The Extraordinarily Ordinary » Stories

A costumed life

jtal — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 02:00:51 +0000

I was wondering, after this year’s round of Halloween parties and subsequent photos, how many years of Halloween pictures could I collect?

19. 19 years out of 27…but some years included more than one costume, so there are in fact 21 different costumes represented. THAT’S SO MANY! You could tell a story with that many [...]

The girl as a young activist

jtal — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 03:08:34 +0000

Believe it or not, I used to be a hippie. Fact. Ask anyone who knew me in the mid-90s. When I was young, naive, unbattered by the winds of this cruel world, I thought that one small person could affect change if they just tried hard enough.

And then the system crushed that one small [...]

A late night conversation

jtal — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 16:10:12 +0000

I’LL bet those last few posts were not very entertaining. So–I present to you: A Late Night Conversation. This was just after the Super Bowl. Timely! Contextual!

ME: Hey, why are they called the Packers? For that matter, why are they called the Steelers?

FIANCE: Well the Packers, something something about meat packing.

ME: Oh, [...]

Anonymous text friend: the shocking finale!

jtal — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 14:52:05 +0000

-OR- How a Question Mark Changed Everything I Thought I Knew About the World.

(Catch up on parts 1 and 2 if you need to.) I couldn’t wait to tell you the ending. I know you couldn’t wait either. Hokay, so. Things we know about Stef: it is male. It likes movies. It might be [...]

Anonymous text friend: part 2

jtal — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 18:31:48 +0000

I don’t know if you’ve heard about my interesting conversation with a stranger or not, but you should probably start here: Anonymous text friend (post). Now that we’re all caught up, here’s the sequel. The Monday after my last message from Stef, I received a text at 10:15am…

STEF: What’s good

My immediate reaction was, [...]

Anonymous text friend

jtal — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 16:26:58 +0000

One day last week I received the following text from a number I didn’t recognize…

ANONYMOUS: What’s gucci

Is someone really asking me what Gucci is? Or is it some new greeting the kids are into these days? I chose to ignore it. They’ll figure out it’s not who they thought it was and get [...]

Castles ‘n stuff

jtal — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 04:26:57 +0000

That conversation about Paris with my stylist made me think I should try wrapping up my France trip recounting. It’s only been…6 months now.

When last we left our intrepid travelers, they had arrived in Cour-Cheverny in the Loire Valley at an adorable bed and breakfast. My main goal for this trip–besides seeing my awesome [...]

When to shut your face

jtal — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 21:04:59 +0000

One way to tell whether we’re friends or not (or whether I’m drunk or not) is how well my filter is working. You know, the filter between what I’m thinking and what I’m saying. When I start saying ridiculous, inappropriate or so-weird-it-borders-on-incomprehensible things around you, then you know you’ve made it to my inner circle. [...]

And then I died somehow

jtal — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 22:25:19 +0000

So…we’re driving Picassotron through most of France, and to get to our next destination: Le Beguinage bed-and-breakfast in Cours-Cheverny, Loir-et-Cher, France. Home of the hyphens.

Let me paint you a picture: it’s about 7pm, there have been varying levels of rain over the past 9 hours you’ve spent on the road, but it has finally [...]

My favorite principality

jtal — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 17:09:10 +0000

I decided I need to finish chronicling my France adventure before I wipe all memories of 2010 from my brain on New Year’s Eve. That’s a good excuse for drinking too much, right? Erasing the past year to make way for the new? Much better than drinking to remove my kindness filter (or at least [...]