Chaos Theory: A gift list for...

Quotes

Natasha Lyonne:
“First of all, everyone is entitled to at least one nervous breakdown in a lifetime."
krisjohn:
"I hope we have to go through all of this crap because out of an infinite number of timelines, this is the only one where we survive. Otherwise it's hard to justify."
mightshould:
"I'm coping. That's a major accomplishment. Anything else is bonus."
Mary Rodgers:
"So I asked the shrink: When you're depressed because of actual things that are depressing, are there any drugs that can make you feel better? And he said no, which was even more depressing."
David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky:
"I figured my post-college life would be pretty much like the one I'd been leading for the past decade: work some little job I didn't have to put much into, then come home and do my own stuff. It was the life that most of my friends had, and half my family." "It's a consequence of putting stuff out there--you're going to get reactions."
Kristina Marusic:
"There likely aren’t a ton of people on this planet—let alone within your geography or social circles—whose moral compass, sense of humor, Netflix addictions, dietary restrictions, and idiosyncrasies sync up with yours closely enough to make you want to hitch your wagon to them for the long-haul (and the internet is making us all even picker)."
John Oliver:
"Let this be a lesson that you absolutely don’t want to fuck with someone who has the patience, attention to detail, and sustained anger to crochet their resentment into a handmade garment."
Gail Donovan, quoted in "Knitting Yarns" in the essay "Knitted Goods"
"I love taking what is basically a long string and constructing a three-dimensional object. I love thinking about how somebody figured out how to do that!"
Amber A’Lee Frost:
"It’s not just bad for a person to rely on their weakest skills for survival; it’s unsustainable and immiserating."
Michael Che:
“You know what else makes you do crazy things? Crazy,”
August and Annie/Isaiah, "One Last Stop."
"Does it ever, like...I don't know. Make you lonely? To love somebody who can't meet you there?" "Sometimes. But, you know, that feeling?" When you wake up in the morning and you have somebody to think about? Somewhere for hope to go? It's good. Even when it's bad, it's good."
Katie Brennan:
"The Office taught me that love isn’t always an immediate burst of rainbows and butterflies; sometimes the best kind of love is a quiet, enduring, and steadfast process. When you really love someone, you know they are worth putting in time and effort. Even if you entertain the thought of someone else during the process, i.e. you get yourself a Karen, you know they can’t compare to your person. No amount of time can make that connection fade, so whether it’s consciously or subconsciously, you wait for your stars to align. It might take your company casually hosting a Casino Night, or a heartfelt post it note attached to an Office Olympics “medal,” but eventually your time comes—and when it does, it’s pretty much the best thing ever."
Jane Tyson Clement:
"We don't notice the strange way things come about while they are coming about. It is only afterwards that we see the pattern..."
"Candace Kahn," Almost Romance:
"You can't blow off a good story just because it's challenging."
Nick Cave:
"I prefer to say that I have made, for reasons of survival, a commitment to the uncertain nature of the world. This is where my heart lies. I suspect it always has."
Ted Lasso:
"I love meeting people's moms. It's like reading an instruction manual as to why they're nuts."
Ask Amy:
"My point is that you can lay out your plans, but the world might have other ideas."
supercrayon:
"But I kept thinking there’s a future me a week or a month or a year away that is through this. That future me is not plagued by uncertainty, they know what happened and they’re looking back at how things played out. I liked to think that future me was sending strength and love to present me. Sometimes now, present me in fact does send strength and love back towards past me. Your future selves know what happened. The you of a week or a month from now knows, and has already started to plan your next moves. I hope strength and love are rippling up and down the timeline between yourselves."
Christina Long (Washington Post)
“WHY ARE NONE OF MY INTERESTS WORTH ANYTHING IN DOLLARS,”
Michael Diamond:
“People get frustrated when they can’t see the future,” says Diamond. “The future looks scary if you’re telling them it’s just staying at home for the next 12 to 18 months. You shouldn’t really be that surprised when at least a fraction of them get angry."
Seanan McGuire:
"Please stop trying to solve me. I'm not a problem."
Morrie Morgan, in "Work Song" by Ivan Doig:
"I don't know any cure for being myself. The lotion for that hasn't been concocted yet."
Jason Mendoza:
“Sometimes you just gotta huck a Molotov cocktail at a drone and see what happens.”
Augusten Burroughs:
"But impossible is a concept that makes one's heart laugh and throw peanuts at the television."
Augusten Burroughs:
"Even if things aren't catastrophic now, catastrophe has always followed me. Life unfolds, right? All the time, it's unfolding, and I'm going to follow it."
Augusten Burroughs:
"My life has never really been “happily ever after.” I’ve always had conflict and disaster follow me around like a shadow, and I can’t really believe that will suddenly stop now that I’m happily living in Connecticut with three dogs. We’re just going to have to see."
Jacqui:
“If you have a job where you’re not coming home with stories, it’s time to leave. That simply is our qualification. Healthcare helps. Benefits are nice, but oh my god, how do you not come home with stories? It is the easiest qualification, but it’s true. My feeling is if you don’t have a story, it wasn’t a good day."
armeowda:
"Many people can cast their affections broad and bright as floodlights, but others of us are laser beams, and when something actually trips our attraction/affection sensors it can feel like a certain kind of instant precision strike, and it can leave a mark forever."
Stan Tatkin
"There's actually nothing more difficult on the planet than another person."
Lani Diane Rich:
"What doesn't kill you makes you stranger."
Heather Havrilesky:
"Do they let me write these words because I’m good at it, or do they let me do it because I’m an entertainingly crazy person who is slowly but surely unraveling before 50,000-to-100,000 sets of eyeballs each week?"
Justin Peters:
"The simple lesson that Millionaire taught me is that if you want to change your life—either by winning a lot of money on television or by some more prosaic means—at some point you are going to have to take a risk. Unless you are John Carpenter, you will eventually have to step into the unknown, bet on yourself, and hope that you are making the right decision."
Leslie Jones
"Women are the same as humans."
Anne Lamott:
“If you’re paying attention and making your own life as beautiful and rich and fun as it can be, you might just attract someone who’s doing the same thing,” she said. “You can give up on tracking someone down with your butterfly net.” “Never give up, no matter how things look or how long they take. Don’t quit before the miracle.”
Seanan McGuire:
"If what I say doesn’t help you, ask someone else, until you find the person whose reply tells you how to kick the damn door down."
Grangousier:
"It's 2018. There's a realistic chance of pretty much anything happening if it's ridiculous enough."
Joy:
"I feel a constant low level of stress every day, just by virtue of existing in my environment,"
Fancy Feast:
"When she was on a bad date, she would go to the bathroom, hit her nose until she got a nosebleed, and excuse herself, because it was easier to punch herself in the face than suffer the consequences of rejecting a man."
Ber:
"Get your freak on, screw the powers that would deny you."
Lee Bradford:
"Lee? Why does all this weird shit only seem to happen to you? Well, disembodied voice from nowhere-statistically, it has to happen somewhere."

« We don't separate love birds here. | Main | That is one great reading. »

November 03, 2006

A gift list for...

...passive-aggressives. Some suggestions:

A beautiful piece of clothing that is either several sizes too big if the recipient is thin (implying that the person looks fatter than they are) or several sizes too small if the recipient is overweight. If the latter, perhaps write in the card insinuating that the recipient should aspire to fit into it.
A gift certificate for an hour in a sensory deprivation tank for someone with claustrophobia
The DVD of Charlotte's Web for someone with arachnophobia
A baker's dozen of their favorite cookies for someone with triskaidekaphobia
A gift certificate to the local mall for someone with agoraphobia
For intimate partners to give each other (unrequested) household tools. Darling, I knew you wanted a blender.
Bride's magazine subscription for your sister who desperately wants to find a man, and/or just broke up wth one, and/or can't get him to commit.
One year my aunt and uncle got me a supersoaker without getting my little brother one. The next year, my parents got my cousin a slingshot.
I had a rabidly homophobic acquaintence that had a big birthday party. Some friends and I bought him a nice tee-shirt, from the International Male catalogue, and had it delivered to his home. This simple act placed him on many a GLB mailing list.
my brother, who is now a vet, got an inflatable love sheep for his last birthday. I didn't tell him about it, so he opened it in front of his girlfriend's relatives.
An ex-girlfriend asked for some manga from japan... I gave her the raunchiest, most disturbing amputee porn I could find. Well, that and the giant speculum I found in a shop in akihabara.
A very long, dry book that you've raved about. Ask them every two days if they still haven't finished it, with a look of outrage and pity.
For Christmas of my third and fourth year alive, my uncle sent (respectively) a gumball machine and a mini drum set. We didn't see much of him for the next few years.
In college, one of my favorite birthday gift-giving traditions was to get the gift recipient fantastically drunk, then encourage them to get a tattoo.
Thick wool sweaters for people living in Florida, Hawaii, etc.
I gave the boy next door the Masters of the Universe Mutant Slime Pit for his birthday one year. It was this great toy that let you strap a He-Man action figure into it and then dump a jar of green goo on his head. Though it has long been obvious to me why his parents never invited me to another birthday party, it has only just now occurred to me that my parents MUST have known the effect the gift would have. I mean, I was maybe 8 years old--they must have approved and even paid for the thing.
Underwear from anyone who is not your spouse or parent. (Who the hell buys bras for cousins?)
a friend's parents received a large, perpetually angry parrot for their wedding. from the groom's brother. without warning, without ever having expressed the desire for one. a) wtf parrot? b) those things live to be like 150 years old -- their grandkids will be able to hate this bird as much as they do.
A co-worker gave a 10-year savings bond to a very elderly in-law.

Posted on November 03, 2006 at 01:46 PM in Weird, Wild Stuff | Permalink

Comments

A group of my dear friends once gave me a $75 gift certificate to get a tatoo. After that I kind of had to get a tatoo:). I think their passive agressive point was: stop thinking about it and get one already.

Posted by: Anna | November 03, 2006 at 02:59 PM

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Speed-Reading Book Nerd Reviews

Speed-Reading List

Lily Koppel: The Astronaut Wives Club
Reviewed October 10. (****)
Hannah Nicole Maehrer: Assistant to the Villain
Reviewed October 7. (****)
Hazel Beck: Small Town, Big Magic
Reviewed October 6. (***)
Jennifer Chiaverini.: The Women’s March: A Novel of the 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession
Reviewed October 4. (***)
Jennette McCurdy: I'm Glad My Mom Died.
Reviewed October 2. (****)
Britney Spears: The Woman in Me
Reviewed September 19. (****)
Jessica Warman: Repeat After Me
Reviewed September 18. (**)
Adrienne Young: The Unmaking of June Farrow
Reviewed September 17. (***)
Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer: Rocky Start
Reviewed August 25 (***)
Christina Lauren: Something Wilder
Reviewed August 26. (***)