Important. Life. Decisions.

After much hemming and hawing and gnashing of teeth, I’ve decided on my direction in life. I can’t imagine how happy you all are to hear this, I know that my care-free attitude and irresponsible ways have kept you awake at night. (When will that girl get her life together? The suspense is killing meeee.) Well, you know, peace be unto you, friends, for I come bearing news that you might find mildly interesting!

I have decided to write a book.

I KNOW, right? Yea, but so there’s only this one teensy problem where I don’t have any ideas as to subject matter or genre or really anything, mostly because I don’t have any “expertise” or “knowledge” of any subject like at all. I pretty much know about shopping for sweaters and painting my nails. That’s like, maybe three chapters? So since I am self-centered and lazy, I was thinking my best shot might be to focus on amusing anecdotes about my awkward childhood and subsequent awkward adulthood, a timeline which was interrupted by an anomalous time in high school where I was cool and interacted with people (I wasn’t cool) (but I thought I was cool). I could turn my own experiences into lessons for today’s at-risk youth, or (more likely)  just a vague guide about how to hide your lifelong candy addiction from your boyfriend and your dentist (but not really your dentist. He knows). Isn’t this an exciting time where anything is possible?

So as it stands right now, I am going to write a book with no point or subject, ascribing no particular genre, with no tone of voice. Oh, and no overall message either. It’s going to be great and probably awkward, because that’s how I roll. I’d like to note that I will not be using the word awkward as much in my book as I have in this post.

But what better platform to sort out your ideas and thoughts and money-making schemes for best sellers than on your internet blog, right? I mean this thing is already chock full of gold, stories words, so in a way I’m already on the road to published authordom and I didn’t even know it. The truth of the matter is this: literally all of the blogs I read on the regular are in the process of writing their books. Sure, most of them are cartoons or food blogs, but that’s not the point. The point is that I want a book, and that I shouldn’t be hindered by the ever-growing list of things I can’t do. So expect a lot more really fucking awkward childhood stories, links to sweaters that I want to buy, pictures/videos/christmas cards of my cats, and other riveting tidbits about living life as a person like me. I’ll get the ball even rolling-er with a super interesting dream I had last night and told everyone about:

I dreamed that myself and what I assume was most of my graduating high school class were at a graduation party for ourselves, but as our current 25-year-old selves. I spent the entire dream earnestly thanking our senior class president for his years of service, and slow-shaking his hand.

That’s it.

I’d say we’re off to a rip-roarin’ start, wouldn’t you?

Also, Jesse, apparently I’d really like to thank you for years of dedicated service to our class.

An Experiment

I am a crazy cat person. We all know this. I mean it’s pretty hard to avoid when staring it in the cute furry face every day. (Let’s not overlook the fact that I also may have collected plastic cat figurines as a child. Like, thank you 10 year old self for making that life decision and never looking back.) However, my cat craziness ties in nicely with my a.) having a cat of my own and b.) sudden and urgent need to grow things from seeds and dirt.

Avery spending some quality time with his nemesis, the spray bottle.

What I’m trying to say is, I’m growing wheat grass for the cat. The box tells me that my cat will seriously love this grass, and then love me for growing it for him. It also says that it will “help with hairballs”, which is what piqued my interest in the first place because I’d rather not continue this game we play where he starts coughing and wheezing, and I’m like “Just get it out!” and he continues to wretch and I’m like “Seriously, you’ll feel better.” and then we stare at each other and he coughs for a little while longer before swallowing and going about his business because he doesn’t understand what I’m saying to him.  It’s frustrating for all involved. What the box doesn’t say, what I had to look up on Google just now to find out, is that it doesn’t help with the digestion of hairballs. Rather, wheat grass aids in the passing of hairballs. So basically I’m growing grass to help my cat throw up on all of my stuff more easily.

Whether I am truly OK with this remains to be seen, but I’ve become rather alarmingly attached to my little plot of seeds, so, by god, I will see this thing through. It’s sitting comfortably in a tiny plastic pot in the window sill right now, and I’d be lying if I said I don’t check on it multiple times a day. I was feeling pretty down about it yesterday morning when I checked on it and still nothing had sprouted (like, I mixed all of the ingredients together on Sunday night. Tick tock, wheatgrass). So imagine my rapture at coming home after work and discovering a single tiny sprout! I’ve never felt so fulfilled, so at peace with the universe. I know, I know, some hard lessons are ahead for me and my wheat grass, what with me growing it solely so my cat can eat it and then regurgitate it. Just let me have this moment.

We moved! Again! For real this time!

We have, in fact, moved into our own apartment. It’s tiny, and it reeks of paint. None of the doors shut all the way, and there is one (ONE!) drawer in the kitchen. It is entirely too small for the cat, who can’t tire himself out by running the 20 feet from one end to the other over and over and over again, try as he might. We have no furniture aside from the bed, and realized too late that we have no silverware (which is actually OK, because, you know, one drawer in the kitchen)! It’s really a magical time.

Last weekend, I drove away from the house on Rocky Road for what should be the last time, and I could actually hear my car begin to weep softly. As we got on to the highway, she started openly sobbing, great wracking sobs, at times breaking into fits of hysterical crazy-sounding laughter, followed by still more crying. She cried the entire way to Portland. It was embarrassing. When we got to the apartment, she pulled me aside and made me promise to never do that to her again. When I agreed she slapped me, hard, and said “PROMISE ME OR I SWEAR TO GOD–”, and I promised her, in earnest. As I walked away clutching my swollen cheek, I could hear her open that bottle of antifreeze I keep in the trunk and begin to drink…her faint giggling followed me all the way to the apartment door.

So yea, my car might have just a touch of PTSD? We didn’t get a moving truck this time around (my car is not the only one with PTSD), so we compensated by packing our cars before work a couple days, driving down, and unpacking either before or after work. When I think of how much stuff we were able to squeeze in to our tiny four-doors, my heart swells with pride. Like, I’m still not sure how exactly we/they did it? It’s entirely possible that some genius thief has been taking our stuff piece by piece for the last three months so that we wouldn’t notice a bunch of stuff missing, but I am OK with this. Like, yadda yadda, our apartment is small, prepare yourselves for a new running theme of this blog.

While unpacking (which we are still in the midst of. Deep, deep, way down in the midst), I found my glasses! Which, it turns out, I need desperately for driving my car! So as to aid in me not manslaughtering anyone! Yay for my improved vision.

unpacking is a joy when you have great helpers or cats who lay around purring at you and not doing anything!

Here is a low quality picture of me wearing my lame glasses with my awesome dress that my favorite seamstress Alison Von Dollen fixed for me! Those are horses! HORSES!

We Moved!

But most of you probably know that already. I mean, it happened like two weeks ago.

If I were good at blogging, I would have written an awesome update back when we actually moved. It would have included diagrams (they are necessary, I assure you) and pictures, and maybe even a couple videos, taken over the course of the day, documenting the entire process. I had big plans for this move, and most of those plans involved painstakingly documenting the day so that we could remember this momentus day in our lives for forever!

Some of these things happened. Pictures were taken…by other people, on their phones, at my request. I did take one video on my flip! When I upload it, you will get to see it in all of it’s glory. Boy is it glorious.

I think I know why I wasn’t able to do the things I originally intended to do, and this turned out to be one of the big lessons this whole experience taught me: Do not get completely wasted at your going away party the night before you move. You will have a terrible hangover the following day, and you have a lot of shit to accomplish! You will complain and whine the whole damn day! It’s a good thing I have such awesome hindsight and can synthesize my life experiences into helpful advice for the future. What would I do without myself?

So, the move. The day itself went relatively smoothly, even considering my and Eric’s uhhh conditions. With the help of Alison, Justis, and Joe (THANK YOU GUYS!), the 15 foot moving truck from Budget was packed and ready to go by about 3:00. We were on the road by 4:00, Eric in the truck and myself in my car, and arrived at my aunt’s house in Wiscasset ME by about 11:30. We went immediately to sleep, and planned to unpack everything in the morning.

Which we did, in about 2 hours! With the truck empty and everything inside the house, we took a moment to relax before Eric went to get the truck ready to go so we could return it to the Budget place in Brunswick. As I sat down to breath for a couple minutes, I literally and in all seriousness thought to myself “Wow, we’re all done. That went of pretty much without a hitch!” Nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to walk outside and see.

Okay, that was a little dramatic, but still: Eric was in the truck, which was backed halfway down the driveway and currently stuck in a snow drift. Some context for you: on the island where we are living, all of the roads and driveways are buried beneath probably four inches of packed snow. This truck is a rear wheel drive. There is nothing in the rear of the truck anymore. As we watched the wheels spin, stuck on absolutely nothing, Eric and I were, understandably, suicidal.

After about an hour of FLOORING the gas and making no progress, I ran next door to get some help, which came in the form of a large bag of salt. Eric and I were beside ourselves, literally pulling our hair out trying to thing of how to get the truck to the top of the driveway (which is relatively spacious and flat) so we could turn it around and get it out of our lives. We salted the absolute shit out of the rear wheels, and finally, FINALLY it crawled to the top of the driveway. We were saved!

After jumping around, elated by our success, we discussed the complicated process of turning the truck around. We mapped it out, carefully planning to maneuver around the garage and the trees. One lengthy discussion later, Eric got back in the truck and readied himself for the task at hand. The truck inched forward unimpeded, as planned, until….

The wheels started spinning again.

On flat ground.

The truck was not moving. At all. ON FLAT GROUND.

FFFFFUFUUUUUUUUUUU*&@^#*&@%#@%#^@%#&*@#&#^

This is the most intense rage guy I could find, and he doesn’t even come close to illustrating how we felt at that moment. I nearly ripped my own face off, and died, and then threw up.

Our confidence shattered, we took this time to remove ourselves from the situation and go get something to eat. Discuss our options. Get our ulcers looked at. After discussing a litany of options, (including re packing the truck. I…I can’t even….) it all boiled down to one: We had to get that fucking truck out, and if we couldn’t we would push it over the hill and into the ocean. And then go to Canada. I resolved to completely repave the driveway with salt, sand, kitty litter, actual pavement, my own blood, ANYTHING to get the truck out.

We dumped two entire bags of salt on the driveway. We prayed to Thor himself. We prepared to kiss our asses goodbye.

But the truck moved. Slowly, painfully, and with absolutely zero confidence that the truck would continue to move, we turned the truck around. We nearly got it wedged hopelessly between the garage and a tree, but that was avoided. FINALLY the truck was facing the right way. Holding back tears and possibly vomit, we jumped in our vehicles and returned the truck to Budget in Brunswick.

We would go on to spend the next two days driving home in a blizzard, going 10 miles per hour throughout the entire state of Massachusetts, destroying my windshield wipers on the ice we were being pelted with in Connecticut. It was all very dramatic and trying. It was the most stressful two days of our lives.

But getting that truck to turn around was without question the hardest thing I have ever, and possibly WILL ever have to do.

Exhaustion.

We did it! Oh and, FUCK YOU, TRUCK.

I Really Know My History

I have a borderline inappropriate love for American history. It’s not so much a sexual love as it is a special affinity that drives me to force my feelings/knowledge about history upon unsuspecting people who may or may not be at all interested in the 13 colonies or Tippecanoe…and Tyler too.

Like the time Stacy, Angela, and I had a Thanksgiving party at our apartment in New Brunswick. What started out as a “Pimpin’ Pilgrims and Naughty Natives” party evolved over time into “A Historically Accurate Joint Celebration of the Birth of Our Nation, and the People Whose Land We Stole to Form It”.

Check out that construction paper pilgrims hat! First grade revisited!

During a particularly productive party planning session, we decided that in addition to the costumes our guests were mandated to wear, we would provide construction paper hats for both pilgrims and natives. The mere idea of these hats was enough to send us headfirst into our own vivid childhood reveries.

Needless to say, things quickly spiraled out of control from there.

Since we would be handing these hats out at the door, the next logical step was to print out a copy of the Mayflower Compact and have everyone sign it as they entered. -No, the passengers of the Mayflower didn’t actually sign the compact, but we had a party to plan and an icebreaker this good was impossible to pass up.-

Then we figured we should also definitely have a sign on the door that designates the apartment as “The Mayflower”, and one in the backyard that says “Plymouth Rock”, just so everyone knows where, exactly, they are.

For even more fun, after everyone takes a construction paper hat and signs the Mayflower Compact, we should have guests “pick their fate” out of a hat to see if they survive until the first Thanksgiving. Because that’s a fun thing for people to do at a party! For maximum accuracy, fifty percent of the possible fates would involve perishing in some way.

“You caught scurvy on the voyage over and died.”

“You had insufficient shelter during the winter and died”

“You froze to death and died”

“You made it to the harvest! Happy Thanksgiving.”

We may have gotten really carried away when we began toying with the idea of passing around smallpox “infected” blankets, which would really just be blankets filled with white confetti to symbolize “the pox”. Whoever received the blanket got smallpox, died, and then also had to drink. Just like the Native Americans.

The brink of complete insanity came when we considered having a ceremonial planting of the first crop of maiz. As in, we would have a Squanto-like figure walk silently from one end of the party to the other and then out to the backyard with a single lit candle. Guests would follow and we would have a moment of remembrance for those who made the first harvest possible.

In the end only about half of these ideas actually came to fruition, which is probably why Stacy and I still had friends after the party was over.

Did I mention how we covered all of our walls with brown paper bags to simulate the inside of a tee-pee and provided crayons AND FINGERPAINT for our guests to decorate as they saw fit? Because that happened.

The party itself went over extremely well. Whether or not that had anything to do with the historical details we so lovingly cultivated, we’ll never know for sure, but I like to believe it did. I mean, in one party we encompassed the entire true history of the first Thanksgiving, paid homage to the suffering of the Native Americans,  and brought it all back to the celebration of our own American heritage by getting totally wasted.

And that’s pretty much the American Dream.

Redbull Gives You Wings and an Erratic Heartbeat

It'll make you strong! Or die!

I do declare, today was Redbull Thursday.

What is Redbull Thursday you ask?

Thank you for asking so politely! I’ll tell you. Redbull Thursday is an arbitrary holiday instituted a few weeks ago by a handful of wayward coworkers and myself to aid in the illusion that we have something to look forward to every week. Each Thursday, one member of the group is responsible for buying all of the other members a single 12 oz. can of Redbull. We are then free to drink it at our leisure, though it is generally accepted that we should drink it before it gets to be too late, or else we’ll never get to sleep. It is the second in a short line of “special days” that I am personally involved with, the first being Pizza Thursday (can you guess what we do on Pizza Thursday?!).

It’s a curious thing, because I’ve recently become convinced that no one involved in Redbull Thursday actually enjoys Redbull Thursday. Some don’t like the crash they experience after the initial caffeine buzz, others report an increase in the frequency and intensity of suicidal urges*,  and pretty much all of us don’t like the taste of Redbull. I do it because I desperately need inane things to look forward to during my work week, and because I like being part of a group! Like when people are all “why are you drinking a Redbull at 5:00 in the evening?”, I can be all “It’s Redbull Thursday and I have to do it to fit in!”

Today was even more exciting than usual, because I had my Redbull approximately as soon as I finished my pumpkin coffee from Dunkin Donuts. Boy, was I ever energized! I used my increased productivity to online shop for Christmas gifts, and my enhanced efficiency do it all at one store that only I really like to shop at. I don’t think I blinked for two whole hours! Then I got sleepy and realized that most of the awesome gifts I picked out were only awesome because they were really for me and not anyone else. I closed out of the browser and went back to work?

It’s hard keeping up with all of the fake holidays I am involved in.

*this statistic may or may not be completely fabricated.

This is what happens when you clean out your downloads folder.

Two Pig-monkey, One Pig-Monkey.

GET IT?!?

No??

Well, it’s two pig-monkey one pig-monkey. Does everyone remember in July 2008 when this happened?

Buzzfeed: Piglet Born With Monkey Face

I mean, it’s awful to even think about laughing at this poor thing. It’s horribly disfigured, and I do feel terrible for it. But sometimes you need to laugh to keep from crying, right? So… I actually thought that it was the funniest thing I’d ever seen.

As soon as I could, I infected my friends with my knowledge of pig-monkey…I wanted to know how others felt about it’s existence. After discussing the matter throughout the day at work, this was the email exchange between my friend Ben friend and myself.

Drawing by Ben

Hopefully Ben will be able to forgive me for showing this to the world…

To which I responded:

Improvements made by me.

Hopefully I will eventually forgive myself for posting this.

Because it’s certainly not worse than this, which is what I created next: (to clarify, this was around the time that 2 girls 1 cup had been unleashed unto the world…if that clarifies anything at all, as this has little at all to do with 2 girls 1 cup.)

I can't believe I made this!

Enter 2 Pig-monkey, 1 Pig-monkey. Needless to say, this only intensified my obsession with pig-monkey. I even found this snippet of a real conversation we had, months later!

Me: i miss two pigmonkey one pigmonkey

Ben: yeah….

Me: i’m looking wistfully into the sky

wondering where he is right now….

I literally don’t think I stopped talking about pig-monkey for that entire summer. In retrospect, I’m kind of scared that this whole personal episode even happened, even though I did just write an entire post about it. Probably not more scared than you are, however.

You might be asking yourselves, what the hell just happened? It’s OK. You’ve had a long day, and there is little hope that you will ever understand what you just saw here. I barely do, and I was there.

Stress Inducers

Sometimes I think there is just nothing prettier in this world than a strawberry.

And other times, I think there is no worse experience than getting lost 15 minutes away from your own damn hometown.

Over the weekend, I had my very own mind-fuckingly frustrating driving experience. Apparently, navigating ones way to the dog park from Boonton is a vastly different experience than driving from Rockaway. Needless to say, my Google Maps directions failed me and I ended up in Harding Township at the mercy of my shitty ass Verizon Navigator GPS directions. Sure, it eventually got me back on the right route, but not before telling me to do five U-turns on the road (it turned out) my destination was on and THEN just flat out refusing to calculate the directions at all.  My relationship with my phone has thusly taken a drastic turn for the worse.

Ohhh and my iPod broke en route. It was truly a joyous car ride! The day (Sunday) was eventually salvaged by manicures, coffee, Veggie Heaven, and ice-cream. My stress and cranky levels decreased to manageable levels which saved my laptop from getting thrown against the car window along with its electronic brethren, who shall remain nameless. Because they’re naughty.

Today was a typically uneventful Monday, during the course of which I:

Ate strawberry shortcake.

Wore my underwear inside out for the entire day without noticing.

Watched a PBS show about the Donner party. (You’ll be shocked to hear this, but it was damn depressing.)

Gave my diabetic cat his shot of insulin for the first time!

So, not so uneventful after all. Look at all those events!

Ode To Autumn

Ahh autumn. What is it about you that makes this heart of mine shiver with the timid excitement of a leaf just about to fall? Is it the warm array of colors that you bring to the New Jersey vista every year? Is it your insistence that I eat only things of apple/pumpkin origin? Is it the fact that it is you who ushers in the holiday season, giving me an excuse to fill my belly to its hilt and spend money with reckless abandon? Or is it that you provided the inspiration for this photo featuring THREE TEACUP PIGLETS STUFFED INTO A JACK-O-LANTERN??

Who are all clearly squeeing in utter DELIGHT?! Don’t even get me started on that roughly-hewn, smiley faced jack-o-lantern. It’s almost too much for my heart to take.

To put it plainly, autumn, I love you. I love the faint smell of burning leaves that you diffuse into the atmosphere. I love the redness that you bring to peoples’ cheeks and noses. I love the feeling of going back to school, without actually having to go back to school. I love going to multiple farms within the span of one day to pick pumpkins, buy apples, smell freshly baked pies and eat freshly fried apple cider donuts*. I love that your presence seems to make the entire east coast hunker down and start preparing for winter. You make me feel inexplicably colonial at times, and hey! I love that too. If I could, I would start salting various meats and hang in the smoke house out back so we could have food to eat in the winter months. Alas, in the absence of a smoke house, I’ll have to settle for caramel apples and pumpkin bread.

Oh autumn, you are truly my favorite time of year.

*I could eat those things until I went into hibernation, ie. diabetic coma ie. heart attack.

Nice month for some…white weddings.

Maybe this is a side effect of attending three weddings in the span of three weeks*, but I just caught myself perusing the facebook album of the wedding of a couple complete strangers. Am I going through some sort of withdrawal? I mean, just because you DVR every episode of “Say Yes To The Dress” doesn’t mean you have a problem.

I never understood why certain women “always cry at weddings”, but as recently as this past month I’ve become more invested in getting to the bottom of it, since I have become one of these women. Yes, I get misty eyed when the bride walks down the aisle and the groom sees her for the first time. I get choked up when the minister explains the virtues of love and lifelong commitment. And god help me (and the person standing next to me) when the vows are recited.

So…is it because I’m in my 20′s and out of college? Traditionally speaking, I suppose marriage is the next life event on the to do list for ladies my age (along with getting a job that doesn’t pay in crackers, health benefits, a place to live…yadda yadda, but those things don’t require a day of gown wearing, so they are undeniably less crucial). Maybe the tears start flowing because we know (or hope) that we will be walking down the aisle someday ourselves.

Is it the dress? THE DRESS! I have not been planning my dream wedding since I was 10 years old, what with being too busy willing my boobs to grow (still a work in progress) and collecting cat figurines, but I will say that I have had many MANY ivory-hued thoughts about the dress. Because the dress sets the tone for the entire day, no? It’s not the venue, or the lighting, or the food; it’s all about the dress. There really never will be another time in your life where all of the attention for a whole day will be focused solely on the happiness of you and yours (except maybe the birth of your children, but does that involve wearing a pretty dress? No.), which gives you license to look as chic, glamorous, elegant, and funky as you could possibly dream. And that sounds reeeaaall good to me.

Truly, I suppose it all gets brought back to the genuine purpose of the event in the first place. I am speaking, obviously, about the ring. Kidding! It’s love, people. I think that’s why we cry at weddings. We cry (well, as far as I can tell it’s why I cry) because two people are dedicating themselves to one another for life, and are promising to deal with their collective shit together because they love each other so, so much. That’s heavy, and also awesome. So if I get a little caught up in the deeper meaning, well that’s my prerogative isn’t it!

Weddings are celebrations of love love love, and I’m so happy my friends and family have made so much celebrating necessary. Everyone wants to believe in true love, and I’ve found that a wedding is the most appropriate occasion to remove one’s cynical veneer.

*Congratulations to the new Mr.s’ and Mrs.’s Granas, Galligans, and Tuckers!