Fifteen Minutes of Scrawl

I know it's summer, but eventually winter will be here and so it's good to think of some tips now. Get several blankets. It's good to have ones that are different levels of fluffiness so that you can mix and match to have just the right amount of warmth without making yourself sweat profusely. Definitely consider getting an electric one because they are just blissful. Also consider getting one of the blankets that is a bit like a sleeping bag in that you can have your legs just contained by it. Get big, fluffy socks. These will keep you warm and can, if need be, be layered over other socks. This will help keep you extra warm. Plus fluffiness is just delightful. Get clothing with hoods. So much heat comes off the top of your head, so if you're cold it's a great idea to cover your head. Hoods are an easy way to do this as you can't lose them (like hats) and you can also easily take them on and off as you please. Again, like with the blankets, have ones that a...

"Oh God, what is that?" "What is what?" "Do you really not see that?" "See what?" "Look at your knife." "Oh that is gross." "Are you just going to keep using that peanut butter?" "Yeah, why not?" "Cause there was that thing on it." "It's probably fine." "Probably?!?" "It passed inspection didn't it? Made it all the way to our grocery store. I'm sure it's fine." "You just said probably." "Well how can we ever be sure about such things?" "That's not the point." "Isn't it? Places do recalls all the time, right? So how can we be sure that anything we eat is okay?" "Okay we can't be 100% sure--" "--So let me just eat this sandwich--" "--But we can be sure not to eat something when there is a hunk of something weird in it. That would seem to be a ...

Time to make up some adventures I never had. Zurich: Clearly I came here on the hunt for the best chocolate. It remained elusive though and I will have to go back many more times and eat a lot more chocolate. Cork: I thought here I would find where corks come from, but it turns out that the city and the bottle stopper are unrelated. Even though this was a disappointment, I decided to stay for a while to investigate and be sure of this disconnection. Amsterdam: That one song we sang at JCC never truly left my head. It possessed me in a way I cannot explain and thus I was compelled to "go down to AmsterDAM. Amster, amster, dam, dam, dam." My stay seems to have quieted the haunting song...for now. Dublin: I needed a fairy's blessing really badly. I was desperate. There were trolls bothering me at every turn for tolls and I knew a fairy would be the only way to free myself. I managed to escape the trolls long enough to get on a plane and fly to the land of the fairies. ...

I could not get this braid right. I had never been good at braids, but I really wanted to be able to do a French braid. It was just like one level up from the basic braid and there were many other braids I wanted to try. If I could get the French braid right, then I could have hope of getting other ones rights. But this braid would not work. How did I keep making this giant knot? Each time I tried, I didn't get a braid right. I was always able to undo it though, which was good. Each attempt made me think that maybe I wouldn't get this knot undone. So far, each time I had gotten it undone. While I entangled my latest braid attempt, I made a decision. I would try a braid one more time and then I would send pictures to my friend Leigh. She was the one who usually braided my hair and hopefully she would be able to tell me what I was doing wrong. I made one more braid, trying to do what Leigh told me and I ended up with another mess. I snapped a picture in the mirror and sent ...

God I am itchy. So, so, so itchy. Why did I decide to run after my niece? She wasn't in danger, she just wanted to play but my fastest route to her was to run through a patch of poison ivy and so here I was, itchy. I wanted to scratch myself so badly, but I knew I wasn't supposed to. Although, as I thought about it, I didn't know why I wasn't supposed to. Would I scar? Was that it? Would it spread? Is that how that worked? I thought of a few more possibilities, but I realized I couldn't remember anyone telling me why I shouldn't scratch my rashes. Well, not having a reason was no longer good enough for me. I scratched my rash and God it felt good. I should've been doing this all along instead of staying in my itchy Hell. After a moment, I went back to typing on my laptop. I had decided to work from home today so as to avoid a bunch of questions about my my legs looked like that . After a few minutes of getting no where on my proposal, I looked down at ...

So I'm going to start this by saying that some of these may already be records, but doing that research would take longer than 15 minutes, but I'll try to make them specific enough that they don't already exist. Most cloth diapers changed with only a left hand. Largest latte art created with only pouring. Largest sand castle that is structurally sound. Largest building made out of Swiss cheese. Most pints of Guinness drunk using a crazy straw in ten minutes. Most avocado toasts prepared without using hands. Largest dinosaur-shaped terrarium. Most Easter eggs not found after two hours of searching by adults. Heaviest prom dress made using conventional materials. Longest playlist of pop songs use the same three chords. Largest flocks of birds that come when called for by name. Heaviest piece of jewelry made from wood. Greatest number of seals that will do the same trick at once. Largest piece of graffiti completed with only one hand without being caught before...

Here are some fantastical explanations for your cold hands. And invisible ice dragon is breathing on them. This little dragon thinks he's very fierce, but really he just makes you a bit uncomfortable. A ghost is holding your hands. You're helping warm up their hands. Your hands have slipped into another dimension that is much colder. Your ice powers are awakening, stop warming them up or you'll never reach your full potential. A witch has cast a curse on you. You will never be as warm as you wish (she is not a very powerful witch). Someone is practicing magic similar to a voodoo doll on you. They are working their way up to a much more severe form of magic. Your hands are actually a cryptid. Yes, this is confusing, but their nature makes them run cold. There was a potion dumped in the city water supply and you just had to wash your hands the same day. Luckily, it was very diluted and you did not lose your hands (as was the potion's intention), but your hand is...

I know this urban legend resurfaced not long ago, but I remember being a kid and hearing about how there were clowns (or maybe just one clown) going to playgrounds and trying to lure kids away. Now, Chicago has a very weird history of clowns. The World's Columbian Exposition was one of the first times that people saw clowns up close. Clown makeup was designed to be looked at far away, not close up and seeing their dramatic makeup close up was frightful. Then there was the time a circus train crashed and a ton of circus performers were buried in a mass grave called Showmen's Rest. And, of course, there was John Wayne Gacy who definitely dressed up a clown sometimes. But what if all of this clown lore comes from a singular cryptid. No, I don't mean It or Pennywise or whatever you want to call it. I'm going to come up with my own, exclusively clown, cryptid (It/Pennywise can change shape if I recall). What if there is a clown cryptid? Or, more accurately, a cryptid tha...

Oh man am I excited for this prompt. I definitely had a long rant about Game of Thrones  last night so this list may be a little GoT heavy. Having Lyanna Mormont fight the wight of her mother. We spent a little bit of time with her mother and definitely dedicated footage to seeing her mother specifically be raised as a wight. I thought that the Battle of Winterfell would include at least a few instances of the classic zombie movie trope of having to fight an undead loved one. I thought this could be a great and fascinating moment for Lyanna to see how she would handle this. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not mad that Lyanna killed an undead giant. But why couldn't we also have seen her kill her undead mother? The Lady Stoneheart plot line. In the Game of Thrones  books, Cat is brought back to life, but comes back a little twisted. She is obsessed with revenge and even kills Brienne (don't worry, she's most likely been brought back). This is a fascinating plot line...

Okay. Jogging. Yes. Jogging. Supposedly good for me. A good way to get outside every day. A way to see the neighborhood. Time to listen to my music. A way to meet people. I had to repeat these things in my head each morning so that I could manage to convince myself to go jogging. However, generally it was the idea that I would feel bad for not  jogging that got me to go jogging. The reasons were becoming a way for me to wake my brain up every morning. Not sure repeating the same list is actually that good for it, but it did beat me just thinking about how much I wanted to go back to bed. But now I was dressed in my jogging clothes that I had bought specifically so that I would feel more obligated to work out. I had my playlist ready to go and it was at least sunny outside. I stepped outside, hit play, and began to jog. But my playlist didn't come on. I should have been listening to "Shut Up and Dance with Me," because it gets me pumped and that is actually not an ea...

Valentine's Day was coming up in a month. Now some people would hold out hope that they would have a date by then, but I was no such person. I knew that, realistically, anyone I met in the next month would not want the pressure of a Valentine's Day date and that was assuming I met anyone at all and I did not have faith that I would. I didn't really mind being single on Valentine's Day. I had been single every Valentine's Day except when I was in 8th grade and I didn't know then that my "boyfriend" was already planning on breaking up with me. So I was very used to being single on Valentine's Day. What was annoying was when people asked me what plans I had and then looked at me sadly when I said I didn't have any. So this year I was going to make my own plans. That way those pitying looks would be gone and I would have a fun thing to look forward to. Doing some googling, I found that most events on that day would not appeal to me. I did not w...

Now why did the company insist on giving me a new laptop? My old one was perfectly fine. Sure, it was held together with duct tape, but it still worked and that duct taped laptop had survived so many work trips. But no. "We need to present a certain image, Gemma." "We need to look professional, Gemma." "No one will take you seriously with that, Gemma." And now I have this newfangled laptop and nothing is where it's supposed to be. I have to set up all of my icons again, I have to teach word all of my typos again. And I have to figure out how to use the webcam again.  Everything is different on this goofy laptop. Like, even the keyboard. My hands had gotten all adjusted to the spacing on my keyboard but nooo, I need to type on a new keyboard that is "more efficient," "sleeker," and "better for my wrists." But right now I just keep hitting the wrong keys and making so many typos. Huh. What's this key? I stare at my...

"Honey...what did you do?" I asked, half laughing as I looked in the mirror. My hair had begun going gray not that long ago and I had been dying it, but I was behind. Last night, my gray roots were shining their full silver glory, but this morning that had changed into a lovely shade of lavender. "Um nothing?" my husband called from the kitchen. "I definitely didn't forget to start the coffee." I then heard the coffee pot start up. Even though I'm a huge grump before my coffee, Derek did still manage to let it slip his mind sometimes. "Do you have any idea how my hair ended up purple?" I called. It wasn't that I minded the color, exactly. But it did look odd to have light brown hair and then what looked like a little cap of purple hair. Purple was my favorite color, but that was beside the point. Things needed to match and my hair most certainly didn't match. But still, if this was some sort of prank that Derek pulled, it had ...

"Auntie Ivy?" asked Jamie who was trying (and failing) to help me fold up the laundry. He really did want to help me, but he was definitely still too little to do it. I had assigned him to finding matching socks because I figured he could help with that. "Yes, Jamie?" I replied as I tried to discretely fold the underwear. I did not feel like answering any questions about why my underwear was shaped differently or had certain explicit patterns on it. I really just shouldn't have kept the pairs I'd gotten at bachelorette parties, but free was free! Now maybe I could have managed to not pack it for when I was watching my nephew for a week but that required more planning than a last minute trip took. Not exactly my last minute trip, mind you. My sister and her husband had pretty spontaneously decided that they would celebrate their seven year anniversary with a grand, romantic Paris vacation, but they didn't want to bring Jamie without being able to a si...

How could this diary be mine? I don't remember it and I remember all of my diaries even from when I started in first grade. To be fair, my mom had helped me write that one, but I still remember my first diary. It was just a plain composition notebook, but I had covered it with Lisa Frank stickers. I mostly wrote about animals I saw during the day or what my favorite color was of the day (it changed pretty much daily and then eventually to just weekly until I finally decided on a deep purple, but a bright orange held its own for a while). Looking at the diary, it does fit in with all of my diaries. I stick with composition notebooks, but decorate them differently. Now my current diary has a Stranger Things  sticker on it. I at least thought it was funny to depict my inner thoughts as "stranger things." This diary has stickers of alpacas on it and when I was about eight, alpacas became my favorite animal so this makes sense. I'm not sure I should open this diary thoug...

It had been a long day. Such. A. Long. Day. Sharon had spent a long time at the library today. Now that wasn't that unusual, it was where she worked after all. But Sharon and her colleagues had found that some of the students had found it crazily hilarious to rearrange the books. Mostly they had moved the books of artistic nudes and other books that discussed nudity, erotica, or even just biological functions to the "New Releases" section. They had also replaced the "New Releases" sign with one that read "Hot New Releases." They thought they were so clever. But this super fun joke ended up with a ton of extra work for the librarians. The pranksters probably hadn't thought of that, but that didn't make all the extra work Sharon had had to do any easier or less taxing. Finally, though, Sharon was opening the door to her own home. She was so looking forward to being in her own personal library where everything was just so. No prankster students ...

That book hasn't been there before, you're sure of it. While you're not one of the people who has a list of every book on your shelf and exactly where it sits (and yes, you do know people like that), you definitely notice when things are amiss. You carefully pull the odd book out off your shelf. What had been there before? What book was missing? After a moment's pause, you realize that there hadn't been a book there before. You had just shuffled your books out a bit to make the shelf look more full. Maybe it was the tightness of the shelf that drew your attention initially. Something compels you to fix your bookshelf first before examining the mysterious new book. It looks old because of the cloth cover, but maybe it was just missing its dust jacket. Oddly though, there is no title or any other text on the spine. Perhaps it is just a notebook, you think as you flip it open. The first few pages are blank, as is usual, but then you find a woodblock print. The pr...

"I'm telling you, it isn't plugged in to anything," I say to my mom over the phone. "Well, sweetie, it's probably run on batteries then." As though I hadn't thought of that. I had just moved into a new apartment in a new city and there was this confounding desk lamp. "Revolutionary, Mom. You think I didn't check for that?" "There is no need to get so testy with me." I sighed. She was right. It wasn't her fault that this lamp had become the manifestation of all of my stress from the past few days. Everything was just slightly off in this new city. The grocery store was arranged just differently enough to make me circle it several times to find what I was looking for. The way the public transportation card worked was just different enough to make me look like an idiot while trying to get on and like I was trying to skip out on a fare when trying to get off. And then there were the rules about dogs in the city. I stil...

"Are you sure he won't poke his eye out?" Marie asked as she watched her son. "He will be fine," replied her wife, Elle, without looking up from her computer. "You aren't even looking." Marie's voice carried an anxious edge to it. Her anxiety was also working its way out of her through her biting on her thumbnail. The anxious edge did the trick though and Elle stopped working and looked at her. "He is having fun, try not to worry so much." "Oh right, I'll just turn off my worrying switch. That always works," huffed Marie. How could Elle be so flippant about their son? He could hurt himself. "They're just paper clips, my love. It's not like he's playing with knives or even scissors. And he's having fun, just look. Maybe that will help flick that switch." Elle came up to Marie slowly and gently turned her to look at their son, Morgan. Morgan was happily giggling in the corner of Elle...

"Who wouldn't be angry you ate all of my cereal and and faked your death for three years!" "Are you equally mad about both of those things?" "You don't get to question my emotions right now. I thought you were dead!" "Well it was necessary, I promise." "Okay so what happened?" "Oooh I'm not sure I'm ready to talk about that yet." "You aren't ready." "Yeah." "Hrm, you know what?" "What?" "I don't think you get to make that decision right now. You owe me." "Because I faked my own death or because I ate all of your cereal?" "Okay, under most circumstances, just one of those would be enough, but right now it's both." "I would need to explain to you why I ate all of your cereal even if there was no other thing I did?" "Yeah, I think so. I have a lot of cereal so eating all of it would require ...

"Quick catch that cat it stole my wallet!" I shouted at the cop as I ran down the street. "Yeah, sure it did, buddy," the cop said, stereotypically biting into a donut. "No, I'm serious," I said, huffing and puffing. "You must mean a cat burglar stole your wallet," said the cop's partner, who was walking up with coffee. "Now why would a cat burglar just take a wallet?" cop #1 asked. "What, you think cat burglars only steal diamonds and the like? That's just in movies," scoffed cop #2. "I just think that this guy's wallet would be a waste of any thief's time." "Hey!" I try to object. "You make a fair point," began cop #2, "Look at his outfit. What do you call pants that are baggier and made of worse material than sweatpants?" "They're comfy..." "See? So I don't think it could've been a cat burglar," cop #1 said smugly...