A Belated Mother's Day Post: how my family knows how to do up a holiday

I understand that Mother's Day has already passed and is nearly a week behind us all, however, mothers still deserve to be honored and that is why I am telling the tale of my mother's Mother's Day. I'm not good at blogging on time. That is a fact.

So, the day starts rather wonderfully. I snap one eye open at 8 a.m. and look out of my bedroom window to see my mother and father sauntering away from the house in preparation for a run. Perrrrfect (conniving, one-eyed, lazy smile - I can only open one eye in the morning, whaterr.) Little did I know, this would not be like most other runs (we will come back to this). Normally my parents take a specific route on their runs so, naturally, I assume they will follow this trend.

I skillfully and dexterously tiptoe down the stairs, taking caution as to not be spotted through the windows by my all too unsuspecting parents. Seeing as how I just got a new set of temporary wheels, I plan to sneak to Wegman's and purchase a devilishly gargeous, not gorgeous, but GARGEOUS, bouquet of flowers for my mother. My little brother wakes. For some reason, I did not expect him to be home.. he is only 10, so this is a foolish assumption and I mentally slap myself.

"Come to Wegman's with me," is all I say. He complies and grabs a prepaid Visa, while I fumble with some crumpled cash. Something isn't right here.

We get into the car, which has a manual transmission - something I know how to drive but am super rusty at. Therefore, first gear is smooth sailing. Shift to second, car gives a protesting lurch, however, we continue on. Third gear, all is well, save my white knuckles clenching the steering wheel and my perpetually (while driving this car) tense toes.

Once onto the main street, I begin to relax. We saw no sign of my parents, meaning that they took their usual route and the path to Wegman's would be clear.

NOT THE CASE.

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My parents were directly in front of us on the sidewalk. I ineptly pulled into a "deliveries only" parking lot to somehow avoid driving past them and ruining everything. Like a dumbass, I pulled out almost immediately after I had pulled in. I think I was afraid of getting chastised for not having anything to deliver other than a really lame story about how I wanted to surprise my mom with flowers.

The inevitable happened. I pulled up to the the red light right by where my parents were running. My little brother, like the stealthy spy that he is, pokes his head up and looks them dead in the eyes.

"Oh, great! Now they definitely saw us!" I poorly blame him.

My parents have literally stopped running now and are just looking at me. The light goes green. I pull into an empty PetSmart parking lot.... what I thought this would accomplish, I have no idea, but I did it. SO. Flowers - busted. I did end up buying her some anyways.

Later in the day: family golfing! Not bad, I think. I'm ready to dress like a douche and swing a club, so I'm all for it. We're going along, hitting our balls, some better than others, when we finally reach hole 6 or something. It's an elevated hole, so where you tee off from is raised quite high. High enough that there is the top of a small apple tree to the left of the tee.

I hit the ball, it's beautiful - soars right to a nice spot on the green (this happens to me about 3% of the time I play golf). My little brother skips on up to his tee and swings his club with the might of eighty men. It must have been too much for his tiny body to handle because the club flies forth from his tiny hands and wedges itself comfortably into the top of the apple tree. My poor father, one of the champion golfers at this country club, mind you, climbs the apple tree. The ten year-old brother failed miserably at climbing. So my Dad is up there for a good ten minutes, I would say. My Mom and I are dying laughing because all you can see is the occasional hand reaching for the club and the rare foot dangling from the leaves. To make matters more embarrassing for my father, golfers have caught up behind us. Oh, and the daughter in the bunch has a scholarship to play golf at Rutgers, so we're feeling pretty good right about now.

"Yeah, I don't know.. I think he is in the tree," I hear someone say.

Dear God, we just need to leave this place.

Finally, my Dad is able to free the golf club and it falls to the ground. Freeing himself from the tree was not as easy. Let's just say, when the first thing you see coming out of a tree is someone's ass, it's likely to be a difficult descent.

Happy belated Mother's Day. I hope you all were able to maintain your dignity.

Childhood in the 90s - A Stallion With Pedals

Here is the second post pertaining to my Olympian-status childhood in the 90s. I feel like those were the days when forming a bike gang was cool, accepted, and feared by those not included. Fuck no we didn't wear bike helmets. That would have made us the Steve Urkel of bike gangs. My friends and I, including Audecdote, were much more better..

We would meet up in the morning, not on the sidewalk like any dumb old kid, we met up in a bush. You heard me. We had a completely concealed sanctuary shrouded in shrubbery, with enough room to stand. Eat your heart out sheet-fort kids.

Once we had met and written down a detailed account of the current and predicted weather forecast in a Harry Potter journal, it was time to ride.

I'm going to ask you to play this song while you read the next part:

Imagine the silhouettes of three comrades, faintly coming into view against the blazing backdrop that is the morning sun. We rode with conviction, plowing mercilessly over any ant or twig that came in our way.

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We fucked bitches on the reg. Or did we? No, we didn't. We glided over the concrete coming to our final stop. A final stop that only a regular Evel Knievel or Jackie Chan would dare attempt. What was it you ask? A poor excuse for a hill in my Grandmother's back yard.

We lined up our bikes as they whinnied and neighed in protest. Here's where I'm gonna mind fuck you. We pretended our bikes were horses, no, not horses, but GIANT stallions, their muscles rippling and their hooves the size of garbage can lids. The sweat dripped down the sides of our faces from the velvet riding helmets that sat atop our heads, secured by a delicate and choking leather strap. Remember when I said we were way too cool to wear bike helmets? T'was because we had access to fucking velvet riding helmets. Let me reiterate that we were the cool bike gang.

"HIYA, Lightning!" I shouted the name which I had bestowed upon my bike, pointing forward and then quickly retracting my hand to get it back on the bike handle.. I mean, mane. My stallion cautiously descended the hill that was at a near-90 degree angle, and by 90 I mean 35.

"Magnum, ride!" Audecdote shouted on my coattails. The name came from the brand of the bike, however, I now realize that it sounded like she was shouting some sort slogan for a condom campaign.

The third, in elegance as usual, simply acted as if she was giving the horse a firm kick to the sides to get her horse moving.

Down we rode in slow motion, the wind blowing in our faces, forgetting about the world around us and focusing only on the task of making the next jump: the drop-off of the driveway into the neighbor's lawn (a good 2 feet).
 

Most importantly, what happened when we came into contact with another bike gang? I'll tell you this much, the kids with the velvet helmets definitely owned.

It went something like this:

Clearly we were Liv Tyler. 'Nuff said.

Childhood in the 90s - Pokemania

I'm thinking that I would like to write a series of posts about being a child of the 90s. Probably one of the better decades to have grown up in. I mean, I did some of the craziest shit in the 90s. Crazy as in "would I dare attempt to swing from that tree like that nowadays?!" as well as "You're literally fucking crazy, Pokemon do not exist." (they might).

Speaking of Pokemon, I think that is the first thing I will focus on. Even typing the word gets me all excited and giddy, yearning to earn some official pokeleague badges! Rather recently, my family and I moved, thus requiring a thorough cleanup of my room and of course, the inevitable process of deciding what gets to stay and what goes.

So, I sat there and cleaned my room up, finding things like old pamphlets from musicals I had been in, books I had forgotten I had, old drawings shoved into a binder, and something that was a translucent purple. SWEET BEAN POD! I had stumbled across my old Gameboy Color! I was the cool (?) kid who had this one:

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I actually remember my step-brother once saying: "I want the one you have. That queer lookin' one." I simply believed he could not say "clear" and had some unheard-of speech impediment. Not the case.

I picked it up and held it with such care and reverence that it seemed impossible to me how indifferently I had treated it when I was younger; tossing it aside when I was done with it, allowing the screen to get all scratched up, losing the cover that goes over the batteries. What was once simply a toy was now a treasure and an all too tangible link to my carefree days as a child riding his Big Wheel with his Game Boy in his pocket. The nostalgia set in and I realized I kind of had to shat.

What was more glorious was what I found when I turned it over to inspect it:

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MY FRIENDS! That was the first thing I thought. I mean, how goddamn pathetic. But seriously! Every day I had played this game and trained my little monsters! It's like when there were all those articles in the paper that instructed parents how to care for their child if Harry Potter died in the final book.... only vastly different. There was no article about how to cope with the fact that Pokemon was technically on the outs and that young men in their late teens probably shouldn't be caught playing it in public.

Y'know whuh I says? I says FUCK DAT!

I started a new game and played to my heart's content. I'm still playing, in fact. I played this morning. I then found my Gold Version:

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This required some surgery, seeing as how the battery inside of it had died. Yeah, there is a battery inside of the cartridge. So, if your game doesn't hold a save, Google how to replace the battery and you'll be gold (pff... no pun intended). I went so far as to use a butter knife, two miniscule screw drivers, and a chopstick, I'm pretty sure, to pry that cartridge open and replace the battery by gracefully taping it into place with scotch tape. It worked!

My life became so much brighter! I had a REASON to finish my homework. I was training myself to get all of my work done by like, seven o'clock on a weekday (unheard of) so I could play my game. It worked wonderfully, my grades were steady As, I had time to relax, I was super happy. I even got sucked back into the TV show. Another throwback to my carefree days as a rockin' fourth grader.

 The 8 or 9 year old me was back. The one who adamantly supported the theory that Pokemon, in fact, exist. They just don't want us to see them because we're not ready for them just yet. I convinced a few and drove away a lot more.

My obsession grew and I ended up buying two games from the newer generations (not as good.. noooot as good Nintendo/Gamefreak). I even asked for one for Valentine's Day. Things got out of hand.. I refused a VERY nice offer because I was in the midst of an Elite Four battle.. I mean, you just don't mess with that shit. I tried to re-initiate the offer I had been given once I saved the game.. apparently the moment was gone.

My point: If you can find time to relive something that made you SO happy as a kid (in some semblance of moderation), you will be a happier person. I not only find fun in replaying the games but a sense of comfort in the nostalgia of it all.

Find the time to become a child again for a day or two. It puts trivial worries in perspective and gives you a chance to enjoy the day :)

To close, I shall provide you with the most epic song ever composed:

Comment back with your own childhood adventures!

Things That I Know Happen While My Eyes are Closed

What a hiatus! I shall waste no time boring you with what I was doing for weeks because it was all boring and worthless. I sound like a MANIC DEPRESSANT!! (screamed like SNL's Target Lady. Kristen Wiig, I cherish you.)

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Anywho, back to the point of this post. Lately, I have been having trouble opening my eyes after I close them. Don't worry, it's not due to some horrific medical condition.

Worse.

It's due to what my brain does to me when I close my eyes.

For example: Showering. All is well while I'm in the shower. I scrub my body with absolutely luscious soaps whose fragrances range from shea butter to pomegranite and mangos. The water is just hot enough that as it rains on my head and flows down onto the rest of my body, I get chills and the utmost satisfaction of reveling in such sinful warmth. I scrub my head with shampoo and rinse. I grab the exfoliating face wash.. wait. This is where things get hard. As you can imagine, washing your face with your eyes open isn't easy, especially in a shower where unexpected water splashes are frequent.

I brave the storm and slap the wash on my face, eyes closed. DAMN IT. As soon as I am ready to open my eyes, I know that I will see this:

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(No, not the normal guy who looks unfortunately unaware of the horrific demon behind him) peering at me from behind a slightly pulled back shower curtain. It's a good thing I'm in the shower because I will inevitably have shat myself.

I also know that once I switch off the light in the bathroom after I'm done showering and am ready to leave, this will happen:

 

Actually, this happens to me in my mind more often than most other scary things. And, of course, my wedgie will be nowhere near as awful as her's. Her asshole chafe must be out of this world.

Aah, so once I have been properly spied on by the demon in the shower and dragged down the stairs to an unholy wedgie-hell, I'll go to bed. ONLY IT IS SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT.

The bed faces the closet. Sometimes the closet is still open when I get in bed. The lights are off. This means that I will not get out of bed for fear of getting dragged under my bed in a similar manner to what happens to me after I get out of the shower. So there I lie, my eyes unwaveringly locked on the closet, waiting for this to happen:

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I don't know why this must happen to me. I accept that my subconscious wants to terrify me and clearly the movies I watch don't help either. I also frequently imagine myself just about to leave the apartment and then DRAGGED RIGHT BACK INSIDE! God, I need some sleep.

So please, share what wonderful things your mind does to you!

Stress Continued

I posted previously about my stresses, one of which manifested itself like a dormant alien baby come to life inside of me, punching, kicking, scratching, and swearing in an extra-terrestrial language I can't understand (no one likes being left out of a conversation). This particular stress is associated with my future and how study abroad may or may not fuck up my life. It went a little like this:

Me, 2:00 p.m.:

"Yep! I'm going to my adviser's office today to figure things out, I'm sure it will all work out."

Later in the Day:

Adviser - "Well, it's definitely a tricky one!" (makes some sort of motion like she is going to give me a playful punch) "Your next step is to make a meeting with your department chair, he can help you organize the rest of your semesters here."


At this point, I'm feeling only slightly less optimistic due to her confused look when I asked her how I should plan my semesters in order to graduate on time. Summer classes might be an option. (In my mind, there is still that stigma of the delinquents in my high school associated with summer school).

Me: "Hi, I need to make an appointment with my department chair."


Oompa Loompa-like woman: "Huh, his door is closed."


Me: "Okay, well is he inside? I need to know because I still have to apply for abroad and the application is due soon."


Oompa Loompa: "Well, I mean, the door is closed.. I.." she said, like I have asked her to summon the devil and send him to heaven, making the task of knocking on a fucking door seem an impossible task. She holds her hands out to her side like she is balancing two serving trays, shaking her head from side to side.


Me: Okay. Well, I'll just come back another time then.

Now, I was pretty pissed off. All I needed was a signature from him to confirm one thing and a nice meeting to figure out some other shit. I decided that I would attempt my other adviser. He was not in his room. So, I made my way over to Arts & Sciences to see if I could get the head of the French department's signature for my minor form.


Such a beautiful woman. She sports the latest in mullet trends, peppered mousy-brown hair of course, has a ski slope nose that ends in a nice sharp point and, atop that nose, round, silver glasses that frame her black beady eyes. Her stature is that of a Hobbit, and, though I've never seen her feet, I'm assuming they are also Hobbit-like. She...

photo source from mymiddle-earth.net

was also not in her room.

By now, I had walked between three different departments in a horrific slush that my boat-shoes betrayed me in. I would say I have almost broken BOTH of my legs at least seven times today.


I walk into the student dining center, not even a dining hall, so I am forced to use money instead of a meal swipe. Immediately, I see some sad-looking Mexican man making quesadilla. YES. I trudge over to him and order in staccato: Veggie. Everything. Sour Cream? Yes. Salsa? Yes. For here or to go? GO.


Once I have the hot, slightly B.O. - smelling quesadilla in my hands, life seems a little brighter. While waiting in line, I notice a basket. A glorious basket filled with cookies, however, these cookies are anything but ordinary. They're literally seven or eight inches across...

Me, 3:30 p.m.:

Can I handle that fucking cookie??

Yes. Yes I can handle that fucking cookie.


I snatched it from the basket, I think I scared some of the people around me. And since you all know what happened after I bought that cookie, I will end the post like this:

Stress

And so the week has begun and, along with it, the incredible stresses of an over-achieving undergraduate. I don't like to complain because I know there are people much worse-off than myself (my prayers go out to you starving children in third-world countries, blind people, old cat ladies, and the like), however, in my little bubble of a world, things are pretty rough. Three tests this week, a project due Thursday, homework for 18 credits worth of classes, practicing prayers to read at my sister's wedding, preparing a speech for my sister's wedding, my sister's wedding itself (this weekend), applying for study abroad, asking for recommendations for that study abroad, aaaaaand the weight of needing to raise $15,000 for the advertising group I'm part of.


So, now that I've vented to you and you can choose whether to feel bad for me or tell me to suck it up and one-up me with all of your stressful lives, I'm going to show you what keeps me sane during my days.

 

My daily carton of orange juice - simply because it it is delicious and I need delicious things. Next, my array of colored pens. I would not be alive without my colored pens. They are the very lifeblood of organization in my life and they serve as the best way to doodle because I can draw different hair and eye colors and stuff, as well as giving myself pen tattoos. Last, yet most importantly, is my little red notebook. This is my bible. With so much shit going on, it is only my little red notebook, named, hmm, what shall I name it? Florence, or something. Anyway, it is only this notebook that allows me to write down everything I have to do, making it my worst enemy, yet, my best friend because then I get to cross it all off: in pink pen. I don't know why pink. Don't judge.

I hope I'm not alone in this, but I get a sick satisfaction out of crossing things off. It's knowing that I've defeated the black scrawl of ink that was just one more thing assigned to me as a means of wasting my life.

My face when I cross things off:

 As you can see it might be mildly unhealthy.

I came to the library with the intention of putting a huge dent in my accumulated workload, thus reducing stress. Have I yet? No. There is a reason, however.

I chose to study in the quiet rooms this afternoon because I knew I couldn't have any distractions (save blogging, of course). However, there is always that one douchebag that answers his phone and has a full-blown conversation at normal volume with mom. Then there are personal distractions. As I set all of my things out and finally settled into reading my Biological Anthropology book, I felt a slight twinge.

Fuck.

I had previously gulped down a large iced coffee and now my body, knowing perfectly well that I was in a wonderfully peaceful study environment where I could actually be productive, decided to fuck with me:

Body: Ha! I've been saving it for when you can't move!

Me: I'll hold the piss in and give you a bladder infection.

Body: Come on, man. Your buddy body needs to have some fun, too.
Me: Well, it isn't fun for me, seeing as how I either piss myself or lose all of my things to library thieves. And, hey asshole, I didn't appreciate you bestowing a log-shit on me during class either.
Body: .....
Me: Yeah, go fuck yourself.

So, I did what I really don't like to do: Interrupted some Asian girl wearing giant headphones attached to an iPhone in a bunny-ear case to ask her to watch my things. She said sure, and immediately put her head back down to whatever she had been reading. You can play "I'm offended" all you want but you know as well as I do that if anyone ever asks you to watch his or her things, you say yes and then forget you have been given this task until he or she comes back and says thanks. That's the moment you look up and hope that all personal possessions are still there. 

If so, you smile and say no problem. If not, you say, I'm so sorry! He threatened me! And if you have some fake blood on you, now would be the time to strategically place it on your body to simulate a shank wound. The person will be more concerned about your imminent death than his missing Mac.

Now I'm face down, like this insecure Asian man who was at the library not too long ago:

  

And I'm out of orange juice.

Bananaphobia

I've met a good deal of people in my days who actually denounce the action of eating a banana in public. In a way, I understand their discomfort. Who honestly wants to appear to be fellating a piece of fruit, or more politely put, sookin' a waynka. (sucking a wanker). Let's be honest, a banana must be mother nature's cruel joke on us all.

I imagine her sitting on some beautiful swing made of willow branches and flowers, her gown of finest chiffon flowing behind her, the only thing ruining her pristine beauty is her sick sense of humor that has damned us all to closet banana-eating. She yells to her tiny mushroom minions (that she designed to look alarmingly like penises, as well), make the banana bigger! Thicker! She laughs at those who eat her giant bananas in public and punishes them by making those around them point and and throw stones.. and she and frowns upon those who cop out by discretely and quickly devouring Chiquita bananas. Pussies, she thinks, eating the Asian brand.

I only bring this up because I witnessed one such abjurer of fruit fellatio in my class today. No, she did not duck her head under the desk, put a book to her face, or, as I often do, strap the banana to my right shoulder and pretend I'm itching the side of my face while I bite. In fact, she never bit the banana at all. She meticulously peeled back the skin of the banana and only exposed as much of the fruit as she was planning to cut off. I'm not sure if her reasoning for peeling the banana in this way was because any exposure of the fruit was as bad as a dog's red rocket - fine while in its casing but once out....

**Side note: I find it appalling when someone says: "Whooa! Spot's makin' lipstick!" in reference to a horny dog. I want to be like: Why don't you let that dog do your makeup, then?

Anywho, she cut the banana with a plastic knife every time she wanted a bite. This is the most extreme case of bananafellatiophobia I have ever seen. And in the end, she made herself look even worse because instead of looking like she was sookin' a waynka, she looked like she was performing some sort of sadistic phallic surgery.

So the moral of this story? Just eat the banana as mother nature intended: a sex symbol, ya pervs.