Joke Time

I am currently reading the book “Comedy Writing Secrets” by Melvin Helitzer to sharpen my humor writing skills. My thoughtful boyfriend got it for me and I must admit: I love it. You can check it out here.

Tonight I practiced word play and came up with two original jokes that I think pass as “not terrible”. Tell me what you think:

Where does the First Lady’s gynecologist hold his exams?

The Ovum Office.

And lastly,

Who provides the body guards for the cast of ‘American Idol?’

The Seacrest Service.

Well, what did you think? Be nice honest.

The Witch Hunt for Beauty

I’m no Kim Kardashian. In addition to never having made a sex tape that shot me and my galaxy-quaking booty to celebrity status, I’m not a girly-girl. Kim loves make-up, dresses, shoes, hair products and glamour. I’m what can best be described as a “guyly girl.” I take the man approach to my appearance.

Do I have toothpaste on my face?” Are inappropriate parts of my body showing? Is my mustache unkempt?

If the answer to all of these questions is ‘no’, I’m ready to head outside-and honestly, I’d be lying if I said I never found little speckles of Crest on my face hours into my day.

I’ve always respected girls who take the time to get gussied up, and know how to get gussied up well. That has never been a forte of mine. Don’t get me wrong, I think I’m an attractive person, but I just have never cared enough to make an effort to look nice on most days. I credit my loving family and my inherent naiveté for bestowing to me an impressive amount of self-esteem for my physical self.

When I was a child I used to think that wearing make up was a type of sin. Side note: I went to a Catholic school grades K-12, so I literally thought it could be a sin.

Why would anyone want to change the way they look? God wanted you to look a certain way, and you’re perfect the way you are. Makeup changes what you’re supposed to look like. Why mess with something that’s already perfect?

That feeling lasted right up until I got my first set of volcanic pimple colonies that decided to loudly and proudly take residence on my forehead. They still visit me three to four times a month. Bastards.

Even when puberty started deflating my confidence and made me crave attention from boys, I just couldn’t bring myself to make the effort to spruce up my looks. There were rumors that some girls woke up three hours before they had to leave just to curl their hair and make sure their make up was perfect. Was I jealous of their perfectly coiffed hair and glossy lips? Of course. But Holy-Beauty-Sleep-Batman, who has time for that?

When I was in college, I thought I would take my newly found freedom and my years of nonexistent beauty expertise out for a test drive. I was going to attempt the mecca of all beauty adventures: it was time to dye my hair. (Mistake #1)

My reasoning: My hair is brown but my eye brows are black. Shouldn’t the curtains match the valances?

Before I reveal how horrific this endeavor proved to be, let me say this: thank God I didn’t attempt to dye my eyebrows brown! I’m sure I would have ended up looking like this guy:

hey sexy

I, Lady Beautynoob, needed assistance with this quest, so I quickly appointed the two most qualified candidates for the job: my two dude friends. Their skateboarding skills and insatiable competitive drive to out-fart each other didn’t seem to align with the beauty aspect of this adventure, but they were endearing.

I let them pick out the box of dye. (Mistake #2)

The color: Black Pearl. (Mistake #3). Did you know that the word “pearl” ,as related to hair dye, is not a noun but an adjective? As in “Shiny as a pearl.” As in “So shiny you will look like you used Turtle Wax as conditioner.” As in “Your hair will look like a Halloween witch’s wig.”

The resounding silence after I finished drying my new noir locks should have been my first hint that I had made a terrible mistake. Re-cue my naiveté; it couldn’t be that bad.

Dudefriend #1: It….looks…good?

Dudefriend #2: Yea…..I think you…..you pull it off?….yeah, you totally pull it off…

Dudefriend #1: …..Totally…

Hair that has been treated by a box of grocery store hair dye feels like a bale of hay that has been microwaved, sliced with rusty sporks and laid out to bake in the Sahara.  My mane was very, very mad at me.

So I did the only thing a girl who doesn’t care about her appearance can do when her witch hair is crying out for respite: nothing.  For seven months I just let my hair do it’s thing.  It grew and grew and before I knew it I had about four inches of brown roots on top of my head, trying to catch up to the 12+ inches of witch hair below.

I didn’t realize I had done anything wrong until I came home on summer break.  I hadn’t seen my high school friend in about a year and was excited to have her come over.  When I opened the door to let her in the first words out of her mouth were not “Hi! I missed you!”  Instead, she immediately blurted “Oh no.  We need to fix this.”

I’m so glad I have women in my life that know what to do in hairy beauty situations.  Under the steady hand of a trained hair professional my locks returned to brown.  But my beauty apathy levels have stayed relatively the same.

My hair keeps slowly wrapping itself around my neck, which means it’s almost time for a haircut.  I think it’s just trying to enact revenge for the black pearl incident.  Honestly, I don’t blame it.  I think I’ll just ask the stylist to do whatever she thinks would look the best.  I wonder what Kim Kardashian would have to say.

Do you have any hilarious beauty mishap stories?  Are you a ‘Guyly Girl’ too?  Comment below!

Life Lesson: DO NOT ‘Grin and Bear it’

I’m an animal lover.  I don’t eat meat and I try not to smush spiders.  But if there were a big red button I could push to ensure that I would go the rest of my life without ever being graced by the presence of one animal, it would be the bear.  Because I want people to realize the dangers these animals pose to our human race, I have put together a list of reasons why bears,if they wanted to, could wipe out humans, take over the world and wear your skin as cape.  Plain and simple: bears should be feared, not respected.  Respect leads to trust, and trust leads to Old Mr. Grizzly using your femur as a toothpick.

I can hear all you naive internet dwellers now: But Danielle WHY?!  Bears are so cute!  What’s your beef?

My “beef” is precisely what’s at stake! I like my meat to stay on my bones.  Bears have two jobs on this planet:
1. CONSUME FOOD

floss, anyone?

and
2. HAVE BEAR BABIES THAT CONSUME FOOD

oh, look, a family of face-grazers

By “food” I mean ANYTHING! Bears ain’t picky. They’ll eat plants, berries, trash, preservatives, insects, birds, angry birds, boomboxes, fish, your firstborn…it doesn’t matter…IF THEY’RE HUNGRY AND SOMETHING IS NEAR THEM, THEY WILL EAT IT! They don’t care about maintaining lean physiques. Their goal is to get as fat as they can so they can hibernate when it gets cold. Those winter-hating bastards. I have to kind of admit that I’m a little jealous. I wish I could lie down for a nap in November and wake up in April.  At least I wouldn’t have to wait so long in between seasons of “The Walking Dead.”

 “But Danielle,” you say “Even if bears were out to eat my flesh off, they’d never be able to catch me.”

“I’d climb a tree.”

 

 

 

 

Good luck with that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I’d swim away.”

That sounds like a great idea if your next stop is swimming with the fishes.  Dummy.

“Ok fine, I’ll run away.”

Bears walk on two legs faster than you can run.  Once this bear was finished mocking runway models he devoured the camera man.

Our children have been disillusioned into thinking that bears are cute and  cuddly.  We even encourage babies to nuzzle up next to stuffed versions of these death machines in their cribs.  In my opinion, every time a child hears the word “bear” or sees an image of a bear they should be immediately pinched.  Then they will begin to associate bears with pain, and we no longer set our children up for shock and disappointment when they come across Mr. Blackbear at the local dumpster, try to high-five it and end up losing a limb.  We owe it to our children to pinch them.

Damn you, Teddy!

New tee-shirt sogan: SAVE A LIMB, PINCH A  TEDDY BEAR CHILD.

So, please, take heed:  Bears are not cuddly creatures who want to be our bffs.  If there is anything you can take away from this article it’s this:  Be careful when you’re in bear country (which by the way is everywhere except Australia, Africa and Antarctica).  Bears are dangerous.  They are hungry, mean, tree-climbing, water-swimming, fast-sashaying creatures of destruction that will digest your family faster than you can say “Teddy Ruxpin.”

I’d move to Australia, but the spiders down there are big enough to squish me.

Do you have any irrational fears of animals?  If so, tell me about it in the comments section!

For Shame….

“I’ve heard that hard work never killed anyone, but I say why take the chance?”

~Ronald Reagan

Boy oh boy I’m ashamed of myself.  I had a lovely blog set up and I let it sink into the darkness of the ‘lazy blogger graveyard.’  I even missed my golden opportunity on Jan 1st to restart my writing goals with a New Year’s Resolution.  But as Ronald Reagan used to not say, “there’s no time like the present.”  BLOGGING is restarting now!

Apologies to anyone out there (Mom) may have missed my posts.  But mostly, apologies to myself.  My lazy, unmotivated, good-for-procrastinating self.