The Random Life
NEIRAD enilno edition
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My family has a tradition of celebrating with supremely angsty and action-packed holidays. Last year’s Thanksgiving was the memorable time that my brother managed to break his elbow and get surgery in another state at the exact same time a glass dish exploded in our kitchen and nearly killed my grandmother, and the same brother has also broken his arm on Easter Sunday by jumping from his bunk bed to the floor. I have no idea how we're going to top that this year for Christmas. I’m picturing my brother falling off the roof on Christmas. As he is carried to the ambulance by the weary EMTs, he mumbles something about “just wanting to meet Santa.” Our family hovers, stricken, in the painfully sterile waiting room at the hospital, wondering how many broken bones my accident-prone brethren has managed this jolly holiday season. If nothing disastrous happens this year, I’m going to be extremely disappointed. I may have to hurt someone.
Who came up with the idea that raising one's hand should signal when one wants to speak? I'd like to smack that person in the face.
There was a very attractive, suited man standing outside of the new Darien Brooks Brothers the other day. I spotted him from afar and stared at him, biting my lip in what I hoped was an alluring way (but, in retrospect, I probably just looked like I had a horrible dental problem). He stared back at me and I wondered how much trouble I would get in/how cool I would look if I were to leap from the window of the car I was in, roll in order to cushion my fall, sprint across traffic and embrace this fine-looking young gent. I'm really disappointed that I didn't.
I'm really enjoying this rainy weather. It allows me to forget what time of day it is because it's always mildly to moderately dusky. For instance, I came downstairs at 8:30 AM on a Saturday to find my mother sitting on the couch in her jeans and the same shirt and puffy vest she was wearing the night before. She was eating popcorn and watching the first Harry Potter movie. When she saw me come down the stairs, bleary in my sweatpants and ridiculous hat, she looked at me and said, in all seriousness, "MacKenzie, I never before appreciated how cool all the dorky stuff you're into is."
And I was like, "Mom, you should totally read the books first. You're doing the fandom a disservice.” I wondered what had possessed her to arise at such an ungodly hour on a Saturday to watch a movie about a fantastically imagined world. I then shrugged, grabbed a handful of popcorn, and joined my mother on the couch, tricking my body into believing it was nighttime and bonding with my mom all at once.
While on the way back from Stamford one day, my youngest brother and I spied a guy who looked like a hobo: he was wearing a patched jacket, a floppy hat that one can only procure once one becomes a gen-u-ine certified hobo, and fingerless gloves, and he was riding a dirt bike. There were boxes and crates stacked probably five feet high on the back of his dirt bike, and a tail that I was able to identify as Tigger's was sticking out of one of the boxes and flying, like a windsock, behind the man as he piloted his fantastically out-of-place source of
speedy transportation. From the backseat, I heard my brother say, very quietly,
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