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The Urban Erma is a storytelling podcast by stand-up comedian and author Leighann Lord.
Episodes
Wednesday Jan 08, 2014
Wednesday Jan 08, 2014
*Our Dear Rolie passed away on January 2, 2014, from old age and kidney failure. If love could have kept him alive, he would be immortal. We adopted him in 2006 when he was about five to seven-years old. I'm reposting a story I wrote about him back in 2008. Please enjoy, comment, and share. - Leighann
Dog is God spelled backwards, and like God my Cocker Spaniel has many names. His given name is Rolie, but his nicknames include Mr. Nubbins, The Mister, The Spaniel, The Carpet Weasel and, of course, His Lordship. Ironically, he answers to none of these since he's mostly deaf. My Little Old Man is about eight-years old, set in his ways, and not about to change. I, as the supposedly superior and adaptable human, have had to adjust to his habits and temperament.
Monday Dec 16, 2013
Monday Dec 16, 2013
Last night a man said to me, “You have a very beautiful forehead.” Those words in that combination were so unexpected that I wasn’t sure how to respond. I mean, what could I say but thank you? I should’ve been mildly uncomfortable as the man stood there recklessly eyeballing my frontal lobe and trying to explain the context for his remark. Admittedly inebriated, he told me about a study that correlated the shape of a woman’s forehead with her fertility. Well that makes sense. And it explains all the imaginary children I have; three daughters and one son. Besides, you know what they say: big head, big womb.
Tuesday Nov 26, 2013
Tuesday Nov 26, 2013
* Republished from The Urban Erma March 2011
A close friend recently hosted a “Game Night” and all of us who attended were charged with bringing our favorites. Rising to the challenge, I brought a goodie bag full of old school: dominoes, cloth and wire jump ropes for Double Dutch, and a sack full of classic metal jacks. You heard me. Jacks! Yeah, I took it there. You can’t get metal jacks anymore. You see, now we care about children choking on small metal objects, in my generation not so much. I’m not saying parents ate their young back then, but they didn’t see the need to over protect us from toys made with lead, asbestos, mercury, or depleted uranium.
Wednesday Nov 20, 2013
Wednesday Nov 20, 2013
The Big Named Car Service That Advertises on TV that I normally use recently doubled their price for a trip to the airport so I called The Small Local Neighborhood Car Service instead. Spoiler alert: It was a mistake.
READ THE BLOG
http://leighannlord.blogspot.com/2013/11/taken-for-ride.html
Wednesday Nov 13, 2013
Wednesday Nov 13, 2013
A popular joke in my act is about my first-ever Brazilian wax being done by A Very Angry Russian Woman who – as she’s ripping off the strips of cloth and my dignity – says to me: “In my country, I was gynecologist.” She didn’t really say that but humor is born out of pain. And getting a Brazilian wax was an excruciating and yet instructive experience.
Thursday Nov 07, 2013
Thursday Nov 07, 2013
I toyed with naming names but The Who isn’t as important as The What: piss poor customer service from corporations that should know better. But for clarity let’s call the relevant players My Bank, The Vendor, and Me. I paid a bill online but due to a website error I was double billed. I contacted My Bank and they said there was nothing they could do. An electronic payment is not like a check. You can’t request a stop payment. Once the funds are approved it’s out of their hands. I called The Vendor and they said there was nothing they could do either, because they did not yet “see” the money in their system and most likely wouldn’t for up to 72 hours. And poof just like that over $1,000 of my money was gone off into the ether.
Tuesday Oct 29, 2013
Tuesday Oct 29, 2013
I casually mentioned that I was at The Library the other day and the person I was chatting with looked at me and said, “The library? Why?” They seemed genuinely surprised that I would voluntarily go. I could see they thought The Library was somewhere you went as a kid only because somebody made you. My conversation companion said, “Can’t you just download books now?” Of course I can, but The Library is not just books.
http://leighannlord.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-library-its-not-just-books.html
Wednesday Oct 09, 2013
Wednesday Oct 09, 2013
Human beings dream of the type of time travel we see in the movies – well, maybe not in Primer. That film succeeded in making time travel look complicated, dreary, and so not sexy. Although we don’t yet have a machine, drug, or app to traipse up and down the timeline at will, we can travel to the past through memory. I took such a trip the other day when I walked into my parent’s bedroom, saw my Mom cleaning out her dresser drawers, and suddenly I was six-years-old again.
Wednesday Oct 02, 2013
Wednesday Oct 02, 2013
When I was a kid I thought adults had all the answers. Then I grew up and realized that they, we, don’t know anything. We’re all making it up as we go along. Welcome to life. Welcome to social media.When I was a kid I thought adults had all the answers. Then I grew up and realized that they, we, don’t know anything. We’re all making it up as we go along. Welcome to life. Welcome to social media.
Sunday Sep 22, 2013
Sunday Sep 22, 2013
I learned how to jump Double Dutch late in life. By late I mean 12-years old. In the hood, that’s way late. If that were old enough to drive a car it would’ve qualified me for handicapped parking. It’s not my fault. As a kid I listened to a lot of AM radio and consequently didn’t know how to keep a beat. You need rhythm to jump Double Dutch or the rope will literally trip you up.