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I don’t get GIFs

~ hilly miller ~ 3 Comments

I don’t get GIFs.

I don’t mean that I don’t get why they’re used or funny (like the way I don’t get the usefulness of mason jars).

I mean that I don’t get how they exist. Aren’t they straight out of Harry Potter?

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Where do they come from? How are they made? I can’t be the only one with these questions.

“You’re not!” screams Jill. Jill is going to figure out how to make them, and I expect a lesson. *riding her coattails of knowledge*

Katie is excellent at using GIFs for comedic measure. I asked her how they exist, and she said, “When a mommy GIF loves a daddy GIF…”

That’s not an explanation, Katie. Nice try. Mom beat you to the punch there. I don’t quite get that either.

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But that’s an entirely different direction. We will not go there.

GIFs though. So many questions.

Is it GIF, as in Guh-if? Is it GIF, as in choosey Moms choose GIF (Jif)?

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I was using the GIF (Jif) pronunciation (which could have something to do with my love of peanut butter), but some super cool people say GIF (Guh-if). I just don’t know!

When I ask people they say they don’t know either, but in that way that makes me think they really do know (and they’re just not telling me).

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Also, writing “Guh-if” makes me think of Guh-Linda, which makes me start singing, “No wizard that there is or was is ever gonna bring me down. Ahhahahahaaaaa.”

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How does a GIF act like an image? If I search for GIFs (which I almost never do because I’m afraid of them), I look in the “images” section of Google. This doesn’t make sense; they’re like miniature videos. There should be a “magic image” section of Google for GIFs.

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I don’t get it! How? How? How? Seriously, the only conclusion I can come up with here is that wizards are real.

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pixie disasters

~ hilly miller ~ Leave a comment

Here’s the thing about short hair, about having a pixie cut: there are times when you cannot pull it off. There are times when you lack the self-confidence, the hair gel, or the time it takes to shower, to properly rock the pixie.

In those most desperate of times, you don’t even like yourself anymore.  No, you are a caricature, a man, a smelly mother of twins, or sometimes all three.  It is a sad day, and unfortunately it occurs at least once a week (for me, anyway).  There are unique manifestations to each pixie failure.  Here are the horrendous looks that no pixie wearer can escape.

 

The Paul Dano in Ruby Sparks

This occurs when the androgynous look goes horribly, horribly wrong.  Imagine you let your hair air dry without any product.  You want the sort of sleek, touchable look.  You’ll wear extra makeup and collared shirt. It will be edgy, but you’ll totally pull it off, like this lady. 17-pixiehair01-073

But then you run out of time to do your makeup, and realize you threw away your contacts and don’t have new ones.  You stick on your glasses, and figure you can at least put on the collared shirt.  Uh-oh, you now look Paul Dano in Ruby Sparks and the cashier says, “Here’s your change, sir.” This is not a good day.

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The Hillary Clinton

No one wants this. Hillary Clinton doesn’t even want this.  The look is the result of too much styling.  You decide to put hairspray in, on top of the paste you already gooped into your mop, and then it all becomes a bit too much, resulting in a look worthy of a news anchor.  I did this on purpose for Halloween and several times not on purpose.

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The Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men

This gem is usually a result of growing the pixie out, which is its own terrible, terrible battle.  You wait and wait and wait, and then I think, “Yes. I’ve done it. I can finally make this thing a bob.”  You trim the back, part it on the side, and… now you have an alarmingly strong jaw. Congratulations, you’ve got the Bardem.

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The Brother

There’s no escaping this comparison.  It will happen as soon as you cut your hair and your family sees you right after a shower. “I never realized how much you looked like your brother.” This shall be the quote on everyone’s lips.  You are now a twin, an identical twin, and you are a boy.

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The Edward Cullen

Most likely this is the most accidental of all the bad hair days. On this day, you really go for it.  You decide you’re going to look like Natalie Portman, circa SNL rap.  You fluff your hair up, total punk style, and then halfway through the day things are looking a little less like Queen Amidala and slightly more like a certain vampire. It’s most depressing. Probably the most depressing of all these horrendous pixie hair days.

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facing failure

Aside ~ ~ hilly miller ~ Leave a comment

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What is there to say about failure?  That it’s a part of life? That it’s a big part of my life lately? That it sucks big time? How about that if some silver lining is to be found, it’s that every successful person has failed.  They really all have. Let’s just allow that to sink in for a moment.  Ahhhh

When I was a kid, I (fell) failed at ice skating, I picked myself back up, and I skated until I fell (failed) again.  I’m still terrible at ice skating.  Is there a point to that?  Eh, maybe.  Maybe it’s that this is what makes failure so scary–because there are things, like ice skating, that I’m never going to be successful at.  But, unlike ice skating, I’m willing to work through my failures in other areas of my life, things that are attached to who I am as a person and what I want to do. (I know you’re having a hard time believing that ice skating isn’t my purpose in life.)

I’m going to start referring to failures as “learning experiences” because that makes me feel better. 🙂  Plus, we’ve all met the person who was absolutely wonderful at everything he ever did in his life, and you know what?  He kind of sucks.  So, I say, a plethora failures learning experiences is the way to go.  Let’s jump off that cliff (figuratively) and get wildly excited about things that could be massive failures learning experiences. The success is worth it, I think.  The act of pushing onward with everything in us is worth it, I know.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

― Winston Churchill

“Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.”

― Truman Capote

“We are all failures- at least the best of us are.”

― J.M. Barrie

“Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.”

― C.S. Lewis

“if you don’t try at anything, you can’t fail… it takes backbone to lead the life you want”

― Richard Yates

“The peaks wouldn’t be nearly as beautiful without the valleys.”

– Mom

why mason jars?

~ hilly miller ~ 3 Comments
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Started watching Dr. Who to get stuff like this. Was too big of a nerd to stop.

I have a question.  It’s one of those things that’s been bugging me for a long time, but I don’t bring it up often because I don’t want to seem uncool. 

But I’ve had enough. 

There’s something I don’t get, and I feel like I’m on the outside of a Dr. Who joke, asking, “Are you saying jiberish?”

 

So here it is: why mason jars? 

Now, I know much like arrow tattoos and kombucha, mason jars are a part of the current rage, but I don’t really get it.  Is there something I’m missing?

Why is it better to take a to-go salad in a glass (BREAKABLE) jar?  And to then have to invest in an extra long fork to reach the goodins (aka the redeemable bits of a salad) stuck in the bottom of said jar?

Putting a cupcake in a mason jar is the surest way to turn what should be a magical cupcake eating experience into extreme frustration with icing covered fingers.   I thought mason jars were supposed to be full of weird things your mom pickled that never went away from the pantry.  Seriously, who’s idea was it to make something as enjoyable as eating a sugar-filled dessert in the most inconvenient way possible.  Is this a part of a new diet that I’m not aware of?  You’ll get so sick of the effort to eat that you’ll stop eating!

ImageAnd then there’s the crafts.  These I’m not so adverse to because combining all of your leftover candles into one candle, while sure to cause a headache, does, at least, sound frugal.  But the crafts like filling a mason jar with olive oil and sticking a picture inside?  Why? Think about all of those olives Vincenzo Cortino’s dad had to squeeze for that thing (Jane Austen’s Mafia! anybody?)

 

I mean, is it that they last forever (until dropped)?  Do they feel old?  Like an antique that you can buy new without the weird I’ve-been-in-an-antique-store-good-luck-getting-me-to-smell-differently smell to them? Is it like the idea of putting flowers in ice cubes? It looks pretty and sophisticated until the ice cubes melt, and you attempt not to swallow wilted leaves.  Do you feel cooler drinking out of mason jars?  Okay, I will say yes to that one.

Also, I will admit that while looking at pictures of mason jar crafts, a few of them look kind of fun and cute.

But I still hold to my beginning question: what’s with the mason jar?  What am I not getting?  Why are people packing their lunches and “framing” their pictures in the least convenient way possible? What tv show do I have to watch to be in on this one? Because I am way out.

future dreams and liberty themes

~ hilly miller ~ Leave a comment

This past summer I was able to participate in an internship program (in the film industry) run by a libertarian organization, and last night we had a dinner party for the interns and fellows of the organization in the LA area.  I’m not good at these things.  I am too excited, too happy to be there to fit in.  I should have worn glasses and brushed up on my cool facts about myself, but I didn’t do either of those things.  While others ranted on their current noble endeavors to make documentaries on prisons and refugees, I explained my desire to make a funny movie that people would go see.  While they mentioned obscure political films, I talked about Goonies and poop jokes. The further conversations went, the more I became wary of telling people I wanted to help create a movie that wasn’t solely fueled by libertarian ideals.  To be clear, I thought their ideas were awesome and told them as much, but I just wasn’t being reciprocated.  A few hours in, when strangers asked me what I wanted to do, the mantra, “just make it libertarian sounding,” entered my head.

Apparently, this worked so well that the last time I was asked about my future goals I said, “I just want to live in a cabin with lots of land where I can write.  And I, uh, I want to have a basement full of ammunition.”  After that I called it a night, and I am still mentally shaking my head at myself.

Oh, and look what I did to my phone…

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