I thought that I’d miss you
once you’d inevitably leave
but here I am
and there you’ve gone
and I don’t miss you
not one bit
I’ve stopped crying over ghosts.
–“Untitled”, 03/24/2018
Category Archives: Random
Season Four, Episode Eleven: Late Night Wisdom
Sometimes you find amazing quotes in the oddest places:
(Courtesy of Shit My Dad Says by Justin Halpern)
Season Four, Episode Nine: Popping My Hipster Concert Cherry (A Review of Sorts)
So last Tuesday night I went to the Matt and Kim concert at the House of Blues with one of my friends. Prior to stepping foot in the venue, I had heard of them a few times and listened to some of their music for literally the very first time on their Pandora station while I got ready for the show. I decided to go in with an open mind, because I love music and will give anything a listen at least once.
So. Many. Hipsters.
I can feel their sardonic judgement.
AND BEARDS. HIPSTER BEARDS ABOUNDED.
A hipster beard AND Pabst Blue Ribbon. It’s too much for one image.
LOOK AWAY.
Without Portlandia, I would have never discovered the fabulous feminist bookstore ladies.
So here y’all go. Matt and Kim, AS IT HAPPENED (four days later):
I hate tall people.
(I am 5’1″ and all short people will understand the hatred that is getting stuck behind anyone who is more than three inches taller than you at a standing room only concert.)
No matter how much you stand on your tiptoes, you can never really quite completely see.
I’m going with all the white people around me because I feel like I can dance.
Sometimes.
Someone control the bros. They’re getting out of control.
(Shortly after this, a drunken bro was escorted out of the venue for turning up too hard.)
I am the calmest person at this concert.
I don’t know how to dance to hipster music.
Like, is bouncing my leg and nodding my head appropriate?
I feel like it is.
That’s what I’m going with.
Oh hey…they’re covering “Ignition (Remix)”. I love that song.
That man across the room is wearing the shortest, tightest jorts I have ever seen on a man.
You cannot deny his obvious dedication to a strict squat and lunge exercise routine.
I will not jump, Matt and Kim. I’m in a room of uncoordinated young white professionals.
I am uncoordinated and the people around me are most likely uncoordinated and full of overpriced Downtown Cleveland beer, so…I’m just going to bob my head to the beat and look interested, okay? But you totally do your thing and stand on your drum. You got this for the both of us.
Seems legit.
This band is pretty great. I would be friends with these guys.
You guys can be my quirky musician friends who are the constant life of the party and get too loud when they drink.
Because nothing says shit is getting all kinds of real quite like the crazy smoke from a smoke machine.
Oh shit…I can dance to hip hop. And dance briefly to the blip of music I shall.
The guy in front of me smells like Beefaroni and stale PBR.
I could only get a shot of the back of his head, but I think that’s all I really needed for you to get the idea. Perhaps he had stored some Beefaroni in his beard for later. He might really love Chef Boyardee. I don’t know. Also, I would totally be friends with the unimpressed concert bouncer security guy. (And look, Jorts Guy makes a repeat surprise cameo!)
Blue eyeshadow just is not flattering on ANYONE. I don’t care who you are.
Wait wait wait wait…she’s gonna dance on their hands?
Holy shit…she’s dancing on their hands.
Okay…I am downloading their albums from iTunes when I get home.
(Here is an actual music video of Matt and Kim performing “Hey Now”.)
Season Four, Episode Eight: 14/29 Struggles
So I am still talking to said guy, who still does not have a nom de plume. I really need to give him one. The fact that I am talking to him still is actually kind of a miracle–not a walking-on-water-in-the-middle-of-a-crazy-storm kind of miracle, but more like a I-ate-like-crap-all-week-and-ran-once-and-somehow-didn’t-gain-weight kind of miracle–simply because I am not good at this. At what, you may ask? Talking? Well…no. I am rather good at talking. I am not good at talking to guys that I like. Or know how to successfully flirt. Or nab a guy…see how I used the word nab? I make it sound like I am a police officer who successfully caught a bank robber. I should twirl my mustache too, while I’m at it.
*twirls mustache*
When I’m not busy nabbing guys, I like to tie young maidens to train tracks. I’m very early 20th century mustache twirler.
But anyway, I am still talking to him. He is still pretty damn hot and funny and delish…and I haven’t done anything too crazy to make him think maybe he shouldn’t continue to talk to me. So…miracle. I actually think that he finds me hilarious, which is a win. When in doubt, let my sense of humor cancel out my awkwardness like FOX cancelled American Idol (too soon?). I’ve gotten pretty close a few times to doing something completely batshit but I somehow talked myself out of it. Google is a life saver. My search engine is full of random keywords that make me sound like a fourteen year old girl. Who knew that there were so many articles out there in the Interwebs dedicated to making loons like me feel less cray?
Because there is a lot of stuff on the Interwebs to make me feel less cray.
This girl is apparently stressed because she has multiple texts/crucial conversations/potential drug deals all going on at once?
14 Year Old Me is obviously Angelina because bad bangs and Sun-In.
Let’s be completely honest…your hair never once actually looked like this.
Season Four, Episode Six: We Are Young
“Tonight, we are young / So let’s set the world on fire / We can burn brighter than the sun.”
Season Four, Episode Five: Sweet Bug
“…and she loved a little boy very, very much–even more than she loved herself.”
-From The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
(Photo courtesy of Brittany Gidley Photography, Cleveland, OH
Copyrighted by Brittany Gidley Photography, 2015)
Season Four, Episode Four: Wintered Out
I am so over this winter.
Like, completely. And I’m sure that everyone in the northern United States can agree.
February, I hate you.
Although I hated January almost just as much.
I spent about 75% of my vacation last week in my house because the wind chill was below zero. The actual temperature hovered around zero and dipped into the negatives this past weekend. My off days this week are beginning to look the same. I had been doing pretty well before this cold snap, going to the gym and watching what I was eating (we are having a weight loss thing at work) and I had dropped about two pounds before last week. Ever since last Sunday, all I have done is eat and sit on my butt and watch Netflix. I’m sure I could work out at home and eat right but ughhhhh. I don’t wanna. I’m miserable and I have cabin fever and I just want to sit and eat paczki wrapped in blankets while binge watching BBC dramas (The Fall was amazing, and I binged all four episodes of the first season of A Young Doctor’s Notebook tonight). I’m pretty sure that is what one does when they are sick and tired of being stuck in the house. This arctic snap of hellishness is making me feel like a depressed sleepy bear.
Sometimes I don’t even realize how many hours I’ve wasted watching snarky British shows on Netflix. Hours I cannot get back.
My son is beyond bored. He wants to go outside and play on the snow days he keeps getting, but you can’t really play outside when the wind chill makes it feel like it is -15. You have to bundle up just to take out the trash. I let the mail sit in the mailbox for like three days before I left the warm confines of my living room. My Ikea couch and my legs have become one. My son has exhausted his usual queue of cartoons and Minecraft YouTube mod videos. If it is hard on a 29 year old grown woman, I can’t imagine how unbearable it must be for a ten year old boy. He is frustrated. The coldest day this month so far was his birthday, and since we don’t drive, we had to stay inside rather than go to the science museum like we planned. It’s not worth potentially getting frostbite while getting from Point A to Point B on public transportation when it is 0 degrees with a -17 wind chill. I’m sure people in NYC and Boston can certainly relate. Sometimes I wish I lived in a city where it wasn’t odd to not own a car (but I suppose that will be another post for another time), because then I think others would understand the winter struggle a little more.
My son’s sad snowy self-portrait that he drew while we were waiting an hour for our fifty minute late bus on Saturday. It was 12 degrees with a -8 wind chill. When I got home my lips were still tinged blue. It’s hard for me to empathize with people’s “ohmigod I was so cold sitting in my car waiting for it to warm up” struggles.
I know March is coming and that spring is allegedly just around the bend, but let’s be brutally honest here: I live in Northeast Ohio. Lake Erie is like 94% frozen over. I can expect to wear a winter coat until probably mid-April. I just want it to warm up and be sunny and green and pretty.
So I can start bitching about pollen and my allergies.
Season Four, Episode Three: White Zinfandel
I get drunk alone
Sometimes.
And I have empty, meaningless sex
With a boy that I may or may not like
But I’ll never admit to it
[He makes me smile but he’s toxic and all wrong in all the right (but oh so wrong) ways]
Never
Sometimes.
I write drunk poetry
And I drunk text my closest friends
And tag them in random memes
On Instagram
Hashtagging random ass shit
Sometimes.
I drink entire bottles of wine
To chase away PMS-induced migraines
And sit on the cold wooden floor
Of my dining room
Sometimes.
And I sing sad songs
At the top of my lungs
Because I’ve had my heart broken
By men I’ve truly loved
Sometimes.
I am beautiful
And I am a mess
Because I am a hurricane of a girl
But my life is amazing
And it’s too damn short for regrets
Always.
–“White Zinfandel”
Season Four, Episode Two: Memory Lane
My high school reunion is on Friday. Like…this Friday. I still can’t believe I’ve been out of high school for ten years–it’s mind boggling. I certainly don’t feel like it’s been ten years.
Well…that’s a lie. High school feels like a lifetime and a half ago.
I’m sure that everyone feels that way when they are in their late twenties. My glory days weren’t in high school–I’m not really sure what their start date actually will be, but I am trying to make the steps to ensure that they do happen. I feel sorry for the people who shone brilliantly in high school, like a comet that streaked through the sky, only to have never reached that level of brilliance ever again after senior year.
I was not that person.
(I was the girl who had a kid at 19, the girl who grew up infinitely faster than all my friends who beer ponged and keg standed the rest of their teenage years away. I have no regrets though, and even if I did, those days have long since passed. I’m probably much more awesome now than I was as a snarky, bitchy, witty teenager.)
I graduated in 2004.
2004.
Jude Law was named Sexiest Man Alive by People, Britney Spears wasn’t crazy yet, my jeans were low rise and were slightly flared instead of skinny. We were all watching the last season of Friends and everyone was shakin’ it like a Polaroid picture to “Hey Ya!” by Outkast. I attended Saint Joseph Academy, the only all-girl Catholic high school in the city. I spent my days in green and blue plaid skirts and white polos. It was a simpler time. Only a few of my friends had cell phones, and they were clunky and awkward looking compared to today’s smartphones–I remember they were only allowed to use them during the day for emergencies(eww minutes!), and we could call if we wanted after 7 pm, when it was unlimited free talk. No one texted at the level we do now. If you wanted to listen to music you used a Sony DiscMan, not an iPod. Those weren’t around yet!
I can’t believe I was 18 ten years ago.
I mean, I still pretty much look the same, but…man. Ten years!
I suppose high school reunions aren’t the same for my generation like they were for my mom and dad. Thanks to Facebook we can creep our fellow former classmates on the daily. We see posts of the stuff they have accomplished, pictures of their kids, updates about their lives–we don’t have to wait ten years to find out the dirt on everyone.
It should still be fun though :).
Season Three, Episode Eight: Summer Hiatus
So I’ve been away for months.
I have no excuses. None. I suck.
–BUT–
I have been busy living life with my friends, enjoying time with my sick dad, and being a mom. Enjoying all that summer has to offer and carpe-ing the diem.
I’ll share some pics.
And I broke my laptop charger last night. I’ll update you all once the new one arrives via Amazon 😘
And a brief description of each photo:
1. Mommy/Son Time at the beach.
2. Playing in Lake Erie.
3. A bunch of pretty motherfuckers.
4. The Voice auditions (I didn’t make it through…their loss, not mine!)
5. Out with my boys!
Chasing Lala 