We will TOTALLY braid each other's hair and play MASH some day

We're all well aware that one of my favorite games IN THE UNIVERSE is pretending that celebrities and I have friendships which are meant to be.

It's true, guys, the Hanson brothers just don't know how much they need me.

Today's target of creepy bff-ship? None other than the this-is-what-people-mean-when-they-say-girl-next-door-beauty-not-ScarJo-why-keep-insisting-that-woman-looks-like-your-neighbor, talented, effervescent Alison Brie.

Now, I don't watch Mad Men, but I have more than a mild crush on the entire cast and crew of Community and, well, then there's this:

http://www.nerve.com/features/true-stories/homosexual-schmomosexual

C'mon. Please tell me you don't want to be that woman's best friend. PLEASE. Just TRY.

Reasons I'm going to Albuquerque: A list which will probably devolve into paragraphs

I would like to say, "people ask me about my move all the time" but, that's not strictly true. People ask me about my plans all the time, but become so horrified at the prospect of me moving halfway across the country without a job for some boy that it's really hard to get any discourse in edgewise.

Ah, defensive explanations of my life choices: I know you so well. This feels exactly like when I first started to tell people the topic I'd chosen for my undergraduate thesis. Once they recovered from the shock and horror that I was Making Poor Life Choices, they just pitied me and wondered why, oh why, they'd ever thought me capable of making those choices on my own in the first place. Here we are, two years later, and while my thesis was a terribly written document that I often question the validity of, I think I would be a markedly different person if I hadn't written it. So...take that?

Re: My Move To Albuquerque, I often hesitate to tell people that my GentlemanCaller lives there, because their reactions are so. freaking. belittling. As such, and in answer to Everyone I Work With (who are all well intentioned, let me state that for the record) I would like to start with a list of reasons I'm not moving to Albuquerque:

1. I'm not moving because I'm pregnant.


2. I'm not moving because I'm engaged or plan to be as such in the foreseeable future.


3. I'm not moving to lose my identity in my BigStrongMAN's job/life/dreams only to wake up 35 years from now to realize, tragically, that I never pursued my own.


4. I'm not moving because my identity is already so inexorably tied to that of my BigStrongMAN that I cannot conceptualize life apart from him any longer and dream of a day when I can effectively define myself by him.


5. I'm not moving because I need to get laid.
   

I hope, really and truly, that most of these things come as common sense to those who love me. Of course I am not moving for any of those reasons BECAUSE ALL OF THOSE REASONS ARE DUMB AND/OR INAPPLICABLE TO MY LIFE.

Dear People Who Love Me: I know I've struggled to pick "winners," if you will, when it comes to the men on whom I often lavish affection. That being said: please stop freaking out and assuming I've lost my autonomy because you've learned I'm dating someone. It is insulting.

Reasons I am moving to Albuquerque:

1. I currently live 10 minutes away from both of my parents, in the town in which I grew up, which is only 2 hours away from the college I attended. I think my horizons need a little expanding.


2. I have struggled, immensely, to make a life for myself which I like here. The difficulties I've had building a social network in the 'Noke are almost cripplingly depressing some days. Despite how much I truly love the few friends I've managed to secure, I think I need to try my hand in a bigger area where there's a possibility of meeting and making more friends.


3. My position was cut by the school system, due to extreme budgetary issues. I moved back to Roanoke for this position more than for any other reason, and without it staying here seems weird.


4. The other position I could seek within this system, while exciting on many fronts, is ultimately a terrible personality fit for me. When I am least happy in my current job is when I feel most isolated and least like a member of a team. This new position would be far more isolated than my current one, a fact which I know would be very hard for me to stomach on a daily basis.


5. I used to dream of spending some time in my life in the WildWildWest - and I think Albuquerque's breathtaking mesas and yawning deserts fit that bill. It is totally different from anything with which I'm remotely familiar, and that excites me for the same reasons the thought of living in the DC-Metro area is skin-crawlingly-horrible to me. DC, for all it's perks, seems so familiar it makes me feel like crying. Albuquerque, though, is a completely different kind of adventure than I'm used to.


6. Everything fell into place, once I started looking. Months ago, I was merely tossing the idea of moving to Albuquerque around. Honestly, I expected I'd spend a summer there then go off to somewhere like New York to face destitution on those hard streets. As soon as I mentioned to pertinent people, however, that I was merely considering a Southwestern re-location, even temporarily, things started clicking. I effortlessly found a roommate: another Wahoo and a brother from APO. I immediately clicked with a friend-of-a-friend who wants to bring me into her social group. I befriended a man who works for the University from which I'm seeking employment who decided, after our brief plane ride together, that he wants to help me get a job. Every tentative step I took in the direction of Albuquerque was met with Fanfare From The Universe - a sign if I ever saw one.


7. I might get to have a lot of Deaf friends. My now-friend Lesley and her boyfriend are both ASL interpreters and most of their other friends are Deaf or at least sign. I'm incredibly excited about becoming closer friends with Lesley, and the possibility of getting to truly learn a language which challenged and intrigued me so much when I studied it in college.


8. I'm really, really, unhappy with where my life is right now and, ultimately, feel like I need to move. I know moving doesn't solve anything a vast majority of the time, but I also know that I'll wonder obsessively until I try. That being said, I know one of my criteria for moving is that I need to move somewhere which seems to promise a social support system. After much hemming and hawing, the two cities which emerged as most likely to provide the both the move and the support I need were New York and Albuquerque.


9. My decision to go to Albuquerque was, honestly, as much a decision not to go to NYC as it was anything else. New York houses two of the few people in this world who call me a "best friend," a fact exceptional enough that it doesn't escape my notice. I also don't believe, as many of those who love me do, that NYC would "chew me up and spit me out" or, even, be that harsh and unforgiving - in large part because I know it is home to people who love me. However, I also know that if I were to move to New York I would not particularly want to get a Real Job. I would want to nanny, to work at Starbucks, to join interesting writers circles and tag along to the slam poetry scene. I know this, because when I think about jobs in New York, I think "9-5. Ew." I also know that, at some point, I would start to feel my own directionlessness, and I have a pretty good idea that I wouldn't have undergone nearly as much learning and growing as I'd want to, and that would ultimately be a bad scene. For me, right now, moving to New York is like moving to Neverland: it's a place where you never have to grow up, ever. I am not positive that's what I need in my life right now.


10. Yeah, Mike's in Albuquerque, and I hate that people judge me for that. I hate how often people point out that we might break up, mere seconds after my arrival in the state of New Mexico. I hate that people sigh and look like "there goes another good one" when they think I'm uprooting my whole life, practicality be damned, to be with a boy. I hate that my mother thinks I'm choosing some passing crush over career advancement in my home town. He's the reason I started looking at Albuquerque in the first place, sure, but he's not the reason I'm moving. I hate that if Mike lived in New York or Boston or San Francisco, no one would think twice about my move - because those are cities already imbued with senses of adventure in our collective cultural consciousness.

Am I moving to the city in which my GentlemanCaller lives? Sure. Am I moving there for him? Oh. Heck. No. I am moving for me, because I need to move, and because I am excited about this as the move for me, and because I want to. I struggle with how to convey this to people, with how to drive home the point that the GC was a mitigating factor, but not the deciding one.

I hear, from the depths of my MiddleSchoolBrain, a 14-year-old Carly telling me to not care what other people think. As a 14-year-old, I found that philosophy as frustrating as I find it a decade later. I care what people think, because I know they care for me.

Dear The World: I know you're only looking out for my best interests but please, please, please believe me when I say that I am too.

Stop, collaborate, and listen

Pretty much once a day, I think about things I should be writing. This thought, like many of my more nagging thoughts, is often answered by taking a nap.

You know how I do.

It frustrates me when people put "life updates" in blogs, because they feel like what they are: rushed, forced, and formulaic. It frustrates me, too, when people DON'T put life updates in blogs because then...you know...I'm not updated on their lives. My pragmatic nosiness and artistic sensibilities are constantly warring forces.

I spent a few half-hearted months trying to write a blogpost about control. It started off with something like, "in the past two calendar years I've survived both a sexual assault and a really scary car accident and I think both of those things bring me back to my thoughts on power and control and Women In The Workforce" but, as these things often are, it was forced and false and overly verbose to make up for being uncomfortable.

When people ask what I've been up to for the past little while, I usually tell them about a few things, including but not limited to the following. My job was cut and my contract ends in June. My sister's getting married in August. I'm moving to Albuquerque sometime around mid-August or early September, depending upon how my summer employment works out. No, it's not just to be with my Gentleman Caller. Yes, he happens to live there, too. I like to go on bike rides with my friends. Travel is the #1 way in which I live beyond my means these days, but my one-bedroom is pretty sweet, too. The piece of glass stuck under my skin, right by my left ear, left from the aforementioned scary car accident is still there and it makes me feel weird to touch it. I took a creative writing class at the local community college from which I have myriad hilarious stories. I spend more time than is strictly necessary on sites like Awful First Dates and Babies Making Faces and I'm okay with that. Applying to jobs is scary. I still don't know how to pop-and-lock. I stayed at a hotel in Mexico which had doorbells for each room. While teaching my little brother to drive we had candid discussions about creating a culture of explicit consent, what abusive relationships look like, and how to prioritize both emotional and physical safety. I've made banana chocolate chip mini muffins at least 5 times this year.

That's probably not it, but it's a start.

Tyra - you know I love you.

So, pretty much the whole point of having a blog is the freedom to re-post C-RAZY links, right?

Right. Solid.

So this youtube video has pretty much Everything I've Ever Wanted From Life:

1. Tyra Banks being COMPLETELY INSANE.

2. Tyra Banks asking Robert Pattinson to bite her.

3. Tyra Banks telling Robert Pattinson he looks dirty.

4. An accidental: HOLY CRAP, TWILIGHT IS WEIRD AND CRAZY reveal.

5. Pie-eating contests.

6. Taylor Lautner telling Tyra that he'd bite her, if requested.

7. Perhaps more fodder for my, "Maybe T-Laut is the cutest 16-year-old-boy-EVAR...or more probably the newest about-to-be-gay-icon-EVAR" theory.

E.n.j.o.y.

Here's the thing, she's really only talking about parties in LA...

"Meg, why don't you ever update?"

"Because I hate you."

I very much enjoy that Miley Cyrus' diddy "Party in the USA" has spawned my two favorite kinds of cover.

ASL:

And fabulously tongue-in-cheek gay man:

That is all.

we'll call ourselves an upRISING. Get it? It's a yeast joke.

I want to start a movement, a grassroots movement that grows worldwide and engulfs the peoples of the globe in its loving arms.

I want to start a food movement. Like the local food movement or the organic food movement, I want my movement to grow out of the grass-roots initiatives of people who really care and have science on their side. I want my movement to begin in the blogs and the small-town newspapers and the yuppie west-coast coffee shops of our nation. I want my movement to be hip in Asheville and down in Louisville. I want my movement to take stay-at-home moms with slings instead of strollers by storm. I want my movement to be so cool it's a class statement.

I want to start the: I Am Not A Bad Person Because I Love Baked Goods movement. We'll take cupcakeries, doughnut shops, and pie-stands along with us as we sweep the nation! People will learn to love yeast again! The hip-hot spots like Voodoo Doughnuts, Sprinkles, Crumbs, and Magnolia will stand as our beacons of truth. Pies - unique receptacles of pastry goodness - will serve as our open door. Fill us with your regional specialty, we are willing. We are warm. We flake on command.

Baklava makes us international.

Muffins ingrain us in your morning rituals. We are filled with oats and bananas and blueberries and sunshine.

My movement will not, however, do several things. Firstly, no one will advertise my movement in cycling class. Or pilates class. Or at triathlon training. Or even, most probably, during yoga. My movement is not about diets or exercise plans or working it off. My movement knows no cycling class. It knows no pilates. It knows no jazzercize, no body pump, no nothin'. You see, the whole point of my movement is that you eat not that you regret eating so my movement has no checks-and-balances - it doesn't need them. My movement is already balanced, balanced with joy.

My movement will not hire nutritionists. Our scientists are psychologists who wish they'd become philosophers and philosophers with the sympathetic ears of psychologists. My movement is not about an obsession with food as a means to nourishment anymore than good sex is about procreation. My movement is about foreplay. My movement is about eating. I want my movement to be to food as the removal of abstinence-only education is to the budding minds of young teenagers. It is liberating. It is responsible. It is realistic.

Food today is a lot like sex education today. If we simply tell children that pre-marital sex is wrong surely they will abstain, right? It's wrong morally. It's wrong for your health. It's wrong for your future. But oh, oh oh, it's so good. BUT YOU CANNOT HAVE IT.

Yes, yes, I recall that all the teenagers I know respond well to that kind of message.

We do the same thing with food, baked goods especially. Those doughnuts are so good. They're calling your name. You want one. You need one. You should eat this diet bar instead, because otherwise your body won't look like a 12-year old boy's anymore, and that's wrong. That's bad for your health, looking like a grownup. It's bad for your future. Doughnuts and premarital sex are for kids who don't know any better and never plan on leaving this town.

Let's take back baked goods, folks. Let's take back childlike wonder. Let's take back joy. Let's take back first kisses and daring trysts and spices wafting through the house. Let's not let the naysayers rule our lives. Let's not let people who've lost touch with reality in some twisted crusade for Purity of Body and Spirit be those who dictate whether or not our carnal pleasures can lead to a higher enlightenment.

I see magic and dreams in our layer cake. I taste art in these brownies. I transcend with every bite of our maple-glazed doughnuts. I do. I really, really do.

So, if you'd like to end the abstinence-only education of our mid-twenties, come join me. I will be baking. And smiling. And loving. And free.

This is the reason I find it hard to blog

So, how appropriate is it to be all, "Hey - so I know we're not REALLY friends but you just confirmed my facebook friend request and...I think you should know I had a sex dream about you last night. Explosions were involved. It wasn't so much a 'sex dream' as a 'being held tightly to your (in my dream) manly, naked chest whilst being shielded from explosions. Your grease stains/scars were vaguely reminiscent of Fifth Element Bruce Willis. I believe we also rode motorcycles. Adam was there too." ?

Reason number 512 I think it's weird that I still have friends.

Just because it's 2am and you know I'll be in bed, thus easily findable, doesn't mean it's a good time to ask me to kill a cockroach for you.

Truth: I thought updating from New Haven would be easy, as I have one of those Totally Dynamic And Full of Stories Summer Jobs.

Truth, part the second: I was wrong. You see - my job is "RA/Instructor" at a summer camp for high schoolers, meaning I'm the RA for a living group of girls as well as instructor of two classes. This means several things which are prohibitive to blog posting. Thing number the first: I work two full-time jobs. That is exhausting. Really, really exhausting. Thing number the second: most of the things I'd want to talk about involve The Kiddies. Now, as evidenced by rarely blogging about The Kiddies this whole last year I worked with them, I don't feel super comfortable putting details of The Kiddies' lives on the interwebz. They are children, let their privacy be preserved.

Moving on.

Yesterday in Starbucks I passed a man who, were I the Short Story Writing kind, was most certainly fodder for short story writing. He was handsome, to be sure, but in this incredibly non-standard way - he was disheveled probably-a-crazy-person-or-perhaps-undiscovered-genius handsome. He was also using a brush and ink to create things that looked like cryptic punnett squares in a notebook of graph paper. Yes, Mr. Starbucks Dude, you are the stuff short stories are made of.

I often think a similar thought about my fellow camp counselors: you are the stuff short stories/movies about College Timez/ transparently autobiographical first novels to a lost love are about. The people I work with here are really kind of remarkable, it's overwhelming. I will include pictures, so you (the blogosphere) can be impressed with my skillz at having pretty friends.

Look how wholesome we are. We do things in parks! Wholesome! Parks!

It is impossible to doubt Rachel's wholesome intentions, to be sure. She's pretty unstoppably cute.

We went to see Harry Potter the first day it came out (we are too old for midnight showings, yo). I think this picture does a pretty good job of outlining our group dynamics.

Sam is skeptical! This is normal for Sam! Unfortunately, he left us after first session to go to training for his Fulbright. Like that's more important than MAKING FRIENDS AND KEEPING ME HAPPY!? Pssshhhht.

It is ACTUALLY impossible to take a bad picture of Patrick. Feel free to try. You won't succeed. Also - this may or may not be the night we drank the bar holding trivia night out of $2PBR.

These people are in charge of me. And always playing guitars. I think that's probably all you need to know in order to form an accurate picture of what my work life is like.

Once, on our day off, we went to the beach. Poetic. Poetic and full of beach napping.

We also do things like chaperoning children on trips. Trips to places like NYC. Then Chris comes down from the Norwood office and tells us we're going to do a photoshoot in Times Square. With 75 kids. And four chaperons. Woo and hoo.

Dancing in the dining hall to get pumped for 80s night. Also because, really, when SHOULDN'T we be dancing in the dining hall?

Some people took edible architecture really seriously. Those people are far more awesome at edible architecture-ing than I.

Tamar looks almost as silly in my Huge Zebra sunglasses as I do.

This makes our job look far more relaxing than it actually is. I'm okay with that.

A cautionary tale of the most serious nature!

On Going Dancing In Your Home Town: A Cautionary Tale: 

Ladies, should you find yourself Out On The Town in the same small southern city in which you were raised be aware - danger lurks! Yes, Dear Ladies - danger lurks, danger of a most nefarious sort!  Keep vigilant, ladies, lest you find yourself and your Leggy Blond friend ground allupons (grinded allupons?) by one of your former local news anchors.  Be wary ladies.  So wary.

So, so wary.  

That's it. I'm shopping for a place in Brooklyn.

I kid you not, moments after I'd posted the wolf t-shirt blog entry my hipster friend Hunter, who's subbing in this high school today, came down to show me the shirt he's just gotten for himself:



Oh...oh hell.

You know what? Hunter is 100% right when he says I only hate because I'm jealous. I hate out of PURE jealousy in fact. He's right. That shit is majestic. It is startling beauty deserving of both my respect and my adoration. I'm just pissed because I can't wear it.

I want unicorn t-shirts.

And my Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper With Matching Pencil Pouch.

And a felt poster.

Hipster culture - why must you adopt and flaunt in front of me everything I ever loved.

Never fear: neither jorts nor a braided belt were involved.

One of the most hipster kids in the more hipster of the two high-schools in which I work was wearing almost exactly this t-shirt today, except the background was a shade of mauve-meets-lavender.

I say only this: wolf t-shirts? Oh hipster culture. How you've failed me!

This is why they shouldn't give us responsiblity

Mary, on her most recent interaction with the captain of our football AND basketball teams: "I may or may not have said to Darren Thomas, 'strip baby, strip' because he was taking off his shirt anyway...because he wanted to show me tattoos...and I was THINKING IT, and then I realized, 'OH GOD! I SAID THAT OUT LOUD.'"

Also, we once took a lot of pictures of my feet with her cell phone to compaire them to photos online to determine whether or not I have cankles.

It's really, really, really, really time for summer break.

TOTALLY CANDID, GUYS!

As is often the case in these blog-posts, let me begin with a List Of Truths About Meg:


1. I have a new camera, for the first time since, I think, 10th grade.
2. It is the Best Camera Anyone's Ever Owned, EVER. It's freeze-proof, shock-proof to 6.6 feet, and water-proof to 33ft. All of these things, while you might dub them "bells and whistles" are, in truth, MADE FOR ME. The creators of BlueBabe believe that I'm taking her camping, kayaking, spelunking, and into other TOTALLY X-TREME conditions. I am, in fact, taking her...to my life. Shock-proof and water-proof it is. She is also blue, hence I've named her BlueBabe, much like Babe the Blue Ox (Paul Bunyan's constant companion).
3. I am not a good photographer.
4. No. Really. You don't even know, dudes, you don't even know.
5. I can't really use most of the bells-and-whistles on my camera (the real ones, the ones that are for Makin' Pictures Pretty, as opposed to Makin' The Camera Not Dead).


My lack of photographic skillzzz, combined with my urge to Live Life Unmediated, and a signifcant dash of "forgetting I have a camera" means that I'm not usually The Photographer. When I remember, however, that photograph taking is something of which I am capable, and something which I wish I did more of, I often feel the pressure to Document Everything. (This is what I mean when I say being the photographer gets in the way of Living an Unmediated Life. The pressure of needing to see everything as a Photo Moment is high! It means you're living to look back on the memories later, not to make the memories now! PRESSURE!)


My favorite mode of picture taking, thus, is what I've deemed TOTALLY CANDID. This means I take lots of unflattering pictures of people, often while shouting, "TOTALLY CANDID." Soemtimes, I make you STOP smiling and looking cute, to mimic the "candid" nature of my favorite photographing style. Guess what? This is usually a dumb strategy. Most of my pictures are dumb. Yet, since either evolution or divine intelligence has seen fit to give me at least the semblance of free will, I also have the free will to refuse to learn from my mistakes. TOTALLY CANDID it is.


I am going to include some examples of my TOTAL CANDIDNESS so you can see - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't...and very occasionally, it's glorious.

I actually consider this something of a triumph of the "totally candid" school of picture taking. It's a photograph of my mother and aunt when we traveled down to Austin together for my Cousin's wedding. Is it a flattering picture? No (a common fault of TOTALLY CANDID). Is it interestingly composed? I would say yes. I like it. My mother does not. Tough cookies.


This picture? Kind of a failure as it's (1)really blurry (2)impossible to tell what's going on (3)kind of just of Caron's boobs. I will, however, swear up and down in similar pictures that they're great because they feature the energy of the setting. For instance, I really like this picture, blurriness aside:

ENERGY, GUYS, ENERGY.

Totally. Candid. Energy. C'mon. CCCCMMMOOOOON - isn't everyone willing to browse through grainy, poorly composed photographs in search of ENERGY? No? Well lame. (I'm also pretty darn anti-flash. I think it makes everyone look ugly. As a result, all of my pictures are fuzzy. All of them.)

Once in a while, though, Totally Candid pays off - you either get a really cute candid shot of someone you love (exhibit A) or a REALLY HILARIOUS shot of someone you love who will not de-tag because he is a good sport (exhibit B).


(exhibit A)



(exhibit B)



TOTALLY CANDID.


And, as is the recent blog theme: I love my life.

(It was an image search, by the way.)

So, I think I need to get better at clearing out my most recent search from that little google-search-bar at the top of my work computer. Obviously personal searches, at the end of the day, probably undermine my apperance of professionalsim

Sometimes I glance up there and see words like, "how do you become a physical therapist?" or "best pre-law programs in Virginia" or "african-american female buisness women scholarships." These searches, I feel, are fine.

Other times the searches are things like "fake boobs are better than rubber chickens."

...perhaps less fine.

My life is magical

Truth: Lately I've been the really lucky recipent of several unsolicited compliments. This is awesome - thank you, world, for showering this true kindness upon me. It makes me really happy.

Truth number the second: 100% of said compliments (all of which came from completely un-related parties) have been either of my skill with one-liners, or my breasts.

And I say again, and without any hint of irony: I love my life.

My hands smell like llama. It was worth it.

I got really hung up on the title for this entry. I want to make it, among other things, one of the following gems:

• "I'll tell you I love you when I catch my breath, post Zebra-Escaping-Sprint"


• "I'm not a smoker because dudes in hot tubs don't want in my pants badly enough to share cigarettes"


• "When you make fun of Trekkies and their commitment to the canon, it hurts me....we...we can still make out, though. I'd, uh, I'd be totally cool with that. Really. Totally cool."

and, my possible favorite,

• "All my life in an elaborate-lead in for an 80s-movie-themed music video."

Sometimes I worry about the wisdom of this blog. Many times I worry about the wisdom of this blog. This blog's wisdom is questioned for the following reasons:

• My students have the interwebs. It is but a matter of time before someone's bored enough to stumble across this bloggyblog. Most of the funny things that happen in my life are not, strictly speaking, the things I also think set up the most I-Am-A-Figure-Of-Authority-And-You-Are-My-Student relationship possible. Who, though, really wants to blog about non-funny things?


• One of the funniest things in my life semi-recently told me that this is the exact kind of blog he has some contempt for - the kind of blog that's just sort of...hey guys! Some things happened to me! And, you know, I care a lot about what people think? That's...in fact...why I have a blog.


• EMPLOYMENT! THE LOOMING THREAT OF ALL INTERNET ACTIVITY RUINING FUTURE EMPLOYMENT, etc.

Anywhoosles, allow me to tell you a story: My friend Chelsea, sometime around 11th grade (for those of you in the audience, that means she was 16 going on 17) was once stopped at a gas station by a band of Hot Indie Dudes who, upon being overcome by her beauty, wanted her to hop in their van and ride up to their NYC show. Chels, being educated in the ways of Stranger Danger, declined, but politely listened to the free CD the boys gave her, developed a taste for the band, and became a big fan. Fast forward two years to me, very uncomfortably in a hot tub (for which, let's keep in mind, I was NOT appropriately attired - though I'm going to go ahead and say my dress was damn cute anyway) in some random dude's house, post this band's show. With two girls members of the band Have The Hots For (oh, excuse me, Are Just Friends With), women who I adore and respect and who are Way Too Good For These Dudes. Srsly.

Fast forward to: AND THEN MY LIFE WAS HILARIOUS. Last night's is one of those stories I will never be able to do justice to, mainly because it's hilarity stems from its cliche nature. Tortured men, tempted by the Younger Women They Love, but loyal (ish) to The Women They've Left At Home. Beautiful young women...in a hot tub...after a rock show...with bottles of wine and cigarettes and laughter and quite the air of Movies About Rock Stars mystery. Me: the Overly Internal Not Lusted After Mother-Hen Type, torn between her desire to leave (fully aware that her friends can take care of themselves), her desire to stay (because when the hell else is this kind of thing going to happen to her), and her desire to smack someone in the head. We were a walking stereotype, and I'm kind of okay with it. I kind of love my life.

Allow me to tell you another story: this story features prominently Running The Fuck Away From Llamas:

The llama pictured above, poised to freaking kill us all, is one of the many inhabitants of the Safari Adventure located in scenic Natural Bridge, VA. Safari Adventure sounds like a really good idea...mainly because it is...but it is also WROUGHT WITH TERROR. I say to you this, and only this: you think feeding the animals is going to be a really, really good idea until you're suddenly in a car of college students shrieking like scared 8-year-olds, yelling "DRIVE! DRIVE! DRIVE! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, MEG, DRIVE!"

Zebras know. THEY KNOW.

Story number the last: There are many out there who are, far and away, bigger fans of Star Trek than I, this I readily admit. But how many people can claim that they've connected with a guy on a college-party dance-floor by asking, in earnest, "Do you ever feel like watching the Next Generation feels like coming home?" and receiving (again, in earnest) the reply, "Why do you think I still watch?"? Hm? Not many, I'd wager. Not. Too. Many.

I understand, Mr. Abrams, the need for Pointy Ships, Big 'Splosions, and loathsome loathsome I-am-death-to-everything-Meg-loves-when-I-touch-it Eric Bana. I really, in my heart-of-hearts understand your need for canoic change. Sure, I'll probably bluster around for a bit more about "Just Because Superman And Spiderman Can Do It, Doesn't Mean You Can Touch What I Love, Mr. Abrams! J.J? What's that stand for JERK...JERKFACE?!" and so on, but I understand. The canon had, I'm sure, grown restrictive. One of the beautiful things about the way Star Trek had successfully grown before, though, was its reliance on building forward, rather than having one, central, mythical creature around which everything needed to resolve. That's why Superman and Spiderman were more difficult, you see, Mr. Abrams. Each new creator felt the pressure to wipe the slate clean because one man can have but so many attachments. Star Trek was worlds and galaxies - a mythology based on the spirit of adventure, though I will readily admit much of the most satisfying adventure was to be found in the interpersonal relationships build aboard those ships.

So yes, I understand where you're coming from - the urge to seize onto an iconic figure, to build around his story (how very American) but the creative restriction decades of canon must have imposed. I understand it, and I think you handled it kind of confusingly, but I still probably don't exactly fault you for it. I do, though, fault you for letting them (the Pretty New Ones ) make fun of me, make fun of us, mock our possibility of indignation as Stodgy and Old and Delusional. Recognize what you're doing, sir: thousands of people cling to this canon because, at 2am on sketchy-house-party-dance-floors across the nation, people are hooking up because Star Trek felt like going home.

OMG GUYZ, 2FUN2FUNCTION!

I hate writing blog posts after a long spell of Not Blogging because, inevitably, there is that moment of "OMG GUYZ, I WOULD'VE UPDATED, LIKE, SO MUCH SOONER BUT MY LIFE IS JUST TOO INTERESTING AND FULL OF FUN THINGS FOR ME TO FIND THE TIME."



Truths it is essential for you, Dear Reader, to keep in mind:

1. My life does, indeed, have fun things in it. It is not, however, 2Full2Function of said fun things.

2. If there's one thing at which I do not excel, it is writing about things that matter to me, have any type of social or emotional connections, or writing with self-imposed deadlines.

3. I travel a lot on the weekends, and I'd intended this blog to be a log of Time Spent In Roanoke, so I always feel a little conflicted about basically posting a list of Things I Did While Not In Roanoke (omg dudez - SO MUCH FUNZ).



However, with the Three Essential Truths in mind, let us embark on A Blog Update.



This is for me, for when I'm re-reading through my blog and trying to remember what I did but didn't write about:

• I went to Beardfest - a festival for beards.


• I went to Jen's birthday party which was also beard themed at which I wore the best home-made beard known to man.


• I went on an Exploring Adventure in the park the day after Jen's birthday. And that was rad.


• I went up to C'ville to "help judge" UVa's debate tournament. I refer to this happenstance as, "In Wich I Attempted To Converse With People Who Like to Win At Talking...and spooned with Childers."


• I agreed to a nearly spontaneous road trip to Philadelphia. I refer to this happenstance as, "In Which I Thought 8-9 Hours Was A Totally Reasonable Drive For A Weekend Jaunt...and was perhaps not proven wrong!"

Also, I got sloppy with my Proper-Nouning. I did that a lot.

Here's the truth though: I do lots of fun things on my weekends. On my weekdays, though, I've started to do more fun things too. How odd! This blog used to be a way for me to fend off the inevitably near-crushing depression, the life-sapping boredom, and the isolation of South West Virginia...but now sometimes I do fun things. Sometimes, I even have friends. I'm not even j/k-ing you guys - this is not even an LOL moment.

Wednesday is dessert-and-game night. Mary and I drive out to our friends' (friends!) Jas and Josh's house and we have a game night. WE ACTUALLY DO THAT. We play games, and eat desserts, and are really cute.

That's revolutionary, ladies and gentlemen. That's adjusting. That's me not fighting Roanoke with everything I didn't know I was throwing at it. That's discontent, contented. Feel free to 'ooh' and 'ahh' at your leisure.

This post feels forced and perfunctory to me. I can't help it. I feel like I have to get it out of the way before I can move on. I'm going to spell-check, hit post, and hope to overcome writer's block before long.

I say little more than:

omg, we are teh cutez.

Someday, I will again articulate thoughts! Until then - a picture!

It's like the bad part of an indie movie, really.

Dilemma, dilemma, dilemma...

I had a weekend filled with Blog Worthy Events of a positive nature, all of which I've been systematically organizing in order to, as luck would have it, blog about them!

I also had a day where I spent almost 3 hours talking to a kid who's unbelievably depressed, thinks about killing himself every day, and reminds me more than anything else of The One From High School.

I just...don't want to think about happy things anymore. This, you might note, is ironic as I spent those 3 hours brainstorming how we could make this kid happier.

I want him to be someone in my life I can hug. I want him to be someone in my life I can shake, or scream at, or call at 2am and say "we're going for a drive - you're snapping out of it." I want to have that power in his life, and I want to have it as a friend.

What he needs, I imagine, is what I actually am: an authority figure. I'm someone who has to tell his counselor if he tells me these things. I'm someone who's required by law to say and do and be certain things.

Today he told me he doesn't think of me so much as a teacher, but as a complete person. I don't think he meant it insultingly - he meant to say he thinks he can trust me. I value that trust so much, but I feel like just having it betrays it. I'm not his friend, I'm his College Planning Advisor, I'm a middle-man counselor. I'm not even certified to talk to him about his emotions (that may, at the end of the day, be on the 'frowned upon' spectrum of actions).

It'd be easier if he were just...not so much like friends I used to have. He hits close to home, this kid.

I gave him the link to the happiness project and told him to google MPDGs and why they're an impractical solution to sadness, alluring as they sound.

I tried to say Intelligent and Adult things.

I told his counselor.

I do not want to think about happy things right now.

You don't even know, dude.

Welcome to today's edition of The Story of My Life:

The sequence of events is as follows:

• Mary meets with One of the Totally Cool Punk Kids Who I (not-so) Secretly Wish Were My Friend today, and he is awesome, and he is in a Cool Punk Kid Band.
• Mary cannot recall the name of said kid's band, but merely that it was something he "couldn't explain in school" and we're playing the "can you remember any details" game. She says "um...several words? One beginning in....M?"
• I, using my powers of Punk Kid deduction say "Mung"?
• I am correct. The kid's band is, in fact, named "Mung Choke." We found them on myspace. We're totally going to a show. We're totally doing it. You don't even know.
• One of their band's myspace pictures features one of the punk boys I was hearts-for-eyes-for in high school. For realzises. THAT IS MY LIFE.

Mary wonders why I know the word "Mung." I remind her that, while she dated all the boys fitting the descriptions of boys I loved in high school, I merely loved them from afar which required far more detective work. Being a Creepy Swooning Stalker is a lot of work - you don't even know.

That's right: my most marketable skill is immediately being able to guess the Weird and Dirty word that Crazy Punk Boys are thinking.

So, I have The Plague (a bad head cold) which means I'm currently blessed with Fever Dreams. Fever Dreams, as it would have it, are great indicators of Things That Are On My Mind. Examples:

• I dreamt that a Hot Young Doctor named Julian was nursing me back to health. I have been watching a lot of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine lately. If you don't get it, you don't need to get it.
• I dreamt about really cute husky-shephard puppies who looked at me with their adorable puppy eyes and asked, "et tu Brutus?" Yes, my dreams of puppies are also dreams bout me being a meanypants...and involve Shakespeare. If you don't get it - it means...I don't want you to know how much of a meanypants I am. I am hiding my mean shame.
• I dreamt that my friend Greg and I were shopping, but also we were at a rave, and I'm pretty sure that we were also running some sort of relay race which involved us forcing people who weren't single to make out and I knew we were breaking up relationships, and it was very uncomfortable. Also, I think there were whales involved. Obviously - this is the dream most tied to Logical Things In My Life.

So sometimes I don't write blog posts for Forever because, you know, I'm bad at writing about The Real Things In My Life. So - real things happened. I met some puppies. I went up to C'ville for the Wash's Banquet Weekend, etc, etc, etc.

Head cold 2xtreme. 3xtreme, even.