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If you’ve ever wondered what it looks like for a grown woman to stage a wedding for her cats and stuffed animals, offer them a round of alcohol (Pepsi) and then encourage them to “make babies” then your day just got way better.
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I’m in rehab.
Ha ha, just kidding. I’ll never admit to my real problems because they’re too beautiful and kettle cooked. But what I will admit to is the fact that I have a huge issue with extricating myself from the internet. Like, one terabyte huge. See? I get it. The worst part is, I split my time between only three websites, maybe four – Twitter, Gmail and Wikipedia. Honorable mentions go to Amazon, TV Tropes and Maru’s Youtube channel. That’s it. That’s what consumes my time spent on the computer. And if you want me to be really honest, I just threw in Wikipedia to make it seem like I could possibly win a spelling bee someday.
I’ve auditioned more methods of productivity than the Westboro Baptist Church has poster board. The closest I came to success was the 30/30 method – work for 30 minutes and break for 30 minutes. It worked pretty well, mostly because 30 minutes is a lot of time to research lyrics from one hit wonders of the 90s. Too much time, really. After a while, the efficacy of my method began to wane and I learned that I simply can’t condition myself to have constant internet access. Before long, the time I spent being productive became indiscernible from the time I spent being overly concerned with the game theory behind The Biggest Loser. I’d find myself casually checking Twitter or responding to an email thinking, “This won’t take much time” and guess what it took a lot of time. There was always something new to click on, something new to say. For me, and just about anyone who didn’t get high off of glitter glue in their formative years, there’s always something to say.
Then while looking through Cool Tools hoping to find the perfect Lego set for my boyfriend (he’s legal), I stumbled upon SelfControl. Steve Lambert, creator of SelfControl, does what any self-respecting, bearded artist does and makes things for himself. He made SelfControl because he needed it. I need it. You probably need it, too.
SelfControl will look like this on your computer:
And that’s it, really. You click the start button, hope to hell you didn’t accidentally max it out to one day, and wonder what you ever did without it. I recommend starting at 15 minutes. If you get through it without a panic attack, bump it up to 30 minutes. But keep in mind that nothing will stop SelfControl. You can’t simply press ‘esc’ and you can’t just restart your computer. You can only take a hammer to the screen and sob while your shoulders violently leap toward your ears.
SelfControl will only blacklist sites that you choose, so if you find yourself visiting Neopets to feed your Chomby (this is real) during your block of productivity, you have the option of adding it to your Blacklist in real time.
Steve has thought of everything short of maybe a few scrolling Jackée Harry-isms like, “A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.” It’s a strait jacket for almost all of my poor choices. Aside from the one where I make Jackée Harry references. I’m fairly certain that can’t be helped.
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If anyone knows how I can blame this on someone else, please let me know. I, as usual, am not an acceptable option.
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There’s a giant hole above my sink. It’s been there for about two weeks and I hate it. Anyone can see into my kitchen and unfortunately, I think my neighbors now know that I drink moon cycle tea. Before the hole, everything was fine. I mean, there was mold growing beneath it but there were blinds, drywall and my general ability to practice avoidance covering it up.
Then the contractor came. He tore everything down with his little rodent teeth, pointed his sharp claws at me and laughed because he knew that he wouldn’t be back for at least 12 more days. Then he stole all of my walnuts. That’s actually just speculation. I wasn’t present when the work was done because having a bra on while he was here would’ve been more work than not wearing one to Whole Foods, where I’m not lazy – just bohemian.
If it were up to me, I’d put tin foil over everything and call it a solar panel. Then maybe install a swimming pool.
He’s going to be here to make less fun repairs at 9:30 am on Saturday. At best, he won’t show up. At worst, he’ll show up to designate a pee corner and promptly leave.
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Sometimes I get questions about how I come up with material. Do I carry a notebook? Does it just come to me? Do you think you could stop emailing and asking me to send you the overalls I wore in the ‘Forever’ video? And, aside from John Stamos being a total dick, I’m flattered because it never even occurred to me that I have material, just a few zingers that could be printed on the inside of Laffy Taffy wrappers.
The short answer is that I kind of come up with it as I go. The slightly longer, might-be-considered-a-mental-disorder answer is that I use a hand puppet. Sometimes I get stuck and sit at the screen long enough for me to eat an entire sleeve of Oreos and since that only takes about two minutes, I usually spend an additional hour biting my nails. It’s a habit I’ve had nearly my whole life and one that I’m not particularly proud of. To remedy this, I started using a hand puppet that goes by the name of, “Klappar Vild” which apparently just means “glove puppet.” Way to try, IKEA. I’m pretty sure it’s some sort of crocodile or dinosaur but either way, it’s not at all effective at being bad-ass since it not only has felt teeth but rounded felt teeth. That’s why I’m comfortable sharing my feelings with it.
Or rather, ideas. I never intended for it to be this way, but I found that if “streams of aluminum robot tears” sounds stupid coming from a glove puppet, then it will likely be even worse once written down. By now, Klappar and I have forged quite a bond. Check out these bedroom eyes we’re exchanging:
Targeting Nich Lachey's solo music career is too obvious. Next.
Klappar even lets me know how dumb it looks to show just one of my eyes and since the “I’m growing it out” excuse never works, my inferior non-puppet hand fixes it for me.
I really should just get a notebook.
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