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.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
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.
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