When the apocalypse cometh, can I be on your team?

As you know, we have about three years and change until the apocalypse. What's that? You didn't know ? Well, there's a film that's coming out called 2012 that would be happy to tell you all the horrible things that are going to happen to us in a few years' time. Meteors will rain from the sky, New York will flood, a ship named after JFK will crash into the White House.

I think this movie is the height of irresponsibility. There are enough weirdos out there who already know about the Mayan calendar and have made reservations for their cave in sub-Saharan Africa. There is no need to inform the action-movie-going masses that the world is possibly about to end. This is just asking for looting, mass suicides and crazy bomb shelter preparations.

That said, I need to start working on my Apocalypse Plan. A friend came over a while back and asked us to play her favorite game: What Skills Can You Bring to My Apocalypse Team? I thought about it and thought about it, and I came to the conclusion that I really don't have much to offer. I'm kind of an indoors kind of girl who eschews camping, so survival skills like making a fire and putting your food somewhere a bear won't eat it and tracking wild beasts are ones I am woefully without. I can cook, sure, but only when following a recipe. And I highly doubt I'll be able to find the pine nuts and feta I so love using as ingredients when the world ends. I can knit, but again, there will be no size ten knitting needles and worsted wool at my disposal in three years' time. I can't fell trees, I'm not handy with a weapon, my arches start to hurt if I'm on my feet for too long and I NEVER REMEMBER WHAT POISON OAK LOOKS LIKE.

I've read The Road. I know how important plastic will be in the world to come to use as shoe coverings and shelter. Oh, and a shopping cart. We'll need one of those for sure. Should I start hoarding them now? Would that make me team-worthy?

The one thing I have going for me is that I'm highly confident in my fertility. I'm one of four, and my ma was one of four as well. I don't want to brag or anything, but I'm pretty sure this womb could start repopulating the earth in a pinch.

So... um... pick me? Pretty please?

Scrabble with Brother Bear

Hopixie: (n.) A pixie of the whorish sort.
Entgnome: (n.) A gnome tree herder. Found in the bonsai forests of Japan and NE Asia.
Erioky: (n., adv.) Australian curse word; Belgian oyster.
Flang: (v.) Past-past-tense of "flung."
Gront: (v.) To grunt whilst grinning.
Drent: (v.) To dream whilst farting.
Fluic: (n.) (colloq.) Flulike.
Jiwtir: (n.) Highest level of management in a jewelery store.
Gadawaj: (n.) Holiday celebrating yeast in India.
Tronc: (n.) (colloq.) Trunk.
Ditali: (n.) Halibut cheeks in Denali (Mt. McKinley, Alaska).
Weeebo: (n.) Baby earwig. Common to the coastal regions of Belarus.
Sizourfy: (v.) To cut up things with ones legs.
Sheett: (n.) (colloq.) Self-explanatory.
Pabsod: (n.) Grass grown with the water content of Pabst Blue Ribbon.
Ovaly: (n.) Oval-shaped, oval-like, oval-scented.

Who's got the beat? (Hint: Not I)

Last night a coworker invited me to a hip hop class at our gym. It'll be fun, she said. You'll be great, she said. It can't be that hard, she said. ALL LIES. I'm scared, I said. PREACH.

I got there early, while a conditioning class was finishing up. The teacher was pretty hardcore, making her students alternate jumping squats, leg curls with weights in their knee pits and jumping rope. I wondered what the hip hop teacher would look like and imagined a delicate flower of a dancer with long, flowing hair. WRONG. Conditioning teacher IS the hip hop teacher. Woe.

She put on some beats for us to loosen up to. That's when I knew I was in for it. The ladies and gents around me were shaking their booties like they were in da clurrrb, whilst I did some of my patented robot moves and felt awkward. Teacher then announced that she was going to build on what everyone had learned the last two weeks with three new eight counts. "I'm a fast learner," I thought to myself. "I'll be able to pick up on this no sweat."

I caught the first three moves, which were a snap to the side with some 'tude, a punch to the right and a punch to the left. Then there was some jumping and some falling backwards and some "drive that car!" and some booty shaking and some dipping. As a lovely young man behind me pointed out, I looked a hot mess. The only part I could do with some semblance of confidence was the eight count of "walkin' it out," which entailed walking in a circle. With some 'tude.

Reader, I was so bad. It brought me back to my failed attempt to try out for cheerleading freshman year of high school. I felt like I was insulting our teacher, who looks like she's straight out of a Missy Elliot video, merely by being there.

The worst was at the end of the class, when she had half of us perform for the other half. Twice. I immigrated to the very back of the room where I prayed their eyeballs would gloss over me in favor of the overweight dude at the front who was dancing his big ol' heart out.

Actually, I lied. The worst is that when I text my buddy to commiserate about how very, very awful I was she insisted we go together next week and I agreed.