I know, I know… it’s been a kazillion bajillion years since the last time I uploaded this ole’ blog. For a while there, life got so busy that I completely forgot about it. Then one day I googled myself to try to find an article I had published once upon a time… and my blog was gone. I’m not gonna lie. It freaked me out a bit. I may not have the time to come here very often anymore, but I spent way too much time sharing my deepest darkest thoughts on this site to just let it fade away. Plus I have a horrible memory and I like to have a timeline for this particular time in my life.

And thus, I’ve decided to make yet another effort to keep this site going. I’m sure I’ve long been erased from every rss feed… I’m not sure people even use rss feeds anymore. The internet seems to have changed so much in the last year. WordPress is foreign to me. I had to search through years of emails just to find my password. Words are even different. I no longer understand internet speak. The people of the internet seem to have forgotten how to spell simple words… either that, or I may have gotten old.

One things for sure. 2011 has been the craziest year of my life.

When it started I was in an extremely dark place.  I’ve always considered myself a pretty happy person. Sure, I’m emotional as hell… but I had never before  really felt depression. Long story short, I spent the better part of 6 months working on how to get a grip on my life through various forms of therapy, meditation and yoga. I had fallen back into disordered eating, had anxiety about the things I used to love, and for a while I was convinced I had lost my fire.

Then I lost my job and had to get out of town for the weekend. I took a free improv workshop at the Institution theater here  in Austin, and decided not to leave. I signed up for classes, found a part time job, and found a couple of roommates on Craigslist. That was in May. I still haven’t made it back to Dallas.

I miss my friends. A lot. But to be honest, there is a part of me that doesn’t want to look back, at least not yet. It scares me to think about where I was 6 months ago. I know I’ve grown a lot this last year, and there is no way I’ll fall again that deep… but it still scares me. Plus I’m busy as hell here and I love it.

The last few months have been amazing. I’ve met so many wonderful people in this city and I thank all of you for your encouragement. People are good. I look around and I can’t believe how lucky I am to have so many inspirational people in my life. I could have never adjusted so quickly in a new city if it weren’t for my sister, the Austin Improv Community, and the kind listeners who have reached out to me.

And that being said, I owe a long over due thank you to over a hundred of you friends and readers who wrote  recommendation letters to help me land my dream job. I fully intended to write each of you to thank you, but time got away from me and for that, I apologize. Your letters and made me laugh and cry. I still can’t believe how many of you came through for me.

Moreover, I owe this new found happiness to those of you who supported me through my tough times. I know I haven’t been the best at staying in touch, but there are A LOT of you in the blogging community and old friends who put up with a lot of complaining, venting, and whining from me over the last year. You lifted me up and encouraged me to go for my dreams. I appreciate you. And I’m glad to be back in the living. I LOVE YOU!!!

Annnnd now you have a Backstreet Boys song in your head. Win for me.

The last week has been so crazy I don’t know my ass from my mouth. No wait. That’s a little weird. But it’s true. I may have lost my mind a little. You might say it’s somewhere up my ass.

It’s not like I’m literally shoving cinnamon toast up my butt or scratching my mouth or anything, but I honestly haven’t had a second to get a grip on what’s going on in my life. My phone was dead for three days straight and I have spent as much time on twitter and facebook as I have watching trashy reality shows on MTV, which is not at all.

It all really started going high speed last Thursday night. I had to work on Friday night, so Thursday evening I turned on my reserve used only in emergencies energy mode. The movers (my parents) were supposed to arrive at my house at 8am on Saturday so I had to have everything ready and packed.

In the past, I’ve always treated a move like a getaway. I usually spend about an hour running around stuffing things into black trash bags with absolutely no organization tactics. Sheets and shoes and roller clips and the random dirty pair of underwear would be smooshed together with a package of incense and a game of monopoly. Which, really isn’t a bad way to go as long as you never have to unpack.

This time though, I really wanted to do things differently. I’m tired of living a life of clutter. I’m sick of never knowing where anything is. I hate that I only wear 10 out of my 200 t-shirts.

And so I did.

It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t fun- but it’s something that I’ve been needing to do for the last 8 years.

I literally cleaned out my life.

And it feeelllllllsssss good.

I went through every item of clothing, every shoe, every ratty pair of underwear- and I threw everything out that was old or didn’t fit, or that I hadn’t worn in ages. I threw out the 3 year old box of chocolates from a Valentines Day past. I tossed the napkins that my ex-deaf boyfriend and I had used to communicate on on our first date many years ago. I let go of the scratched mixed- cds that I kept hoping science would come up with a cure for. I gave up my old vintage purses that I haven’t used in years. I found notes and cards that were stashed away in the bottom of my drawers and in between the pages of my favorite books- I gave them one last read- and I tossed them (most of them).

I realized I had been holding on to so much that I didn’t need. I’ve always been bad at letting go; but it was time. Most of the stuff I threw out was trash, but a lot of it were things that I was holding onto for sentimental reasons. It’s not that I want so many THINGS in my life, but I think I’m just an emotional hoarder.  I don’t ever like things to really be over. I hate saying goodbye. Even when something is finito- I don’t want to lose the proof that it happened.

But you know what I’ve realized the last few days? Every time I picked up an item that I’ve kept to remind me of something- I either already clearly remembered the moment, or it was something that I would have rather not remembered. Things come and go for a reason. The important memories stick with us even if we don’t have a t-shirt to commemorate the event. I don’t need to keep a ticket stub to every movie I’ve ever gone to. I’ll remember the good ones, and I’ll push the bad ones from my mind without even meaning to. I don’t need a letter to remind me of a relationship that I don’t even want to remember. I don’t need to save every shirt I’ve ever loved. I got to say a happy and healthy goodbye to all the things in my life that once were so important, and now I feel better.

And even more, for the first time in ten years I can shut my dresser without having to put my entire body weight into it. I can open a drawer without having to sit in it first to push it’s contents down. I can open a box without seeing every broken relationship staring me in the face. I finally feel that I can truly take the next step in my life.

As usual, I broke into an audible cry as I drove away from my old house. Even though we were only there for 8 months, we had a lot of good times there. But as I unpacked, I started feeling better and better about the things that are to come. I’m excited about starting my new, clean life. I’m ready to start collecting new memories. I’m happy.

Life- I hope your wearing a sturdy cup- cause I’m ready to grab you by the balls.

The truth is, things haven’t been all gloom and doom around here. It’s not like I’m sitting around in last week’s underwear listening to the Smiths on repeat while downing hot chocolate after hot chocolate. Not at all. Nope. I did laundry last weekend, am currently listening to the new Girl Talk album, and I  haven’t had a sip of hot chocolate in over 3 hours Yay me!

In other news I’m been geeking out in a major way the last few weeks. I haven’t spent a lot of time on the internets, but I have been spending a lot of time indulging in other things that make me oh so happy.

For instance, this weekend I was lucky enough to have some great girls join me on a wonderful musical adventure. I wasn’t sure it would be possible to have a night compare to the last time I went to see Joshua Radin, but -despite not making out with his drummer this time around (he had a new one who made weird sex faces when he played) it was pretty much the best night I’d had in a while.

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Per usual, Mr. Radin’s angel voice nearly made me faint.  I know I  wasn’t the only one by the way the crowd simultaneously sighed everytime he belted out a note. His new album is a little more rock-ish than I’m used to, but I actually dig it A LOT.

The real surprise of the night was his opener, Kelley James. I probably wouldn’t have been a huge fan of his music had I not seen him live but on top of having a knack for writing clever pop-culture related songs, the dude can really pump out some quality free-style- which is pretty much my favorite thing in the world. Seriously. I believe he shares a manager with Lil Jon, which basically makes us rapper cousins.

Well not really, but I did once challenge Lil Jon to a rap off at a nice Dallas eatery. After a few cocktails, I just couldn’t help myself. It didn’t actually happen… I’m pretty sure he thought I was joking, but I’m pretty sure I could have at least battled it out for 20 or 30 seconds before he Oh Yeahhhhed me outta tha’ place.

Here is Kelley James. I think we can all relate to this song a little. In fact, while he was doing the intro, my friends and I (all avid twitter and googlers) were ironically in the audience google stalking and tweeting at him like there was no tomorrow. Enjoy.

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In other non-related news, something huge has happened with my mouth.

You may recall the long time love affair that I’ve always had with ketchup? Well I’ve decided to have a serendipitous affair. With ketchup’s father.

Yeah I know, it seems a little bit gross. I always thought tomatoes were nasticular myself. I’ve spent hours upon hours of my life picking every single ketchup morsel out of pre-made salads. I’ve tossed many a tomato out the window after Wendy’s soggied up spicy chicken sandwich by ignoring my “hold the tomatoes” request. I’ve even grossed quite a few people out by spitting bites of chewed up tomato bits into my napkin.

Not only that, but I’ve always had a bit of an issue with the word “tomato.” I can never remember how it’s spelled. I always want to put an “e” on the end, making it “tomatoe.” Is that how the British people do it? Is that correct in some language? I don’t know. I do know that I also have gotten annoyed the way people say “tomato, tomahto,” and even more when people from my home state of Texas say tomater. Which is weird because I’m perfectly fine when people say potater. I don’t know, but I think it’s just because I always hated the food so much.

But now I say, “What the heck was I thinking?” Tomatoes are delicious, delicious I tell you! How did I go so long without them on my sandwiches, in my salads, plain with some pepper on top!???

I’m sorry ketchup, but you may not be as tasty as your father. I’m still up for a threesome though if you’d like.

Yummy tomato, get in my mouth!

Since November is apparently the month of ambition and rash decisions, I’ve decided to add another one to my plate.
Yesterday I mentioned the phenomenon of NABLOPOMO, and laughed at the concept of trying to participate. Well since publishing my last blog, ( which by the way was actually published on November 1st but I can’t figure out how to set the military style time on WordPress so it always publishes to the day before,) I’ve decided that I will, in fact participate.
I can’t promise that I’ll write anything worth reading, or that the words will even be readable, or even in English for that matter- but I can promise that I am going to try my absolute damndest to write a little something every day in November. At first I was going to try to write on my other blog, but I’m not sure I’m up to facing that subject matter just yet. Right now I’m focused on trying to clear my mind and move on in life. So bear with me.

Also, since my blogs have been a little down in the dumpsters lately, I’m going to attempt to lighten up.

So… here I am. Ready to start. On day two of blogging about happy things every day for 30 days.

Hmmm..

Oh… well before I get started on happy things, I guess I should start with saying a few things about my dog BB Jellybean, who died last Friday.

BB Jellybean, You will be missed.

We got BB when I was in the 9th grade. My little sister decided that she wanted a toy poodle, so that’s what we got. BB didn’t often look like a poodle though. We loved the hell out of that puppy, but my parent’s always preferred the afro-look to the well groomed poodle look. I wince to think that I got my own personal grooming habits from my parent’s dog-grooming habits.

BB was never the typical pet. She didn’t like to go on walks. She didn’t like to chase after balls. She hated water, and she preferred to sleep on a purple velvet pillow. BB went everywhere with us, and she went there in our arms. She was never happier than when she was perched in my little sister’s lap. She belonged to all of us, but she was really my sister’s best friend. I remember when my sister was in the 5th grade and her best friend moved away, that she spent an entire day cuddled up with our little BB – stating over and over that BB was her best friend.

I feel awful that I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. The last time I went home, which was only a few weeks ago, BB wasn’t doing well but I didn’t think she would be going just yet. She lost her eyesight a few months back, and I noticed that her hearing must have been going too, because she didn’t greet me at the door when I arrived. I let her sleep in my bed that night, and when I woke up she had left me a couple little presents, but I really didn’t mind. I just chalked it up to her not wanting to wake me up to let her out. BB was always really respectful like that.

About two weeks ago BB quit eating. She would barely even touch the scrambled eggs, cheese and ice cream sandwiches that my parent’s attempted to feed her by hand. The doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with her, but said that it was probably something digestive. They gave her some antibiotics, but she still wouldn’t eat.

I have been so busy the last few weeks, that I hadn’t really been able to digest BB’s passing until tonight. I’m not sure what I believe about the human after life, but I’m 1 thousand-million percent sure that BB is in a happy place now. She’s eating popcorn and fish- crackers and she’s listening to the Little Mermaid with my late parrot Billy and my rat Bogart.

As much as “Pet Cemetary” scares the bejeezus out of me, I’m pretty sure that I would reserruct BB if I had the chance. Zombie BB might be a little bit evil, but I loved her that much.  

I miss you BB, wherever you are!

When I was a kid, those were my 3 favorite words in the world… but the rest of the sentence was really what was important. Whatever came out of my mouth following “Let’s pretend that…” would become my universe for the next three hours.

“Lets pretend that we’re mermaids. My mermaid name is Christina, what’s yours?… OK you’re Cynthia. Behind the barstools , that’s the lagoon where we live. The shark lives in the hot tub, so we only go in there when we have to. We have to meet Squish, the nice jellyfish, in 3 minutes for lunch. Come on!”

After that, the real world would cease to exist. I actually became Christina; I was her. It didn’t matter that I was once a 9 year old girl in a Tye-dyed one piece that kept riding up my left butt cheek. Once the three magic words were spoken, I became an 18 year old princess mermaid with perky boobs held up with a clam-shell bra. I would spend the afternoon fighting noodle-sharks and strangling pool-pump-eels. I made friends with thebubble-minnows that hung out near the drain. I lived by the law that if I stayed on land for more than five minutes, my fin would shrivel up and I would become a human for eternity. When the humans were on shore, they expected a show- so I would perform diving and flip shows where I would prove that I could do 15 or more somersaults without taking a breath.

It wasn’t always mermaids though. Sometimes I would pretend that I was a lion tamer who lived  in the jungle. I had a destiny to fulfill, and that was to ride the evil old Copper Spaniel lion that lived in the deepest depths of the trees. Other times I would be a mom who actually liked to cook.  Or if I was forced to clean, I would become a 19th century maid, mimicking the mannerisms of Cinderella. When I said I wanted to “draw,” what I actually wanted was to pretend I was a secretary. I would set up a nice little area with a stapler and a roll of tape, and I would imagine that I was completing highly important tasks. Every once in a while I would put down my number 2 pencil to answer an imaginary phone.

I continued playing pretend long after the other kids had given it up for spin the bottle and Girl Talk. Don’t get me wrong, I played those too… but when I was alone I would play out scenes with boys in front of the mirror.  I fantasized about being discovered and cast in Party of Five as the long lost Salinger sibling. I gave press talks and interviews about my rise to fame.

I know a lot of people have these sort of day dreams, but looking back, it feels like I took them to a ridiculous level. 

I realize now, that even when Idid finally grew out of 3-D fantasizing 24/7, I started to merge “pretending” into the real aspects of my life. In high school, I had several different groups of friends who were all very different. I had my dance friends, my theater friends, my cheerleader friends, and well… boys. It’s not that I was never myself around any of them, but I did learn how to pretend to be just the way they needed me to be. I don’t think this was really a bad thing though. I think I was just taking the idea of “fake it til ya make it”  and applying it to more practical aspects of my life.

For a while I thought that I was over pretending. After a college I went through a complete, life-changing transformation and for a long while I believed that I had finally found myself. I had taken up improv, which allowed me to fullfill the craving I had to “pretend;” and in my real life I was able to focus on who I really was.  I started finding music that I understood; I pursued interests that were mine, and mine alone; I lived alone and I ate what I enjoyed eating.

Somewhere over the last couple years I feel like I’ve let some of that “self discovery” disappear. I still know my passions, but I’ve found out that I’m still quite susceptible to slipping into pretend mode. I don’t do it on purpose, and Idont even realize I’m doing it, but I think I am.

Lately I find myself silently telling myself to “Let’s pretend that,” which is most often followed with “every-thing’s OK.” Whether it’s when I’m dealing with my family, my friends, or relationships- I feel like I’ve somehow trained myself  (as improvisers say) to “yes and” every situation that I’m in, until I establish what I’m dealing with. Once I know what role I’m supposed to play, I’m nice and ready  to take part in the newest “long form” improvised segment of my life.

I realize that everyone does this to an extent, after-all; we’re innately designed to adapt to our current situations. I just think that sometimes I need to completely remove myself from the stage so that I can reevaluate my real life.

I’ve found that over the last few years, I’ve started developing a habit of agreeing with peoplewhen I don’t really believe what they are saying to be true. Sometimes when I’m with certain people who expect me to be “on,” I put on a schtick because I know it will make them happy.

I still don’t think there is necessarily anything wrong with this. I’m a people pleaser. I’m a person of many faces. I enjoy being both ofthose things. The problem with my pretending is that at some point, if I ever want to keep moving forward in my starring role, I have to really establish my own character. I need to figure out the details of what makes me. I need to take note of what I love. Just as if I were performing in an improv scene, I have to ask myself these questions.

 If I’m going to go to the store to buy a bottle of wine, what wine would I  really want to drink ? If I’m going to spend $23.99 on an itunes audio book, what book would really make me happy? If I walk into a crowded coffee shop, where would I most likely sit, in a corner by myself, or would I sit down with a group of people?

Playing myself is a weird concept when I really start to think about it. I’ve started keeping a notebook with me again. This time, instead of jotting down ideas for sketches or blogs, I’ve just been writing down things that I like and things that I don’t like. I’ve already collected 20 pages that are now filled with phrases like “I could replace wine with grapes and be happy forever.”  Or “I really don’t like short shorts on men.” It’s been interesting really- recording facts about myself that I’ve never verbally admitted in the past.

I’m not sure what I’m planning on doing with my “Glossary of myself,” or my  ”Glossarme” as I’ve started to call it, but I guess I’m hoping that it will help me to move on. There are so many choices, so many options in this life- and I just have to gather up all the information I know about my character, and keep developing new scenes until I find myself in one organically progresses.

NOTE: *I’ve been in major self-reflection mode the last few weeks, so bare with me while I work some of this out on paper. I’ve decided that I’m not going to forwarn you or apologize anytime I feel inspired to go a bit sappy, it’s just where I am right now. And so is your face. So there.

It’s here, in full force.

And no I’m not talking about football season. In fact, while all of  you other humans out there are getting pumped up about football season, I’m going to spend all of my time preparing for Movie Award Season, which begins later this fall.

As much as I love Movie Award Season, it is still only my second favorite season in the world.

I’m usually afraid to tell people what my favorite season is. When asked I usually say something boring like “Hatch Green Chili” season (which just happened) or “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” on tv season… and while both of these are near and dear to my heart, neither of them hold the number one spot.

Nope. The winner clearly goes to Hurricane Season. It usually goes to Tornado season, but since this year we got abso-lutely nothing… I’m really on the storms o’ tropical for my adrenalin fix.

Does that make me a horrible, evil witchy woman?

I mean… I would never wish tragedy or death upon anyone, but it’s exciting from afar.

It’s not really fair, I know. Here I am, 5 hours away from any of the real damage… but we still get some good storms out of it. This week was the perfect example. I basically had to swim to work. I ran to my car and back and looked like I had just been old school river-babtised. It didn’t stop storming until last night, and by late afternoon I started trying to channel Helen Hunt.

And I loved every second of it.

Like I said before, I hate to hear about people getting hurt, but it is so much fun to watch these storms do some damage. I was glued to the TV yesterday watching a tornado touch down in downtown Dallas. I want to be there, taping that in person. I swear, one day I will. I’m scared to death of sky diving, and I doubt I would ever get on the back of a motorcycle, but I would pay $5,000 to go on a storm chasing tour.

I always get so jealous of my friends who live in Houston. A couple of years when Ike struck the coast, they were all holed up in one house, with nothing but an ice chest full of beer and a few guns… in case there was looting going on. They would call us every few hours as to give us-up-to date reports on the wind and how they shot at street signs. Sounds dangerous, right? But I wannnnaaaa. I get all giddy about the possibility of a tornaduh… I can’t imagine what I would feel if I was in a real life hurricane!

Also? There is always some quality comedy footage that comes out of their footage.

Por Ejemplo:

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 I blame my love/hate relationship with violent storms on my cousin, andigayle.

I may have mentioned this before, but when we were young, we learned that a tornado sounds just like an approaching train. Well just so happens, you could hear a train from my back yard every afternoon. Everytime we had a little bit of a breeze going on, she would yell tornado… then run inside and lock the door… leaving me crying and beating on the door as she exclaimed from the other side that she “can’t get it open!”

But to this day, I love her for that. Like a lot of the things I love most (ketchup, scary movies), my love of storms came from her torture.

So the last few days have been a flood of different emotions. I’ve written emails I’ll never send, blogs I’ll never post, and tweets that I’ve promptly erased. All in all though? I feel better. I feel excited about the future. I’m still upset, but I think I’m doing a pretty fine job of distracting myself, and at this point I know things will get better. Besides that, there are still so many other things going on in my life that I can dwell over.

Like what, you ask?

The Good:

*I’m going to admit something now. I’ve been in denial for a long time, and it’s time I come clean.

I have a soft spot for these romantic comedies. Not all romantic comedies, but the funny ones. More specifically, hilarious ones that star Jason Bateman. That man is totally and completely my cup of tea. Oh he’s no John Cusack, but he sure comes close. I mean.. he’s kind of got that unconventional hero thing going for him. That’s right… I saw “The Switch” last night. I’m not going to say it was the best movie of all time… but I will admit that it had me laughing, which is a feat – by any means.

I also watched “The Backup Plan” last week. Yes, I’m speaking of the movie starring J-Lo. And I liked it. Shut your face… and your mouth.

*My friends and I are working on getting another site going. We’ve been working on it in some incarnation for over 5 years, but this time around I’m really excited about it. Basically, I’ve spent so much time getting to know the nightlife in the DFW, and I don’t think I want to waste my opinions anymore. I think you locals may find this quite useful… so check out Drink Up DFW! Now! Do it! We still have a lot to do, and so many features to add, but I’m really pumped about the direction we plan on taking, and now I may just have some extra time to put some extra effort into it!

*I finally organized my jewelry. That may not seem like a big thing to most of you, but it has all been in a gigantic tangle of a mess since I moved here… last March.

*I’m going home to see the family this weekend. A few months ago, I would have probably categorized this in the “Bad” category, but things have been going really well lately. I’m so excited to see my Stella dog, and perhaps spend some quality time on the lake. SQUEEE.

*Lately I’ve spent a lot of time reconnecting with one of my favorite people in the world. She really deserves a post of her own, but my cousin Andi just started her own blog project, and you should really check. it. out. I’m really pumped about it!

*I had chicken wings for the first time in months last night, and they were deeelish. I also put lots of other yummy things in my body this weekend, including Taco Bueno breakfast, potato skins, doritos, pizza, beef jerky, a burrito, jalapeno chips, ramen noodles, popcorn, a REAL Dr Pepper, and a bag of Reeses Pieces.

The Bad:

*I had chicken wings for the first time in months last night, and they were deeelish. I also put lots of other yummy things in my body this weekend, including Taco Bueno breakfast, potato skins, Doritos, pizza, beef jerky, a burrito, jalapeno chips, ramen noodles, popcorn, a REAL Dr Pepper, and a bag of Reeses Pieces.

I am now suffering from the above combination.

*My car is a piece… I mean a real piece. I’m trying my damndest to give it all the love and affection it takes to keep it alive, but it’s just not working. I know it’s partly my fault… I mean I haven’t gotten the oil changed in months, and I backed into a trailer yesterday… but that doesn’t mean it should die every time I put it in park, does it? I’m just praying it’s got another year in it still. I LOVE YOU CAR. I WILL KISS YOUR MUFFLER!

*Every few hours or so, I start to regret some of what I’ve put out on this blog. Regret might not even be the right word, but lately I’ve been thinking of making it private, or at least some of the posts. I’m not sure what I want to do, but it’s definitely something that’s been on my mind lately.

*I’ve had a really difficult time keeping focused lately. I seriously feel like that dude from Mallrats who can’t see the sailboat in the poster… “THERE IS NO EASTER BUNNY!!” There is so much I want to be doing, and I sometimes feel that I just don’t have the time to do it all. Then again, I hate feeling bored so maybe this should actually be filed under the “good” category.

The Ugly:

*This Dallas weather. Gene Kelly is about the only thing that could make this weather seem better. That, or maybe a few scenes from my boyfriend John Cusack’s movies… especially set to some Ben Folds.

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I feel like I have so much to update your faces with, but I really feel much more comfortable when I at least have a few complaints to mix in with this rare “life is good” post, and I really don’t have much to complain about besides the fact that my face is covered by gigantasaurus Everest-sized pimples.  I didn’t even have a major freak out  when my car decided to be a little bitch and  have a blow out earlier this week. Which is a major feat, this I promise you… especially when you know my history with cars.

So yeah, I’ll complain after all.

I’ve always had an extreme love/hate relationship with automobiles and the act of driving. And by love/hate relationship of course I mean:

I love: 1). That they get me from point A to B. (sometimes)

and 2). When other people are driving them and I get to be in charge of the music.

I hate: Everything else loosely related to driving or cars. I don’t know or care to know the difference between a toyota and an escalade, and I won’t even apologize if by chance those are one and the same. I hate driving, especially at night. I despise traffic. I hate the way my mom drives. I don’t like sitting in back seats.  I hate the fact that I’ve locked my keys in my car like 14 times in the last year. I hate that at least once every three months I end up stranded on the side of the road, which leads me to call my dad crying who is 2 hours away… which in turn causes him to get upset and yell “WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO ABOUT IT!?” Which leads to huge fight. And mostly I despise that I have horrible luck with them.

I’m not sure if you’re aware, but I have had more flat tires than any other person in the entire whole wide universe, twice in my life I’ve had another car on top of my own (either by landing there after a wreck or by drunkenly driving on top of it,) and my vehicles have had more breakdowns than Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears combined. My dad insists that it must have something to the way I drive, but I don’t think I can be blamed for the fact that Ford makes really shitty cars or that curbs keep getting in my way, or that drunks insist on targeting my car as their landing strip.

Luckily it didn't do much damage...

I feel like even the best case scenarios that involve vehicles, (which is of course gettin it on in one,) can only lead to 3 possible disastrous outcomes. I, ahem, of course only know one of these don’t know any of these  from personal experience but from what I’ve learned from the movies it seems to me that any time you hook up in a car – you either get caught giving head in a park by a cop, get pregnant, or if you’re in transit- then it is quite possible that you will experience death by a fiery crash.

My first car was an 89 Cutlass Supreme Oldsmobile.

Oh wait. I take that back.

Technically, my first car which I drove all of 3 days was a 95 Mitsubishi something or another,( pictured above). Shortly after the repairs were made from this particular accident, I totaled it into my house. I KNOW. And no I wasn’t drunk… I can’t even really explain what happened, except that I will tell you that I will never ever again drive a stick shift. I pretty much suck at life. My sister was sitting inside and said she thought it was an earthquake, while my dad sat on the curb and cried.

After that it took about a year and a half before I got the nerves and the vehicle that would make it possible for me to drive again. My parents certainly weren’t going to trust me with anything of value- so THIS is where the 89 Cutlass Supreme Oldsmobile (that I dubbed Cuddy) came into the picture.

It was a maroon, and it was the largest two door car you’ve ever seen in your life. And it was a pile of junk.

To sum it up: In place of air-conditioning,  my dad had installed a mini-fan that plugged into my cigarette lighter that did absolutely nothing but stir up the scent of stale cigarettes and rotting food.  It had a digital speedometer that you had to fist pummel in order to make it “work,” and when numbers finally did pop up they were backwards and up-side down. The car had no antenna, and therefore had no radio. Someone had tried to steal the cd player so it hung there by a wire, serving absolutely no purpose for the majority of the time the car worked.

The driver’s side door didn’t work, which was quite embarrassing when the cute football player from freshman history class walked me to my car and insisted on standing there until I drove off… which meant he got to watch me dive in and wiggle across the seat, ass out in a jean skirt.

The worst part about it was that Cuddy died ALL THE TIME at the most inopportune times. Especially before I got a cell phone. Like one time, it died right when my friends and I were trying to make a get away after toilet papering this incredibly rude older girl’s house. We had to go to her next door neighbor’s house and call for a ride. But then again, the fact that it died all the time was the precise reason I finally was allowed to get a cell phone. My parent’s started getting nervous after about my 3rd hitchhiking adventure and finally gave in.

Anyshitmobile batman, I could go on forever about my vehicle history, but I’ll save that for another day. If you’re a curious to read more you can always read about how talented I am at removing a tampon whilst driving. That was one for the books.

My original point was, I’m actually NOT completely hating my car today despite the fact that I recently had a blow out which caused me (or…erghm…my mother) (thanks!) to shell out 200 dollars, because of COURSE they convinced me that I needed two new tires. ( This actually has a story that is worthy of it’s very own blog post so I’m going to hold off.)

Yeah usually I would be pissed. But not today. Today I totally relate to those car bangers. Only maybe I don’t want to have sex with my car… but I sure could give it a hug right now.

You see, I’ve spent the last 3 months melting away because my air conditioning was broke and I didn’t think I could afford to fix it. I found out yesterday all it needed was a little frion, so I’m back, baby! No more sweaty pits! No more sweaty underboobs! No more sweaty fupa! I kid…

I’m gonna try to catch up on a million blogs over the next few days, and my goal next week is to get back to regularly posting, but I have learned never to make any promises.

Home. All by my lonesome. For eight entire days.

With the exception of course of the seemingly semi-friendly ghost and my roommate’s Basset Hound, I will have the entire house at my disposal, and I’m not sure that is a good thing.

I actually kind of feel like the young Kevin McAllister. My feelings of being alone lie somewhere in between being really excited about having some much needed “me” time, and being completely frightened about what might happen.

Growing up, my grandparent’s lived across the street from me so I was rarely left alone. I had a friend who’s mom frequently left us alone until our peanut butter and popcorn cooking experiment nearly left their house in ashes. She eventually trusted us to stay there alone again, but then we literally tried to reenact the Home Alone movie, so her trust was short lived. Then there was the one time in high school that my parent’s let me stay home overnight unattended. Of course that was the night I decided to watch Event Horizon and ended up sprinting across the street to my grandparent’s house at 3 in the morning, head down, pants nearly soiled, and had to ask if I could sleep in their spare room.

It’s not that I don’t like being alone, I actually quite enjoy it. It’s just been forever and a day since I’ve had more than a couple of nights without at least one roommate around, and I’m not sure what to do with myself. LA works from home so she usually takes care of most of the cooking, which means that I’ll be living off of a diet of beans and chips and salsa this week… which is exactly what I lived off of last week out of poordom, so it’s really nothing different.

I plan on spending my nights taking long leisurely baths, reading, watching movies, painting and writing a bit… so that’s really nothing new either. The one major difference is that I won’t have someone calling to get me to watch all the good parts of shows and I won’t have the background noise of LA crying during Grey’s Anatomy or Gossip Girl. But I do have the freedom of playing my music as loud as I want, as late as I want (and I’m totally NOT listening to the Bieb-meister)… which is pretty cool. Maybe it will drown out the sound of gunshots in my neighborhood, which I haven’t heard since last week and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the gangsters don’t know that I’m on to them.

I actually lived alone for an entire year before I moved in to my last house with my four roommates, a house which I now affectionately refer to as the “rainbow house.” Aside from being the most miserable and lonely year of my life, living alone wasn’t so bad. I typically stumbled home from happy hour, ate a huge bowl of ramen noodles, and drank wine whilst mowing my way through the entire Netflix library.

Oh and I almost burned down the apartment complex, twice.

The first time could have happened to anyone. Anyone with a gigantic gray cloud following them around, that is. Ever since the time I caught fire to the Thanksgiving table by half hazardly throwing a table napkin down on a candle, my grandmother has warned me that I’m not the sort of person who should keep candles around in the house. Of course candles are pretty much my favorite thing in the universe besides John Cusack movies and ketchup, so I never thought to heed her advice. The night in question was a particularly stormy night, so I naturally wanted to light every single one of my one-hundred candles to set the mood. I then opened the porch door so that I could hear the storm, and settled into a bubble bath with a glass of wine. I had no idea the storm was such a windy one, but luckily my head was above water to hear a ginormous gust knock over about ten of the candles. Luckily I was able to grab a towel and nakedly whip the fire out before they caused too much damage.

The second fire I almost caused also happened when I was in the bathtub. I cooked something that I can’t remember but I’m sure was of the pasta variety, and once again got into the bathtub, only to be rudely interrupted about ten minutes later when the building’s fire alarm started sounding. I knew the fire was coming from my kitchen before I even grabbed a towel. There was smoke everywhere and I went into full panic attack mode. When I got into the kitchen I found that I had left a stove burner on, and had accidentally thrown a dishtowel on top of it, which had caught on fire. Luckily, I’m a quick thinker and threw a pitcher of iced tea over it, and batted out the rest of the flames with my towel. I’ve occasionally wondered why I don’t have any towels, but I’m now realizing that I’ve used the majority of them to put out fires. After putting out the fire, I grabbed a blanket from my futon to cover myself with and ran into the hallway shouting that the fire was out and not to panic, which I was clearly still doing.

I also wondered why none of the neighbors wanted to be my friend, but thinking back it was probably because they knew me as the type of person who started fires ran around in nothing but a leopard print blanket.

And there was also the time I woke up in a fever with no power and knocked on every door on my hallway claiming the world had come to an end, but that’s an entirely different story.

Tonight I will be lighting no candles, and I’ve already checked 8 times to make sure the burners are off so I should be OK. But send me some good juju just in case.

Oh and also, I’d like to go ahead and let you know that I wrote this entire post while naked. Because I can.

(LA if you’re reading this… I am in your chair, but don’t worry…I’m sitting on a towel.)

Guns don’t always scare me. I’ve shot them from time to time, and I’ve actually enjoyed it. I am from Texas  after all.

I do however, have an extremely deep seated fear of being shot with one, despite the fact that  (Mom, Auntie Linda, and P.J.) please skip over the next sentence) I once played a game of indoor Human Duck Hunt- a game where my friends and I shot each other in the backs with a BB gun.

I can actually pin point the exact moment when my fear came along, and as jokey as I might be whilst telling this story, you have to realize that this was, quite literally, scariest moment of my life.

A few years ago on St. Patrick’s day, a few friends and I went to a bar in Ft Worth that was in walking distance from LA’s apartment. There was a patio out back, and we spent the night drinking green beer and having a blast. A few of our guy friends decided to take off a little early, but LA, Moops, Sally and I all decided to stay back and have one more drink.

By the time we left, we were all quite tipsy… or if I’m really honest, we were down right drunk. We stumbled out the door and proceeded to make our way across a dark parking lot towards the apartment complex. When we were about half way there, LA and I, in our usual fashion, started hitting each other with our purses. Every once in a while, when the moon is right, we are struck with the desire to wrestle, (don’t get happy boys) for entertainment purposes only. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw 2 people walking toward us, but I didn’t think much anything of it at the time.

By the time they approached us, we were so caught up in seeing who could de-foot the other first, that we didn’t get any weird vibes from the two. In any right state of mind, one of the four of us would have thought it strange that the two young people who were not wearing green were standing uncomfortably close to our circle. But no, we kept right on laughing and swinging our purses like drunken asshats.

When one of them tapped me on the shoulder, I assumed it was someone who Lauren knew. I laughed and casually slapped  their shoulder, thinking they were just enjoying the show. After a few more seconds I finally realized that Moops and Sally were laying on the ground, belly down, and one of strangers were standing above them.

I was about 2 sticks away from being this naive.

It wasn’t until saw the gun that I truly realized what was happening. From that point, everything started moving in slow motion. I saw then that they were both holding large, silver guns, and that they didn’t look happy. There was a boy and a girl, both in their twenties. The girl was wearing a large sweatshirt with the hoodie pulled over her face, and the boy was wearing a beanie low on his forehead. Just as I started taking it all in, the girl put a gun up to LA’s head and demanded that she hand over her purse. I watched dumbly as she quickly followed her directions without a protest.

I was then the only one left standing. I can’t remember who, but one of my friends grabbed at my ankle and angrily whispered to “get down.”

“Gimme your purse and get on the ground,” the guy demanded.

Even though I knew what I was supposed to do, I couldn’t make myself move. When I finally remembered how to make my arms work, I struggled with getting my new Beatle’s purse, which had been tightly wound around my wrist for the fight, loose.  When I got it free, I had the thought that I should retrieve my credit card before handing it over. Making what could have been the dumbest decision of my life, I slid my hand into the purse, grabbed the card with my cupped hand, and swiftly put the card in my pocket before thrusting the clutch in their direction.

The guy robber asked me angrily if I had taken something out, and I shook my head to say no before I got on the ground. Luckily they believed me. As we all lay on the ground, the robbers stood over us for what felt like an eternity. Even though my eyes were tightly closed and I couldn’t hear anything except for my own heavy breathing, I could feel the burning of the gun on my back. I was sure that every second would be my last.

After what felt like an eternity, LA shouted  “RUN!” and took off. She was halfway to the gate before the rest of us had even gotten off the ground, but we all followed quickly behind her. I was roughly 250 lbs at the time, but I ran faster than I had ever ran in my life.

Once we were in the apartment, we all got quite emotional. One of my friends who had left the bar early was quick to call one of our stolen phones. The mugger answered and some words (that I won’t repeat) were spoken. The police came and our cards and phones were cancelled.

Looking back, it was quite funny that in the short time it took us to cancel our phones, rap song ring tones had already been purchased and downloaded.

You can bet your sweet ass that none of us slept that night, or slept easy for many nights to come.

So you can probably understand why I got so freaked out when I heard a loud bang out my window the other night. Within seconds LA had rushed out of bed and met me at the office door.

“That was a gun shot, I’m sure of it,” she said.

I screamed something like “OHHOLYFUCKINGSHIT” and ran to the hallway where I slid butt first to the ground. “GET DOWN AND DUCK!!!!”

LA stood above me and calmly told me to get up. “It’s not a drive by, it was just a gun shot. I’m calling the cops.”

So I got up off the ground and dramatically tweeted that gun shots were being shot in my neighborhood. LA went back to bed and I sat up for hours fantasizing about the dramatic shit that went down just across the street. When I drove home for lunch the following day and a moving man and about 4 men mowing the lawn and moving stuff out, I’m pretty sure I was right in my conclusion.

I don’t know the details, but if my imagination serves me correctly, the scenario involved a midget, some drugs, the CIA, and an underground sex tape. I hope I’m wrong.