The Desert Mermaid

5. Do you like eggnog?

Yes, but as so many people say, I can’t have much of it at once.  I know of only one person who will polish off glass after glass, and that is my brother.

He could do this from the time he was three. Hell, he’d go around and finish off other people’s eggnog.  Lots of other people’s! Other people who were grown-ups, and who had the grown-up eggnog. Which we realized when he couldn’t stop giggling into his yams at dinner.

My brother’s past: not actually suitable for minors.

“Eggnog” was also, for reasons that escape me at the moment, one of our budgie’s nicknames.  Sometimes this got changed to “Nogz” or “Noggors.” We are a weird family.

Incidentally, what the hell is “nog,” anyway?  That we have to modify it with “egg” suggests that nog does not necessarily have to contain eggs, but I have never heard of any other kind of nog.  Can other things be nogged?  Can you have, say, rhubarb nog, or chicken broth nog, or cottage cheese nog?  God, I hope not.

• The average life span of a house rabbit is 10-12 years. (I knew this, but now I have learned it.)
• In comic art a good way to keep effect lines focused is to stick a tack at the focal point and rotate the straight edge around it.
• Superman originally couldn’t fly; he would jump around like a flea. I had wondered about that because of the “able to leap tall buildings” bit, which seemed a little redundant if you could go sailing off through the ionosphere whenever you wanted to.
• Subway sandwiches actually aren’t bad.
• Budgies glow in the dark.
• In linguistic subgrouping, shared innovation shows a closer relationship between languages than shared retention.
• Wraparound pants are the coolest pants in the world. And they can help you with your worldbuilding projects!
• There are two styles for wedging clay: the Western, also called “ramshead,” and the Eastern, or “chrysanthemum.” The second terms refer to the shapes the clay takes on.
• I use “Fucking” as both an honorific and as a sign of derision. For examples, I give you: Sigourney Fucking Weaver versus Paris Fucking Hilton.
• Patrick Fucking Stewart does the voice of Adventure in The Pagemaster, one of my favorite animated movies. This reinforces my theory that classically trained actors are filthy filthy whores. They’ll take any paycheck you offer them. And that’s awesome.
• People interpret the word “diet” to mean “please offer me a disapproving opinion without noticing any of the other words in the sentence.”
• Cobalt can undergo reversible oxygenation, meaning that it can work as a metalloprotein. Dweijidŕ, Ghiltrol, say hello to your blue blood.
• There is one thing I can do better left-handed: I can pull clay into long, thin strips. I always wind up with little knobs and thin bits when I do it right-handed. Presumably this means I can also milk a cow better, since the motion’s almost identical, but we will have to study that further before we know for sure.
• Originally, the word for apron was napron, but people saying a napron eventually started hearing it as an apron.
• Linguists have actually discussed whether languages have “masculine” or “feminine” characteristics (I’m looking at you, Otto Jesperson).
• The answer to the question “If I decide to make a career out of standing on rubber balls balancing tea trays and vases on my nose while swinging a hula hoop on my hips, what is my first step?” is: Wuqiao Acrobatics School.
• You know you’re not cut out to watch porn when your first thought after the movie ends is, “Hey, that subplot with the dirty maid and the guy in the cravat and enormous platforms didn’t go anywhere.”
• You should definitely make sure to hug your rabbit before you leave after spring break, because you’ll feel slightly better about it when she dies before you get back for summer vacation.
• Either I really do have Jubilee’s mutant power of blowing up electronics, or every iPod in the Universe is a piece of shit.
• It is actually possible to upstage Johnny Depp as a pirate.
• It takes a month to get some psychiatrists to do paperwork.
• Fraggle Rock stands the test of time. Rugrats doesn’t.