Spontaneous Combustion Limited to the Ear Canal Region of my Body

We’ve all heard the advice – never, ever, ever stick anything smaller than your elbow down your ear canal. The only problem is, last time I tried to clean out my ear with my elbow I ended up in physical therapy for six months. (Also other types of therapy, but I won’t mention those here.)

The obvious solution, then, for the problem my Ear, Nose, Throat doctor dubbed “more wax than the entire population of Russia needs for a lifetime supply of candles” – was a Q-Tip. After all, that is why they make Q-Tips… right?

Apparently not. Apparently Q-Tips really ARE for cleaning babies’ faces like the box describes… because we all know cleaning a baby’s face with a Q-Tip takes about as much time as scrubbing the deck of a yacht with a tooth brush.

Speaking of yachts, I went into the doctor’s office trying to decide – would it be a yacht of a lie to say that my eardrum exploded on its own? Was there any other explanation for the gaping hole and the leaking fluid I caused with a baby-face-cleaner? You know – spontaneous combustion has happened before. Maybe it was spontaneous combustion limited only to the ear drum region of my body.

In the end I had to tell the truth. Because it was Christmastime. And Santa Claus is coming to town. So even though it was painful, and embarrassing, and I wanted to crawl under the examination table to get away from it all, I did not.

I told the truth.

“It’s not a perforation,” the doctor said. “You just scraped your ear-canal.”

Which would explain the whole bleeding thing. Which means I wasted a yacht of a truth.

At least I know it wasn’t a TOTAL waste. At least I know Santa’s going to remember my truthfulness. At least I know I can request any present I want.

Do you think asking for a box of Q-Tips would be out of line? My husband threw mine out when he got the doctor's bill.

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B.J. Hamrick is a local writer who can be reached at writebrained@gmail.com, or www.facebook.com/bjamrick -- unless she’s writing a letter to Santa.

The North Pole & The Conference

OK, it’s official. B.J.’s lost her mind. What three things could The North Pole and The Writers’ Conference possibly have in common?

The Planet's Worst

I know it’s weird for a journalist, but I’m going to make an effort to tell the truth here: I am the planet’s slowest reader.

This is not on purpose. You’d think after 14 years of high school (that was a joke, mom) and four years of college, I’d have picked up on the simple ability to… well… skim something other than my milk.

This issue is as frustrating to me as it was to my first grade teacher. Nothing bothered her more than the fact that the assignment Run Spot, Run, took a decree from the pope for me to complete. (I wasn’t procrastinating – I was just dwelling on the deep profoundness of the words.)

I still remember the shock of the moment when, at the age of twelve, I realized my sister could finish a 400 page novel in the span of time it took me to finish one newspaper article.

BJ – we have a problem.

Over the years I’ve avoided the acknowledgment of my issue by blaming all of this on W.D. – Writers’ Disease. Yes, I tell myself – I linger over the words on a page only because I love them so much… no one else could possibly understand exactly what words mean to me.

Then last week happened. I couldn’t believe it when I heard that yes - someone understood after all. We don’t know who it is – but someone – an anonymous someone – returned a library book in Ohio after "borrowing" it for 60 years.

And I thought I was the only one who could add on an extra wing to the library with my overdue fees.

All I can say is, W.D. or no W.D. – I think I’d better start working through my reading issues. Because if 60 years from now the county realizes I still have its library book, there are only three words I’ll have to rely on: Run Spot, Run.

BJ Hamrick is a local writer who can be reached at writebrained@gmail.com, www.bjhamrick.com, or facebook.com/bjhamrick. She'd love to hear from you -- unless you represent the public library.

Manic Monday: Santa Clause

"I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph." ~ Shirley Temple

Married to an Addict

I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating: I married St. Nicholas’ clone, minus the pudge and white beard.

The boy has some serious Christmas cheer issues. About three seconds after he finishes his Easter candy, he starts to sing Jingle Bells. It takes all my strength to keep him from putting up the Christmas tree before the fourth of July.

Some of you are concerned now. You recognize these symptoms. Someone you know may also be a clone of Father Christmas. How can you be sure?

Here are several signs. If your loved one:

1) Has very pointy shoes (This one is tough – it could also mean your partner is actually the wicked witch of the West)
2) Prefers to live in Maine or anywhere else that resembles the North Pole
3) Has a collection of over 300 Christmas DVD’s (299 is considered borderline)
4) Is disappointed when he or she learns that volunteering as a “candy striper” at the hospital doesn’t involve canes

This list is by no means comprehensive, but should give you a pretty good clue about your loved one. Be warned, though: if you discover he or she is addicted to Christmas, there are crazy side effects.

For instance, you might just be happy for the rest of your life.


****
B.J. Hamrick is a local writer who can be reached at
writebrained@gmail.com, www.bjhamrick.com, or
www.facebook.com/bjhamrick -- unless she's taking a little visit to
the North Pole.

The Haunted House

I’d never seen anything like it. The roof was caved. The front door was busted. The yard was an African safari gone bad. My pulse raced as I crept through the tall grass toward the front steps.

Was I out of my mind when I agreed to deliver magazine subscriptions for my brother? Had he forgotten to mention basic details of the job, like the 99% probability of death?

Feature Friday: Jim Rubart

On Fridays I usually highlight a blog post I enjoyed from elsewhere. My favorite by far this week was Jim Rubart's You Must Shock BROCA.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Warmed-over Wednesday

I was inspired recently when my assistant editor came up with the idea to do Retro Tuesday at Real Teen Faith... an opportunity to re-post some of the most popular pieces.

Cool, I thought, I can do that here. We'll call it Warmed-over Wednesday. It doesn't sound as cool, but trust me... it's as cool... or as warm... as it can get. This column was first published in August of 2007.

My parents called the other day to say they wanted their closet back.

I didn't understand. My stuff had been in it for the past 23 years. Why, all of the sudden, was I getting an eviction notice?

Last Saturday, I made the long eight mile trek from my house to theirs. Ceremoniously, I held my nose while I threw my stuff in white, plastic garbage bags.

Socks. Underwear. Exercise equipment. Cheerios from 1985.

I divided the bags into three categories: trash, charity, and keep (I've watched enough episodes of Clean Sweep to know how this works).

I threw the bags in the trunk and headed for the local charity.

When I got to the charity, I was appalled by language of the man in charge. He waved his hands and cursed wildly at me.

"I'm tired of people bringing #^&$ junk here," he said. "People treat this place like a #^&$ dump. This had better not be #^&$ junk."

I was so thrown off by his words that I was forced to defend myself.

"I assure you," I said as I threw each bag over the railing, "I've brought nothing but exceptional charity items for needy people!"

The last bag landed on the cement with a thud and I hopped in my car and sped away.

I was almost home when I realized: I'd forgotten about the categories. I'd thrown every trash bag over the railing.

Socks. Underwear. Exercise equipment. Cheerios from 1985.

Stink. I'd just given all my #^&$ junk to the local charity.

Thankful Tuesday: Irv Kupcinet

An optimist is a person who starts a new diet on Thanksgiving Day. Irv Kupcinet

Question 4 U 2Day:
What are your Thanksgiving plans?

Manic Monday

Manic Monday Thoughts: As Essential as Your Morning Coffee

Sometimes I can't figure designers out. It's as if they flunked human anatomy.
-Erma Bombeck

Question 4 U 2Day:
What's the craziest outfit you ever tried on?

Warmed-over Wednesday

I was inspired recently when my assistant editor came up with the idea to do Retro Tuesday at Real Teen Faith... an opportunity to re-post some of the most popular pieces.

Cool, I thought, I can do that here. We'll call it Warmed-over Wednesday. It doesn't sound as cool, but trust me... it's as cool... or as warm... as it can get. This column was first published in March of 2007.

Back in first grade, my best friend pretended to be near-sighted so she could be a "cool" kid and wear glasses. She confessed to me, in a secret moment on the playground, that she could see the blackboard clearly without her coke-bottle lenses. She just wanted to be
different, she said.

I guess if being different meant tripping over her own feet and going cross eyed, her new glasses definitely made her different.

Sometime during middle school it was no longer cool to be different. Being different meant being called a nerd. It was all about being the same as everyone else – fitting in. We had to wear the right jeans, the right lip gloss, and definitely – above all else – we had to NOT wear glasses.

By that point, my best friend had trained her eyes to
adjust to the coke-bottle glasses so that she needed them to see
clearly. The easiest solution was contact lenses. Out with the old –
in with the new. You'd better believe we celebrated.

We decided, one winter night, to destroy her old pair of glasses. We tried dropping the hefty black frames from the second story bedroom window. We tried burning them with fire. We tried crunching them with our feet.

They were indestructible.

That was 16 years ago. So imagine my shock when that same pair of glasses showed up on a celebrity's face last week. The about.com website reported that Scarlett Johansson showed up to receive an award wearing "nerd glasses" – glasses that looked just like my first grade
best friend's glasses. Maybe Johansson wore them because she was accepting the award at Harvard University and felt she had to fit in.

I'm not sure her reasoning. In any case, the title of the about.com article is "Nerd Glasses: New Trend?"

Which made me wonder… could this be a new trend?

I did an Internet search (and we all know the Internet contains the answers to all the deeper questions of life) and discovered that yes,
hairboutique.com informs us that "intellectual nerd" glasses are back in. "Sullen Girl" at her site "Fashion for the Clinically Depressed" (http://anagnorisis.typepad.com) says, "Seems that people besides myself are actually wearing nerd glasses on the street." And Joseph Manez, from jsonline.com, says "The wearers can laugh at the quirkiness of their clothes while at the same time embracing it. One has only to look at bowling shirts and nerd glasses..."

There you have it, folks. Nerd glasses are the new trend.

Finally, we've caught up with all the first graders out there who just want to be different.

****

Question 4 U 2 Day:

Do you, like me, secretly own a pair of nerd-glasses?

Great Fail 2009

You are looking at The Great Brownie Fail of 2008.

To put it frankly: I thought this was as bad as it could get.

(The brownie. Not the curly haired boy. Because the curly haired boy is as good as it can get.)

Then this week... I tried a recipe for low GI brownies.

A word to the wise:

Black beans do not belong in brownies.

But if you're wise... you already know that.

Thankful Tuesday: Manjit Singh

Today I am thankful my name is not Manjit Singh, because if it was I would have a massive headache after pulling a double-decker bus weighing more than eight metric tons over a distance of 21.2 meters with my hair.

Question 4 U 2Day:

What makes you thankful?

Manic Monday

Manic Monday Thoughts: As Essential as Your Morning Coffee

"I've exercised with women so thin that buzzards followed them to their cars." - Erma Bombeck

Question 4 U 2Day:

What makes you exercise? Or not...

Feature Friday

On Fridays I usually feature a video or piece that's either touched my heart deeply or made me laugh my guts out in the past week.

This week, it's something that touched me deeply... something that made me realize, "a heart that never hurts, never hopes..."

Hope Like A Child...