The Worst Summer of My Life

I'm choosing to disregard the holiday season and instead blog about the worst summer of my life. I guess I could do my best to segue into something more Christmassy if the opportunity presented itself. We'll see.

I got on aim (I should probably mention that this was 2003), and asked a friend of mine whose name escapes me if I could spend the summer with her in Pennsylvania. Apparently she did not mention this to her parents because my arrival came as a surprise to her mom and step-dad.

CHRISTMAS SEGUE! CHRISTMAS SEGUE! CHRISTMAS SEGUE!

Speaking of step parents, the mom from Elf is an amazing human being. She finds out that her husband has an illegitimate son and is beyond thrilled about it. She literally could not be more supportive. I know that I have to suspend disbelief through most of Elf ,but it gets to be almost too much. Especially when you consider that he already isn't spending enough time with their son. The whole workaholic aspect of that movie doesn't really speak to who we are in the way that it used to, just saying. End of Christmas segue.

This was my daily itinerary during the worst summer of my life:

• Wake up
• Not eat breakfast
• Swim around at the pool
• Go to this bearded lady's house that she shared with her celebrity obsessed sister. They lived next to the pool so we could look out the window and still gossip about everyone there. We would watch movies all afternoon with one 7-11 Snapple break. 

The bearded lady and her sister were both in their mid-twenties and should not have been hanging out with us.

I want to quickly address the fact that my friend whose name escapes me didn't feel the need to feed me. The kicker is that she was actually really fat and I never saw her eating either. I'm pretty sure she was on a crazy starvation diet in a futile attempt to win the affections of this terrible white trash, um, cult leader? 

• He was a charismatic but altogether terrible guy who held court every night on his stoop where he shouted about stuff and listened to Eminem at a completely unreasonable volume for a weekday. It wasn't even good 8 Mile era stuff it was terrible early Eminem. Sorry I'm not sorry.

These are direct quotes.

CHRISTMAS SEGUE! CHRISTMAS SEGUE! CHRISTMAS SEGUE!

Domestic abuse is the perfect segue into our next holiday diversion: my least favorite Christmas song.

 

It is distracting that they were Jehovah's Witnesses singing Christmas songs, and it does make me a little sad to think about how they wished they could celebrate Christmas. I'm not making assumptions about that, Michael said so in the Martin Bashir interview, so frak you. My main issue with this song is that I can't stop thinking about how abusive Joe Jackson was and what a mess it really would have been if Daddy had only seen. End of Christmas segue.

• We would venture back to her house late at night (I still wouldn't get to eat anything) and I had to just sit there quietly reading her idiotic aim conversations over her shoulder until we went to bed. 
• I slept on the floor of her room that she shared with her older sister. They apparently had Jackson-level terrible parents (although in the exact opposite way) because they let the older daughter's boyfriend sleep in that room with her 12-year-old sister. And me, don't forget about me.

The Things About the Summer of 2003 that Didn't Suck:

I watched more movies than I ever had in my life.

I may have spent this entire blog complaining about it, but I did get super thin from not eating all summer.

Before/After

Layer 1: I got that Old Navy shirt as a gift from my aunt, and it didn't fit me because it was a small when really I needed a medium (I'm lying, large), but I wore it anyway because it was so "nice".

layer 2: At age 13, I truly thought this Old Navy shirt was the most posh, expensive, highest quality article of clothing in my closet.

layer 3: It was.

#layersofcomedy 

A Test of Patriotism

You should sell your Revolutionary War cannonball for 200 dollars on eBay and use the money to buy an iPhone.


No, your absentee father unearthed that cannonball in his basement and gave it to you. Treasure it forever.


It is of literally no use to you and could potentially harm your future children or, more realistically, cats. It will totally roll off a shelf and cripple one of them. Isn't it made with lead or something equally old-timey and dangerous? Get that thing out of your house.


These colors don't run.


You don't need a cannonball right now. You need an iPhone. If ever you wanted to patriotically display a cannonball in your home, you could just buy another one.


You can't buy this exact cannonball that your father gave to you. When he's dead in a few years, you'll regret selling that cannonball. It's the only thing you'll have to remember him by.


You're his first born. You will get more crap to remember him by when he dies.


If you had a cannonball you could do this to your enemies:

Think Tank

I spend far too much time thinking about my future pet octopus. Lately I've taken to brainstorming how I'm going to decorate his tank. Octopuses need a bunch of stupid space-stealing rocks in order to stay alive. This means that I'm going to have to glue a bunch of crap to said rocks in order to reenact iconic scenes from my favorite* movies.

Good Will Hunting...with an octopus

Teen Wolf...with an octopus

Lawrence of Arabia...with an octopus

Speed...with an octopus

*These aren't really my favorite movies. They were chosen mainly for comedy.

We Can't Be Friends

There are a number of reasons why I hate making new friends but one of the biggest is that no one gets me.  I should probably change that to no one gets what I'm talking about because I'm not saying I'm some sort of ~beautiful~mysterious~puzzle~ that only YOU can solve. I'm just saying that it's hard to be true friends with someone who doesn't understand the things I'm constantly referencing. FOR INSTANCE...

If you haven't read Singles Ward Hopper, we can't be friends.

Confessions of a Singles Ward Hopper is the scariest/saddest/funniest thing on the internet.

Highlights:

• How he owns half a plane
• All the stuff about his cold sores
• Made up statistics
• Wondering aloud on talk radio whether the Mountain Meadows Massacre was justified
• "I have thinning brown hair and blue eyes that are so piercing that sometimes I find whole rooms of people falling silent and staring at them as I enter."
• How he met Aaron Eckhart at a high rollers table and told him to be true to his faith

So you've taken the time to read SHW and you're confident about the state of our friendship. Well too bad because...

If you haven't watched Country Boys, we cant be friends.

Country boys is a six hour coming-of-age documentary about two teenagers in Appalachia

Highlights

• Chris can't look up to his alcoholic father so he creates a fictional magical samurai or whatever named Xavier to be his role model 
• OH ALSO when he's upset he meditates and becomes Xavier.
• Cody refusing to mingle after a crucifixion reenactment so he can get his nipples pierced
• Chris starting projects but never finishing them
• Science class
• "My dad walked into the strip club where my step mom was working and shot her and then shot his-self. And when I was 14—no, 13, I took a bunch of pills. I don't usually tell this part of the story, I don't even think my bandmates know this but the doctor said if I didn't die, I was lucky I wasn't crippled or nothing. Well, glory be to God, this song is called 'Death'."

Epic Crossover between 'Confessions' and 'Tales from the Projects'

I'm a compulsive liar. I figured I could use my blog to disclose my many falsehoods and ease this crushing guilt. 

My mom:
My neighbors:
Taxpayers?:

I stole food stamps and then lied about it. Sorry.

Back in the day when food stamps were still made of paper, I would steal them from my neighbors and hand them in to my mother. My cover story was that I found them in the gutter. She still doesn't know about this, but she reads my blog, so I guess she does now. Stop reading my blog, Mom.

Sneeze Saturday: Week 2

Jess is English and therefore lives in medieval times. While I was taking residence in her house, I attempted to document myself sneezing for the second installment of my blog phenomenon, Sneeze Saturday. She isn't from America so she's never even heard of light bulbs. Sorry about the incredibly dark video which has resulted in myself looking like a vampire. Happy early Halloween everyone.

We shall not address how she is uninformed on light bulbs yet somehow is in possession of an HD video camera.

White Trash Q&A: The Time I Killed 12 Cats

Q: I'm super poor. I can still have a bunch of pets, right?

A: I will answer that question with a story.

Rich people and poor people have a few things in common:

They both own too many cars.

They both own too many pets.

Just for reference, the middle class will only have one pet and only as many cars as they need.

but the middle class is dying

When I was a child and we were "between projects", so to speak, we lived in a tiny apartment where I slept in the living room and my bed became the couch. I had always wanted a cat but we were much too PWT to live anywhere that would allow pets. I don't remember a time when I wasn't cry-pleading to my mother on a regular basis about it. When that didn't work, I convinced myself that if I prayed hard enough for a cat, God would send me one. After my prayer, I got up and checked every nook and cranny in our apartment, fully expecting to to find a heaven-sent kitten.

When this method failed to yield results, I went back to begging.

One evening we were having dinner at my babysitter's farmhouse. They were giving away these little cream kittens and teary-eyed, I petitioned my mother to please let me take one home. That night, after years of denying my requests, she relented. I don't blame my mother for what happened later. We didn't have a lot back then and I think it was so easy just to let me bring home a kitten. It wasn't that I wore her down, it was that she wanted to see me happy. I think I get that now more than I did in the past.

That being said, we were too poor to properly care for a pet. We couldn't afford to take him to the vet and unbeknownst to us, he contracted distemper from our apartment. Apparently the previous tenant also failed to vaccinate his against-the-rules cat. We didn't have the kitten very long at all when we secured a spot in the projects where you really can't get away with having a contraband pet. Against my wishes, my mom arranged to return the now infected kitten back to the farm. I imagine that it was a joyous reunion...the other cats blissfully unaware of what was about to happen.

Will Amelia get her man? Or will Marion get in the way?

What has RJ gotten himself into this time?

Will Max ever get the nerve to talk to Rhonda?

Will my kitten be able to stop Dr. Katz's evil plans in time to save the farm from being bulldozed?

Will he finally come to terms with his mother's tragic accident?

Will Floyd win the barnyard dance-off?

The answer to this, and to your original question is, no.

None of those things will happen. They will all shortly be dead. 

Sneeze Saturday

I have decided to start a blog phenomenon—Sneeze Saturday. The idea came to me this weekend after watching terrible Contagion and then having a family history lesson the following day at church. It always makes me sad to think about people who have died that we don't know enough about. We might be aware of big events, but so many little things are forgotten. For instance, everyone has a unique sneeze. Unless it is recorded, no one will know what it sounded like when they are gone. For the sake of my posterity, I am going to attempt to record myself sneezing. My sneeze shall not be forgotten, but shall live on forever. I urge you all to do the same. Spread the word about Sneeze Saturday.

Let's pause for a moment

While researching how to induce sneezing, I discovered these hilarious, hilarious sneeze fetish message boards. I know they say anything can become a fetish, but sneezes? Really? What is at all sexual about a sneeze? Needless to say, they were pretty entertaining. My favorites are the they-almost-caught me stories because they all involve hot people sneezing from across the room and being worried that your friends will notice you drooling. I wouldn't worry about it if I were you, LuvsSneezes257. No one is ever going to guess that you have a sneeze fetish because it's not a thing.



How Sneeze Saturday works: I am going to record myself attempting to induce a sneeze for about 60 seconds every Saturday until I succeed. Here is my first attempt, I apologize if this awakens anything within you.

To Scooby Doo List

Every four years, I get really into Scooby-Doo. It's like the Olympics. The fall of 2011, much like the fall of 2007, 2003, 1999, and 1995, is being dominated by the Scooby-Doo franchise. All I want right now is for my life to be exactly like the lives of the Mystery, Inc. gang.  I want to reinvent myself and rise like a phoenix from the ashes as some sort of beatnik mystery-solving teenager. Aided by wikipedia, I have broken down all the essential elements needed to have an awesome Scooby-Doo life.

1. The Mystery, Inc. gang turn up in the Mystery Machine, en route to or returning from a regular teenage function, when their van develops engine trouble or breaks down for any of a variety of reasons (overheating, flat tire, out of gas, etc.), in the immediate vicinity of a large, mostly-vacated property (ski lodge, hotel, factory, mansion, etc.).

Oh, to be a cool teenager doing cool teenage things wearing cool teenage clothes and riding in cool teenage vans. I wasted my adolescence being weird and reclusive. The new me is going to be cool. The new me is going to wear scarves. The new me is going to talk to people. If Velma can do it, so can I.

2. Their (unintended) destination turns out to be suffering from a monster problem (ghosts, Frankenstein, Yeti, etc.). The kids volunteer to investigate the case.

Everyone has had a ghost experience but me. I feel so left out. Not to mention offended. What's wrong with me? Why don't the ghosts want to hang out? I'm hoping to remedy this by scoring a ghostly encounter of my own. I will soon be spending the night in a haunted house or camping out on a haunted battlefield. Let me know if you can hook me up with a haunted dwelling and/or if you want in on this.

3. The gang splits up to cover more ground, with Fred and Velma finding clues, Daphne finding danger, and Shaggy and Scooby finding food, fun, and the ghost/monster, who gives chase. Scooby and Shaggy in particular love to eat, including dog treats called Scooby Snacks which are a favorite of both the dog and the teenage boy.

Words cannot express how much I love hilarious chase scenes. I hope to take part in one someday. I already have my chase gags planned and everything.

4. Eventually, enough clues are found to convince the gang that the ghost/monster is a fake, and a trap is set to capture it.

Zoinks, I'm already a pretty avid schemer.

5. The trap may or may not work (more often than not, Scooby-Doo and/or Shaggy falls into the trap and they accidentally catch the monster another way, usually if the plan is explained in detail before attempted execution it fails). Invariably, the ghost/monster is apprehended and unmasked. The person in the ghost or monster suit turns out to be an apparently blameless authority figure or otherwise innocuous local who is using the disguise to cover up something such as a crime or a scam.

I guess I have to solve mysteries? This is the aspect of their lives I'm least interested in but I don't suppose I have a choice. Someone give me a mystery to solveeeee.

6. After giving the parting shot of "And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids" (sometimes adding "...and your stupid dog!"), the offender is then taken away to jail, and the gang is allowed to continue on their way to their destination.

I will be able to go to/from cool teenage funtivies knowing that I made the world a better place that day. To sum up, I want to be an attractive/cool/funny/trustworthy/ambiguously high teenager. So, you know, not too much to ask. Jinkies.

Great Expectations: My Self-Centered Halloween Costume Post

Jess Siswick and I are going on a trip to Provo for our birthdays/to visit friends/to mack on dudes/because it's Mormon Halloween, y'all. Seriously, Halloween is the funnest time to be Mormon. I have a lot of crazy expectations for this trip:

• I will party like I've never partied before. 
• I'll go on an amazing adventure that will define me for the rest of my life. 
• I will meet my soulmate. His name will be Dog, like the bounty hunter. Instead of bounty hunting though, he'll have some sort of job where he wears suits and/or saves lives. 
• I will be really beautiful and young and cool...my life is going to be like a Target ad, even if it's only for a week. 

Since I'm going to be partying so hard, I'll need multiple costumes. For those of you who come in contact with me on the regular, I apologize for how much time I spend talking about this. You have to understand, I haven't met any of these people. I haven't ruined things with these strangers yet! I'm completely in control of how I'm perceived. First and foremost, I need to do my best to look attractive for both facebook and macking purposes. I gotta bring it, so to speak. I gotta do it like the hot girls do. That means heels and fake lashes even though I generally wear sensible shoes and blink too much. I desperately want these strangers my new friends to get the (decidedly false) impression that I am somehow cool, funny, good-looking, and smart.

I have tentatively decided on these three costumes. Here is some ms paint concept art for good measure. Enjoy.

I am not actually going to attempt to make Air Bud sexy.

Confessions: 3D

I'm a compulsive liar. I figured I could use my blog to disclose my many falsehoods and ease this crushing guilt. 

A liar in three dimensions

HUMIDIFIER ENTHUSIASTS:

I didn't tell the entire truth. Apologies all around.

I spend like an eighth of my time talking about humidifiers. My apartment gets dry, okay? Whenever the topic is brought up (by me), I brag about how I have an adorable dragon humidifier and that the vapor comes out of its nose. It looks like it's breathing fire! So cute! Unfortunately, it isn't really true. I do have an adorable dragon humidifier, but the vapor comes out of its eyes. I lie about it because 'eye vapor' doesn't make any sense. I just want people to think I have a nice humidifier. Is that so wrong? In my defense, Target really should have made the mist come out of its nose.

Get on it, Target

Thug Life

People who have been shot love bringing up the fact that they were shot. This works out well if you are an MC because it automatically endows you with a certain level of street cred. If you're a regular gunshot victim, it just makes everyone else around you uncomfortable. If you keep talking about getting shot, you will lose all your friends. I might even go so far as to say that someone will choose to shoot you again. My Grandmother was shot during an armed robbery in 1977 and if you meet her, she will bring it up and make you feel weird.

Let us now travel back to a simpler time, 2006...the year I made the unfortunate mistake of seeing Step Up with Grandma. I will briefly recap the plot.

A Plot:

She's rich and he's poor, but they dance together. Society doesn't like it, but they don't care.

B Plot:

Tatum Channing/Channing Tatum/Chatum Tanning's friend Skinny Carter spends the movie committing crimes. While attempting to steal a car, he gets shot and dies in the street.






It was already embarrassing that I was seeing Step Up with my Grandmother, but 16-year-old me wanted to curl up and die when she started shouting in the theater. She kept movie-talking about how Skinny Carter wouldn't have been shot were it not for his poor life choices.

You can't tell from this homage to Mystery Science Theater 3000 but trust me, I'm super embarrassed.  Ironically, I am not embarrassed about this homage to Mystery Science Theater.

All the cool people I went to high school with were there...feeling uncomfortable/making fun of me.

Don't do this to your grandkids.

T-Shirt TIME

I recently read an interesting article from an older issue of Time that had been floating around the salon. It was The Optimism Bias, in case anyone cares. Yeah, I am just going to copy/paste the point I need to get across. Here it is:

Memories are susceptible to inaccuracies partly because the neural system responsible for remembering episodes from our past might not have evolved for memory alone. Rather, the core function of the memory system could in fact be to imagine the future — to enable us to prepare for what has yet to come. The system is not designed to perfectly replay past events, the researchers claimed. It is designed to flexibly construct future scenarios in our minds. As a result, memory also ends up being a reconstructive process, and occasionally, details are deleted and others inserted.

I just had to write DON'T WEAR THIS. IT'S UNFLATTERING. on my clothes because I keep forgetting how bad I look in certain outfits. Whatever, I'm sure my terrible memory would serve me well if I ever had to take down a sabre-tooth tiger.

Facecream Daydream

Humans have the ability to daydream so that our minds can go somewhere else when we're being tortured/eaten by piranhas/bored to death, right? When most people go to their 'happy place' it is something like stairs leading to the ocean or swinging in the forest.

Naturally my daydreams are super lame and weird. I have this recurring daydream that I've been visiting since childhood. I don't understand what's wrong with me but, for some reason, I am the villain in my own fantasy. I'm an astronaut, and I discover teeny tiny aliens on a faraway planet. Only I know of their existence, and I covertly bring them back to Earth.

There's a terrible secret hidden behind my smile.

I equip them each with miniature shovels and promise them that if they dig, I'll let them return to their home planet. I put them in jars of very expensive face cream and market it to the super rich with super pores. The minuscule aliens would dig for their promised freedom, clearing away all of the crap from your pores. You would then wash them down the sink, and unbeknownst to you, assist in the mass-murder of sentient beings.

Due to some intrepid investigative journalists, the public soon discovers what I'm doing and starts lobbying for alien rights. Activists infiltrate my face cream factory to inform the enslaved aliens themselves of the terrible truth. They organize and revolt. Sometimes the fantasy ends with them repeatly stabbing my eyeballs with teeny tiny shovels. I have a weird thing about eyeballs.

Poetic justice. I am blinded just as they were once blind to the truth.

Should I Get a Pet Octopus?

Pros:

It would open jars for me.

It would sit on my pillow and stroke my hair while I sleep.

It would ride around my apartment on top of the Roomba, helpfully moving cords out of the way.

Cons:

They need a giant/expensive tank.

I'm worried that it will slap me in the face with its tentacle, and that its suction cup will go directly on my eyeball.

I can't think of any good names.