My history of working out has been a rather rocky one. Over the past few years I have made a few failed attempts at fitness and I will give myself this - I'll try anything once.
My first memory of working out was at a gym located in an alleyway, owned by a guy that ran a gym my mom worked out in during the 1980's. His name was Harold and he was old and slightly pervy - my first tip should have been that he only allowed women in his gym. I would go and dutifully work out with my mom and finally I signed up for a membership after much convincing that Harold was not on any watch lists and didn't own any broken down vans tinted windows. When asked how long I wanted the contract to be, I stated I wanted one for 6 months. At the time I was about 5'5" and weighed about 150 pounds. Harold looked at me over his glasses and said "Hon... you've got more than a six month problem." This from a man who still had one of those vibrating belts meant to shake the fat off of your ass. In 2007. After about 3 months of his French bulldog Archie humping me every time I got on the floor to do crunches, I had enough and said fuck it.
As with every lazy bastard who hates the gym, I had a veritable fit of joy when Wii Fit came out. My joy didn't last long after getting it out of the box. Here, I thought, was the non-judgmental, convenient and self-driven routine that I needed. Right here in my living room! First of all, you get to make an Avatar of yourself. You pick your hair, nose, outfit, and then... body type. I went for the upper portion of mid-range thinking "Well, I'm not skinny for sure, but I'm not as bad as the upper ranges, right?" You then step on the scale and the program RE-AVATARS YOU! "Oh really?" it seems to say "Don't kid yourself - this lump in the black t-shirt is what you really look like. This is what will be on the screen while you work out... don't try to hide." So me and my fat Avatar do a few days on the Wii Fit and we get to the Day 3 weigh in...
Now, the "characters" on this program are usually super excited to see you and positive about your progression towards fitness, offering you little tidbits of knowledge about your health improvement. "Did you know that building muscle during yoga workouts help your body burn calories more efficiently at rest?" No! No, I did not. Thank you for that, Wii Fit. How's my weight doing? You want me to step on the scale? OK.
I step on.
This thing says, "OH!" As I get on. Not "Oh, there you are, where have you been?" but the kind of "Oh" your friends saw upon seeing the super feminine mullet that you let your hairdresser talk you into. The "Oh" that says "I ordered the spaghetti carbonara and you brought me a half-dead hamster floating in a bowl of Honey Bucket drippings. But I am only JUST too polite not to ask you to take it back."
"Oh!"
Oh? Well fuck you, Wii Fit. They would do themselves a lot of favors by giving you different options for personal trainers on there too. Your two options are Super Buff Hot White Guy or Super Lean Attractive and Encouraging White Girl. No thank you to either. I want General Patton. I want Disappointed Jewish Grandmother. I want The Situation from Jersey Shore. I want Yolanda from The Nail Salon With No Verbal Filter! Let's skip straight from passive aggressive, sweet voiced, polite personal trainer to someone who will just tell it like it is:
General Patton: "You can't do one goddamn push up you filthy cow, drop and give me 20 until you cry for your mother and then do 10 more!"
Disappointed Jewish Grandmother: Every time your heart rate drops it says "This is just like the time that you told everyone you were going to settle down and get married to that nice lawyer from up the street and then you starting dating that - ..." and then it would just trail off as you started to up your game.
The Situation: "If you were hitting on me in the club, I doubt I'd be able to even find anyone to take the grenade for me. Doing just 'Tan' and 'Laundry' and skipping over 'Gym' is how you end up looking like Snookie."
Yolanda: "Oh my gaw... don' even tell me you're wearing spandex. I see you through the screen, gurl. You know that ain't right. Who do you have as a friend that even lets you wear that at home where no one can see you?! Whoever she is is a bitch, for real!"
Or... any Ethiopian female I work with. It would just say "Are you pregnant?!" and then, after you say no, be fairly nice to you but always look you up and down and shake their head when they're in the elevator with you.
Yesterday was my final attempt at any sort of guided personal training. The girl was nice enough and she sat down with me first to discuss my goals and background in working out. I basically relayed for her the entire above portion of the blog - maybe adding in the parts where I "used to be skinny in high school" and "this one time, in middle school, this girl Daisy and I had a contest to see who could get out of doing the mile run for the longest and I made it all through freshman year!"
As with anything that makes me feel weak and uncomfortable I cracked jokes and leaned on my self deprecation to get me through -"I'm just not into push ups... not that I don't love giving all these hairy gentlemen standing here a reason to look at my ass, but it's just not my thing" or "Oh, I'll do 12 reps instead of the 15... not that I don't LOVE spending time with you but..." Mostly, we were having a good time. She made sure to praise all my small accomplishments (doing a crunch without grunting!) and was indulgent of my weak ass squats. Until... pull ups.
Maybe I was having a flashback. I was suddenly back in elementary school gym class. We had different "posters" that you could get your name on if you were able to complete various goals. They all had cute names, but the only one I could remember was the only one I made - "Hippo Hoopers". Hula hoop was my shit, I'll be honest with you. And not because the hoop technically rested on both sides of my hips and allowed me to cheat since I hadn't gone through puberty. The pull ups were my one goal. The one chart I really REALLY wanted to make... and I never could. I could never even do one. I would come to the playground after hours and pitifully try to haul my chin over the bar until my arms started involuntarily shaking and I would eventually head home defeated. I had to be bribed with a brand new Slinky for 3 straight weeks to even TRY to make it across the monkey bars... It was an ordeal that I'm sure my Father remembers as he was the one who let me drag him to the park every evening after dinner for almost a month, knowing that I had the upper body strength of a newborn and that it would probably never happen. The fact that he was encouraging anyway is a testament to his patience and unconditionally supportive parenting.
...This personal trainer bitch was about to find the one thing she could not praise me for.
Me: "I cannot do those."
Her: "Sure you can! You have decent upper body strength it's fine."
Me: "No... I can't... It's... I wasn't on the poster... I..."
Her: "What?"
Me: "Nothing" (slowly realizing I've been sweating for an hour and my easily dehydrated ass didn't drink any water that day)
Her: "Just give it a try"
Me: (starting to get tunnel vision) "Hippo... Hoopers... I'm not able to do i-... I..."
Her: "What?"
Me: "Can I get some water?"
Her: "Sure, yeah!"
Luckily at that point my hour was up. I quickly bowed out, with minimal parting banter and drank an entire 5 gallons of water from the water fountain as some meathead who had ACTUALLY been working out was waiting impatiently behind me, listening to me slurp and pant like a dog running through the Sierra desert and finally finding a toilet.
This isn't even counting my recent forray into Hot Yoga... which is a blog for another time.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
DOUBLE RAINBOW! A short thought.
I spent my entire day editing a document that used no less than 200 prepositions per paragraph so forgive me for not learning how to imbed this video, but the part of me that assumes the worst of the people I love knows that you've already seen this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI&feature=player_embedded
We're always being told to soak up every moment, carpe diem, stop and smell the roses, appreciate what's beautiful, feel as deeply as we can, let it out, etc.
If that video is what that means, all of those concepts can go suck it.
Also, can we all agree that about midway through this video it's PAINFULLY clear that this guy is NOT crying about a double rainbow. I mean... I think I can actually HEAR the moment that he starts actually crying about the years that his mom has spent making him feel like a failure for not finishing his Music Appreciation Degree from Berkley. Maybe it's really about him backing over his neighbor's cat. Maybe about 1 minute in, he's reminded of that time that he killed a drifter... I don't know... but this crap is NOT about a double rainbow.
So here's my new technique for my emotional constipation. I'm going to get a video camera. And the next time I need to cry but I can't quite muster up the tears, or maybe it just seems like I'm forcing it a little, I'm going to film a sunset and just cry uncontrollably. "It's so... BEAUTIFUL!!! I didn't MEAN to leave a paint transfer on that car when I was backing out of Safeway and not leave a note! THE INSURANCE RAMIFICATIONS... I mean... The sunset... it's so... so... BEAUTIFUL!!"
...There's a tide me over.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI&feature=player_embedded
We're always being told to soak up every moment, carpe diem, stop and smell the roses, appreciate what's beautiful, feel as deeply as we can, let it out, etc.
If that video is what that means, all of those concepts can go suck it.
Also, can we all agree that about midway through this video it's PAINFULLY clear that this guy is NOT crying about a double rainbow. I mean... I think I can actually HEAR the moment that he starts actually crying about the years that his mom has spent making him feel like a failure for not finishing his Music Appreciation Degree from Berkley. Maybe it's really about him backing over his neighbor's cat. Maybe about 1 minute in, he's reminded of that time that he killed a drifter... I don't know... but this crap is NOT about a double rainbow.
So here's my new technique for my emotional constipation. I'm going to get a video camera. And the next time I need to cry but I can't quite muster up the tears, or maybe it just seems like I'm forcing it a little, I'm going to film a sunset and just cry uncontrollably. "It's so... BEAUTIFUL!!! I didn't MEAN to leave a paint transfer on that car when I was backing out of Safeway and not leave a note! THE INSURANCE RAMIFICATIONS... I mean... The sunset... it's so... so... BEAUTIFUL!!"
...There's a tide me over.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
God, we suck.
I realized today that, just like the older generations have been telling us for years, our generation's popular music sucks.
My first concert was Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band in the early 90's. For those that don't know, even in my elementary school years I was a huge Beatles freak. Luckily this safeguarded me from listening to things like Boys II Men and... well... I'm trying to think of something else from the early 90's that was popular but I can't, wanna know why? Because none of it was memorable! I was too young to know what Nirvana was when it was popular which is one of the least regrettable things about my musical childhood. The most regrettable thing about my childhood is that it didn't happen in the 60's and early 70's like oh, I don't know, my parents. Who probably don't even know how lucky they are to not have had to listen to the same shit I did in my formative years. Thank god for KBSG and their old record collection.
Tonight my parents and I went to see Ringo again at a winery. Joining Ringo this time around was Edgar Winter, Rick Derringer, Gary Wright, Richard Page and Wally Palmer. When Richard Page was introduced, mid-set as the former lead singer of Mr. Mister, that shitty ass song by Train got stuck in my head! "Hey soul sister... aaaain't that Mr. Mister on the raaaaadio..." Yes! It probably was! So thanks for making shitty music about good music so that every time I think of the good music I think of your stupid stupid song, you WHORE! *ah-hem* Where was I... Oh yes... the concert...
Now, if you're picturing a bunch of drunk, aging hippies dancing strangely in the pale moonlight, you would be correct. My favorite person of the whole night (and there were many) was a guy about my parents age. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and if I had seen him in any other venue I would have thought "This distinguished looking older gentleman is probably someone's boss..." For most of the concert he was keeping it together, but after what was probably a bottle of wine he started yelling "PLAY OCTOPUS'S GARDEN!!! PLAAAAAAY OCTOPUS'S GAAAAARDEEEEN!!!!" So if you have an intimidating superior at work, just know that there is probably one musician that person would see in concert where they would end up screaming and jumping up and down requesting a song... see if that doesn't do something for your nerves in that next staff meeting.
For all of my 20-something brethren, who may not know who Edgar Winter is: You're 20-something so this means that you've seen Dazed and Confused. Ya know that scene where all those teenagers are driving in the car in their bellbottoms listening to "Free Ride" and it makes you just want to take a road trip with your buddies and get into a bunch of trouble because the song just taps into that part of your brain that makes you want to make memories that you will tell your kids about some day when they think you're just some fucking lame-o? That's Edgar Winter making you feel that way. He's singing "Free Ride" - he's also incredibly ugly, a certified albino and has a very lispy, very effeminate voice. His music is so good that he didn't have to resort to being a DMV employee or circus freak - he got to be a musician based on TALENT! IMAGINE!
Now think about the songs you hear on the radio every day and ask yourself - how many of these artists do you want to see in concert with your children 30 years from now? If my kids find out that I even knew who Justin Bieber was I would threaten them with the orphanage if they ever said a word about it. If I catch my children listening to Fall Out Boy, it will be on par with catching them with cocaine in their sock drawer. The only saving grace will be that by that point, music will be so much shittier that it will probably be an improvement. Do you want to see Rhianna perform when she's 70? No. At least I don't.
Aside from Ringo I have never gotten to experience a concert that I would hope to one day brag to my kids about. "Mommy saw Panic at the Disco live in 2006!"... "Who?"... Kurt Cobain was dead before I knew who he was. Pearl Jam didn't appeal to me until it was too late to see them all in concert together. AC/DC and Guns and Roses were broken up before I even got started listening to Raffi. To prove this point, I went through my iTunes play list, made it to L, and then gave up. My cat started hacking something up and I took it as a sign. "Stop here... don't anger yourself any further."
Of course, on my way to "L", I passed all kinds of great music from my parents generation. I love hearing my mom talk about the first time she saw the Beatles on TV. Or when she got to see Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. (AND YOUNG!!) God forbid my children ask me who I remember seeing performing music on Saturday Night Live. Um... Ashley Simpson because she fucked up so horribly? Alicia Keys who then basically fell off the face of the earth? Uggggh. "Hey Mom, what song did you dance with dad to at prom" - "Oh, it was 'All My Life' by K-Ci and Jojo... the same one they'd been playing for slow dance fare since I was in 6th grade... they just kept relying on that and played it into the ground..." Do you know how many people actually make that their wedding song?! I'd probably just walk out. "Thanks for the free food, enjoy your marriage, please don't procreate and make more people with poor taste! I'm going to go walk into traffic now, buhbye!"
For my generation, the only timeless thing we seem to have is comedic movies. I'm fairly certain that my children will be quoting The Hangover to me. My friend at work told me that her daughter was quoting Ace Ventura Pet Detective and it warmed my heart. Try to find someone my age who can't quote Tommy Boy with you for about 10 minutes straight... and that movie came out over 10 years ago! I will say that our cartoon shows were WAY better than our parents as well. The early 90's was prime time for cartoons and anyone my age will passionately agree. Everything before? Shit. Everything after? Shit. Or however you say "shit" in Spanish thanks to that overly educational bore Dora the Explorer. So I guess we have that too...
I really hope I'm wrong. But I just spent an evening listening to great music and now I'm pissed. I should have "Dreamweaver" stuck in my head and instead it's "Hey Soul Sister" because one of the performers was the lead singer of Mister Mister. That in itself proves how fucked up the state of music is. My hope is that one day soon, something great will come along that I can lay generational claim to. But until then, I just have to hope that Ringo Starr turns into a cyborg and lives until he's 100 so I can take MY kids to see him. Only then will I feel like any justice has been done and that my generation will not go down in history as a waste of creativity. My only suggestion is to do what my friend Julia has done for years, quit listening to something as soon as it makes it onto popular radio. So, stick to the underground artists that actually make good music and only come up for air when Eddie Vedder is touring or to check if Ringo Starr is a robot yet.
My first concert was Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band in the early 90's. For those that don't know, even in my elementary school years I was a huge Beatles freak. Luckily this safeguarded me from listening to things like Boys II Men and... well... I'm trying to think of something else from the early 90's that was popular but I can't, wanna know why? Because none of it was memorable! I was too young to know what Nirvana was when it was popular which is one of the least regrettable things about my musical childhood. The most regrettable thing about my childhood is that it didn't happen in the 60's and early 70's like oh, I don't know, my parents. Who probably don't even know how lucky they are to not have had to listen to the same shit I did in my formative years. Thank god for KBSG and their old record collection.
Tonight my parents and I went to see Ringo again at a winery. Joining Ringo this time around was Edgar Winter, Rick Derringer, Gary Wright, Richard Page and Wally Palmer. When Richard Page was introduced, mid-set as the former lead singer of Mr. Mister, that shitty ass song by Train got stuck in my head! "Hey soul sister... aaaain't that Mr. Mister on the raaaaadio..." Yes! It probably was! So thanks for making shitty music about good music so that every time I think of the good music I think of your stupid stupid song, you WHORE! *ah-hem* Where was I... Oh yes... the concert...
Now, if you're picturing a bunch of drunk, aging hippies dancing strangely in the pale moonlight, you would be correct. My favorite person of the whole night (and there were many) was a guy about my parents age. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and if I had seen him in any other venue I would have thought "This distinguished looking older gentleman is probably someone's boss..." For most of the concert he was keeping it together, but after what was probably a bottle of wine he started yelling "PLAY OCTOPUS'S GARDEN!!! PLAAAAAAY OCTOPUS'S GAAAAARDEEEEN!!!!" So if you have an intimidating superior at work, just know that there is probably one musician that person would see in concert where they would end up screaming and jumping up and down requesting a song... see if that doesn't do something for your nerves in that next staff meeting.
For all of my 20-something brethren, who may not know who Edgar Winter is: You're 20-something so this means that you've seen Dazed and Confused. Ya know that scene where all those teenagers are driving in the car in their bellbottoms listening to "Free Ride" and it makes you just want to take a road trip with your buddies and get into a bunch of trouble because the song just taps into that part of your brain that makes you want to make memories that you will tell your kids about some day when they think you're just some fucking lame-o? That's Edgar Winter making you feel that way. He's singing "Free Ride" - he's also incredibly ugly, a certified albino and has a very lispy, very effeminate voice. His music is so good that he didn't have to resort to being a DMV employee or circus freak - he got to be a musician based on TALENT! IMAGINE!
Now think about the songs you hear on the radio every day and ask yourself - how many of these artists do you want to see in concert with your children 30 years from now? If my kids find out that I even knew who Justin Bieber was I would threaten them with the orphanage if they ever said a word about it. If I catch my children listening to Fall Out Boy, it will be on par with catching them with cocaine in their sock drawer. The only saving grace will be that by that point, music will be so much shittier that it will probably be an improvement. Do you want to see Rhianna perform when she's 70? No. At least I don't.
Aside from Ringo I have never gotten to experience a concert that I would hope to one day brag to my kids about. "Mommy saw Panic at the Disco live in 2006!"... "Who?"... Kurt Cobain was dead before I knew who he was. Pearl Jam didn't appeal to me until it was too late to see them all in concert together. AC/DC and Guns and Roses were broken up before I even got started listening to Raffi. To prove this point, I went through my iTunes play list, made it to L, and then gave up. My cat started hacking something up and I took it as a sign. "Stop here... don't anger yourself any further."
Of course, on my way to "L", I passed all kinds of great music from my parents generation. I love hearing my mom talk about the first time she saw the Beatles on TV. Or when she got to see Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. (AND YOUNG!!) God forbid my children ask me who I remember seeing performing music on Saturday Night Live. Um... Ashley Simpson because she fucked up so horribly? Alicia Keys who then basically fell off the face of the earth? Uggggh. "Hey Mom, what song did you dance with dad to at prom" - "Oh, it was 'All My Life' by K-Ci and Jojo... the same one they'd been playing for slow dance fare since I was in 6th grade... they just kept relying on that and played it into the ground..." Do you know how many people actually make that their wedding song?! I'd probably just walk out. "Thanks for the free food, enjoy your marriage, please don't procreate and make more people with poor taste! I'm going to go walk into traffic now, buhbye!"
For my generation, the only timeless thing we seem to have is comedic movies. I'm fairly certain that my children will be quoting The Hangover to me. My friend at work told me that her daughter was quoting Ace Ventura Pet Detective and it warmed my heart. Try to find someone my age who can't quote Tommy Boy with you for about 10 minutes straight... and that movie came out over 10 years ago! I will say that our cartoon shows were WAY better than our parents as well. The early 90's was prime time for cartoons and anyone my age will passionately agree. Everything before? Shit. Everything after? Shit. Or however you say "shit" in Spanish thanks to that overly educational bore Dora the Explorer. So I guess we have that too...
I really hope I'm wrong. But I just spent an evening listening to great music and now I'm pissed. I should have "Dreamweaver" stuck in my head and instead it's "Hey Soul Sister" because one of the performers was the lead singer of Mister Mister. That in itself proves how fucked up the state of music is. My hope is that one day soon, something great will come along that I can lay generational claim to. But until then, I just have to hope that Ringo Starr turns into a cyborg and lives until he's 100 so I can take MY kids to see him. Only then will I feel like any justice has been done and that my generation will not go down in history as a waste of creativity. My only suggestion is to do what my friend Julia has done for years, quit listening to something as soon as it makes it onto popular radio. So, stick to the underground artists that actually make good music and only come up for air when Eddie Vedder is touring or to check if Ringo Starr is a robot yet.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Our Pets - 3 Cautionary "Tails"
I have often heard that couples get puppies to prepare themselves for having children. If this concept is at all relevant to child-rearing, Garren and I will likely end up with children that will leave people wondering if they had running microwaves next to their cribs in their formative years.
Our first foray into pet ownership was our dog, Cash. He is a black lab and is named after Johnny Cash because he's "The Man In Black". I thought it was really clever at the time but naming him after an alcoholic and drug addict whose most famous portrait involves him flipping the bird, I realized it was a bit more appropriatethan I'd care to think about . We bought him 2 days before moving into a one bedroom apartment which is a thought you should keep in mind while I try to convince you that Cash is the retard in this equation. A lesson that I learned during this process is that you should pick a dog like you would pick a potential human mate. First of all, don't discover them on Craig's List. Second, you probably shouldn't pick the last one in the litter. Third, if someone hands them to you by the scruff of their neck from the trunk of a car, you should probably run. Well... call The Humane Society/police and THEN run. But, Garren wanted a puppy and I can't really say no to a baby animal.
Cash's head is much smaller than his body, proportionately. He's racist, so we can't really take him anywhere without looking like a couple of white supremacists. This probably comes from his 9-week upbringing in Kelso, but try explaining that to a large black gentleman who has been observing Cash kindly regarding the white people in the park and then going apeshit upon his approach... It's very awkward. Whenever he's on a leash, which he HATES, he gets what we call "crazy eyes" which involves him pretty much showing you as much of the whites of his eyes as possible while barking. It causes little children to cringe away from him in fear which is probably for the best as he hates children. He hates getting pets, he'd rather run past you at a high rate of speed and trip you on the way to the kitchen. He is, however, friendly in his own way - but once he gets within your physical range he just has no idea what to do. To say that he has intimacy issues is putting it mildly. He's like the guy that likes you but just fumbles it on the 1 yard line. And by "fumble" I mean slobbers on you, jumps on you, and in Garren's case, gives you a wrestling-related concussion resulting in a rather costly hospital bill. He's a charmer. I sometimes think that we should have gone with our friend Michelle's name suggestion: "ShitFuck".
That brings us to our second animal, a cat. This was our only animal that came with a name (of course we ended up changing it.) A tip for you: don't take in a cat just because your mom's psycho lesbian co-worker comes crying to you about said cat crying in her yard in the snow. She couldn't keep him but named him "Mr. Tutters" - because he makes a rattling, cooing, racoon-like noise when he purrs. We, of course, took him in and named him Capone - though a friend begged us to name him "Harry Twatter". Capone's interests include playing with his own shit, sleeping, attempting to eat any plastic bag he can find and ripping up the carpet. He also enjoys torturing Garren. Generally this includes pressing his cold, wet nose against Garren's lip while he's sleeping, "making biscuits" on his stomach after a large meal and stepping on his face with wet paws (the source of the moisture is ALWAYS suspect as he enjoys dipping his paws in the toilet.)
We then rescued a second cat. The feral cat trapping agency in our neighborhood does great stuff for cats, but decent marketing jobs on their wards are not their forte. However, we are the dumbasses that fell for Mia, our second cat (named after Mia Wallace from Pulp Fiction... I don't know why...) It was explained to us that, although she was pretty, she had been rescued from a meth lab, hated people and was probably never going to be your normal affectionate house cat. But she looked like she had little kitty eyeliner, so I was sold. "But honey! She looks like David Bowie! Please oh please can we keep her?!" Plus, she immediately fell asleep on me and purred, so we HAD to keep her... right? This was the last time she would let me hold her without drawing blood. She spent three months under our beds hissing at us, coming out only to eat and grow to a size that would cause her to drag her belly on the ground by the time she was ready to come out and "grace us with her presence". (Read: contemptuously stare at us from across the room as though she is placing a hex on us.)
It's common knowledge that all animals end up liking one person in a couple better than the other. Cash and I do not get along. We did when he was a puppy and we probably will again when he is old and his joints are riddled with arthritis that will keep him from jumping on and then scratching my stomach. He is physically stronger than I am which leaves me no authority with him when it comes to discipline, so ours is a tense relationship. Mia tolerates me in brief spurts but generally shows her unbridled hatred for me by pissing in my laundry hamper and then stepping on me as I sleep. Capone is my buddy. He'll sleep with me and he sits on the back of the couch waiting to give me a hug when I get home. If Garren looks as though he's about to put the moves on me, Capone will climb into my lap and angrily kneed my boobs while glaring at him... it's pretty romantic.
It's clear that our methods for choosing animals will end in some ill-behaved accident child somewhere in our future - hopefully sometime after these psycho furr-creatures clear out. Any time anyone asks me when Garren and I intend to have children, I want to invite them to my home and introduce them to these three spawns of Satan. Most childless couples refer to their animals as their children, so if you never hear us referring to them as such, you will now know why not - we are the Michael and Dina Lohan of pet ownership. Our oldest is also behind bars as we speak... for dinner-time-crotch-nosing violations. So... I guess in that respect we have a leg up on the Lohans.
Our first foray into pet ownership was our dog, Cash. He is a black lab and is named after Johnny Cash because he's "The Man In Black". I thought it was really clever at the time but naming him after an alcoholic and drug addict whose most famous portrait involves him flipping the bird, I realized it was a bit more appropriatethan I'd care to think about . We bought him 2 days before moving into a one bedroom apartment which is a thought you should keep in mind while I try to convince you that Cash is the retard in this equation. A lesson that I learned during this process is that you should pick a dog like you would pick a potential human mate. First of all, don't discover them on Craig's List. Second, you probably shouldn't pick the last one in the litter. Third, if someone hands them to you by the scruff of their neck from the trunk of a car, you should probably run. Well... call The Humane Society/police and THEN run. But, Garren wanted a puppy and I can't really say no to a baby animal.
Cash's head is much smaller than his body, proportionately. He's racist, so we can't really take him anywhere without looking like a couple of white supremacists. This probably comes from his 9-week upbringing in Kelso, but try explaining that to a large black gentleman who has been observing Cash kindly regarding the white people in the park and then going apeshit upon his approach... It's very awkward. Whenever he's on a leash, which he HATES, he gets what we call "crazy eyes" which involves him pretty much showing you as much of the whites of his eyes as possible while barking. It causes little children to cringe away from him in fear which is probably for the best as he hates children. He hates getting pets, he'd rather run past you at a high rate of speed and trip you on the way to the kitchen. He is, however, friendly in his own way - but once he gets within your physical range he just has no idea what to do. To say that he has intimacy issues is putting it mildly. He's like the guy that likes you but just fumbles it on the 1 yard line. And by "fumble" I mean slobbers on you, jumps on you, and in Garren's case, gives you a wrestling-related concussion resulting in a rather costly hospital bill. He's a charmer. I sometimes think that we should have gone with our friend Michelle's name suggestion: "ShitFuck".
That brings us to our second animal, a cat. This was our only animal that came with a name (of course we ended up changing it.) A tip for you: don't take in a cat just because your mom's psycho lesbian co-worker comes crying to you about said cat crying in her yard in the snow. She couldn't keep him but named him "Mr. Tutters" - because he makes a rattling, cooing, racoon-like noise when he purrs. We, of course, took him in and named him Capone - though a friend begged us to name him "Harry Twatter". Capone's interests include playing with his own shit, sleeping, attempting to eat any plastic bag he can find and ripping up the carpet. He also enjoys torturing Garren. Generally this includes pressing his cold, wet nose against Garren's lip while he's sleeping, "making biscuits" on his stomach after a large meal and stepping on his face with wet paws (the source of the moisture is ALWAYS suspect as he enjoys dipping his paws in the toilet.)
We then rescued a second cat. The feral cat trapping agency in our neighborhood does great stuff for cats, but decent marketing jobs on their wards are not their forte. However, we are the dumbasses that fell for Mia, our second cat (named after Mia Wallace from Pulp Fiction... I don't know why...) It was explained to us that, although she was pretty, she had been rescued from a meth lab, hated people and was probably never going to be your normal affectionate house cat. But she looked like she had little kitty eyeliner, so I was sold. "But honey! She looks like David Bowie! Please oh please can we keep her?!" Plus, she immediately fell asleep on me and purred, so we HAD to keep her... right? This was the last time she would let me hold her without drawing blood. She spent three months under our beds hissing at us, coming out only to eat and grow to a size that would cause her to drag her belly on the ground by the time she was ready to come out and "grace us with her presence". (Read: contemptuously stare at us from across the room as though she is placing a hex on us.)
It's common knowledge that all animals end up liking one person in a couple better than the other. Cash and I do not get along. We did when he was a puppy and we probably will again when he is old and his joints are riddled with arthritis that will keep him from jumping on and then scratching my stomach. He is physically stronger than I am which leaves me no authority with him when it comes to discipline, so ours is a tense relationship. Mia tolerates me in brief spurts but generally shows her unbridled hatred for me by pissing in my laundry hamper and then stepping on me as I sleep. Capone is my buddy. He'll sleep with me and he sits on the back of the couch waiting to give me a hug when I get home. If Garren looks as though he's about to put the moves on me, Capone will climb into my lap and angrily kneed my boobs while glaring at him... it's pretty romantic.
It's clear that our methods for choosing animals will end in some ill-behaved accident child somewhere in our future - hopefully sometime after these psycho furr-creatures clear out. Any time anyone asks me when Garren and I intend to have children, I want to invite them to my home and introduce them to these three spawns of Satan. Most childless couples refer to their animals as their children, so if you never hear us referring to them as such, you will now know why not - we are the Michael and Dina Lohan of pet ownership. Our oldest is also behind bars as we speak... for dinner-time-crotch-nosing violations. So... I guess in that respect we have a leg up on the Lohans.
Friday, July 16, 2010
The Bigfoot Obsession
I always picture my boyfriend being marketed on The Dating Game and there are always two pitches that I envision - both of which I like to think I would have fallen for. Number one was thankfully what I got: "Behind door number 1, Bachelor Number One! He's got a great job, can carry on a conversation with anyone and he has great taste in jewelry! Bachelor number ooooone!" Then there is the slightly less flattering but no less true version: "Behind door number 1, Bachelor number one! He leaves plastic in the oven and forgets to tell you about it before you preheat things, he will take a dump while you're taking a bath and he is obsessed with Bigfoot! Heeeeeee's bachelor number one!"
It wasn't until we moved in together that I realized he had this obsession and like all belated realizations about the ones you love, you try to ignore them. I thought nothing of our dinner date conversations about "Do you think Bigfoot exists?" and the like. I mean... that's normal. Right?
I've always been of the mind that if aliens or bigfoots (big...feet? feets?) exist that it's of no consequence to me. So they exist... and? Am I supposed to change anything about my day to day life? I'll probably live in MORE fear than I already do that something out there wants to probe my anus. But overall, it just doesn't pique my interest to think about it.
This brings up another point. I tend to shy away from the alien conversation because the conversation inevitably bends toward anal probing. I mean, if I'm in a dark alley, you'd better believe I'm thinking about it. But I secretly think that everyone who believes in aliens is under some sort of self-centered assumption that there is an entire race of being out there that exists just to probe your ass. And I'm not comfortable with that. Think about that on your own time. And why is it that that's what we think about with aliens. How full of yourself do you have to be to think that any other intelligent race out there must want to do nothing more on this earth than probe YOUR orifices and implant YOU with things. Get over yourself.
My boyfriend will stop what he's doing to watch a TV show about Bigfoot. When driving through woodsy areas he ruminates on what he would do if he found Bigfoot. It usually ends with:
"I'd totally kick him in the nuts."
"After hunting down an animal covered in fur... and much bigger than yourself?"
"Hell yeah."
"How would you get close enough?"
"Well, I mean... of course I'd have beef jerky with me."
"I'm emailing Jack Link's beef jerky to tell them that they're 'Messin' with Sasquatch' commercials are having a negative effect on youth. That's totally where you got that."
"Hey! I'm 24... and those commercials are hilarious..."
So, about a year ago, the boyfriend and his dad went fishing and were driving through a remote area on a road flanked by forest. To keep a long story short, they both saw in their rearview mirror a large very furry animal on two legs (that was NOT A BEAR!). It walked into the road, looked at them and then walked back into the woods. Evidently the two carried on driving for a while and then a few minutes later one mentioned the sighting to the other, who then agreed that it was TOTALLY Bigfoot. They had been of the chosen people. That meant they were duty-bound to sneak it into conversation as soon as they got home.
He recounted this story to me as soon as he got through the door and after presenting every rational alternative I could think of, I gave up. He would be impossible now. Now, when I would make shitty comments during his shows, he would give me the look of someone who is absolutely sure of what they were talking about. He would tell me, with certainty, that I was in denial and that he had seen proof of this thing and I WASN'T THERE so how would I KNOW. I was sunk. There was nothing I could do. I was not one of the chosen and I never would be because I'm not a "believer". It's occurring to me that Bigfoot sightings could turn into a religious cult initiation...
I didn't realize, however, that he would be inclined to tell other people about his encounter. To his credit, he does wait until someone brings up a related topic: aliens, dark forests, exceptionally hairy people, etc. In his latest storytelling bout, I caught him practically cornering my friend Kristen with the story after she had brought up the possibility of aliens. She seemed interested enough so I didn't try to call him off. I told her that it was kind of a compliment. When a dog likes you and trusts you, he lets you rub his stomach. If my boyfriend likes you and trusts you, he will tell you his Bigfoot story. "It's OK," I'll tell people who are making it obvious with their faces that they are going to lose sleep over his story "It just means he likes you."
I take it as a true testament to the strength of our relationship that I fully expect him to grow old and be featured in at least one documentary recounting his "sighting" - to be shot on his beef-jerky-walled compound. We'll carry on like we always have, nodding and smiling at each other's crazy obsessions. To be fair, I have my strange obsessions as well. But he will have to just start his own damn blog and to tell you about them.
...That is if he doesn't get eaten by an unknown primate whose stomach will be found to contain bits of Garren and beef jerky. But I will be able to confidently state at his funeral that that's the way he would have wanted it.
It wasn't until we moved in together that I realized he had this obsession and like all belated realizations about the ones you love, you try to ignore them. I thought nothing of our dinner date conversations about "Do you think Bigfoot exists?" and the like. I mean... that's normal. Right?
I've always been of the mind that if aliens or bigfoots (big...feet? feets?) exist that it's of no consequence to me. So they exist... and? Am I supposed to change anything about my day to day life? I'll probably live in MORE fear than I already do that something out there wants to probe my anus. But overall, it just doesn't pique my interest to think about it.
This brings up another point. I tend to shy away from the alien conversation because the conversation inevitably bends toward anal probing. I mean, if I'm in a dark alley, you'd better believe I'm thinking about it. But I secretly think that everyone who believes in aliens is under some sort of self-centered assumption that there is an entire race of being out there that exists just to probe your ass. And I'm not comfortable with that. Think about that on your own time. And why is it that that's what we think about with aliens. How full of yourself do you have to be to think that any other intelligent race out there must want to do nothing more on this earth than probe YOUR orifices and implant YOU with things. Get over yourself.
My boyfriend will stop what he's doing to watch a TV show about Bigfoot. When driving through woodsy areas he ruminates on what he would do if he found Bigfoot. It usually ends with:
"I'd totally kick him in the nuts."
"After hunting down an animal covered in fur... and much bigger than yourself?"
"Hell yeah."
"How would you get close enough?"
"Well, I mean... of course I'd have beef jerky with me."
"I'm emailing Jack Link's beef jerky to tell them that they're 'Messin' with Sasquatch' commercials are having a negative effect on youth. That's totally where you got that."
"Hey! I'm 24... and those commercials are hilarious..."
So, about a year ago, the boyfriend and his dad went fishing and were driving through a remote area on a road flanked by forest. To keep a long story short, they both saw in their rearview mirror a large very furry animal on two legs (that was NOT A BEAR!). It walked into the road, looked at them and then walked back into the woods. Evidently the two carried on driving for a while and then a few minutes later one mentioned the sighting to the other, who then agreed that it was TOTALLY Bigfoot. They had been of the chosen people. That meant they were duty-bound to sneak it into conversation as soon as they got home.
He recounted this story to me as soon as he got through the door and after presenting every rational alternative I could think of, I gave up. He would be impossible now. Now, when I would make shitty comments during his shows, he would give me the look of someone who is absolutely sure of what they were talking about. He would tell me, with certainty, that I was in denial and that he had seen proof of this thing and I WASN'T THERE so how would I KNOW. I was sunk. There was nothing I could do. I was not one of the chosen and I never would be because I'm not a "believer". It's occurring to me that Bigfoot sightings could turn into a religious cult initiation...
I didn't realize, however, that he would be inclined to tell other people about his encounter. To his credit, he does wait until someone brings up a related topic: aliens, dark forests, exceptionally hairy people, etc. In his latest storytelling bout, I caught him practically cornering my friend Kristen with the story after she had brought up the possibility of aliens. She seemed interested enough so I didn't try to call him off. I told her that it was kind of a compliment. When a dog likes you and trusts you, he lets you rub his stomach. If my boyfriend likes you and trusts you, he will tell you his Bigfoot story. "It's OK," I'll tell people who are making it obvious with their faces that they are going to lose sleep over his story "It just means he likes you."
I take it as a true testament to the strength of our relationship that I fully expect him to grow old and be featured in at least one documentary recounting his "sighting" - to be shot on his beef-jerky-walled compound. We'll carry on like we always have, nodding and smiling at each other's crazy obsessions. To be fair, I have my strange obsessions as well. But he will have to just start his own damn blog and to tell you about them.
...That is if he doesn't get eaten by an unknown primate whose stomach will be found to contain bits of Garren and beef jerky. But I will be able to confidently state at his funeral that that's the way he would have wanted it.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
"Ya'll Don't Know Me": How I Became a Cheerleader
Despite having the world's most encouraging parents, I have always been most inspired when people tell me that I'd be terrible at something. The most unfortunate turn of events to precipitate from such a statement was the saga of how I became a cheerleader in high school. I hate it when people describe what kind of person they were in high school so I'll try my hardest to refrain - we all know that you are editing reality so don't try. But one thing of which I can assure you with complete certainty is that I was not at all the type of person that should have become a cheerleader. I was not needlessly happy, I woke up at noon on most days and school spirit was only celebrated when I could dress up as something hilarious at school or show up profoundly drunk or stoned to football games. Spirit assemblies were only good excuses to get out of class. And on top of that, I had no idea what the rules of football were. Cheerleading (the computer is telling me that this is not a real word and I tend to agree) was not my shit... at least it shouldn't have been.
I hung out with two different groups of people, generally. First, there was the type who were apt to become cheerleaders and seemed to like me anyway. Then there were my friends Tom and Julia. Thy were, and still are, the type of people who like music that you have never hard of. They dress impeccably everywhere they go and have never seen a Will Ferrell movie. While the rest of us were listening to Ja Rule and Aaron Carter and drinking Mike's Hard Lemonade like water, they were busying themselves with seeing people like Pearl Jam and Radiohead live and drinking Bombay Sapphire. We ate lunch together every day in the Spanish portable with a girl who, for some reason, thought that we liked her. Her name was Jacqui. She was big, she was incredibly mean, and she was generally very unpleasant. I was joking about following my friend Ellery to cheer try outs. Ellery seriously bled blue and gold during our entire tenure in high school and was definitely the cheerleading type. Jacqui pipes up and says "You'd make the world's shittiest cheerleader." Tom and Julia, knowing my "fuck you, I do what I want" nature, must have been making that certain throat slashing motion behind my back that is the international signal for "Shut up, you dumb bitch, you'll make her do it!" And I did just that.
I remember my mom, ever the optimist, telling me that I'd make a great cheerleader and that I should go for it; while my slightly more realistic father shot food out his nose laughing and gasping. "You can't be serious! Ohhh... you're funny kiddo. That's tooooo funny. Wait til your aunts hear about this..." As he wiped the laughter induced tears from his eyes and hooted loudly, I became even more determined.
I showed up for try outs every morning at 6am in my black eyeliner and snarky screen-print t-shirts and did an Oscar-worthy job of making it look like I wanted to be there - all because I had to prove stupid Jacqui wrong. The early mornings knocked Ellery out of the race within a few weeks and strangely enough it was me and her lesbian sister Essex who ended up, to my horror, making the squad. I have always been fairly certain that Essex tried out under similar circumstances to my own, but we've never discussed it. It's like 'Nam to us. Her reaction to seeing her name on the roster must have been similar to mine "Oh shit... they actually thought we were serious." But ever the determined, snot-nosed little brats that we still are, we decided to see it though cheer camp.
Incidentally, and not in the way you'd imagine, cheer camp was host to one of the most embarrassing experiences of my life. Our bus was halted half-way through the trip and we were informed that someone left a bag back at the place the bus picked us up and we had to wait for someone's mom to catch up with us and deliver the bag. (I'm pretty sure you can see where this is going.) I happily joined in with everyone else who was clowning on whoever it was whose mom had to come rescue them... and just then, my mom jogged up along side the bus to deliver my retainer case... I love my mom and she is pretty much wicked awesome, but I could have died seeing her that day... because I was of course, running my mouth the loudest speculating about what kind of loser needs their mom to run out their luggage to the middle of Bumfuck, Nowhere.
My reward for not dying of embarrassment, heat exhaustion and general annoyance with chanting was a full week of "cheerobics" at 6am every god-forsaken morning in the sweltering central-Washington summer and systematically dropping every girl in our squad on her head during pyramids. At 135 pounds I was one of the two largest girls on the squad and was politely passed over as a choice to participate in the "flying" layer of these Clinics in Abject Failure. After sharing bunks with most of these girls, I wanted to feel bad about their inevitable concussions at my own hands, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I was starving, sunburnt, overstimulated and completely out of my element. I feared that this was actually a glimpse of Hell and it kept me from committing constipation-induced homicide, in which I would brain everyone in my sight. That wasn't worth suffering this shit again.
My reward for surviving THAT was of course more summer practices. These were at least more entertaining because my boyfriend would come pick me up. He was 15 and had prison tattoos. He was just the "fuck you" I needed to separate me from the pack. "I'm not like YOU people with your jock boyfriends... MY boyfriend has been to juvie and knows how to make a bong out of an apple. Fuuuuuuck you guys." This was but a small consolation when sports season started and I had to actually get legit.
We performed during games and assemblies. Everyone else saw these events as a chance to prove to people that our routines didn't actually look like 3-minute long games of grab-ass set to music like "I Like It When You Call Me Big Papa" by Notorious BIG. I'm not kidding. You don't know how much I wish that I was. We had PRACTICED. We were DEDICATED. We had spirit... yes we did... It was always a hot load of fresh Fail. We were terrible. It didn't help that Essex and I were on JV, which was basically the worst of the worst. Had I actually cared, I might have wanted to go home and drink bleach, but luckily once basketball season started, the tides were starting to turn. I was having trouble keeping up the charade. Morning practices made my soul bend toward the violent. The dark twisted corners of my mind where all my terrible thoughts go to live was becoming my mental playhouse. I didn't have my super-ironic boyfriend anymore. The football players actually started to look attractive to me. And worst of all, Varsity was exercising what little authority they had to point out what a bunch of idiots we looked like. I was about to get benched for not showing up to practices.
Here's how that "high school hindsight" would like you to believe my last practice as a cheerleader went down: I'd had enough of those varsity clowns and turned into a wolverine in the middle of practice. Yeah, a real fucking wolverine. In my pom-pom fueled rage I was somehow able to bellow through my pointed, blood soaked teeth that I was quitting this bitch and that every one of those fucking assholes could eat my shit and die in a fiery inferno. I then ate them all, went to their houses and ate all their pets and then shat them out in their lockers. But in the end, I just threw down my pompoms, stormed out of the gym, and cried some of those really desperate angry tears that you cry when a fat, ugly, mean girl was right about you in the first place.
Later that day, I won an award for passing all 4 parts of the WASL test and I did it in my cheer uniform. I was the only person up there in a cheer uniform and it made me feel vindicated. "Yeeeah... this academic award right here... that's why I can't be a cheerleader. I'm too SMART." I didn't look back. I didn't go to any more assemblies or games that year and I let my boyfriends brother wear my cheer uniform for spirit day. This was a huge no-no, but they had no power over me now, those empty shells of whore. HAAAAAAHHAHA!
However there were people on the squad, that I'm glad to still know, who can talk shit with me. There is of course Essex who is available to reminisce with me when she's not busy convincing girls who play roller derby to let her touch their boobs. There's Jill, my fellow "pyramid bottom" with the Invader Zim tattoo that seemed like as much of an outsider as I did. And Kristen, who I usually forget was a cheerleader because she's a decent person who has a job and waited until she was 24 to have a baby.
It was worth it, however, just to see the look of shock on people's faces when I tell them I was a cheerleader in high school. I take it as a compliment. I can watch them paint a little picture of high school Cait as a blonde, peppy team player with an eating disorder that has since been cured and then some. "Wow," they must think, "she really seems to have become grown up and normal against all odds!" But I get even more satisfaction from knowing that I was the same cynical bitch then that I am now... just with more determination and a better tolerance for the fake broads in short skirts. And a better stomach for "Devil-Hour:30" physical activity. If someone tried to wake me up at 6am these days to do anything but pee I would probably find a way to place a pox upon their entire family.
Now I just wish that Jacqui would have told me I would make a shitty pediatrician or astronaut or something...
I hung out with two different groups of people, generally. First, there was the type who were apt to become cheerleaders and seemed to like me anyway. Then there were my friends Tom and Julia. Thy were, and still are, the type of people who like music that you have never hard of. They dress impeccably everywhere they go and have never seen a Will Ferrell movie. While the rest of us were listening to Ja Rule and Aaron Carter and drinking Mike's Hard Lemonade like water, they were busying themselves with seeing people like Pearl Jam and Radiohead live and drinking Bombay Sapphire. We ate lunch together every day in the Spanish portable with a girl who, for some reason, thought that we liked her. Her name was Jacqui. She was big, she was incredibly mean, and she was generally very unpleasant. I was joking about following my friend Ellery to cheer try outs. Ellery seriously bled blue and gold during our entire tenure in high school and was definitely the cheerleading type. Jacqui pipes up and says "You'd make the world's shittiest cheerleader." Tom and Julia, knowing my "fuck you, I do what I want" nature, must have been making that certain throat slashing motion behind my back that is the international signal for "Shut up, you dumb bitch, you'll make her do it!" And I did just that.
I remember my mom, ever the optimist, telling me that I'd make a great cheerleader and that I should go for it; while my slightly more realistic father shot food out his nose laughing and gasping. "You can't be serious! Ohhh... you're funny kiddo. That's tooooo funny. Wait til your aunts hear about this..." As he wiped the laughter induced tears from his eyes and hooted loudly, I became even more determined.
I showed up for try outs every morning at 6am in my black eyeliner and snarky screen-print t-shirts and did an Oscar-worthy job of making it look like I wanted to be there - all because I had to prove stupid Jacqui wrong. The early mornings knocked Ellery out of the race within a few weeks and strangely enough it was me and her lesbian sister Essex who ended up, to my horror, making the squad. I have always been fairly certain that Essex tried out under similar circumstances to my own, but we've never discussed it. It's like 'Nam to us. Her reaction to seeing her name on the roster must have been similar to mine "Oh shit... they actually thought we were serious." But ever the determined, snot-nosed little brats that we still are, we decided to see it though cheer camp.
Incidentally, and not in the way you'd imagine, cheer camp was host to one of the most embarrassing experiences of my life. Our bus was halted half-way through the trip and we were informed that someone left a bag back at the place the bus picked us up and we had to wait for someone's mom to catch up with us and deliver the bag. (I'm pretty sure you can see where this is going.) I happily joined in with everyone else who was clowning on whoever it was whose mom had to come rescue them... and just then, my mom jogged up along side the bus to deliver my retainer case... I love my mom and she is pretty much wicked awesome, but I could have died seeing her that day... because I was of course, running my mouth the loudest speculating about what kind of loser needs their mom to run out their luggage to the middle of Bumfuck, Nowhere.
My reward for not dying of embarrassment, heat exhaustion and general annoyance with chanting was a full week of "cheerobics" at 6am every god-forsaken morning in the sweltering central-Washington summer and systematically dropping every girl in our squad on her head during pyramids. At 135 pounds I was one of the two largest girls on the squad and was politely passed over as a choice to participate in the "flying" layer of these Clinics in Abject Failure. After sharing bunks with most of these girls, I wanted to feel bad about their inevitable concussions at my own hands, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I was starving, sunburnt, overstimulated and completely out of my element. I feared that this was actually a glimpse of Hell and it kept me from committing constipation-induced homicide, in which I would brain everyone in my sight. That wasn't worth suffering this shit again.
My reward for surviving THAT was of course more summer practices. These were at least more entertaining because my boyfriend would come pick me up. He was 15 and had prison tattoos. He was just the "fuck you" I needed to separate me from the pack. "I'm not like YOU people with your jock boyfriends... MY boyfriend has been to juvie and knows how to make a bong out of an apple. Fuuuuuuck you guys." This was but a small consolation when sports season started and I had to actually get legit.
We performed during games and assemblies. Everyone else saw these events as a chance to prove to people that our routines didn't actually look like 3-minute long games of grab-ass set to music like "I Like It When You Call Me Big Papa" by Notorious BIG. I'm not kidding. You don't know how much I wish that I was. We had PRACTICED. We were DEDICATED. We had spirit... yes we did... It was always a hot load of fresh Fail. We were terrible. It didn't help that Essex and I were on JV, which was basically the worst of the worst. Had I actually cared, I might have wanted to go home and drink bleach, but luckily once basketball season started, the tides were starting to turn. I was having trouble keeping up the charade. Morning practices made my soul bend toward the violent. The dark twisted corners of my mind where all my terrible thoughts go to live was becoming my mental playhouse. I didn't have my super-ironic boyfriend anymore. The football players actually started to look attractive to me. And worst of all, Varsity was exercising what little authority they had to point out what a bunch of idiots we looked like. I was about to get benched for not showing up to practices.
Here's how that "high school hindsight" would like you to believe my last practice as a cheerleader went down: I'd had enough of those varsity clowns and turned into a wolverine in the middle of practice. Yeah, a real fucking wolverine. In my pom-pom fueled rage I was somehow able to bellow through my pointed, blood soaked teeth that I was quitting this bitch and that every one of those fucking assholes could eat my shit and die in a fiery inferno. I then ate them all, went to their houses and ate all their pets and then shat them out in their lockers. But in the end, I just threw down my pompoms, stormed out of the gym, and cried some of those really desperate angry tears that you cry when a fat, ugly, mean girl was right about you in the first place.
Later that day, I won an award for passing all 4 parts of the WASL test and I did it in my cheer uniform. I was the only person up there in a cheer uniform and it made me feel vindicated. "Yeeeah... this academic award right here... that's why I can't be a cheerleader. I'm too SMART." I didn't look back. I didn't go to any more assemblies or games that year and I let my boyfriends brother wear my cheer uniform for spirit day. This was a huge no-no, but they had no power over me now, those empty shells of whore. HAAAAAAHHAHA!
However there were people on the squad, that I'm glad to still know, who can talk shit with me. There is of course Essex who is available to reminisce with me when she's not busy convincing girls who play roller derby to let her touch their boobs. There's Jill, my fellow "pyramid bottom" with the Invader Zim tattoo that seemed like as much of an outsider as I did. And Kristen, who I usually forget was a cheerleader because she's a decent person who has a job and waited until she was 24 to have a baby.
It was worth it, however, just to see the look of shock on people's faces when I tell them I was a cheerleader in high school. I take it as a compliment. I can watch them paint a little picture of high school Cait as a blonde, peppy team player with an eating disorder that has since been cured and then some. "Wow," they must think, "she really seems to have become grown up and normal against all odds!" But I get even more satisfaction from knowing that I was the same cynical bitch then that I am now... just with more determination and a better tolerance for the fake broads in short skirts. And a better stomach for "Devil-Hour:30" physical activity. If someone tried to wake me up at 6am these days to do anything but pee I would probably find a way to place a pox upon their entire family.
Now I just wish that Jacqui would have told me I would make a shitty pediatrician or astronaut or something...
Thursday, July 1, 2010
I like Twilight - and no my mother didn't drop me on my head as a child.
Since Twilight seems to be the new trendy thing to talk about, let’s discuss. And hell, I’ve seen the newest one 2 times in the past 48 hours (yes I know it’s not the weekend yet!) so it’s already on my mind.
When you tell someone that you are a Twilight fan, they look at you as though you have just mentioned that you live on an ancient Indian burial ground. Unfortunate home placement, like a fondness for Twilight, of course happens to people but not to people you know. It’s not like they had a choicein the matter. And of course if you’re willing to admit it, there’s an assumption that you’re in the process of fixing it. You’re moving into a transitional apartment and hiring an exorcist, right? You’re going to burn all your Twilight books and memorabilia in front of me now, aren’t you? Admitting to being a fan of Twilight is seen as the first step in a 12 step process that will end in you reading Ernest Hemingway, getting an actual job and eventually celebrating your 13th birthday. However, looking at the disturbing amount of grown women who worship this crap will tell you that’s clearly untrue. Even educated, levelheaded women like this stuff for goodness sake! Two straight guys shushed me in the theater yesterday for making a penis joke during a particularly intense scene! The obsession doesn't know gender, sexual preference, age or most notably body mass index.
I’ll just put this out there: I love corny stuff. My mood generally ranges from your regular store-brand anger to sarcastic vitriol on most days, and then just oscillates between the two until halfway through each month when the rest of the emotions bombard me for no reason for 5 days. So when it comes to movies, music and television I need the medium to do my emotional work for me. I like it to just hit me over the head. John Hughes movies are great for this. Journey’s Greatest Hits will usually do the trick. Just go ahead and blatantly manipulate my emotions because breaking me out of my general skepticism is going to take some work. OK, add some vampires, but they’d better be pretty.
Being a Twilight fan seems no more or less stupid to me than people who let their lives revolve around Shark Week. So I suppose I see where these people are coming from. When someone tells me that they’re saving their vacation time for Shark Week, part of me wants to ask them if they like other non-sensical, boring shit too.“But sharks are fascinating creatures and the shows they air are educational.” I see your educational value and raise you Robert Pattinson’s amazing bone structure… since we’re clearly not committed to making any sense whatsoever. Investigating the inner workings of my dishwasher would probably be educational too, but why would I actually choose to spend my time doing it? The inner judging you do when I tell you I spent my evening watching Twilight is the feeling I get when you admit to liking Shark Week, U2, Kevin Costner, The New York Yankees or hiking. I assume that you’re trying to either be cool, a non-conformist, a person who gets off on shock value or the child of parents who were not yet aware of the dangers of painting a crib in lead paint. And admitting to liking something shitty leads people to suspect other things."Oh, you're a Yankee's fan," I think to myself "You probably also like cheaply made lawn chairs, blue nail polish and drinking wine coolers too." But I'm willing to let go of this notion if you quit assuming that because I like Twilight I also like Justin Bieber, High School Musical and American Idol. Just because I have been heard saying "Twilight is totally Robert Pattinson's 21 Jump Street, he's destined for a great career just like Johnny Depp" doesn't mean I have NO taste whatsoever. ....Right?
That said, I recently came to own a life-sized Edward Cullen cardboard cut out. Now don’t go assuming that I was planning on placing it in my room and letting him watch me sleep… The goal was to scare the living shit out of as many of my coworkers as I possibly could before word spread of his presence. First he lurked in my office shower to scare my boss. Then he made a stop in the medical records office, the supply closet, the HR department and finally the CEO’s office. Not only did Edward himself make it into our CEO’s desk area but photocopies of his face made it into his closet, his mini-fridge and under his desk. When the crowd that had gathered to laugh at him dispersed, he asked me “So, there aren’t any more in here right?” …To which I shrugged and turned back down the hall giggling conspicuously. I then watched from his window as he turned over every chair, looked under every flat surface and scoured his closet for an Edward that he would never find. Somehow I still have a job.
A coworker of mine was frantically emptying her purse in my office this morning looking for her keys and she inadvertently left behind a tampon on the floor. My boss had figured I was making a vampire joke and had left the tampon at Edward’s feet as an offering and congratulated me on my joke. Sadly I couldn't take the credit. Edward has aparently learned to play jokes on his own. He sent my coworker an email from my computer thanking her for the teabag and that he’d never seen them in “plain” flavor before. ...OK I helped him.
Edward the Cutout has been an agent for pants-pissing shock, tampon jokes, giggly picture taking, frozen-faced brooding under any condition and general hilarity. But after watching Eclipse, I felt bad for not taking him seriously. Maybe we really should have been swooning at his feet and wishing that he would really come to life to grace us with his melancholy obsessive tendencies. You spend two hours watching a living version of your office prank defending the girl he loves, ripping other vampires to shreds and showing a pretty decent emotional range for once… and then you feel as though maybe he’s worth a bit more than your laughter.
In conclusion, I'm ready to admit that the true value of Twilight probably lies somewhere between "cardboard cutout tampon jokes" and "legitimate". It does disturb me that Stephanie Meyer can write an entire paragraph in which a vampire tells you what prostitute blood tastes like but keeps all romance completely G-rated. At least she has her priorities straight. Thanks, Mormons.
When you tell someone that you are a Twilight fan, they look at you as though you have just mentioned that you live on an ancient Indian burial ground. Unfortunate home placement, like a fondness for Twilight, of course happens to people but not to people you know. It’s not like they had a choicein the matter. And of course if you’re willing to admit it, there’s an assumption that you’re in the process of fixing it. You’re moving into a transitional apartment and hiring an exorcist, right? You’re going to burn all your Twilight books and memorabilia in front of me now, aren’t you? Admitting to being a fan of Twilight is seen as the first step in a 12 step process that will end in you reading Ernest Hemingway, getting an actual job and eventually celebrating your 13th birthday. However, looking at the disturbing amount of grown women who worship this crap will tell you that’s clearly untrue. Even educated, levelheaded women like this stuff for goodness sake! Two straight guys shushed me in the theater yesterday for making a penis joke during a particularly intense scene! The obsession doesn't know gender, sexual preference, age or most notably body mass index.
I’ll just put this out there: I love corny stuff. My mood generally ranges from your regular store-brand anger to sarcastic vitriol on most days, and then just oscillates between the two until halfway through each month when the rest of the emotions bombard me for no reason for 5 days. So when it comes to movies, music and television I need the medium to do my emotional work for me. I like it to just hit me over the head. John Hughes movies are great for this. Journey’s Greatest Hits will usually do the trick. Just go ahead and blatantly manipulate my emotions because breaking me out of my general skepticism is going to take some work. OK, add some vampires, but they’d better be pretty.
Being a Twilight fan seems no more or less stupid to me than people who let their lives revolve around Shark Week. So I suppose I see where these people are coming from. When someone tells me that they’re saving their vacation time for Shark Week, part of me wants to ask them if they like other non-sensical, boring shit too.“But sharks are fascinating creatures and the shows they air are educational.” I see your educational value and raise you Robert Pattinson’s amazing bone structure… since we’re clearly not committed to making any sense whatsoever. Investigating the inner workings of my dishwasher would probably be educational too, but why would I actually choose to spend my time doing it? The inner judging you do when I tell you I spent my evening watching Twilight is the feeling I get when you admit to liking Shark Week, U2, Kevin Costner, The New York Yankees or hiking. I assume that you’re trying to either be cool, a non-conformist, a person who gets off on shock value or the child of parents who were not yet aware of the dangers of painting a crib in lead paint. And admitting to liking something shitty leads people to suspect other things."Oh, you're a Yankee's fan," I think to myself "You probably also like cheaply made lawn chairs, blue nail polish and drinking wine coolers too." But I'm willing to let go of this notion if you quit assuming that because I like Twilight I also like Justin Bieber, High School Musical and American Idol. Just because I have been heard saying "Twilight is totally Robert Pattinson's 21 Jump Street, he's destined for a great career just like Johnny Depp" doesn't mean I have NO taste whatsoever. ....Right?
That said, I recently came to own a life-sized Edward Cullen cardboard cut out. Now don’t go assuming that I was planning on placing it in my room and letting him watch me sleep… The goal was to scare the living shit out of as many of my coworkers as I possibly could before word spread of his presence. First he lurked in my office shower to scare my boss. Then he made a stop in the medical records office, the supply closet, the HR department and finally the CEO’s office. Not only did Edward himself make it into our CEO’s desk area but photocopies of his face made it into his closet, his mini-fridge and under his desk. When the crowd that had gathered to laugh at him dispersed, he asked me “So, there aren’t any more in here right?” …To which I shrugged and turned back down the hall giggling conspicuously. I then watched from his window as he turned over every chair, looked under every flat surface and scoured his closet for an Edward that he would never find. Somehow I still have a job.
A coworker of mine was frantically emptying her purse in my office this morning looking for her keys and she inadvertently left behind a tampon on the floor. My boss had figured I was making a vampire joke and had left the tampon at Edward’s feet as an offering and congratulated me on my joke. Sadly I couldn't take the credit. Edward has aparently learned to play jokes on his own. He sent my coworker an email from my computer thanking her for the teabag and that he’d never seen them in “plain” flavor before. ...OK I helped him.
Edward the Cutout has been an agent for pants-pissing shock, tampon jokes, giggly picture taking, frozen-faced brooding under any condition and general hilarity. But after watching Eclipse, I felt bad for not taking him seriously. Maybe we really should have been swooning at his feet and wishing that he would really come to life to grace us with his melancholy obsessive tendencies. You spend two hours watching a living version of your office prank defending the girl he loves, ripping other vampires to shreds and showing a pretty decent emotional range for once… and then you feel as though maybe he’s worth a bit more than your laughter.
In conclusion, I'm ready to admit that the true value of Twilight probably lies somewhere between "cardboard cutout tampon jokes" and "legitimate". It does disturb me that Stephanie Meyer can write an entire paragraph in which a vampire tells you what prostitute blood tastes like but keeps all romance completely G-rated. At least she has her priorities straight. Thanks, Mormons.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Fishing Makes Me Feel Like An Idiot
So, in celebration of our 6 year anniversary of dating, my boyfriend decided we should go fishing. Go ahead and wrap your mind around that because that's the LEAST crazy part of this blog post.
Mind you, he's been trying to get me to go fishing with him for YEARS now and I decided to give in this time because we always do girly (read: normal) shit for our anniversaries and I figure he'd done his time.
This started with my genius plan to get out of going fishing for the rest of forever. I told him I would only go if he found me pink waders. No fishing outfitter worth it's weight in testosterone would manufacture something like that, let alone sell it. I figured he'd stop short of surfing that land of ridiculous purchases known as Amazon.com and call it quits. ...He called my bluff. Before I knew it I was in the middle of Outdoor Emporium trying on pink waders made for breast cancer awareness month - thanks a fucking lot October!
I hear Garren talk about his fishing adventures all the time and unless it involves a fistfight with some random asshole (it happens) I use this as "me time". I zone out, I think about jewelry, I think about work, I think about what outfit I want to wear tomorrow. It's all over my head, so I just turn on the brain static and nod and smile. Before you start thinking this is the most fucked up thing ever, we've gone on this way for 6 years, assholes.
I knew my day would involve being out in the boonies, probably seeing a fish get whapped over the head with a club and game wardens who dress like Dudley Do-Right. What I wasn't prepared for was how backwoods this fishing area was. Shortly before getting to our fishing spot, we passed a roadside stand proudly selling "rebel flags", a business selling "tomatoe" and horse tied to a tree. I've never seen Deliverance, but the entire environment made my butthole pucker.
My waders were to say the least a bit snug and I waddled down to the river with the worst case of camel toe any female has ever lived through. Walking around all day with neoprene in your crotch is exhilarating. We spent the better part of the afternoon trying to outsmart an animal with a brain the size of a lima bean and didn't succeed. I sunburned one side of my face. And I became a little racist temporarily.
What I didn't exactly prepare myself for was the fish gutting. Of course we didn't catch one, but the guy next to us did. Let me just say, putting the bait on your hook, casting your line and standing around on a rock in the water is very peaceful. You feel at one with the earth, hearkening back to a simpler time and feeling like you know what Davy Crockett felt like. Normal Rockwell would be inspired. THEN, someone clubs a fish over the head and guts it before its heart stops beating and you suddenly want to move to a landlocked country. Any landlocked country. I'd consider communism. Knowing that my boyfriend does this made me feel betrayed. I felt like I had been living with a teddy bear for 5 years. A teddy bear who talks lovingly to our cats, does laundry like a pro and giggles at poop jokes. And then you imagine said teddy bear going Ted Bundy on a fish... it's disheartening.
I also love situations where my stereotypes are confirmed and today was no exception. I always think of fisherman as cliquey, opinionated, speech-slurring elitists. And today there was an overweight gentleman standing on his rock soap box name dropping the people he talks to on gamefishing.com forums, berating "arm-chair fishermen" and drawling on and on about he knows all the tricks for finding fish. I want to say his name was Jimbo. I never came CLOSE to knowing anything about him of that nature, but the rest of the stereotype was there so I'm going to take poetic justice here and just say it was.
I don't suppose I'll hang up my fishing pole yet though. Overall it was just too entertaining not to go back.
Mind you, he's been trying to get me to go fishing with him for YEARS now and I decided to give in this time because we always do girly (read: normal) shit for our anniversaries and I figure he'd done his time.
This started with my genius plan to get out of going fishing for the rest of forever. I told him I would only go if he found me pink waders. No fishing outfitter worth it's weight in testosterone would manufacture something like that, let alone sell it. I figured he'd stop short of surfing that land of ridiculous purchases known as Amazon.com and call it quits. ...He called my bluff. Before I knew it I was in the middle of Outdoor Emporium trying on pink waders made for breast cancer awareness month - thanks a fucking lot October!
I hear Garren talk about his fishing adventures all the time and unless it involves a fistfight with some random asshole (it happens) I use this as "me time". I zone out, I think about jewelry, I think about work, I think about what outfit I want to wear tomorrow. It's all over my head, so I just turn on the brain static and nod and smile. Before you start thinking this is the most fucked up thing ever, we've gone on this way for 6 years, assholes.
I knew my day would involve being out in the boonies, probably seeing a fish get whapped over the head with a club and game wardens who dress like Dudley Do-Right. What I wasn't prepared for was how backwoods this fishing area was. Shortly before getting to our fishing spot, we passed a roadside stand proudly selling "rebel flags", a business selling "tomatoe" and horse tied to a tree. I've never seen Deliverance, but the entire environment made my butthole pucker.
My waders were to say the least a bit snug and I waddled down to the river with the worst case of camel toe any female has ever lived through. Walking around all day with neoprene in your crotch is exhilarating. We spent the better part of the afternoon trying to outsmart an animal with a brain the size of a lima bean and didn't succeed. I sunburned one side of my face. And I became a little racist temporarily.
What I didn't exactly prepare myself for was the fish gutting. Of course we didn't catch one, but the guy next to us did. Let me just say, putting the bait on your hook, casting your line and standing around on a rock in the water is very peaceful. You feel at one with the earth, hearkening back to a simpler time and feeling like you know what Davy Crockett felt like. Normal Rockwell would be inspired. THEN, someone clubs a fish over the head and guts it before its heart stops beating and you suddenly want to move to a landlocked country. Any landlocked country. I'd consider communism. Knowing that my boyfriend does this made me feel betrayed. I felt like I had been living with a teddy bear for 5 years. A teddy bear who talks lovingly to our cats, does laundry like a pro and giggles at poop jokes. And then you imagine said teddy bear going Ted Bundy on a fish... it's disheartening.
I also love situations where my stereotypes are confirmed and today was no exception. I always think of fisherman as cliquey, opinionated, speech-slurring elitists. And today there was an overweight gentleman standing on his rock soap box name dropping the people he talks to on gamefishing.com forums, berating "arm-chair fishermen" and drawling on and on about he knows all the tricks for finding fish. I want to say his name was Jimbo. I never came CLOSE to knowing anything about him of that nature, but the rest of the stereotype was there so I'm going to take poetic justice here and just say it was.
I don't suppose I'll hang up my fishing pole yet though. Overall it was just too entertaining not to go back.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Backseat: Where Curry Goes To Die
So, Dad opted not to go to the Fremont Fair as the weather was crap (thank yoooou Seattle!) so, instead, we opted for brunch, a tour around the cemetery and reconnaissance mission in my car for something that smelled like death.
First of all, don't act like you've never let a smell go too long in the back of your car. In all seriousness I had a 14 year old hooker stay in my car for a night, smoke a Marlboro and leave her clothing there and the only reason I noticed was that the pants in the passenger seat were far too small to be mine. I live in a strange neighborhood and it was a 1990 Toyota Camry. Locking the door isn't even worth it.
I told Dad that I didn't want to drive because something smelled like rotten pickle in my car and I was planning on leaving the task of finding the offending object/food product until that evening... at the earliest. After a lovely day he dropped me off and, as I feared, we pulled into a parking spot and he insisted that we look through my backseat for whatever could be back there that smelled like pure evil.
First of all, let's not pretend that none of us know how this game works:
Day 1 - you leave your leftover lunch in the back seat of your car because "Well, I'm going to Target later, I'll take it out then" or "well it's not THAT warm out here so it's basically the same as refrigerating it, right?" Then you promptly forget because it gets too dark and you don't want to run into your neighbor that drives the Trans Am and has a molestache. Or it's too cold and late and you don't want to go outside in your pajamas causing said neighbor to judge your clothing choices. You decide it can wait until tomorrow.
Day 2 - you have blissfully forgotten about your leftover lunch and you get in the car in the morning sensing nothing amiss. In fact - you car kinda smells like lunch from yesterday... very strange. You return to your car after work and wonder what that strange-ish odor is. You don't remember smelling anything before.
Day 3 - Hmmm... you don't remember it smelling bad in here yesterday and suddenly today there's something strange smelling in the air. Oh well. Maybe it's nothing. Hopefully you just stepped on something. I mean, the trunk leaks, right? Of course it'll smell funny. Let's leave it until tomorrow when we're going back to Target to buy that thing that we intended to get but didn't get because you got distracted looking at clothing, buying cosmetics and playing with the children's toys for an hour. Yes, we'll take care of it this evening.
Day 4 - You forgot to go to Target. It's too late. Something is seriously wrong here. What could it be?! It doesn't smell like food (anymore) and the source is completely untraceable. But you don't have the heart to turn around and discard your garbage. It won't stink any less later. That afternoon you go out to your car and check your backseat. You check it, not because your best friend Molly instilled in you a deep-seated fear that every vacant car back seat is harboring a rapist with a knife, but because you are afraid to check if whatever stinks has grown teeth and a tail and has started to chew on your leather interior.
Days 5 - 10 - Just drive with the windows down. Tell everyone your car is out of gas, your check engine light is on, anything to keep people out of it. Whatever it is will mold over and stop stinking in just a few days. Just wait it out. It will fossilize, you'll dig it up later and you'll be an archaeological hero.
Day 11 - Dad-shame. He bought you that car for graduation. From college. Where you should have learned responsibility and cleanliness. How did Felisha put up with you Freshman year without killing you or suffocating on errant garbage... The object is found and disposed of by dad. Try not to notice that it's liquified curry... just let him walk it to the dumpster... promise yourself that you'll never leave food in the car again.
This is much better than coming very close to getting a baby mole lost in your engine, but I'll tell that story next time.
First of all, don't act like you've never let a smell go too long in the back of your car. In all seriousness I had a 14 year old hooker stay in my car for a night, smoke a Marlboro and leave her clothing there and the only reason I noticed was that the pants in the passenger seat were far too small to be mine. I live in a strange neighborhood and it was a 1990 Toyota Camry. Locking the door isn't even worth it.
I told Dad that I didn't want to drive because something smelled like rotten pickle in my car and I was planning on leaving the task of finding the offending object/food product until that evening... at the earliest. After a lovely day he dropped me off and, as I feared, we pulled into a parking spot and he insisted that we look through my backseat for whatever could be back there that smelled like pure evil.
First of all, let's not pretend that none of us know how this game works:
Day 1 - you leave your leftover lunch in the back seat of your car because "Well, I'm going to Target later, I'll take it out then" or "well it's not THAT warm out here so it's basically the same as refrigerating it, right?" Then you promptly forget because it gets too dark and you don't want to run into your neighbor that drives the Trans Am and has a molestache. Or it's too cold and late and you don't want to go outside in your pajamas causing said neighbor to judge your clothing choices. You decide it can wait until tomorrow.
Day 2 - you have blissfully forgotten about your leftover lunch and you get in the car in the morning sensing nothing amiss. In fact - you car kinda smells like lunch from yesterday... very strange. You return to your car after work and wonder what that strange-ish odor is. You don't remember smelling anything before.
Day 3 - Hmmm... you don't remember it smelling bad in here yesterday and suddenly today there's something strange smelling in the air. Oh well. Maybe it's nothing. Hopefully you just stepped on something. I mean, the trunk leaks, right? Of course it'll smell funny. Let's leave it until tomorrow when we're going back to Target to buy that thing that we intended to get but didn't get because you got distracted looking at clothing, buying cosmetics and playing with the children's toys for an hour. Yes, we'll take care of it this evening.
Day 4 - You forgot to go to Target. It's too late. Something is seriously wrong here. What could it be?! It doesn't smell like food (anymore) and the source is completely untraceable. But you don't have the heart to turn around and discard your garbage. It won't stink any less later. That afternoon you go out to your car and check your backseat. You check it, not because your best friend Molly instilled in you a deep-seated fear that every vacant car back seat is harboring a rapist with a knife, but because you are afraid to check if whatever stinks has grown teeth and a tail and has started to chew on your leather interior.
Days 5 - 10 - Just drive with the windows down. Tell everyone your car is out of gas, your check engine light is on, anything to keep people out of it. Whatever it is will mold over and stop stinking in just a few days. Just wait it out. It will fossilize, you'll dig it up later and you'll be an archaeological hero.
Day 11 - Dad-shame. He bought you that car for graduation. From college. Where you should have learned responsibility and cleanliness. How did Felisha put up with you Freshman year without killing you or suffocating on errant garbage... The object is found and disposed of by dad. Try not to notice that it's liquified curry... just let him walk it to the dumpster... promise yourself that you'll never leave food in the car again.
This is much better than coming very close to getting a baby mole lost in your engine, but I'll tell that story next time.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Mentally Preparing to Witness Naked Cyclists with my Dad Tomorrow
Because you'll learn enough about me later on I'll start you off with this little tidbit. I live in Seattle. Famous for many things but foremost in my mind - The Naked Bicyclists of Fremont. This weekend is the fair that their sagging testicles and bike chains fear all year - the Solstice Fair.
I should preface this by saying that this event was traumatizing for me and I haven't been since I was about 7. I got lost there and basically let my mind wander to a place where I'd spend the rest of my day lost at the Fremont Fair where my friend's mother would never come looking for me and I'd be taken in by a family of hippies who would raise me to eat flax seed and granola and live in a treehouse not just in the summer when it would be awesome but in the fucking winter and I started crying. Someone took pity on me and helped me find my friend and her mom. They pacified me with an elephant ear, but my opinion of the Fremont district and it's hippie gatherings had been sullied for life.
So what does dad want to do for Father's Day tomorrow? Go to brunch (yay pancakes/omelets/hashbrowns/random lunch foods/apple juice!) and then to the Fremont Fair (nooo hippies/hemp jewelry/flaxseed cookies/testicles and/in bike chains.) Dad is busy doing grown up adult things most of the time so I'm not sure that he's aware of what we're going to be witness to tomorrow. Instead of saying "No Dad, there will be naked people... like people you don't want to see naked... on bicycles tomorrow." So I'm winging it.
Since I don't own a calendar and made plans with Dad on mothers day, I spent my entire day with my mom today. We got ourselves caffeined up and went to go see Date Night (I know we're really late on this one, but I'm sure as hell not going to watch Letters to Juliet.) I now understand where I get my juvenile sense of humor because anytime someone said "vagina" during the movie (which is A LOT!!!) we would both dissolve laughing. We both have them. Why was it so damn funny?! I don't know but I just spent 90 full seconds typing this sentence because I was thinking about vagina.
Tomorrow will likely involve a post about what happens when a 65 year old man with testicles like oranges in a tube sock gets said testicles stuck in a bike chain and you witness this in the presence of your father.
So, an entire post about genitalia related incidents and my parents. I can't guarantee it will get better from here.
I should preface this by saying that this event was traumatizing for me and I haven't been since I was about 7. I got lost there and basically let my mind wander to a place where I'd spend the rest of my day lost at the Fremont Fair where my friend's mother would never come looking for me and I'd be taken in by a family of hippies who would raise me to eat flax seed and granola and live in a treehouse not just in the summer when it would be awesome but in the fucking winter and I started crying. Someone took pity on me and helped me find my friend and her mom. They pacified me with an elephant ear, but my opinion of the Fremont district and it's hippie gatherings had been sullied for life.
So what does dad want to do for Father's Day tomorrow? Go to brunch (yay pancakes/omelets/hashbrowns/random lunch foods/apple juice!) and then to the Fremont Fair (nooo hippies/hemp jewelry/flaxseed cookies/testicles and/in bike chains.) Dad is busy doing grown up adult things most of the time so I'm not sure that he's aware of what we're going to be witness to tomorrow. Instead of saying "No Dad, there will be naked people... like people you don't want to see naked... on bicycles tomorrow." So I'm winging it.
Since I don't own a calendar and made plans with Dad on mothers day, I spent my entire day with my mom today. We got ourselves caffeined up and went to go see Date Night (I know we're really late on this one, but I'm sure as hell not going to watch Letters to Juliet.) I now understand where I get my juvenile sense of humor because anytime someone said "vagina" during the movie (which is A LOT!!!) we would both dissolve laughing. We both have them. Why was it so damn funny?! I don't know but I just spent 90 full seconds typing this sentence because I was thinking about vagina.
Tomorrow will likely involve a post about what happens when a 65 year old man with testicles like oranges in a tube sock gets said testicles stuck in a bike chain and you witness this in the presence of your father.
So, an entire post about genitalia related incidents and my parents. I can't guarantee it will get better from here.
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