Tag: humor

Mean People Suck

~ Lisa Ancona-Roach ~ 14 Comments

I have some serious sarcasm flowing through my veins. It’s nothing I aim for—it’s just there—and I imperfectly strive to keep it in check.

sarcasm-o-meter

I remember making jokes in 4th grade, and—though the kids were laughing—sometimes I would hear, “You’re mean.” I didn’t intend to be, but since my humor could be at someone else’s expense, at the very least I was mean to that person. I’ve remembered that always. I don’t want to be mean—I just enjoy making people laugh. I know what it feels like to be the butt of someone’s joke, and I don’t want to create that feeling for another.

But I fail, for sure. Sometimes the laugh apples are hanging so low off the tree I can’t help but pick ‘em. Still, that’s no excuse. (Sometimes, though, when a person’s being a major jagwad, I don’t feel bad when I shoot a caustic arrow his or her way…That’s probably still wrong, but it can feel like a kind of justice—especially when it’s on someone else’s behalf.)

And while I am still guilty of sharp comments, I learned long ago that there is a perfect subject for me to make fun of: me. So I am my own best target. And when I make fun of myself, I totally get it and don’t get mad. And since I am the butt of many of my own jokes, it explains why I have a big butt. So it all makes sense.

When I had my son, I thought to myself, “If there was one word you could pick to have as a descriptor of this kid as he grows up, what would you want it be?” My immediate response was kind. Not nice, but kind. (Don’t get me wrong—as Frank Burns said, “It’s nice to be nice to the nice,” I know…but that’s not enough.) Nice is pleasant and obliging…but kind is compassionate and helpful. At least that’s how I see it. Kind runs deep and is grounded in loving others.

We need more kindness. Mean people suck. And it’s not just about being mean for a laugh. I’m really sick at heart when I see how easy it is for people to be nasty with their comments—both in the real world and the cyber world. The Internet has afforded an anonymity to people to just be horrible to one another as they comment on articles, blogs, and videos. Just awful…and for what? How is that okay? This past election season nasty comments didn’t even need anonymity. Facebook was rife with cutting and mean-spirited crap from both sides of the aisle. It really made me sad…and still does.

It’s simply not okay. And while we are all human and will all fail at times, in “The World According to Lisa” (which is super awesome), we need to strive harder to see to it that the Meanies lose. Just imagine what our world might be like if kindness reigned supreme…if the whole world played a game of Kindness Tag…Tag! I’ve tagged you with kindness! You’re it! Go be kind to another! (And tag-backs would totally be allowed!)

But we can’t depend on the “whole world” for anything, can we?…So it’s up to us in our own little world…where it still absolutely matters. And maybe it will ripple out and impact more than you could ever possibly know.

I hope you agree. But if you don’t, I hope you’ll be kind in telling me so!

2013…WTF?

~ Lisa Ancona-Roach ~ 8 Comments

I’m not a fan of whining (not to be confused with “wining,” of which I am totally a fan), but I’m going to indulge in it for this post. Forgive me. I know that these laments are First World, that I am very blessed, and that others have it much worse, but…can’t a girl vent a bit?

Like in the movie City Slickers, I’m ready for a do-over of 2013. I was ready for a great year…I mean, come on, look at my cheerful Facebook attitude on New Year’s Eve:

NYE wish

2012 had been a bit of a pain in the patoot, and I was ready for that lovely clean slate that somehow takes on meaning because we rip the 12th page off of a calendar. But, I gotta tell you…so far, 2013 blows. Do-over time!

Yes, yes, I know it is only mid-February, but so far in 2013 sickness has reigned supreme—including taking a shot at my husband’s 50th birthday party. After weeks of planning and preparation (not to mention hand washing that would rival Lady Macbeth’s, as I tried to make sure I didn’t get sick as the party planner), the day of the party—a party where the band my hubby plays in is supposed to rock it out—he falls ill. And thus begins roughly a month’s worth of sickness for him. And because we believe in sharing, I eventually got sick. And so did the kid (though not as badly, thank God). We have yet to completely climb out of the sickness hole, but we hope that we succeed soon.

And once I’m well, then I get to do fun things like have my gallbladder out. And maybe my knee operated on. Have I mentioned that the furnace has needed repair twice in just over a week? How about the dryer conking? The car dying?

Yeah, I know—this whining is getting annoying. Sorry. I’ll stop.

Sometimes it just feels good to put words around that “ack!!!” that you’re feeling…and then move on.

Indulging in a bit of whining doesn’t mean I’ve lost perspective—I have people in my life who have it much harder—friends with significant illnesses or losses, people who have major, challenging life decisions facing them. My struggles are nothing in comparison to theirs.

So stick your eye roll back in your socket and know that I know what you know—I know I am loaded with good things, too. And sometimes it takes walking through the manure field to realize that you’ve got people in your life ready to walk right alongside you on that stinky journey. And that makes it all stink less.

So…here’s the deal. I think I’m going to create my own sub year. It will be known as 2013B, and it will only have 10.5 months. And it starts…now.

Is This the Party to Whom I Am Speaking?

~ Lisa Ancona-Roach ~ 11 Comments
Stop callin', stop callin'...
Stop callin’, stop callin’…

One thing I lament for “today’s youth” is that the beauty of the simple prank phone call is no more. Now, I know there are ways around it, and that there’s plenty of mayhem occurring in today’s Caller ID world, but it’s not the same. While you can block your number from appearing on Caller ID…do you answer those calls? Yeah, me neither. So the opportunity for calling a neighbor to have a few innocent yet mischievous giggles just isn’t the same as it was when I was a kid.

My best friend Jen was my main partner in crime. Like most pranksters, we aimed low at the beginning but quickly graduated from the level of “Is your refrigerator running?” (yawn) and “Do you have Prince Albert in a can?” (we weren’t even sure who this Prince Albert was, so we didn’t find it all that funny) to more clever—at least to us—calls.

Since we had our own “radio show” (i.e. we had a sketch comedy show that we recorded on cassette tape…man, we were cutting edge), we liked to think that we had a wide array of voices and characters at our disposal. I’m not sure how we, as 11-year-old girls, pulled off convincing men’s voices, but based on the success of our pranks, we must have been somewhat believable.

[Side note/disclaimer: if anything in these stories can be found to be illegal, then these stories are absolutely not true. Completely fictitious. If not, then never mind this disclaimer.]

One bit that we loved doing was acting as though we were from the fire department. During sleepovers, we would be up at 2am and just call someone we knew and say, “Mrs. So-and-So (that’s not really her name—because that would be an awesome last name to have, but it’s not—it’s just because Jen and I still need to maintain our cloak of anonymity even after all these years. I’d hate to have to relocate.) Anyway, we would say, “Mrs. So-and-So, this is the Mayberry (no, not really Mayberry…come on) Fire Department. Forgive me for waking you up, but fires can strike a house at 2am, and if one did, would you have an escape route planned?” Of course, Mrs. So-and-So wouldn’t know which end was up. On the one hand, she’d just been awoken by a call, but on the other hand…that call was trying to save her life. How could you get mad at that? Remarkably, she could. After a few minutes of back and forth conversation, where the “fire department” was expressing concern for her home safety plan, Mrs. So-and-So finally told me to go to hell. Jen’s convulsive giggling in the background probably wasn’t keeping a tight lid on our ruse, but…that was what it was all about.

Another fire department call that we had fun making was when our neighbors were having a big party. We called the partying neighbors and told them I was the fire chief and that we had heard they were having a big party. Did they have a permit for that party?? Jen and I almost wet ourselves laughing as we could hear the man switch phones to go to a quieter room where he could better answer “the chief’s” questions, as he worriedly told his wife. “Mr. So-and-So (no, he was not married to Mrs. So-and-So…please, quit being so literal), can you please tell me the number of people in attendance at your party?” Again, Jen and I had all we could do to keep it together while we overheard him count off bunches of people and then finally come in with a guess of “around 40.” “Well, based on the size of your house, you are just under the number where a permit would be required. Carry on.” And the very relieved man thanked me and went back to his party.

We also loved calling up people and freaking them out just a teensy bit. We had a neighborhood phone book that listed the names of the children and their ages as a way for neighbors to get to know one another (my, how times have changed in that regard, no?) We would call up strangers and act like we were related to them. “Uncle John? This is your niece Susie. How ARE you??” To which John would reply, “Uh, I don’t have a niece named Susie, you must have the wrong number…” And I would jump in with, “But Uncle John, I can’t believe you don’t remember me! Can you put Aunt Linda on the phone? Or how about one of my cousins? Alan must be around, what? 11?…” to which John would, well…freak out a bit. “Listen, I don’t know who the hell this is, but…” and then he would rage on and threaten us…you know, fun stuff.

Okay, maybe it’s better that there is Caller ID. Nah, I take that back—it was a lot of fun that was mostly harmless. Well, now that I’m all grown up (technically), I wouldn’t want my kid doing it, but, as a memory it’s harmless. And who knows, maybe Mrs. So-and-So decided to create an escape route in her house after all? Maybe these calls of ours were actually helpful. In fact, I’d like to think they made the world a slightly better place.

P.S. Bonus points if you get the reference in the title.

A Hairy Decision

~ Lisa Ancona-Roach ~ 7 Comments
baby me
Baby me.

God blessed me with a head of hair—in fact, I was born with so much hair that the nurses put a gauze bow in it for the first time my dad saw me (back in the day when dads hung out in the waiting room). My hair is thick, and it has a mind of its own.

I started going gray at 21, and I didn’t give it much thought. At 29, my “thought” was to wait to do anything about my hair until I was 40…and then I would color it and look so much younger people would think I’d had a facelift! (Good plan, Lis!) At 30, I decided to have my hair professionally colored…once…because I was getting married, and I figured a few photos might be taken. At 35, looking at photos of me in the hospital after giving birth to my son, I decided he needed a mom who didn’t look any older than she already was, so I began to color my hair via my personal stylist Ms. Clairol.

Why the hair backstory? Just to frame a little episode I had this past summer. I was in a long-hair phase (I, like many women I know, have spent my whole life either growing out my hair or thinking about getting it cut shorter). I was pretty dedicated to this phase, growing it all out for a couple years. Long, thick hair + needing to color it every three weeks (yes…that’s right…unless I want to be confused with a skunk, I need that kind of color upkeep) was wearing on me, though…but I didn’t know just how much, until “the incident.”

Early one morning, we were headed out as a family to Six Flags, and I was hustling to try and get everything ready—including myself. I was at the point where I had just put product in my hair and was getting ready to wash my hands when my son called me into his room as though a limb had just fallen off. After immediately running in to check on him and learn that the crisis involved finding a particular shirt, I gave him a little what-for, and then promptly took what was left on my hands at the time he called me and ran it through my hair. There was just one tiny little problem.

In less than a moment, I had forgotten that what I had on my hands was not hair product but liquid hand soap.

By this time, my son had left the room and my husband stood there to see me begin to twitch and wail over this recent development. He offhandedly said, “What’s the big deal? Can’t you just rinse it out?” Well, what followed was an eruption of what I later realized was “latent hair anger.” It came bubbling forth like Mt. Vesuvius. My husband stood there slack-jawed as phrases like “you have no idea what it’s like to blow dry this hair every day!” and “not to mention that I have to color it every three weeks!” shot out of my mouth. He just slowly backed out of the room and said, “Uh, okay…I’m just gonna close the door and let you be for a while…” Wise man.

I realized in that moment that maybe it was time for a change. Very soon after that I got my hair cut to shoulder length. It still is a lot of hair, but it takes less time overall to care for. Long-hair phase #258 was now over.

But the gray issue was still to be figured out. There were several shades to it, though probably less than 50 (…sorry…like I was gonna talk about this and not make a bad pun about that damn book?) I went on a fact-finding mission about what it’s like for a woman to let her hair go gray. Pros: Freedom! Time! Money! No chemicals! Cons: The process is a bitch, and you’ll look way older.

I brought it up in conversation to numerous people to hear their opinions on it. Lots of opinions. Many, many opinions. They fell into two main categories: “I think you’d look good gray” vs “Are you out of your freakin’ mind?!” Lots of food for thought.

So, you may wonder…what was my decision? To table it. I’m blessed to have hair to color–this I know. So I’m going to keep calm and color brown. For now. But who knows? Maybe Hair Vesuvius will blow again and cause another change to happen.

Do you have an opinion on the matter? I thought just maybe you might.

Once This, Then That

~ Lisa Ancona-Roach ~ 5 Comments

I missed the bus on the first day of high school. Oh, I was on time and waiting at the corner, and it even stopped for me, but since my school had two campuses (one for freshman/sophomore, the other for junior/senior), I thought the bus number was the route number—which wasn’t mine—and so I told the driver to go on…

After waiting for several minutes, I walked home crying, and my dad drove me to school. What an awesome way to start that new life chapter! Aside from fostering a lifelong anxiety for successfully catching public transportation, it also is a bit of a metaphor to me of an unhealthy mentality that I battle called “once this, then that.”

It’s not an exact metaphor because I missed the damn bus, but doesn’t it make my little 14-year-old self sound pathetic? Yeah, I know. Listen, I never missed the bus again, so don’t cry too long, okay?

Please do not be confused--this is NOT me.
Please do not be confused–this is NOT me.

The “once this, then that” mentality goes something like this: “Once I get through this next ‘thing,’ then all will be better” (as in, once I get on the bus to high school, then all will be well…though you gotta actually catch the bus first!)

The “thing” could be a project, an event, a challenging time—whatever. It’s the belief that once a certain hurdle is crossed, then the road will be much smoother. But the truth is, the road never is…the bumps and ruts never go away.

Yet it’s a terribly tempting way to get through things. Once I make this job transition, then I’ll be able to get to the work I’ve always wanted to. Once I get through the holidays, then I’ll start eating healthier. Once I get a more workable schedule, then I’ll exercise regularly. Once I make this deadline, then I’ll take a deep breath and be more patient.

For me, the reason this kind of thinking can be so deadly is because there is enough truth to it that it lulls you into thinking it will be so. And the problem is that it’s still up to me to make it happen. There is no magic once the hurdle is crossed. And the truth of it is that, yes—we do get through things and come out the other side, and often we are able to take our necessary next, better steps. But the danger is in waiting for the hurdle to come and in thinking that all it takes is that—the mere passage of whatever.

And so I try to balance the feeling of reassurance that once I get through something things will be better with the awareness that…well, once I get through something, things may be…the same…unless I do what needs doing to make them different.

After the missed bus, I never again assumed I knew the difference between something like a route number and a bus number—I learned a little preparation in that regard can go a long way—literally—it can go so far as to successfully take me to school! And once I caught the bus, it didn’t mean that the rest of my life was gravy, either. High school was one heck of a ride, indeed—but not simply because I arrived there—it was because of the steps I took after I got off the bus.

Once this, then that…but only if I do my part to make it happen.

I Have a Google Goggles Headache

~ Lisa Ancona-Roach ~ 8 Comments

information2“We are drowning in information, but starved for knowledge” was written by John Naisbitt…in 1982…and I can’t find a more apt commentary about the status of my own overwhelmed brain. 16 years after that statement was made, Google was founded, and since then, countless other technologies exist that enable us to access information like never before.

But my brain hurts. It feels like when Tom from Tom and Jerry gets shot at and then takes a drink of water. As he drinks it down, it just goes right out all the holes he now has. My head is kind of like an old colander these days—I can hold the water of information for a little bit before it just seeps right through.

Listen, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a Google Girl. Ask anyone who knows me well, and they’ll roll their eyes and comment on how I whip out my Droid like a six-shooter and dial up information faster than a speeding bullet. It’s awesome…”Who starred in My Favorite Martian”? Done. “What is the lifespan of a dragonfly?” You got it. “What’s the record number of points scored in a football game?” Dude, I’m all over it.

But I have come to recognize that while a ginormous amount of information is at my fingertips, my retention of it, well…totally blows…as in blows through one ear, takes a brief stop at my addled brain, and then goes right out the other ear.

And it’s not just Google or other search engines. It’s all the opportunities we have to store information that we know we can access later…but will we? And if we do, will we truly digest it, remember it, and learn from it? Like Naisbitt states, we aren’t necessarily using it for the growth of knowledge. Today you can Evernote it, Pin it, Facebook it, Drop Box it, stick it in an email folder, on your phone—you name it. Entire companies are exploding with ways for us to store, store, store. My head is truly in The Cloud.

And the sad reality is that what is stored in my brain is ridiculous stuff that entered in years ago when it had a fighting chance to hang around. Oh, if only I could make room for data that actually matters by hitting the delete key on all of the Brady Bunch tidbits stuck inside my brain. And I don’t have to look far—these little bits of useless minutiae bubble up with no problem.

The name of the kid they brought in when Cindy and Bobby were getting too old to be “cute” anymore? Cousin Oliver. Who played Aunt Jenny, Jan’s lookalike? Imogene Coca. What was the name of Alice’s identical cousin (a popular yet disturbing TV phenomenon)? Emma. What world record do Bobby and Cindy try to break to garner some attention? Teeter-tottering. You get the idea.

I need to defrag my brain.

And as if all of our ability to catalog and store info wasn’t enough, we have things like YouTube now offering recommendations for videos to watch—because apparently they don’t trust me to waste enough of my time on their site without their stellar suggestions! “Hey, if you like that puppy video, we’re sure you’ll enjoy THIS one…” Uh, thanks, YouTube, but I will figure out what videos I want to distract myself with…oh, wait…that one does look awfully cute…

It must be a conspiracy. Information is out to get me! I am getting pummeled with factoids and folklore. What to do?! Where can all this information overload possibly lead?!

Guess I’ll Google it to find out.