Missed Connection.

Ya know, I know and acknowledge that I'm not exactly what people would call "desirable". My looks have faded, I'm usually carting a kid, who while adorable, screams "HEY, BAGGAGE!" (also, "HEY, I PUT OUT!"), and I'm mostly completely and utterly socially repugnant. But just once -- just one time in my life -- I wish I could be the subject of a Craigslist Missed Connection.

I'm not looking for romance. Quite the opposite. It's been so long since I was socially active that I basically step out my doorstep and hiss at sunlight and scurry back into darkness. But it'd be nice to know that just once, I was worth noticing, and not because I was apologizing profusely to some random stranger for my kid spitting on them (yes, it's a new phase I'm enduring right now, and yes, it's awesome to deal with in public -- almost as great as her concurrent anti-pants stance).


Someday, mark my words, I'm going to log onto Craigslist, peruse the Missed Connections, and there's going to be one waiting for me. It'll be perfectly written, observant and witty, and I will melt in response...

TO THE SUPERMOM IN THE MALL...
"You were wearing a sweatshirt with stains and crusted-on food of questionable origin. Your hair was pulled up in a meager attempt at a ponytail, most likely your closest excuse for hair styling, and the shimmering grease screamed out that you hadn't had an actual beneficial shower in a couple days. But despite the hurried attempt at makeup, the smeared eyeliner and the smudged mascara that you clearly had no time to look in the mirror at yourself and notice, it was apparent you at one time might've been sort of attractive.

"You looked kind of really tired, but with the authority that you used as you quickly U-turned that stroller out of mall foot traffic and lectured your toddler on spitting, I'm sure you'd be a wildcat in the sack. The way you sternly and aggressively stuck your finger in her face and told her, "NO. SPITTING IS NOT OKAY." assured me you were a woman who abides by her own standards.

"So if you ever take that shower and blow dry your hair out, most likely for the first time in three years, respond to this email."


Rawr, fellas. The line starts on the left.

Get back in the pool, whores.

I really, really, really hate this commercial:



You wanna know why? Because I used to use the Nuvaring. You know what happened when I used the Nuvaring?


Yeah. That.

(Disclaimer: I love my daughter more than life itself, no matter how completely, totally, and utterly unplanned her conception was.)

So whenever this commercial comes on -- and it's on all the fucking time -- I damn near lose my mind. I just want to scream at those stupid bitches to put their yellow swimsuits and swimmy caps back on and GET BACK IN THE GODDAMN POOL because when you decide to be all swanky in the hot tub in your slutty two piece bikini, that's when you get babies. That's right, THERE ARE BABIES IN THE NUVARING HOT TUB.

That's all.

Grinch Shield Down...

I don't like Christmas, primarily because my family hasn't really been into it for years and I sort of lost out on the whole "family gathering" warm fuzzies that most people have. My grandparents died when I was pretty young, and the natural course of events resulted in that the different "factions" of the family splintered off and did their own thing. It happens, but when you're not even quite into adolescence, you grow up feeling like you missed out on something.

Anyway, boo hoo for me. I don't like Christmas season. Whenever I tell people this, I'm usually met with shock, disgust and confusion. I've been forcing myself to feign enjoyment and involvement for Punk's sake, but I'm a Grinch at heart.

But my favorite Christmas memories involve my grandfather. After my grandmother died when I was 9, he kind of (as I best understand it as an adult) tried to take over both roles, which for an old Navy vet was no easy feat. Every winter before Christmas I would go to his house, and we'd make chocolate buckeyes together. (For those poor souls who are unfamiliar, or not lucky enough to be from the great state of Ohio, you can find out what you're missing here).

My dad and grandparents, ca. 1967

We'd cook them over his gas stove and listen to Christmas music and he'd talk about Grandma, and get teary while he did it. When you're about 10, it's kind of awkward and uncomfortable, but I really miss hearing him tell stories about her, about as much as I miss her.

While we were waiting for the chocolate to melt on the stove, I'd go dink around on Grandma's old organ in the back room of their house. I took piano lessons from ages 6-15, and I did pretty well for my age, I guess. I was doing more advanced stuff by the time I was 9 and 10. And I remember, as the house started to smell like chocolate, he would come back and show me on the keyboard, hen pecking with one finger, how to play the opening line of "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas".

He'd teach me the same opening line every year like it was the first time I'd ever been shown what a piano keyboard was. Maybe he forgot he'd shown me before, or maybe he was unaware I could play piano, and pretty well. But I think he just liked having that chance to show me something, on Grandma's organ. For a little bit, it was like we were hanging out with her again.

Looking back on my childhood and adolescence, I sat through hundreds of hours being instructed on the piano how to play nocturnes and overtures and everything in between by Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Debussy, and Gershwin; and my most missed memory of lessons is Grandpa leaning over my shoulder, hen-pecking those eight notes, and so proud to be showing it to me.

All through college and even still, I make buckeyes every Christmas season, and I'm looking forward to Punk being old enough to "help" me in another year or two. It's just what I do. It's my communion with two people that I really, really miss, and feel like I got robbed of a lot of time with sometimes.

So yeah. I'm a bitch about Christmas. But it's just because I think about memories like this and I just really, really miss them.

Social network attention whoring

So the blog now has its own "fan page" on Facebook. And I swear to Flying Spaghetti Monster and upon everything I hold dear that I am not the one who made it, nor did I request that it be made. No. Really. I didn't.

Anyway, if you want to go be my blog's fan (you don't have to be MY fan, though hey, I might be a fan of my own blog and that fan page, because I'm a total narcissist), just search for "How to Become an Adult in Six Easy Steps" and go be a fan. Please be a fan. Discuss the blog, discuss how much I suck for never updating, I don't know. Be a fan and I'll be your friend, okay?

Photobombing

I did a lot of asshole things in college, most of which I was drunk during. A lot of things were broken, sinks were puked in, people were punched in the face (sorry Pagel), and drive-thrus were peed in. I've never claimed that I was the pinnacle of class and elegance in my early 20's... okay, maybe I have... but one of my favorite pasttimes of my college days was a hilarious trick known as photobombing.

What's photobombing, you ask? Well, I could give you a long, over-detailed and drawn-out explanation, or I could just copy and paste from the Urban Dictionary:

"The act where one or several persons ruin (sometimes improve) a photo by performing funny acts in the background which may include a dry gangbang, holding stick like objects up to your crotch or raising your clothing."

And then I could see you an Urban Dictionary definition and raise you a link to, and example from, This Is Photobomb:


So is the whole class clear of what photobombing is? Yes? Okay. Moving on.

And so, following my preceding statement and summary of asshole things I did in college, one of the few things I am extremely proud of was a school-year-long declaration of Greek War. For those who don't understand the intricate political workings of university Greek life (that's sororities and fraternities, not our gyro-loving friends from the Mediterranean), every sorority is different. You have the Stepford Wives, you have the bleach-blonde barbie doll sluts, you have the stoners and fat girls and the misfits.

I was Queen of the Misfit sorority. Don't get me wrong. We were fun girls. Hilariously fun girls. But we weren't your typical peroxide Malibu barbies. No, I rushed the Malibu Barbie sorority and wasn't offered a bid. Which is what sparked my long-running grudge -- like the awkward, dorky girl who held out hope for the head cheerleader to invite her to the class sleepover and that invitation never came (not that I'd know what that was like, *ahem* I had something else I had to do that night, so whatever), I declared war on the snob sororities, and with my army of misfit minions, I made the most amazing strategic move ever known in college Greek politics:

I declared a yearlong photobomb war.

By "war" I mean that most likely they had no idea what we were doing, and were probably completely oblivious at the time. But Flying Spaghetti Monster as my witness, when they developed their pictures (this was before digital cameras), there was someone mooning the camera behind the Barbies at the bar, or flying-lead-face-making behind them at Dance Marathon, or flipping off the camera in a recruitment picture.

I photobombed. I dropped the mothereffing Hiroshima of photobombs. For an entire year.

It got to the point that we could do it without even communicating to each other that it was photobomb time. I would just spy a group of AZD's gathering together, forming into your stereotypical sorority girl pose (no, I don't mean on all fours presenting to a frat guy...or passed out spread eagle... I mean the group pose in which the girls in the front row all bend down, hands on knees, boobs out, and everyone behind them leans forward), I would instantly running to leap through the background, or throw up a middle finger, or just look retarded/lost/confused, and I would find a fellow AOPi standing beside me looking equally retarded/lost/confused. It was like an unspoken call to sisterhood.

This, THIS, my friends, is why my sorority dues were worth every penny. Because for a split second, despite all the drama of who hit on whose boyfriend and what certain chapter president was desperately in love with a Lambda Chi Alpha, who said what and who stole whose shoes/boyfriend/whatever, we were united in our hatred and disdain. Loyal forever, Alpha to Thee, ladies! (Side note, I wonder if this is going to cause me to get another shitty email from headquarters about "image" and "sisterhood" and "saying fuck too much".)

It was kind of like Where's Waldo, except I was even dorkier than Waldo, usually much drunker, and much more self-congratulatory. Somewhere, in a sorority scrapbook somewhere, damn near every photo has myself and several other members of my sorority making obscene faces, gestures, looking lost, or flashing random body parts in the background. (Note: I don't mean my sorority's scrapbook -- no, we do it front and center as the object of the photo in our own sorority scrapbook.)

And today, those Delta Gammas may feel nostalgic and flip open and look through those scrapbooks, and they'll furrow their perfectly groomed and waxed brows, and they'll curl their perfectly manicured fingers into little fists and raise them in vain to the sky and they'll curse those damn photobombing AOPi's. And they'll rue -- RUE! -- the day they refused to give me a bid even though I was a legacy, and they'll wonder what kind of god would forsake them in that he would allow the AOPi's to ruin every single group shot they took, for an entire year.

It's the Curse of the Photobomb, my friends, and it was glorious. And you may be expecting that years later, now that I am more mature and have grown as a person, that I would apologize to the Delta Gammas and Alpha Xi Deltas and Kappa Kappa Gammas for ruining their lovely pictures.

And you're wrong. Fuck you, we were hilarious. The end.