True Confessions

Forgive me, Blog Readers, for I have spouted off in recent blog posts. I have made sweeping claims about myself that I have decided were absolutely, well, full of shit. I've decided to come clean on 2 of them. For now.

Claim and Confession #1. Last week while contemplating the Chinese' struggles with the sound of the letter r, I boldly claimed that I could master a zulu alveolar click before I could ever become a neurosurgeon.

Then, I watched a few videos of the fabulous Miriam Makeba, a South African singer known as Mama Afrika. Listen to The Click Song, recorded here in, I think, 1966 or so.



Yeah, I tried to do this a few hundred times. I've practiced incorporating that click into a sound without making an entire syllable out of it for two days now, and I think I broke my throat.
I absolutely can not do it. I have, instead, enrolled in this school, as pennance. (That is another lie. Really, you can't trust me any further than you can throw me.)

The next confession is about a proclamation that I have made time and time again. I WOULD do it! I WILL do it! In a heartbeat! In a split second, oh yes I would. I WOULD most certainly eat a live grub or a caterpillar with Andrew Zimmern, on his show, Bizarre Foods. I would not pass up the chance. Ever. I could freakin' co-host that show!

Then, while we were camping this weekend, Angie and Ryan yelled to me: "Bring your camera!" I came running with the camera, to find them hovering over a piece of dog poop. Ugh, why would they want me to photograph dog poop?

Upon closer inspection, though, I figured out it wasn't dog poop at all. It was the hugest, ugliest caterpillar I've ever seen in my life.

This shot's a little blurry—remember I couldn't see out of my right eye this weekend. Anyway, I can't tell which is heads and which is tails here, except for on that 50-cent piece we put down for size comparison.

I was so grossed out by that nasty thing that I was forced to take pause over my declaration to eat one, alive, no less. I tried to imagine picking it up and dropping it down my throat.

Have to tell ya, the idea didn't do anything for me but make me dry heave. Maybe if I ate it with a fork and knife? Here it is on a pretty red plate; it's all about the presentation, you know...



No thank you, Sam I Am. Not with all that back hair.

So, there you have it. I've come clean: I can't click, and I'm not going to eat a live caterpillar.

I feel like a new woman.

Won't you join me? Tell me about on of YOUR B*S* proclamations—you know you've made one.

I'm going to go now, and research skydiving.

Because I'd totally do that.