Saturday, January 3

Since I've been back in the States for the holiday shopping massacre and what not, I have noticed that the quantity of people have conversations with themselves is multiplying at an exponential rate. We've already discussed how stupid you look, and New Year's is the perfect time to make a change for the better:

Resolution 2
I will not talk so loudly
With my bluetooth on

Friday, January 2

Welcome to 2009 everybody! For the first week of the new year, we here at the Daily Lifeku have put together some Daily Resolutions, obviously in haiku form.

Today's resolution starts off the week with a little recommendation for those of you who have seem to forgotten the lost art of bladder control. If you think that this only applies to 8 year olds and your weird mentally handicapped cousin you only see once a year, you would be very very wrong. Just in the month of December, I witnessed not one, but two pee-myself moments on the metro that had every person in the car shoving themselves against the edges:

Resolution 1
Next year I will not pee on
Myself in public

Happy 2009!!

Happy New Year everybody! Let's begin 2009 with a very large bottle of water, and possibly some Gatorade and saltines from some... In honor of the most drunken night of the year, Maureen and I have put together a little trio of lifekus covering most possible New Year's situations. If we left out something that applies to you, write your own lifeku because we're hungover:



For those who didn't get any:

New Year's Eve Party
Alcohol-induced coma
I thought I'd get laid

For those who got some:

Where did you come from?
You looked much better last night
Stupid beer goggles

For those who don't remember:

The toilet's taken
So I decided to just
Puke in the shower

Wednesday, December 31: Reader Submission

Yes, I know it's New Year's (and Maureen's birthday) but Wednesday is Reader Submission Day and that's just how it is... so a lifeku about crazy all night antics will be posted tomorrow, after some crazy all night antics. Today's reader submission comes from Bill Corvino, who, like me, pays attention to weird stuff people do on the train. He explains:

I saw a woman on the train mouthing the words as she was reading. I realized appearances can be deceiving in NY where most women look sophisticated:

Your mouth is moving
as you read Harry Potter.
Congratulations.



PS: For those of you who know Maureen personally, today is her birthday and you should call her. [hint hint]

Tuesday, December 30

A couple of days after the holidays, some of the "living" gifts that you receive turn out to not be such great gifts, things such as Poinsettias (which, let's face it, don't work with all types of home decor), fruit cakes, which might as well be living, or the unforgivably forgettable gift: the cactus.

Ugly Christmas wreath
This is such a crappy gift

It smells like cat pee

Monday, December 29

We called for Reader Submission: Holiday Edition and received the oh-so-lovely legend of the non-existent newspaper. That is to say, a newspaper was ordered from said date to said date, yet said newspaper fails to appear when the date arrives. When asked, Cheryl explained:

No tip for Christmas
I just didn't feel like it
Bah humbug, news boy

Sunday Poll: December 28

The "gifts" I received for Xmas make me feel...

Saturday, December 27

You, Clumsy Oaf Man
Can you watch where you’re going?
Coordination

Friday, December 26

Tis the day after Christmas and all through the house not a creature is stirring, not even my mom getting up to raid the leftover cookie platter. The dirty dishes and ashtrays were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that the cleaning lady soon would be there to mop up that accident I'd like to forget about. The parents were nestled all comatose in their beds, while visions of bad eggnog and yesterday's drunken relatives danced like nightmares in their pounding heads. And mamma still in her Christmas dress, and I in my cap, had just settled down over the toilet for a long winter's vomit followed by nap.

I think you are starting to get the point... this one goes out to every one of you who wishes you could hide your family in a deep dark closet and throw away the key, because sometimes we can't all just get along:

Why, family, why?
Must you insist on drinking
Till you Christmas hurl?

Calling All Lifekus

Starting today, the Daily Lifeku will be posting all of your holiday shenanigans in anticipation for the most alcohol filled holiday of the year: New Year's Eve. Or maybe Saint Patrick's Day... but we're not Irish and NYE '09 is way closer.

Send in your best holiday lifekus inspired by your crazy family, bad gifts, over-eating, over-drinking, forgotten gift giving, and embarrassment in general and we will post them in the coming days of Inter-Christmas-New-Year's. Email us at dailylifeku@gmail.com

MERRY XMAS, HAPPY HANUKKAH AND/OR KWANZA, AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Merry Commercial Gift Giving Day

A very happy holidays to everyone from The Daily Lifeku:

Old creepy uncle
Don’t make me sit on your lap
I’ll tell my parents


Cheapskate relative
Don't bother coming next year
Socks are not presents

Wednesday, December 24: Reader Submissions

Today's reader submission was sent in by Jiji, who tells you all about her crazy pets on her blog My Life in Trinidad and Tobago. She explains:

"We have a Parrot that is extremely unfriendly. We had her when she was almost still an egg and had to feed her in the middle of the night etc... NOW, she is big and stupid and bites and makes a lot of noise and doesn't want anyone to touch her (I have pix of her on my blog). So I made a Haiku about her...

Idiot Parrot
Why do you bite me up when
I am feeding you?

I'll cook her one of these days and tell my mum it's a malnourished Chicken."

Tuesday, December 23

Today I submit for your review yet another absurdly amusing but still kind of sad and very real Datepad.com message, sent in from a lovely reader from L.A. who wishes to remain anonymous in her dating debacles. For those of you who are not familiar with Datepad, it's not unlike Match or Meetic (in France) except that it sports the super awesome slogan "The Law of Attraction in Action." Sweet:

Hey there, what's up? Excuse my malapropos overture because I'm not yet "au courant" with the proper cyber protocol on how to approach girls....Nevertheless, It's impervious of my character not to take time out and adulate you on how beautiful I think you are. Besides, I'd really surmise that there's something terribly wrong with me or daftly suspicious if I didn't...CUZ OMG!! GODDAMN BABY CAKES YOU ARE ON FIREEE!! LOL, now I'm extremely confident that a lady of your caliber gets really tired of hearing that again and again. But I discern that "its not what you say, but how you say it". Furthermore, I can conjecture you probably have like a bajillion emails to read so I'll keep this "petit." If I've left anything out on my profile, please feel free to ask because any inquiry from you is welcome...LOL. Who knows, maybe we'll get the fortuity to confabulate some time? It's been a pleasure...
Happy Holidays
Arrivederci


Where do I begin? The overuse of Franglais in the first sentence? Impervious of my character? Daftly Suspicious? "Conjecture" and "like" in the same sentence? I feel like I could go on for hours, but I won't. Fortuity to confabulate. Ok that was the last one.

Datepad.com Guy
Your message sounds like you just
Raped a thesaurus.

Monday, December 22

I often see things that I don't understand... like pregnant women who go shopping with 4 children and then expect you to feel sorry for them because they are pregnant and have four children. I mean, hello, I didn't tie you up and rape you then force you to carry my seed to term 4 times, so how on earth is your predicament my fault? But alas, I digress. Other things I frequently see that don't make sense include: people dressed as large stuffed animals on roller blades, naked teenagers when it's snowing outside, cross dressing soccer hooligans, 7 year old children who take the metro by themselves, and women who insist on wearing open toed shoes even though the current state of their feet display a clear relation to a hobbit.

Ogre feet lady
You should sand down those bunions
When wearing peeptoes

Sunday Poll: December 21

Think Fast: Airline Standby

Saturday, December 20

Ordinarily I should be waking up in the United States, in my Moomie's house feeling all sorts of comforted and warm and cozy. But I'm not. I am still in Paris. It is still cold and gray. Why am I here? You have good reason to ask this question, since any logical person would think to themselves, "I purchased my ticket 6 months ago, so I am flying on the plane pertaining to my ticket." Unfortunately, any logical person would be extremely wrong in thinking this, since clearly I am not on my plane. No no, when I arrived at the airport (3 and half hours early by the way) I was told that there were no more seats. I thought that was really funny, since my seats were already written on my reservation... but this is where it gets confusing because those seats that I chose when I made my purchase were not, in fact, my seats. They were "hypothetical" seats that I may or may not have recieved (in this case, not.) Air France explains that my seat was actually never mine and when I paid two grand for a ticket, I wasn't really "buying" anything. I was hypothetically reserving, just in case they felt like they might want to give it to me. After 6 hours on standby and not ever getting on the plane, I find myself at home again preparing to repeat the same process tomorrow a la Groundhog Day, with some Air France taxi vouchers and a "Compensation For Denied Bording" voucher for 800 euros. Yes it's really called that.


Fancy pants Air France
You sell things that you don’t have
Not unlike stealing

300 seats, yet
330 tickets
Where does that make sense

Woman at counter
I do not care if you’re chic
I will still hit you

Friday, December 19

Sometimes, people piss you off. So you do things, like send pizzas to their house or sign them up for email newsletters. Or other things...

When you were asleep
I farted right in your face
So who’s the man now?

Thursday, December 18

There's two homeless women that have lived in my neighborhood since I moved here. I suppose "live" isn't the best word, it's more like they "squat" in front of the BNP (a bank) on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays and in front of the dry cleaner across the street on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. These two women have more stuff than any homeless people I have ever seen and can often be seen clutching their bags for dear life as they shoot you dirty looks when you walk by. The interesting part is that within their plethora of plastic bags, there is some useful crap like old clothes and shoes, but they both actively choose to remain barefoot and sleeveless even in January. Sometimes they squat across from each other, one at the bank and one at the dry cleaners, and yell crazies back and forth across the street, chucking the occasional aluminum can at pedestrians that interrupt them.

Hey crazy lady
Talk to yourself a little more
You’re barefoot, you know

Wednesday, December 17: Reader Submission

Today' we have a special treat, namely 2 reader submissions! The first comes from the lovely Megan, who is frequently accosted in public places:

Strange man in the bar
Your pick up line does not work
Get out of my face

Lifeku #2 comes from "Anonymous" with the delightful email address of "wouldntyouliketoknow@yahoo.com." For the sake of things, we'll just call him Gunther. Gunther apparently had a problem with my inadequacy lifeku probably stemming from the extremely high levels of truth. Gunther's frustration with the fact that he can't get it up has provoked him to reveal a little universal truth of his own:

Remember last night
I said you didn't look fat
In that dress? I lied.

Tuesday, December 16

Sometimes I don't fell like doing a long introduction, especially when the lifeku is self-explanatory. This may or may not be one of those times.

Curious monkey
Those are my private places
Get your hands off now

Monday, December 15

The holidays remind me of so many things: how much I hate Tysons Corner and teenagers who drive, my grandmother's sweet potatoes with melted marshmallows that I avoid like the plague, the Chinese restaurants that never close, the Christmas crowd at Clyde's... It's so much nostalgia that I don't know what to do to myself. Then, of course, there's always the "Company Christmas Party" that you have to factor in. It doesn't even matter if you work at a company, because chances are you know someone who does and you'll have to be their plus 1 anyway. The Company Christmas Party is one of those rare occasions where you are forced to see your asexual and self-deemed completely uninteresting colleagues in a non-work context, freed from their cubicle existence. This means that you will have to acknowledge their significant others, hobbies, possibly children, and of course, flagrant drinking problems:

One too many girl
You smell like a brewery
You’re starting to slur

Sunday Poll: December 14

Think Fast: Holiday Travel

Saturday, December 13

I'm flying back to the states for the holidays next week, which means I have mentally been preparing for international air travel since before Halloween. It's funny how people turn into complete psychopaths when given only 2 cubic feet to live in for 8 hours. I'm sure the flights to and from Paris and DC will inspire many a lifeku, but I thought I would warm up with memories of previous travels and delightful adventures:

Voluminous girl
You take up two seats, not one
Who are you kidding?

Friday, December 12

There's this one girl who works at my grocery store who is always in a pissy mood. It could be beautiful outside with rainbows and unicorns and she would still be scowling in her red smock, chucking plastic bags in my general direction. I would also like to point out that this particular girl also has a very visible moustache, which she may or may not me aware of and which may or may not contribute to her foul mood. Either way, I think we'd all be happier if she slapped some dipilatory cream on that bad boy.

Bitter cashier
It’s not my fault your life sucks
You know you’re worthless

Thursday, December 11

I'm in a giving mood, it must be the holiday season. I am feeling generous enough to let the men of the world in on another secret: You know how we say it's no big deal? We're lying.

Remember the time
You said it was just this once?
Inadequacy

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Wednesday, December 10: Reader Submission

I've decided that Wednesday will be Reader Submission day from now on...so if you've got a lifeku, go ahead and send it in.

As I've said before, Maureen is lovely, but she is also a horrible person and totally proud of it. This is, of course, why I love her. Sometimes, however, she will take a pause from laughing at people who fall down to think of other people's feelings, for example her mother's feelings. Today's lifeku is about the sacrifices we make to protect our parents' feelings, in honor of the dreaded holiday season:

Mom, I love you, but
That tomato jelly you
Made was gross. Sorry

Note: It has previously been stated that Maureen will eat anything, so the maybe the tomato jelly wasn't so much of a sacrifice after all.

Tuesday, December 9

Today's lifeku has nothing to do with Paris, but instead concerns driving in the States. Before I moved to France, I grew up in DC and spent four years living in Brooklyn which means I had my share of road rage moments. Now I take the metro everywhere and no longer have to deal with idiots tail gaiting me for 20 minutes because I didn't see them when I merged, but I do get a fresh dose of murderous hysteria whenever I talk to Maureen on the phone. Our conversations go something like this:

D: "Hey, what's up?"

M: "Nothing, just running some stupid errands. What are you doing?"

D: "Not much, eating chocolate... wasting my life away on Stumble Upon."

M: "I know, Stumble Upon is so - HEY YOU IDIOT GET THE F*** OUT OF MY WAY JEEZE!"

D: "Huh?"

M: "Sorry about that, people are so retarded. I SAID NO I AM NOT LETTING YOU TURN LEFT!!!! IF YOU WANTED TO TURN LEFT YOU SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN INTO THE LEFT TURN LANE YOU JACKASS!!"

D: "Are you at Tysons Corner?"

M: "Route 7" [10 second horn honk] "NO, NO, F*** YOU I HAVE THE RIGHT OF WAY!"

D: "Road rage much?"

M: "I know, but it's not my fault that everyone is stup--- [interruped by extremely long horn honk]"

and the conversation continues in that matter for a few minutes until I get tired of hearing Maureen's "angry voice" and I hang up the phone so she can yell. This one is dedicated to my Twin Flame and the person she hates the most on on the road:

Car blocking the box
I’m imagining your death
You selfish ass wipe

Monday, December 8

Sometimes, but not very often, I feel a little bit bad for men. In general. They never really seem to know what's going on and those blank, confused stares often give me the urge to let them in on a little universal truth:

Hey, all men: newsflash
Sometimes we start fights with you
Just because we can.

Sunday Poll: December 7

Think fast: The French