Fixed to Ruin - Sam Roberts

We're All Gonna Get in a Fight!

                There are many things that may age you; even more that are classified with “coming of age”. Two weekends ago I think I experienced both those things. First on Saturday, I saw my first fight up close with the blood and sweat and petty emotions. On Sunday I almost got in my first fight – petty emotions also included. For a girl who spends a large chunk of her Saturday nights with a stack of books and successive bowls of mint chocolate ice cream, this was an eventful weekend – and did I mention I turned 21 on the Sunday?

 But I have used my old trick of giving you a taste of the punch line with no story (this is how I rope my brother into my “boy problems” stories). Well, it all came about because that weekend was indeed Halloween weekend. I may not be one to party hardy but I will take any excuse to dress up, and it seems as the years go on those opportunities become fewer and farther between.  So Saturday night was the big party in the city I live in. Hundreds of people come out to what is called the “Monster Mash”, usually already drunk and ready to become even more so in attempts to seduce one of those slutty fairies, fish, elves, pumpkins, cats, giraffes, angels, etc (really, the list wouldn’t end. There were even three slutty deviled eggs).  I am consistently sober in these intoxicated situations, but I have a rule that if I am not having fun sober that I should not be there. So at 11:30 p.m., I wasn’t having fun and I was sitting outside waiting for my ride dressed as an Escaped Barbie (with the wires on like I had ripped from the box – it was funnier in person). Not twelve inches from where I was sitting, two guys who looked to be friends were suddenly in negotiations of who was going to throw the first punch.  The one guy claimed to not know what the fight was about, but he also didn’t walk away. As I quickly collected my Barbie accessories and shuffled to the side, fists were shoved into faces, knees into crotches, elbows into ribs, and then a guy was down and getting blood and spit pounded out of his face. Luckily I had attracted two other guys while sitting outside (nothing like a dressed up single girl all alone that brings out the heroic in the inebriated) who eventually ran over and separated the others.  My ride showed up within the next five minutes and I went to bed thinking that fights in real life look just like they do in the movies.

The next day was my birthday, and that night I went to a concert by Sam Roberts with my sister and some pals. We made sure we were there early and rushed to be at the very front, right by the stage. Half-way through “Fixed to Ruin” my sister and friend were slammed into me with a look of apologetic shock on their faces.  Two verses later the same guy was leaning all his weight on my friend as she tried to push back. I like to think I am a relatively peaceful person. In high school I heard it said that people knew they had done something really wrong if I was angry about it. I like to live up to that reputation. On that note, I must have been born with a justice complex; and in that moment when some sweaty, drunk, long-haired dude was impressing his weight on the passive back of my friend - I had had enough. So I shoved him back into his group of slobbering friends, and when he rammed into us again I pushed him right back. The effectiveness of this strategy is questionable, but every time he would lurch forward and fly into us, I would use all the strength I had to fly him away from us again. You might say, “Well, what did you expect being in the front?”, but it wasn’t that everyone was moshing and we were the only ones wanting to chastely bob to the music; it was only that guy and his two bleary eyed friends who continued to disrespect the people around them by attacking them in their drunken fervor. In my opinion, I paid for the ticket (or rather, my Mom did as a birthday present. Thanks, Mom) and I should be able to enjoy the concert from wherever and in whatever fashion I choose. Those guys have the same right,  if they wanted to thrash around dancing, that’s their prerogative; when they start moving out of their own space and wrecking the experience for others – that’s when I get mad.

It’s a funny thing when you express your anger in aggressive actions. I can see why people get into fights and like fights. Every time that that guy slammed me forward, my shove back was stronger. and with more impact, and more satisfaction in some deep part of me. Maybe it had just been a couple of rough weeks with a lot of stresses that I could not control, and this was just transferred anger; but by the end of the concert my mind was daring this wreck of a guy to push me one more time – ONE MORE TIME. I wanted to throw a punch. I wanted to mess him up.

Well, maybe it was divine providence, or maybe I really did intimidate him enough that he wasn’t going to bother us anymore. Either way, the last five songs of Sam Roberts we were able to enjoy at our own pace. I was glad that I had finally “won”, but still pretty annoyed that I had to spend the majority of this experience bracing myself against attacks and distractions from the wonder and thrill of live music.  I was surprised at myself for wanting to get in a fight so bad - maybe in the end I wanted to teach humanity a lesson, but honestly, it would have sufficed to just teach that one drunk a lesson. 

Next time.

And His Hair was...PERFECT!

“So, my policy is mostly just do what I do, and try and make sure my hair always looks good,”

                I would put these words of my wiser friend in my “Words to Live By” feature, but it’s too good a quote not to discuss. There is so little control in life. Right now I am sitting at home with a mountain of homework, and a blaring cold that is refusing to get better. No control over that. BUT- even in the midst of the most blazing of blaring colds, you can still make sure your head is perfectly coiffed. That is some control. Minimal, but sometimes just enough control to hurl us onwards towards whatever it is that we keep desperately trying to catch up with. I am a person with real dreams, but no real strategy. All I can do is, “…just do what I do….” which may not seem like much, but at the end of the day when my picture is taken for the Archives of Anonymity, at least my hair will look darn good.

                                          Werewolves of London - Warren Zevon

Completely Honest with No Agenda

Boy: What character are you working on from Canterbury Tales?

Me: The Wife of Bath, there seems to be a lot to talk about with her, so it should be good.

Boy: Cool, we should work on ours together.

Me: That sounds fun! Sure! Uh.. I’m just going to mention, in case you were thinking of something – maybe you weren’t- but if you were, uh,  I should just mention-

Boy: Yea?

Me: …I’m not entirely normal.

Boy: (Internally “Wah-Oh”)

Me: Not, like, clinically “not normal”, it’s just that if we hang out now, and then we hang out again, then you might- after a certain amount of hanging out- decide that you feel things for me…I might have even thought in the course of that time that I feel things for you too. But, I can guarantee that as soon as you exhibit any feelings whatsoever, my own thoughts (whatever they were) will vanish; and I will run, not walk, in the opposite direction. I don’t know why. I haven’t psycho-analyzed it, but I have detected a pattern. So, if you have any fluttering thoughts beyond just friends right now, here is your fair warning. 

Boy:  ….

I wonder if this would be effective in real life, or if I can only be this honest in my daydreams.

That's Poppycock!

As promised, here is my Aunt's wonderfully addictive recipe for caramel coated popcorn confection, aka, Poppycock! I make a big bowl of this and munch on it all week (or for as long as it lasts...) whilst studying!


Shari's Poppycock

8 cups popped corn
1 cup roasted pecans


Melt:
1 cup butter (1/2 lb.)
1 cup sugar (brown sugar works well)
1/2 cup white corn syrup (or regular is fine too)

Boil 5 to 10 minutes until it starts to form a ball in pot. Stir the entire time. Remove from heat. Add 1 tsp. vanilla. Mix all together and ENJOY!

If you have not heard this song yet, you really must. My obsession is 2 weeks strong and counting.

Gotye: Somebody That I Used To Know

Oh, Hey... I Didn't See You There!

                Alright, you caught me. I have been avoiding you. Before realizing that this was the truth five minutes ago, I could not begin to tell you why. In the past couple months since I began this blog, it was the one thing that reminded myself that I was still going places – that I had a plan, despite my school hiatus. But now I am back in school, just finished my first week back, and I have this immense sense of dread that I am going to let you (and potentially a lot of other people) down.

                I am more excited for school this year than I have ever been, but I am also so much more scared. Four out of five of my classes are English classes, and never in my life have I wanted to do better than ever scholastically. This is the one thing in life that I love, that I feel completely free in doing, but those feelings are of no use if they cannot be justified by the approval of the public, right? I realize that this is dangerous, but I have the idea that if I do not do well- if I have completely lost my knack for writing essays or somehow all my opinions come across as shockingly uninformed or one-sided -  that essentially me and my future as I have dreamt it are eternally hooped. Life is so much easier when your only literary critic is your mother (a brilliant literary informed mind in her own right, but still, my mom).

                This blog post, however, is my stand against overcoming these feeling of inadequacy. Nothing was ever won without hard work, and that is exactly what I will do, along with “Faking it until I Make it” and if necessary, “Finding a Window when God closes a Door”.  

Jibber Jabber

                I talk to myself. A lot. I wouldn’t necessarily say that I have imaginary friends – but I have several imaginary acquaintances. I don’t know if this is normal or not. I assume not, since the few times I have mentioned it to people in passing (about how much I talk to myself) it always seems to be met with a look of bewilderment and me trying to backtrack and pass it off as a joke.

                But it’s really not a joke. It usually goes along 3 different paths. 1- I’m being interviewed (presumably in the future) about my life by a famous interviewer (ie. Oprah or Ellen), and I am telling them how I overcame my life’s obstacles to be in the position of imminent success that I (apparently) am in. 2 – I am having a break through moment with a friend (that I actually already have) that I have been wanting to have in real life for a long, long time. 3 – (and this one is most common) I’m meeting a complete stranger and for some reason something just clicks, and they understand everything that I say and mean to the fullest extent, and want nothing but to hear about all the intrinsic details that make me uniquely myself, and when they do finally speak it is only to reaffirm everything that I already believe about myself and about the world around me.

                I don’t know why I do this. Am I more insane than I like to admit? I will have extended conversations, to myself, with an imaginary voice answering all my questions inside my head. Not always, but if I’m left alone – in my bedroom, in a bathroom staring into the mirror, during a slow night at work- I will. Maybe I just like the sound of my own voice bouncing off the vacant walls and coming back to me with the brilliance and clarity that only true vanity can bring. Or perhaps this is why I feel somewhere within me that I must write – it is, after all, a more acceptable and concrete means of getting my own thoughts out and sorted in the world (in comparison to talking to oneself).

                I suppose this brings me in a round-a-bout way to my somewhat related, but not entirely, next point as for the upcoming month I will mainly be only talking to myself since next Friday I am off on the wildest adventure I have been on yet! I do not want to let this meager progress I feel I have had personally as a writer slide- but there is really no way around it as I will be who knows where in Europe with nothing but a locally purchased cell phone to keep in contact with my mother so that she will know that my sister and I are still alive abroad.

                Looking back at this post as I’m writing this, I suppose it looks a bit suspicious of me telling you of my potential insanity and then mysteriously “leaving”, however I have more than full intentions of returning at the end of August with my pockets full to the brim of fresh perspectives and new stories to share. I have loved every minute of writing into this dark abyss that is cyber space – thus this is hardly goodbye, and only talk to you very soon!

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

                I feel as if I have been swept up into the great whirlwind that is my life right now. I had to register for my classes in the fall (yay!), I went to my sister's graduation this past weekend (crazy!), and am trying to tie together all the loose ends I can before my BIG trip this summer (have I mentioned it?) - all of which had been completely cramping my writing style.  

                On the note of my BIG trip – I’m going to Europe for a month on July 22^nd. I’m so excited since I have never been anywhere, but also nervous with all the new things I will have to figure out (and crossing my fingers that my hard earned funds will tide me over for the entire time + school in the fall). I cannot even imagine what it will be like, except exhilarating.

                These are our main stops:

Hanover

Berlin

Prague

Vienna

Venice

Rome

Paris

London

                Thoughts? Opinions? Favorite spots? I would love to hear your ideas.

               

                Also, here's a new song obsession - Let It In by Sam Roberts

Stone Cold Fox

             

               “Do you ever wonder what it would be like to be divinely beautiful?”

                Well, do you?

                What does it feel like? Is it different than the average human experience? Would you get used to complete strangers stopping you on the street, or in the grocery line up, or in the library, to tell you how beautiful you were? Would you expect little children to stare at you in awe and whisper in barely hushed, quavering voices “She’s so perfect!”.  Would you always get the feeling that the great love ballad at every rock concert you went to was strangely sung in your direction? Would you get more discounts than the next guy, or receive the best service at your local video rental store?  I could not say. I wonder if there would be a flip side to being divinely beautiful as well? What would the disadvantages be? Perhaps people making assumptions about who you were without getting up the courage to actually get to know you. Maybe others would think that you were a snob if you were just a bit shy. Would you have to prove your intellectual worth more than that chap with glasses? It could happen.

                It must be hard to not lose restraint on your vanity if every turn you make is greeted with an admiring glance. The only thing more obvious than blatant self adoration, is poorly executed modesty. In this world, you must be modest. When someone gives you a compliment, you must act as if it is the first time that you have heard those words of praise. How difficult that must be when you are told those same words several times a day by various people? But even so, above all else, modesty must be sincere. I have been told before (although, I’m not sure who their sources were) that an uncanny number of famous actors and celebrities have incredibly low self esteem. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that to be well liked (truly well liked) you must be sincerely modest; and with the talents, looks, and business savvy that your average celebrity would have, they would have to work awfully hard at telling themselves enough negative messages to equalize all the compliments and admiration they received in order to maintain the equilibrium of a modest persona.

             So maybe being divinely beautiful is not all it’s cracked up to be. Perhaps being average gives you more freedom to be genuinely touched and surprised at the compliment of a stranger. Maybe there is no stigma, or difference in sale price, and no higher rate of receiving a double take in a crowd. Maybe – but it never hurts to wonder. 

Picture from  http://www.postsecret.com/