without her, I probably would have never perfected this art of terrorism and torment of any person I come into contact with.

When she was born, my heart was filled with evil. I wanted her to go back to the hospital and I never wanted to see her again. All I knew was that she was taking away my grandma, my parents, my aunt. This was not okay. This was war.

My sister even gave me a fat lip once after making me walk on her magazine trail in the living room (I fell, what's new right?)

This culminated into me chasing my sister with grapes that I told her were bugs, the invention of the good monster (I will write about this a different day), catching leeches and telling her they were snails, trying to kill her goldfish, and most of all: attempting to convince my parents that she was not an angel.

I would frame her for various "crimes" throughout the house. Oh, who peed in mom's shoes? Well of course, it was Marissa! [Disclaimer: Several times, it actually WAS Marissa, but there were a few times I decided to frame her]. No that isn't dog poop, Marissa must have done it! Who threw up? Well, obviously Marissa did it. Marissa is the one who cut up the bath towels! Marissa is the one who dressed up the dog!

...Of course my parents saw right through these not very well thought through attempts to make them realize my sister was NOT a princess. And yes, I got in trouble. I think the only thing that Marissa ever might have gotten in trouble for was peeing in my mom's shoes...just because she had been caught in the act of it. 

So, Parents, now that you have seen this, yes, I peed in mom's shoes too. 

Eventually, I became a hormonal adolescent and the rage for my sister continuing to hold on to her crown became overpowering. I became some kind of a dinosaur ready to breathe fire at anything I saw. 

I ran around screaming trying to get my sister to react at least a little bit. She would just keep smiling.

Stupid angel.

This continued until I felt like I was about to spontaneously combust.

My parents began filming these rage fests in an effort to try to prove to me that I had an anger problem and needed to see the Pastor to get myself healed. For awhile, I was being constantly followed with the camera to see if I would become completely emotional and start screaming/crying/breaking things/or becoming insanely angry.

This made it worse.

One day, I was so upset with my sister that I threw a basketball at her and my little five foot self decided to knock down the basketball hoop, screaming all the while.

She didn't react. She kept smiling!

Yes, my parents caught this on camera. And yes, they still tell me that they have this on camera and have threatened to write their own blog complete with photo/video evidence of how terrible I was/am. 

The rest of my life I have lived as a fire breathing dinosaur. Tormenting my parents at any chance just to get back at them for birthing the devil and making me be related to it. Probably also for filming me tormenting the world. 

Don't worry though, eventually my sister did get sick of me bugging her and when I locked her in my playroom to play with me, she punched me in the face.

The war...is...not...over!

Staring Contest

Have you ever had one of those weird experiences with people in public that are just way too interested in what you are doing?

I went out the other night with a pretty wonderful person. We were having a lot of fun, so needless to say, we were laughing at something as we walked into a diner.

The booths went something like this:

As you can see, I am clearly the purple dot that can see everything going on behind us. And yes, obviously you can see the red X marked there showing the creepy lady staring at us.

This caught my attention, so I learned over...

Me: Ummm, there is someone watching us...
Boy: Where?
Me: Diagonal - right behind you!
Boy: Okay, this is how I normally handle these things: I just stare back.
Me: Okay, lets do it!
Boy: Naturally you would be okay with this. On the count of three, we will turn and stare at her for seven seconds...3...2...1

And we stared. For seven seconds.

We definitely creeped her out. She deserved every one of those seven seconds of torture.

Most people wouldn't continue staring, but I saw her glance over a few more times until her group left.

I think it's because we are so darn cute.

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The Great Bug Adventure

Here I was, getting ready to go out Christmas gift shopping with my friend. I did the normal things like showering but when I got out, I had a guest.

This massive bug with claws was walking across my mirror.

Since I am horribly afraid of bugs, I decided the best thing to do would be to spray it with bleach.

This failed to do anything except make the bug fly.

What kind of mutant bug doesn't die from bleach?!

At this point I decided I should take a picture of this bug to figure out what sort of thing could live through this kind of torture, but by the time I got back into the bathroom, it was gone.

This scared me worse. I promise you, there is nothing worse than knowing that a bug is loose somewhere in the house and you have no idea where it is.

I cautiously decided I should keep trying to get ready and once I had brushed one half of my hair, I looked and saw it was on the shower curtain. This is when I remembered the chemist I knew from a few years back. She told me that Windex kills bugs by suffocating them.

[Side note: I don't care how cruel a death of suffocation is. The bug should have known better than to move into my apartment in the first place.]

I ran into the kitchen and grabbed the Windex and went crazy spraying the shower curtain and the bug.

This didn't kill it either.

Instead, the bug just continued crawling around the shower curtain. Its claws were helping it keep a grip on the shower curtain so even the boot I was trying to hit it with wouldn't make it budge.

So I decided to just spray it with as many chemicals as I could. Maybe it would explode.

Everything I could find in the kitchen is now on that bug, wherever it is. It disappeared shortly after that.

I am going to keep waiting for the chemical reaction to end the bugs life and also warn all other bugs from ever entering this apartment.

**UPDATE**

I found the bug a couple hours later and used 2 boots to try to somehow hit the bug into the toilet.

It worked.

Unfortunately, it was a stink bug according to Best Friend...so I was lucky I didn't squish it! 

I am still not sorry...kinda.

I got a lot of phone calls, texts, messages, and comments based on my opinions/facts.

I did a lot of research and work on that last post, as I normally do if I have a desire to share an opinion that is possibly not going to be well respected.

My point (I can't believe I have to say this because I thought I was clear) is not to attack Christianity. I just don't think it's really fair to believe that this is a Christian country and that anyone who isn't Christian or may be offended shouldn't be here "because no one asked you to come here anyway".

I think it is a human right (and a Constitutional right) to be able to practice your religion despite if it is true, false, stupid, or pointless. As long as you are not hurting anyone else, does it really matter if you are Christian, Jew, or Muslim?

I guess from a Christian standpoint, you would be shocked by that statement. I was taught in my high school that tolerance is not okay. But as a human being working with human beings and rights and all that jazz, I think it's really important to respect the person. Wasn't always the statement to love the sinner and hate the sin?

Christians that I have talked to these days (the really adamant mean ones) are really...well, mean. They are pushy and insulting. They are not the nice ones.

Funny to say this, but my morning yesterday started off with a wonderful woman who I respect a lot telling me that God hasn't forgotten me, even though I've had some rough times and a couple heartbreaks. She told me he has a plan for me and that everything will be okay. I respect that. I'm happy with that. I don't believe in predestination at all (hence my deistic beliefs), but that's okay because not everything that man has interpreted from the Bible is fact.

I don't know and you don't either.

I am a Christian. I do believe in God. That hasn't changed. My view on government and society has changed. My views are different based on the fact that I take care of people who are seriously disillusioned by their religious beliefs at times. These beliefs are sometimes toxic. They are dangerous and scary. It forced me into a corner and it caused me to start wanting to know why about a lot of things.

I learned that America does not mean Christian. Nope. I get the pleasure of interacting with several religions/cultures on a daily basis. That is sooo awesome. Who wouldn't want to get to see other cultures and how they work?!

It is important to have facts, and I think I have them. If you can prove my facts wrong, I really want to hear it because I am on a quest for the truth. Share your opinions. Prove me wrong if you want. Change my mind. Every bit of research I have done tells me that this country values the morals that are taught in several religions, but not just Christianity.

Mom, I wasn't throwing you under the bus. I was just answering your question like I told you I would do when I wrote the blog when I began telling you my views on the phone. I'm sorry I offended you.

Bottom line is this: I still don't think our country was founded on Christian values.  (Article 11, Treaty of Tripoli)
I still don't think that people who aren't Christians should be thrown out of the country. (Constitution)
And I still don't think that Christmas is an American custom...

I am tired and I don't want to push anymore buttons because I am tired of people telling me I am an atheist when I'm not. I never once said I do not believe in God.

Enough is enough. Can we consider this my peace treaty so we can go back to our regularly scheduled programming of funny stories?

Thank you very much.

Since when did Christmas become such a huge controversy?!

After a heated few days in a Facebook war with a girl that did a copy paste status that she most likely didn't read first (I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt) I decided to get more opinions and share some facts. Here is what her beautiful status said:

“We can't say Merry Christmas. Now we have to say Happy Holidays. We can't call it a Christmas tree. Its now called a holiday tree because it might offend someone. If you don't like our "American Customs" and it offends you so much then LEAVE. No one asked you to come here in the first place!! I will continue to say Merry Christmas and Christmas tree. If you agree with this please post this as your status.”

I am not the type to be easily offended, especially since I am Christian (err maybe, possibly a deist) and do celebrate Christmas. Also, when I commented on this whole “LEAVE” piece of the puzzle I got yelled at by a lot of very conservative Christians, and called arrogant. However, what these wonderful people didn't realize is last semester I took a class called American Vision and Values that got me being a little more in tune with what our supposed "American customs" are. I thought I would make a list of what they are not:

1. Christianity
2. Christmas
3. Religion in general
4. Communication
5. Relationships

We have entered the smart phone stage. All people do is talk/text (not the face to face stuff). Someone I know commented last night when we were eating on a couple sitting near us. Married (rings) and on their Blackberries. We don't do relationships anymore either. Maybe its my age, but guys don't want a girlfriend. They want someone to fulfill the girlfriend shaped hole in their life with no strings. This is America. Welcome. Also, we are a melting pot of tons of different people, and we should be excited about that! You can learn about any religion here, any culture, or any language. That.Is.Amazing.

All that being said, I thought I would make a few points clear since I offended some people by busting open the truth that our country was not founded on Christian principles.

First, the Pilgrims were not the Founding Fathers. That is different. Yes, SOME of the Pilgrims came here for religious freedom, however, some of them just wanted to come to America. They weren't all separatists. This happened in the 1620s anyway. We aren't even getting into America yet, because it doesn't exist for another 150 some years.

Lets get into 1776 where all of the controversy I started on Facebook began (this is all about religion, how ridiculous!)

THE REAL AMERICAN CUSTOMS!

1. Equality
2. Individual liberty
3. Success
4. Freedom of movement
5. Freedom of worship (yes, that's right, ANY religion!)
6. DIVERSITY

In none of my research has Christmas been mentioned as being an “American custom”. It's a religious preference. It's our right to celebrate it if we choose to. Yes, a large portion of our country celebrates Christmas. Yes, Christians should be able to say “Merry Christmas!” because it is their religion and a celebration of this.

[Side note: America also values this as being a gift giving celebration. It's not even about Jesus' birthday! It's about what we are getting for others and ourselves. The mall next to my house is constantly packed at this time of year and I don't think it's packed with a flock of Christians...]

The “American custom” here is gift giving. Not celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.

This led me to a little bit more research on these things I was told are “American customs” like how our country was actually formed on Christian beliefs.

Now I know my parents and probably a ton of other people that actually read this are going to die a little inside so I'll be very gentle when I explain this to you...

Quite a few of the Founding Fathers were deists or even atheists!

I'm serious.

Take Thomas Jefferson. Rev. Ethan Allen (1797 – 1879) wrote about an encounter that he had with President Thomas Jefferson one day.

“President Jefferson was on his way to church on a Sunday morning with his large red prayer book under his arm when a friend querying him after their mutual good morning said which way are you walking Mr. Jefferson. To which he replied to Church Sir. You going to Church Mr. J. You do not believe a word in it. Sir said Mr. J. No nation has yet existed or been governed without religion. Nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has ever been given to man and I as chief Magistrate of this nation am bound to give it the sanction of my example. Good morning Sir. “

Notice how everyone KNEW that he didn't believe in Christianity, but he knew that it has it's place.

Benjamin Franklin wrote to some guy once that “If men are wicked with religion, imagine what they would be without?” [He said religion - NOT Christianity...]

See?

So now of course you are going to ask me why God is mentioned in the Constitution, the Declaration, and whatever else you can think of (my mom asked why it says “In God We Trust” on our currency...).

Honestly, the majority of the country at that point in time went to church despite beliefs (like Jefferson) because it was the right thing to do. Everyone recognizes that Christianity (or religion in general) has good morals wrapped around in it. It has good teachings, whether or not you believe in God. You have to forgive, treat people well, tell the truth...I can't really complain about any of these things, because they are GOOD.

And mom, the reason our currency says “In God We Trust” according to wikipedia is because it is our national motto.

The main point on all of this is we need to realize that just because our money says “In God We Trust” doesn't mean that we are a Christian country.

We aren't. Sorry to anyone who didn't realize.

The First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Yup, we can all practice whichever religion we want. Yay!

The separation of church and state motto came from a letter Jefferson wrote in regards to a rumor about a national church being established. He said the First Amendment was created to “build a wall of separation between Church & State”. That's where that got started.

It has gotten twisted around over the years, because people evolve and change and become offended.

I don't want these people to leave the country though! They keep me on my toes and they are entertaining.

We are all supposed to coexist. There are a lot of us in this country. We're a pretty damn amazing country and so lets embrace the diversity and enjoy each other. We can learn so much from this experience. If I walk out of my apartment into the parking lot right now, I can interact with an Pakistani family, a Indian family, a Mexican family...and I can assure you they all have different life experiences to share that are amazing.

I will leave this as follows from an article just shared with me by a pretty awesome guy...

““Do unto others…” is a good rule of thumb. I live by that. Forgiveness is probably the greatest virtue there is. Buts that’s exactly what it is -­‐ a virtue. Not just a Christian virtue. No one owns being good. I’m good. I just don’t believe I’ll be rewarded for it in heaven. My reward is here and now. It’s knowing that I try to do the right thing. That I lived a good life. And that’s where spirituality really lost its way. When it became a stick to beat people with. “Do this or you’ll burn in hell.” - Ricky Gervais

Although he was writing about how he is an atheist, I saw it appropriate to this whole entire thing.

Opinions? Thoughts? Ideas? Are you going to yell at me some more?

Check out the Coexist Movement.

http://domain3133911.sites.fasthosts.com/

Nuff said. 

Namesake

An ezra is a mythical creature my parents created for me when I was about 3. It has stuck with me my entire life and has caused me nightmares and wasted money to try to get to know these beings.

When I was little, I woke up screaming from my sleep. The entire house came running and all I could get out of my mouth was that there were ezras in my dream. This was my first nightmare.

From what I remember, an ezra is like a cactus. It wears a sombrero and also has maracas in its hands. It dances and makes a strange shaking sound. I don't know why this scared me so much, but it terrified me.

My parents response was that the ezras lived in Texas (far away from Minnesota, obviously) and that my grandma had sent them there to live...basically, I shouldn't be so afraid.

For the next several years I saved my money to go to Texas to visit these creatures because I was convinced that I could be friends with them. No one told me to knock it off until I was a teenager.

Thanks parents.

Now we know why I am blogging about these mythical creatures in my 20s.