Hey Anita, Have You Heard The One About…

June 27, 2007January 20, 2010 / Anita Marie / 24 Comments

I’m always getting links to stories that people think I will find ” amusing ” and sometimes people just write me and say, point blank, without the pretense of asking what I think about something they found on the net

” I’ve just heard something really weird Anita, is it true? “

Here are a few of those stories and questions and my answers

amm

POSSESSION AND EXORCISM

According to their objective this site is:

A web page that (could) offers itself as a meeting place for exorcists and which could present professional doctors with a place for discussion and information exchange about the theme.

They also go on to say :

If you believe you are suffering from some kind of extraordinary demonic phenomenon, you should get in touch with the bishop’s office of the diocese you belong to. They will put you in contact with the specialist in this matter for the diocese, or they will indicate the nearest specialist in a neighboring diocese.

So what do I think?

If you believe in an Immortal Soul and you think it’s in danger I don’t think I’d trust GOOGLE to help me find a way to protect it- that’s what I think.

Did Vikings Discover America before Columbus?

I call these stories The Redneck’s Wet Dream- look the Native Americans discovered America deal with it already. I don’t know why I keep getting these- maybe it’s because I’ve openly supported people who believe in UFO’s.

SOME people may think I’m a pushover for a good story.

But this Viking Vs Columbus story?

I’ve heard better.

Urban Legends–

I get a billion of these a month- mainly from people who want to know what the history is behind certain stories.

I get this one a lot- I figure it’s because I’m Filipina:

You shouldn’t Throw rice at weddings because when birds eat it it swells in their stomachs and causes hemorrhaging. This is why people started using birdseed instead.

Unless those birds have stomachs that are full of boiling water I’d say it’s safe for them to eat uncooked rice….jeeze you guys.

Use a little common sense sometimes-

NB DUE TO POPULAR DEMAND I HAVE PROVIDED THIS

CLICK HERE

EVIDENCE IN THE EXPLODING PIGEONS DEBATE

Is it true that after you die your hair and nails continue to grow?

The thing of it is when you die- and I mean the minute it happens -your body begins the process of decomposing.

So nothing is going to grow.

Sorry.

If I get a billion questions about Urban Legends then I must get a billion and one questions about ” Real Vampires “ .

As in, are they for real?

I think that some people really do believe they’re Vampires and if that’s the case I’m willing to accept that- but that entire mindset escapes me.

If I could choose to be any sort of ‘super being’ I’d want to be Iman.

So there you have it, these are the bits of reality

that people share with me

every single day.

Pretty nifty, isn’t it?

amm

I Get It Already

June 26, 2007June 26, 2007 / Anita Marie / 26 Comments

I wrote a story about being an ‘outsider’.

It upset people- it made them feel bad – they didn’t like going back to a time that really and truly sucked.

So I asked two of my friends who were ‘insiders’ what it was like for them ‘back then’.

It sounded good- their memories came across like a Nick at Night Classic Episodes Marathon with no (I’m sorry to say) Talking Horses or Martians.

Then we get around to talking about now and I heard a lot of stories about tuition costs and cars and loans and house payments and gee we took a vacation but when we got back this thing was waiting at the office…and part way through this visit to the Adult World my head started to hurt.

“Wow” I thought, “you sound like a commercial where you’re invited to ask your Doctor about this new anti-depressant” Anyway I felt like doing just that after they got done talking.

Of course these blood rituals work both ways so we go into what I’ve been up too and I say:” My kids got good jobs and moved out, I’m writing a book, I’ve been writing short stories, my husband and I are Civil Rights Activists so we’re really busy with that and for a couple of weeks now I’ve been having a Gummy Bear Porn War going on with a Writer in California.”

I took a deep breath and dove in again “I’ve also made this really cool discovery- I’ve discovered that if I do stories about Bruce Campbell people will read them. In fact, I went back and found out that his story took more traffic then the Paris Hilton story that I did… I think it’s because he’s truly talented.That’s about it”

So my two friends, (yes, I was and still am friends with some “Shiny People“) looked at each other and then at me and asked-

“So Anita, what else is going on with you?”

Seattle Would Have Been Sleepless…

June 25, 2007June 26, 2007 / Anita Marie / 2 Comments

This version of ” Sleepless In Seattle ” would have made me proud to be from Seattle- ( sob ) where have all the good ideas gone?

amm

Anchors and Irregular Bones

June 24, 2007October 15, 2007 / Anita Marie / 6 Comments

Anchors

The Anchors I’m writing about are the Anchors that help hold you in place when the forces of the world try to blow you around and away like so much garbage in the wind.

This is based on a writing exercise at the Soul Food Cafe – the train wrecks called ‘responses’ are mine.

PEZ – they’ve given my life meaning and purpose. Plus they were the only food I felt good about eating on the job. I worked in a Funeral Home. You’d have to have spent time working in an embalming room to understand.

One day it’s my dream to visit Area 51 and have my picture taken next to a bunch of inflatable aliens wearing sombreros. I want to wave around a fifth of Tequila and shout in Spanish, ” What do we want? The Truth! When Do We Want It? Now! ”

That way I can tick off Homeland Security and stick it to the Science Guys who suck the joy of wondering about the Universe straight out of our lungs.

I think it’ll be a rush- the same kind you get you drive up to a McDonalds and buy a Happy Meal For Kids so you can get the toy-and the thrill you get as you pull away because you know darn well you’re keeping that toy and the food for yourself.

It’ll feel just like that- I know it.

When I was about 9 I got sent to the library to do some ‘thinking time’. This kid named Jeff poured glue on my chair and when I realized he had gathered a small audience of jerks to watch me sit in that puddle of goo- in a new pair of cool purple bell bottoms to boot-I smacked him for it.

I got busted for ‘starting a fight’ I kid you not, the teacher said I had no reason to be mad because I hadn’t sat in the mess.

Anyway- there was a bright side two this- actually there were two.

The first was I felt really, really good when I popped the little bastard in the nose and the second good side was that the librarian made me sit in the corner where there was this stack of books a class had used for a project they had worked on about the Ancient Egyptians and Archeology.

With nothing else to do but gloat- which I did for part of the morning I spent the rest of the day reading.

On that day I learned that violence may not solve anything but it has it’s own rewards and that you can really learn things from books.

Before he was turned into a rock star I learned about King Tutankhamun and I also learned about a woman named Hatshepsut who, despite some serious effort on the ‘powers that be’ was not wiped from history.

A woman.

Cool.

I saved the Very Best for the Very Last.

My ” Monsters”.

They’ve made me less afraid, they’ve given me things to write about and their creators have inspired me to be more then the Anita I designed to be by doing hard time in the Suburbs with a bunch of narrow minded bigots on one side of me and scads of Latte Liberals on the other.

See, when things started to feel a little shaky and I was feeling like that maybe this time I wasn’t going to be able to hang on- you know I was forgetting who I was and what I was about- I had my anchors…Aliens, Pez Candy, Ancient Egyptians and Monsters.

You should be so lucky.

amm

Sucks To Be You

June 23, 2007 / Anita Marie / 4 Comments

When you sit around with your friends, or your cat, or if you live in Seattle, by your lonesome nursing a tall (not large) coffee- excuse me I mean ESPRESSO- and you’re planning what you’re going to be famous for one day I’ll bet you say things like:

” I want to write a movie that’s as good as Bubba Ho- Tep (well, that’s what I’d say)

” I want to be known for finding a million dollars buried in my back yard ”

” I want be known as the person that finds the cure for Cancer ”

etc….

I’m willing to bet that you wouldn’t think to say that you don’t want to down in history like:

The first victim in the Western Hemisphere of Gun Violence:

By Associated Press

Photo provided by the National Geographic/Puruchuco-Huaquerones Archaeological Project shows a nearly 500-year-old wound, believed to have been caused by a Spanish firearm, in the first documented gunshot victim in the New World.

Freak

June 23, 2007June 23, 2007 / Anita Marie / 14 Comments

When I was in High School my main tormentor was not a girl, it was not a relative, it was a short smarmy smart ass that the teachers loved and the cheerleaders loved and his dog probably loved him too.

Had we grown up in the 1950’s his nickname would have been Chip or Champ or Sport, something like that.

So you’d think that this well loved shiny bright young man who was headed for a shiny bright future in the suburbs with a shiny woman waiting for him there named ” Buffy ” ( or something like that )and 3.5 shiny children- would have something far better to do then follow me around with his mob of shiny best friends and ask me things like,

” Why do you have to wear that leather jacket? What are YOU trying to prove. Freak.”

” What is it with you and that black eye liner no one cares what you look like. Freak ”

” Nobody cares about you or your stupid guitar. How’d YOU get into a band? Freak. ”

” Why do YOU ride a motorcycle to school? Freak.”

” You’ll never amount to anything you ugly dog. Freak. ”

It went on and on and one until day I lifted the jerk straight off the ground and gave him a black eye.

The questions stopped and his Shiny friends would curl their shiny lips at me and scuttle away when we crossed paths at school (or anywhere else)

When I passed him in the halls he’d be mumbling ‘freak’-

of course.

Almost 20 years later I run into the one person at the Grocery Store who seems to know and care about what’s become of our Class.

She looks up from the Fresh Produce, sees me and practically drops her toddler as she races over to me and starts talking about my Shiny Friend.

He had gone on to get the Shiny Wife and the Shiny Life and all of that got mashed into the rear end of a truck.

My Shiny friend watched his Shiny Wife die next to him on the car seat and he expired on the way to the hospital calling her name.

” I can’t believe it, ” she cries.

By then I was working in a Funeral Home and I could believe something like this could happen to anybody. Even bright shiny people.

This woman bursts into tears and her kid slides to the floor ” the world has lost so much.”

I tasted something sour in my mouth and before I could react to it I put on my Funeral Director’s somber thoughtful face and said with concern and dignity, ” It has.”

When she turned away I smiled.

I really did.

What can I say besides-

Freak.

Alien Ideas

June 22, 2007 / Anita Marie / 4 Comments

The Great U.F.O Debate-

are they real or not?

If someone tells me they saw Space Aliens in their backyard then as far as I’m concerned they saw Space Aliens in their backyard.

It’s their story, so back off.

That’s what I say.

What an Alien Idea

Allowing People To

Express Themselves

The Blond Assassin Meets The Dark Invader

June 22, 2007January 3, 2010 / Anita Marie / 4 Comments

It started as a joke.

Gummy Bear Porn.

I googled Gummy Bear Porn and posted comments about the links at Max’s Blog.

What happened after that was strange.

I discovered people were really googling Gummy Bear Porn and because of my little joke some of them were being directed to Max’s site.

Gee I thought- that’s funny.

And if it was funny once it was going to be funny the fifth or sixth time right?

Right.

So I did it some more.

If I got the chance to say ” Gummy Bear Porn “ I did.

And now…it’s war.

Max devoted her daily entry at her blog to me and I’m touched.

See it here

I love Max, she wrote a Play about a dog that Exorcises Demons . To bad she doesn’t have that dog in real life…because

The Blond Assassin

is about to meet

The Dark Invader

It’s Going To Get Sticky

around

HERE

Oh Really?

June 21, 2007 / Anita Marie / Leave a comment

Here in my home state of Washington two cases of violence involving three students in a place called Bainbridge Island were treated by the press as ‘ those silly things that kids do’

The Press compared two girls who ‘allegedly’ poisoned a teacher to get out of doing homework as some sort of silly cartoon prank and when a 17 year old boy who made death threats against students was also found to be in possession of bomb making materials as well as a small marijuana operation-the press took it as a chance to go to bat for Bainbridge (again) to remind us all that they’re not ” like us ” out there on ‘ The Island’

Unlike some other districts in the region, Bainbridge Island had managed so far to avoid any high-profile incidents of school violence — but Monday’s events showed that such incidents could happen anywhere”

-Seattle PI

Oh really- anywhere?

That may be the case but get a grip- they’ve been happening out there on Bainbridge- deal with it.

( stories from PI below )

Girls, 12, allegedly poison teacher at school

In a caper worthy of Wile E. Coyote’s finest failures, two 12-year-old girls from Bainbridge Island are accused of attempting to elude punishment for a tardy assignment Thursday by poisoning their teacher, Kasey Jeffers, with a flavored lip balm they knew would make her ill.

Bainbridge High student arrested after death threats

Police searching the home of a 17-year-old Bainbridge Island High School student suspected of leaving death threats at the school Monday found as many as 30 computers, bomb-making materials and a small marijuana-growing operation.