#6 Flour Power

I have a phobia.

My phobia is of the sensation that is rubbing flour on a wood surface with one's bare hands. The sound, the feeling... the thought of it makes me convulse and move my body with so much discomfort, it resembles how the 7th grade version of myself used to dance at parties. Granted, it's not just flour that can do this to me. It's any powdery/grainy substance that comes into contact with my hands/feet, and in the case of flour, wood just makes this worse. Think of how you might react to nails on a chalkboard, it's just taken to the extreme here.

When I talk to my friends about this, after they laugh at me relentlessly, they pause and say, "Wynn, that's not a phobia. That's a weird annoyance you have that is possibly linked to a traumatic baking incident in your youth." Hey, friends? NO. The only traumatic baking incident from my youth was when I attempted to make home-made doughnuts by smothering bagels in cake frosting, and then microwaving them. And, it was only traumatic because it was the first time I learned that even the most delicious foods can cause you to projectile vomit immediately after consumption.

These dear friends of mine also like to surprise me by pouring flour on a wooden cutting board and rubbing it around like it's finger paint. When this happens, I say farewell to all dignity I once had, and proceed to scream, cry, spit out a string of curses, punch, kick, scream some more, and I usually end up under a table.

Now that all of you know that, here comes my next story.

I was bored, so I decided to go venture around and get some pizza at a hip pizza place. I wasn't too crazy about their slice selection, but I had a sudden craving for their spinach, chicken and cheese pizza roll.

One of the guys behind the counter tells me that they just sold their last one, but if I wanted to stick around while he made another, I could. Was that even a question? It's like if I was looking to buy a car, and someone said that if I waited a week I could get a flying dragon to take me around town instead. I waited.

Just my luck, the pizza place is pretty empty, so the pizza maker decides to engage in a conversation with me. To tell the truth, I cannot recall a word he said. I was too fixated on the fact that I was being forced to hear, see, and be conscious of my phobia. I could hear the flour rubbing against the wood... I could imagine what it would feel like on my hands... I didn't understand how he could possibly make pizzas for a living. After we'd been talking for a bit, he stopped mid sentence, gave me an uncharacteristically judgmental look, and then continued working with the dough. I looked down...

Throughout the entire conversation, I had viciously ripped apart the paper menu I had been holding. I was surrounded by a heaping pile of homemade confetti. Because I am weak, I must have been visibly struggling with the menu, too, and I'm sure this terrified the pizza man. The guy who took my order was in the back, filling up my chicken roll, and looked over at me. Did he think I got nervous in social interactions? Did he think I was trying to make art? Maybe, in some culture, paper shreds are a holy gift and I had just presented them to him... After a moment, he laughed. Granted, I was laughing at myself as well, but I had not given him permission, so I secretly decided to think bad thoughts about him for about 30 seconds.

When these things happen to me, I like to make people feel bad for being so judgmental. If I trip and a stranger laughs at me, I might pretend to make a phone call, speak loudly enough for them to hear, and I'll say something like, "mom, you were right, trying to run to the orphanage so soon after surgery was a bad idea, I hope the kids can forgive me."

You get the gist, I'm a terrible person.

In this situation, though, I had no justification. No hypothetical children in need could help me out, no charity would make me seem normal. 15 minutes later, I got my chicken roll and I ate in the pizza place, blushing uncontrollably.

And then, like clockwork, the door opened in a hurry, and a grown man ran in, attempted to lean on the counter, and missed completely, falling directly on his face.

He turned bright red, and looked at me. I quickly chewed and said, "that's nothing," I acknowledged the pile of menu confetti on the table I was sitting at, "you don't even want to know how that got there." Maybe he sensed my honesty, or maybe he saw that I had a piece of spinach in my teeth and a dollop of tomato sauce on my shirt, but his face returned to a normal complexion, he laughed a bit, and ordered as if he hadn't just fallen gracelessly. I had done my job.

Would I rather ruin this guy's day and have my embarrassing moment be forgotten about, or use my embarrassing phobia to help someone out?

Again, car vs. flying dragon.

#5 Fun Times on the Bus

Yesterday, I took the public bus home. I take it almost everyday, and the same group of kids gets on two stops after I do. To me, they seem like a perfectly normal, roudy group of friends. We all sit in the back half of the bus together (I say together because I usually end up sitting next to one of them, even though we've never spoken), and they are always joking around and whatnot.

I just read over that past sentence... come to think of it, these kids probably think I'm hugely creepy and invasive.

In their friend group, there's another girl who's also blonde, and sort of similar looking to me. Earlier this year, one of the boys in this group even announced to his friends that he thinks she and I look alike. He whispered it, though, because I've never really interacted with these people, and he certainly didn't want to break the ice. This was still an uncomfortable moment, though, because I not only heard him whisper this, but felt all of them stare at me simultaneously. I pretended not to notice, but I was hoping I didn't have food on my face.

Alright, so I'm on the bus. There are a few other people in the section we all sit in. We get to their stop, they get on the bus, the ones who get on first come take the available seats (one or two are on either side of me), and the slow pokes have to stand in that same section. Naturally, the standers start complaining. Regardless, even though the bus is a bit crowded, they're all still joking around as usual.

Five minutes or so pass, and one of the larger boys keeps begging for one of his friends to get up, saying, "I'm a fatass, I need to sit."

His friend replies, "sit on Amanda!" (or something to that extent).

And, just like that, (imagine me snapping my fingers with authority), the large one sits on my lap.
I repeat: he sat. On my lap.

Without looking at me, he starts to dance around a bit, and goes, "comfy, Amanda?"

Honestly, what does one do in that situation? Push him off? No. Let him figure it out on his own? Probably not. Dance with him and hope to make a new buddy? Shh, Wynn, that's weird. Negative.

I've read books on social etiquette, but never have I ever found a section entitled "the proper ways to act when large teenage boys mistake you for a friend and give you a lap dance on the public bus."

Before I can answer him by saying... well I just don't know what I would have said, he turns around and looks at me. I see his face transition from a big, goofy smile, to absolute horror in about 2 seconds.

"Are you comf-OOOOOHHHHH SHIT!"

He gets up as if he just sat on a fire, apologizes countless times, and his friends (including Amanda, I'm sure) are probably crying they are laughing so hard, from what I can hear. I say it's okay, and that I understood (I really didn't), because mistakes happen, etc. My stop was very soon, anyway.

Because this scenario is so bizarre, I am opening it up to you, my readers: assuming this boy didn't turn around so swiftly, what on earth would you have done, in my situation?

#4 THE PRESENTS EDITION

Today I had to do a major room clean, one thing lead to another and I ended up going through a box of Christmas/birthday/Easter/spontaneous presents that I received from my (late) grandmother throughout the years.
Now, my grandmother is notorious for sending presents that, if used, would ensure that her grandchildren would never have friends again. I discovered the gold-mine of 'em in a storage unit in my closet.
(I'll list them in the order in which I discovered them)

#1 Boots
Before you think this is normal, let me describe them.
HEIGHT: Mid-calf
SIZE: Enormous.
MAKER: There is no tag. They are so horrendous that the designer did not want people to know that he/she/it made these.
MATERIAL: What are you thinking? Leather, maybe? Are you thinking they might be snow boots? No. They are made entirely of faux musk oxen fur (say that 10x fast). Layers and layers of it that makes the boots 3.5 inches (I measured) thicker.
COLOR: Bright white.

First of all, faux musk oxen fur? I did some googling, and it doesn't look like anyone has ever produced any article of clothing using real ox fur, so maybe there are some legal issues when it comes to using this material. Okay, so this company wants to be edgy and trick people (namely PETA) into thinking that they're breaking the law?
That's like if Coca-Cola decided to trick everyone that they're putting cocaine into their drinks again, but whoops! Gotcha! It's just faux cocaine. Fauxcaine, heh.

I'm not done with these boots, though. So we've got what they look like (if your mental image of them is unpleasant, by golly, you've got it).

But now we get to the fun part! Grandma, what do I get to use these for? Boots this swanky shouldn't be worn everyday, that'd spoil the magic. Well, I have a few ideas. These boots would be useful only:

A) If I wanted to run off and proceed to be raised by a pack of polar bears (I'd say musk oxen, but dying the faux fur white makes this dream impossible). All I would have to do is slip on these boots, not bathe, and acquire a taste for fish. When I'm on the cover of National Geographic with my bear family, you can all say you knew me WHEN.

B) If I went on a date with a Yeti.

C) If my cat wanted a new friend.

D) If I wanted to die a virgin.

Well, this post ended up being really long, so I have a new plan. I'll just talk about one or two gifts from this mystical storage box every once in a while. I'll keep you surprised.

That's the end of this one. It served a dual purpose, too. I got to share a nice story, and I no longer have to answer any questions about what I'm wearing to prom. Four words: Faux. Musk. Oxen. Fur.

#3 The "like" Button

If you're reading this blog, you're probably familiar with Facebook. Now, for those of you that are not familiar with said site, I have a lot of respect for you and I'm a little jealous, but that's beside the point.My point is that you may not know that Facebook recently added a new feature: liking.

Basically, it's a new way of acknowledging someone else's activities. For instance, let's say you see that your friend Billy has posted a new status, "I love Twilight!", and you just need to let Billy know that you saw this and that you could not agree more. Well, you (and let's give you a name... hmmm, how about Patricia?) could press the "like" button; then, under Billy's status, it would read "Patricia likes this." Simple as that.
Again, if you're not familiar with Facebook, the non-cyber way of communicating this message would be through, you know, speaking.

WELL, it just so happens that it's really easy to accidentally "like" something. After all, it only takes clicking on this damn button to express all of your thoughts.

Now today, I refreshed my minifeed (the melting pot for all updates involving my friends), and apparently someone I don't know very well was recently listed as single. A few hours later, I refresh the page again, and see that I have many a notification, informing me that lots of other people I don't know have also commented on this relationship update. I'm confused, I go to her profile, look at the post that says "[Insert name here] is listed as single", and see that I have accidentally pressed the "like" button under it.

Now, I don't know about you, but when I get dumped, I don't want some girl that I don't know very well to come and be all happy about it. Well, that's exactly what I did to this poor girl. I can only think of a few other situations where this could have been any worse:

"[Insert name here] my grandma died. RIP. Love you, nana"
- Wynn Van Dusen "likes" this.

BAD.

"[Insert name here] just got rejected from every college I applied to. Mom kicked me out of the house and told me I'm a failure. :("
- Wynn Van Dusen "likes" this.

NO!!!!

"[Insert name here] just broke every bone in my body and will never walk again. There go my dreams of being a dancer. Also, my insurance isn't helping, I just found out I was adopted, and my house burned down"
- Wynn Van Dusen "likes" this.

STOP! WHY?!

This post has a moral: be careful where you accidentally click, because it WILL lead to an awkward situation where you have to talk yourself out of seeming like a horrible person.

#2 Why I Love My iPod

Okay, so let's flashback a few days. It's December 23rd, and I've got plans to go see some friends. This requires me taking the subway and the MetroNorth. It's maybe 4 o'clock and I get on the 6 train. It's not too crowded, there are some people there, but I have a place to sit, and there's an empty spot next to me. One stop goes by, and just as the train is pulling up and the doors are about to open, I notice a fight going down right in front of the subway doors closest to me. Two men are about to get on the train, but before doing this, they are screaming at each other. Both look like they could be regulars on "Jersey Shore," in fact, if I turn on my T.V. next week and see them, I won't be surprised.
Alright, so they're fighting before my very eyes, I can't tell what it's about. All I know is that they are screaming and cursing, and the part of me that went to go see "The Princess and the Frog" two weeks ago is disapproving and a little bit scared. The fight is so severe that the smaller of the two men makes a choice to go enter a different subway car, whereas the bigger, scarier man, walks into the car I'm in. He still looks angry, and he mumbles something that I'm sure would get bleeped out if aired on national television.
Just my luck, he comes and sits in the seat right next to me. When he sits, though, he seems pretty calm, like maybe he's recovering. He then lets out one last scary exclamation that I can't really make out, but the last time I heard something similar was at the Bronx zoo during a gorilla fight.

This whole time I've had my headphones in, my iPod was on shuffle. A song I hate came on (it shall remain unnamed), and so I quickly took the iPod out to change the song. I press "next", and the next song that comes on just happens to be "Edelweiss" from The Sound of Music. Now, when you change songs on an iPod, usually the album art comes up. My iPod has a big, bright screen, which displayed a picture of Julie Andrews and seven happy children running through the fields, and apparently this album art caught my angry, scary, large friend's eye. I catch him looking closely at my iPod, and the part of me that's not politically correct (sorry, mom and dad), was pretty sure he was going to steal it. He's really gazing at my iPod, and I can't help but kind of look up at him. He looks straight back at me and I decide it's time to look at my shoes. Yes, that's the best way to go about doing this.

I hear him clear his throat, and at this point, I've decided that I may just surreptitiously switch cars. By the way, I didn't mention that this man smells like cigarettes, hair gel, and crying babies.

"Excuse me," I hear him say (I always keep the music on my iPod on a low volume, because I don't like it when people can hear what I'm listening to. If I wanted them to do that, I'd carry a boombox on my shoulders). Now, I didn't think he was talking to me. I thought he was maybe addressing the whole train. Then he nudges me and I look straight up at him.

"I'm not gay or anything, but that's a beautiful song."

I kid you not. This man went out of his way to tell me that he, too, likes the Sound of Music (and that he's not gay).

Good times, scary man, good times.

My Very First Post

If you're reading this blog, you're probably my father. So, hi.

If you're not my father, you might want to know a little bit about me before you start reading, otherwise this would be weird.
My name is Wynn, my friends call me Wynnie, Wynnifred, Weiner, or some combination of profanities that would make any mother proud.
My favorite foods include everything except goat cheese, mushrooms and parsley.
I like it when people use punctuation properly.?,;/"[]!
I once cried while watching Trading Spouses.
All of the TV shows I watch loop the same commercials for Delcolax, Snuggies, Various Online Universities, Menstrual/Diet Pills and "Text [insert number here] to find out what your soulmate's name is" scams. They are all clearly intended for a demographic of winners that I am proud to be a part of.
I'm writing a blog because I feel like it.
I will most likely use this blog for story telling purposes. Feel free to laugh at and/or with me. If you don't think I'm funny, that's okay. I think I'm funny, my friends don't. I laugh at my own jokes.
What else? Oh, I'm fantastic at creating awkward moments. Really. Don't believe me? Well that's you-
My cat died...







See? I made one, I did.

Anyone at all can read, comment, whatever, on this here blog. Like I said, I'll probably just end up posting stories featuring cringe-worthy/funny/peculiar moments I've experienced. In fact, they'll probably make you feel better on a bad day. If you're reading my blog and finding that you're getting much, much better at procrastination... I've done my job, and I apologize from the bottom of my heart.

Happy New Year! I hope you like it!

Hey, 2010, meet my blog.