Family

My older sister Christy is back in Wyoming spending a night at our parents house with one of our older sisters. I'm not naming names cuz I don't want anyone to get all butt hurt, but it's the one who likes to antagonize and who's name rhymes with Stair-o-pine. She just threw a shoe at Christy and nailed her in the forehead. There will be bloodshed before sunrise. It is written.

Tomorrow they will laugh it off and it will become just one of those stories.

Like the time Caroline and Coco got into a screaming fight in the middle of the restaurant where Care worked.

Or the time Christy tried to drown me. A little.

Or that one time where Erika and Coco convinced a 4 year old me to answer the door to Caroline's new boy friend buck ass naked.

Or that time we played Pictionary and Lance almost had to get stitches.

The point is that by tomorrow it will be just another story, that we end with the words "Yeah, but I love my family." Or tomorrow my parents will find one of their children has smothered the other in their sleep. 

June Music Recommendation

So I've been stalking this artist named Noah Gundersen for a while. If you've heard his stuff, odds are you heard it on Sons of Anarchy (At least I hope so. If you heard it on the Vampire Diaries we're in a 2 week friend time out starting now) He's stupid talented and his lyrics tend to rip me into shreds for hours after listening to them, which only seems to make me want to hear more. There are three songs you should absolutely be listening to; David which is one of two songs from his latest album (Available on itunes and bancamp *Shameless plug*) to be featured on Sons of Anarchy, his cover of A Case of You which is a Joni Mitchell song, and Nashville seen here being performed by Noah (And all his stupid talent) and his sister Abby (And all her stupid talent). Being the tone deaf kid in that family must have been a kick to the ego.

Pictured: the family that sounds way prettier than yours

Let's take the songs one at a time. David comes flooding in on a pulsing guitar backed by a cello. It's dark and moody from the get-go as Noah weaves a verse about the struggle he's going through to become the man he wants to be. "A little less like my father and more like my dad" The chorus slows to half pace which makes me feel like the song itself is tearing at me, pushing me around like a gale force wind. It's a song born of a battle that in itself feels like a fight.

A Case of You. This is one of my favorite songs and I hate people who cover it. Except apparently Noah. It helps that he sings this song with a stunning depth of feeling, his voice breaking and straining at the emotional peaks of the chorus. It's always been a conversational song, but his phrasing and delivery make it simultaneously into a condemnation and a plea. He brings the guitar in and out perfectly so that by the time you realize he just did half of a verse a capella it's because he's pounded a chord out.

The last one I'm going to strongly insist will make your life better is Nashville. This is also off of Noah's new album. A little more story than most of his songs, the words weave a picture of a long road trip that ends in violence and heartbreak. The lyrics are well phrased and poignent and only enhanced by Noah's smokey voice and Abby's perfectly placed harmonies. "On and on and on the miles stretch for hours, the radio keeps spitting out tunes. Every other song is just another tired rhythm, another tired lover's tune"

Ok the rant is over, I'm off to put on my headphones and get lost in some good tunes.

If You Need Me I'll Be Sitting in the Park Singing Bob Dylan

I just watched the Bling Ring. It was terrifying. I'll never have children for fear that they'll turn into teenagers and someday even passingly resemble the kids in this film. I'm serious. Combine that with the fact that I've "fallen to the communists" as they say in the homeland* I'm a little sensitive to emotional changes now I feel like I was the one breaking into Paris Hilton's house and threatening to steal her dog. To help combat this sense of commercialism I'll be spending the rest of the night listening to hippie folk music and separating all of my clothes out so I can give half of them to Good Will in the morning. Fuckin thanks Hermione.

*The IT Crowd

This is the Definition of Burying the Lead

So my best friend has this habbit of watching TV documentaries. She's a "sharer" so she sometimes texts me the fascinating things she's learning. This was our actual text conversation from tonight. Love you B.

Bailey: The things you learn from Late night TV. Also there's a pteranadon living near LA.

Me: What's a that thing?

Bailey: Winged dinosaur.

Me: Fuck off. Dead. Please say dead.

Bailey: Pterodactyl.

Me:But a dead one, right? Don't fuck with me

Bailey: I apparently lives near Elizabeth Lake in the Angeles National Forrest and eats cows

Me: Fuck right off! How is this not the only thing on the news?

Bailey: It's Nessie for LA.

Me: So it's not real? Why would you tell me that?

Bailey: That it supposedly exist or that it's not real?

Me: LEAD WITH IT NOT BEING REAL

Bailey: Sorry, I thought "There's a pterodactyl living near LA" was a tip off to the speculative nature of such claims

Me: You didn't say that till you told me it was eating God Damn Cows

Bailey: Besides, a Spanish Rancher beat the holy living Hell out of it in the 1800s and it disappeared

Me: Viva la Espagne

Bailey: Have I mentioned yet how ironic U find the fact that I studies Spanish for ten years thinking "French? Nobody speaks French!" only to move to almost Canada...


In fairness, on reflection it was fairly obvious that the dinosaur wasn't real. But Holy shit how epic/terrifying would that be? Right? 

If You're Gonna Nerd Out...

As is my seasonal ritual, I changed the posters hanging in my living room today. Where once there were colorful spring-like colors there are now grays and sepias. But not because I hate the summer. I mean part of me does because I spend my summer days inside a theater lobby wallowing in A/C and low watt lighting.

When I line up for my suite in Hell, this is the line I will stand in

I changed the posters to reflect the wonderful, glasses wearing, slightly asthmatic, brilliant, heavily punched nerd that lives inside of me. I now proudly boast a poster for the British thriller The Woman in Black (Signed by Harry *mother fucking* Potter himself) and a poster for the highly anticipated season 2 of the BBC drama Copper. 

You bitches know you're jealous

I say if I'm gonna weird out the plumber who's coming tomorrow, I might as well go full throttle. 

How I Met Your Crazy Aunt Bailey

It's been a weird week. I've had a lot of stuff, good and bad, happening back home and I am full of nostalgia.

My nostalgia looks like radioactive leprechaun pee. 

My best friend just graduated from college and got a job warping the young minds of a town in Washington state. As she's about to have students with the ability to google, I will refer to her only as Bailey, or occasionally as I do in life, Bailey-Monster. This is the story of how we became friends. 

Let me set the scene. It was the first of November in Laramie Wyoming.

Like this but less inviting

A mutual friend of ours named Jenna invited myself, Bailey and two other girls over for a birthday party. The plan was to go to the one hotel in town that had a swimming pool, rent a room, and swim until we were tired enough to ingest dangerous amounts of sugar and pass out. We set out from Jenna's house and got to the hotel in time to find out that the pool was under construction. Jenna's mother was visibly panicked. She had five, unamused teenage girls in her car and nowhere to take them. She was more likely to be viciously murdered than someone than the tribesman on the Savanna that likes to throw rocks at the lions. It was then that we discovered what her original plan was. She wanted to drop us off at the hotel and leave so she could attend a college party. 

Fuckin children won't let me get my drink on

So that's how at the age of 14 I ended up at a college drink-a-thon. Ten miles outside of town. Surrounded by pagans. I'm not being hyperbolic. The party was being run by a guy named Russ with an ugly goatee. Russ was the head of the university Pagan club, and they were celebrating Samhain. My father was never told about this. Daddy, if you're reading this now, I am so sorry, it wasn't my fault. We all stood around the kitchen awkwardly avoiding touching any of the surfaces so we didn't catch herpes. Poor B was a good Catholic kid (my corrupting influence came later) and I was a strictly sober former Baptist. We had wandered into Hell. It smelled like pachouli and smoke. 

Like this but less inviting

Finally I couldn't take it any more. I chose the least threatening drunk in the area and asked him "Is there anything here that doesn't have alcohol in it?" He looked at me, blinked a few times. "I'm pretty sure the cider is ok. Yeah, the cider's good." Looking back, Drunky McAlchol was not the best choice to ask. But we were frozen and frustrated and we had a solid hour before the movie theater started its next kid movie. Jenna and the other two weren't willing to risk it but Bailey and I each had a glass. And then we each had three more. It didn't taste funny, maybe a little too much cinnamon but that was all. Thirty minutes later I am playing a Lord of the Rings themed chess set against one of the sober girls, using a terrible British accent, and referring to everyone around me as "Halfling." Bailey thought I was hysterical but she was the only one. 

I know what you drank, for it is also in my cup

We left the party, I climbed into the back of the car and pressed my face against the frozen window. It was the best feeling I've ever had. Shania Twain's "Man, I Feel Like A Woman" was playing on the radio. I understood it on a level I never have before. Shania's so much deeper than people give her credit for. I tried to tell Jenna this and she rolled her eyes. She didn't understand Shania like I did, and it was societies fault. I explained this to Bailey in halting mostly nonsensical phrases and Bailey says "You sound stupid." I quip back "Yeah well, maybe the spider was siked." Why yes, yes it was. We were hammered. Having now been drunk as an adult, I know for sure what I only guessed then. That cider was heavily alcholic, I was plastered, and my father couldn't find out or he would have me arrested. It's ten years later and I haven't lived with my father in five years, but I'm only posting this because he's in Hungary and unlikely to read this. 

Those peasants better not have wifi

When we got to the theater Bailey and I sat next to each other, laughing our asses all the way through Brother Bear. Most of you didn't see Brother Bear, but it was about an Indian (feathers not dots) kid who's brother is eaten by a bear, who he then kills only to magically be transformed into a bear himself to help raise the cub he just orphaned. It's not high comedy, but we got into imitating the bears voices and it became pretty entertaining.

Not pictured: anything normally voiced by squeeky teenage girls

 Out in the lobby after the movie trouble started. Two of the three girls still in possession of their language skills got into a political argument. Bush had just won a second term and one of a the girls was a hard core republican. Jenna's mom was taking her sweet ass time picking us up and I finally snapped. I reached my hand into my travel bag for my contact solution. "Guys, this is the talking stick. Take turns." Everyone stops. I'm not holding my contact solution. I am holding my deodorant. Everyone is laughing and Bailey chokes out "Does your deodorant talk to you?" I'm unable to answer. I can't feel my face. I can feel my abs but I really wish I couldn't. Jenna's mom pulls up and has to load five hysterical teenagers into her car. 

This is why I took up drinking

Back at Jenna's house her mother, probably asking herself quietly why she decided to have children, set us up in the side living room of the house and went to bed. Jenna and one of the girls went into her room, probably to bitch about how annoying Bailey and I were being. The last girl curled up on the couch and told us that she was going to sleep and that we were going to SHUT THE FUCK UP. We put on Practical Magic in an attempt to wind down. It backfired. At three in the morning we were still giggling. I distinctly remember Bailey-monster asking if we would be able to tell this story later. I said we might want to tone it down a bit. "But we won't tell our parents about this, right?" "Oh Hell no." It was an understanding that bound us together. We had shared in a drunken night of debauchery at the tender age of 14, we had created inside jokes that we still use a decade later, and more importantly I have blackmail material that will last a lifetime. 

Congrats on graduating Bailey. Remember that the students you're about to teach are the same age we were when we met. Warp away B-mon. Warp away

Social engagements for the socially disinclined

I'm not a social person. At least not by most peoples standards. I would much rather watch a movie or hang out at someone's house than go to a bar or (God forbid) a club. So when I got invited out for a social engagement tonight, I very nearly said no just on principal.

This is me. Almost always. 

The thing is I got asked out by a group of guys. I'm more myself with guys. I understand them. A few well placed crude jokes and an obscure Blue Oyster Cult reference and I'm in like flint. Girls are complicated and there are rules and details that I tend to railroad over too often to be really accepted. (Hint pulling someone's hair past the age of 7 is NOT OKAY) On top of being asked to play pool with the guys it was a group from a movie theater I subbed at this week. Movie theater people who are relaxed and nerdy and didn't seem to care that I have the motor functions and coordination of a drunk toddler. They wanted me to play pool with them anyway. It was like being asked to sit at the cool kids table 9 after nine years of being rightfully labeled as that awkward kid that always seems to spill stuff on herself. 

Hi guys! Did you see that ludicrous display last night? Where is everyone going?

So I agreed to go. And then I spent thirty minutes tonight sitting in my apartment, forcing myself to get ready and leave the house. Because the minute I sat down in front of my computer the idea of driving 25-30 minutes to Santa Monica seemed exhausting. I am 23 going on 92. I am waiting for my hip replacement and some days I swear I am inches from being that ancient person standing in the Walmart shouting out the answers to Jeopardy. 

Fuck no. It's "What is the Andes?" you ignorant slut!

  But eventually I went. And I learned that for years I have been playing pool wrong. With some very patient coaching I was able to make a few shots and not completely embarrass myself. And I'll be damned if I didn't have fun. So maybe I'm not one of those 23 year olds who can party with Paris Hilton and make it to their job at 9am. But I took a little step towards being a real live adult today. I'll mark it on the calendar.