Watchful like a Kung Fu master (preferably of the panda variety)

Dear Aliens-Who-Are-Currently-Inhabiting-My-Body:

For starters, I'm onto you. As a follow up - you are doing a poor job of being subtle. What? Did you think just because you were making healthy choices for me, all of a sudden, I was going to turn a blind eye? Did you think I wouldn't notice? Aliens - you are new to this body, obviously, otherwise you would understand that changes this broad and rapid are not par for the course. Aliens - I am beginning to believe you didn't do your research too well.

I don't know what you are plotting, nefarious or otherwise, but if it involves going to the gym four times this week (two of those times involved waking up and going before work - Aliens, the real Meg would never do these things), taking my vitamins regularly, and flossing I am suspicious.

Know this, Aliens, for now I'm putting up with these changes and seeing where they take us, but the moment I find myself thinking "you know, I always did like lettuce more than chocolate cake, anyway" you will be out faster than you can say "low-budget Sci-Fi channel exorcism."

Yours,
Host Body.

In other news: Mary and I made a Wal-Mart run tonight which involved two key purchases. Key purchase one: The Last Holiday with Queen Latifah. Let's just say: we love Queen Latifah for a reason - and that reason now involves how hot LL Cool J is.

Key purchase two: a pair of fun reindeer antlers for Mary, which she wore on the way to the car. Why didn't she wear them all the way home? Because a guy in the parking lot said, I kid you not, "Hey baby - you can pull my sleigh...heh heh heh."

Ooooooh creepy dudes - do these approach tactics ever work for you?

I can't think of William S. Burroughs without thinking of that Moxy Fruvous song

So here's a story about one of my kids and why I have mixed feelings about the gonzo journalists of the 1960s:

Once upon a time I had this totally sweet kid in my office and he told me to speak to his friend who had OD-ed at school the past year about planning for college. So, I called in the other kid and found myself with this this totally cool and erudite and hip-seemin' kid in my office and we were all talking about his hopes and dreams for the future (of which he has many) and then he was all, "hey, yeah, also last year I got really into reading Timothy Leary."

Well, let me tell you, being a product of the DARE generation, my drug-dar was already up so when he Timothy-Leary name dropped, I was ontop of that. Because, here's the thing: I kind of get it. I more than kind of get it, I feel it. I understand what's sexy about Leary it's the same thing that's painfully sexy about Burroughs and Ginsburg - I understand that pull towards a shattering of the self, fully expressed only throught the further shattering of the conciousness. I also undersatnd that, kidding aside, I am a product of the DARE generation - my ideas about drugs are culturally influenced in the extreme.

But I also understand that this kid is sixfuckingteen and he's already ODed and LSD is not something you play around with when you could be dedicating the rest of your life to bad flashbacks. Yeah, I'm supremely uncool, I get that. Go forth and talk about how I'm a huge Square or whatever the appropriate terminology is but I just get in a panic every time I think about this beautiful mind getting into bad, drug-related trouble. I knew the kids who were druggies in high school and I knew a fair number who were druggies in college. Most of the high schoolers probably didn't know I knew (I did, SoRo crowd. I knew you more than I knew my fellow theater kids, if you'd believe it) and no, none of them died horrible fiery deaths. Really, I have no anecdotal proof that DugzRBad, but I know substance-related coping mechanisms in general are bad, and I know ODing is bad, and I know LSD scares the shit out of me at the end of the day.

And that's my life. I am not very cool. But, you know, who was pretending on that one, really?

The best part is the part about the blue shell. Wait for it, you'll see.

So, I know this "blog" is just code for, "Meg posts youtube videos. Lots of them." But take a few things into consideration.

1. I'm still really excited that I know how to use this technology. You don't even know, dudes, you don't even know.
2. My life isn't really THAT interesting.
3. Sure, I never talk about the semi-important stuff in my life, like my LSD using, Hitler-essay-writing, bawling-in-my-office kids or Thanksgiving, or how cyber boys are totally lame, okay. But that's just...because I'm saving it up for when I feel more like a good writer, okay? Okay? Also, I feel nervous about this blog being So Public, OMG, and I don't want to go...you know...spreadin' other people's buis-nass on the interwebz.
4. THIS VIDEO IS SO ADORABLE AND AWESOME OMG. Truth: it is not as cute as the sleepy monkey. Other truth: it is WAY more awesome than any of the Beyonce/Brittney/HDuff videos posted in the last youtube splurge.

(He's feels so deeply! And so mustacheo-edly!)

So, this is...pre-Christmas.

So, here's the thing: I really love Christmas music. Look, I'd love Hanukkah music if there were a significant body of it out there, I'm sure I would, but as it stands, I really love Christmas tunes.

I get all excited when it's time to break out Snowed In. I tune into the All-Christmas-All-The-Time stations when December hits and I squeel with glee every time "All I Want For Christmas is You" comes on the radio anywhere. I really love that song.

But, here's the real thing: not one but two radio stations in Roanoke have already gone All-Christmas-All-The-Time. The first one changed over 2 weeks ago. There...there just aren't enough Christmas songs to sustain this pace for more than the post-Thanksgiving push. I'm not kidding folks, I really love Christmas music and there are really only so many times I can handle Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

Furthermore, ABC Family Channel - telling me we haven't started the "25 Days of Chirstmas" but are merely in the "countdown to the 25 Days of Christmas" confuses me when I am watching Christmas movies. But...you know...if you want to play that one with Melissa Joan Hart and Mario Lopez more often, I'm cool with that. (Guys, you don't even know: IT'S MELISSA JOAN HART AND MARIO LOPEZ!)

Oooooh youtube.

Since I spend my days with high schoolers and am now spending at least one evening a week with a pair of seventh graders, I think it is important that I have an opinion about pop music. That's right, my "Fall Out Boy" Pandora radio station is totally legit. I'm just trying to understand these kids, alright? YOU COULD NEVER UNDERSTAND MY PAIN LIKE THEY DO. Etc.

Thus I present to you my discoveries about pop culture, complete with youtube videos.

1. Every time I hear Britney Spears' new song, "Womanizer" I feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Seriously, I had no idea, but I am legitimately emotionally invested in how Britney is doing. I care. It makes me feel really good that she's got a New Hot Single out there, and that it's inhumanly catchy, and that I'm pretty sure from the first moment it hit the airwaves it was destined to be the anthem of really fabulous sorority girls and gay men everywhere.



2. HilDuff, on the other hand, does not please me quite so much. HilDuff, in fact, DISPLEASES me. Greatly. You may notice, if you choose to click this video that it is (1)really sadly trashy. In a sad way. A sad trashy way. (2) Basically a really weird cover of Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus." Now, seriously, do you need to make almost anything by Depeche Mode wierder? Oh Hilary Duff - this is not edgy, it just makes me feel like one of those moms who needs to censor which teen queens her daughters want to emulate. Hilary Duff - I bought one of your songs off of iTunes, where's "Wake Up" Hilary?


3. I know you hate Beyonce, Cor, but I just don't. I like you, Beyonce, even though I suspect we would not be friends in real life. In fact, I suspect Beyonce of being TERRIFYING in real life, which makes me even happier that "If I Were A Boy" features, prominently, the subjunctive. The subjunctive may be in danger in the English language, but it's not dying on Beyonce's watch. Not today, evolution of the language towards a simplified vernacular, not today.
However, as much as I applaud Beyonce's semi-forward thinking, I also happened to stumble across the video for "Put A Ring On It" the other day. By "stumbled across" I mean "I watch a helluva lot of MTV, people, it's becoming an addiction." So anyway, first of all, the possible (anti?) feminist things going on here are interesting to me. Especially when taken along side "If I Were A Boy" and Beyonce's current proclivity for Black And White I kind of don't know how to make sense of either the sentiment or the aesthetic of "Single Ladies." Anyone feel like they're getting a little Josephine Baker/Exoticised other vibe?


...Maybe you can't tell, but I REALLY miss American Studies. Really, really.

I've run out of steam to write much more but I leave you with this, the video youtube just recommended for me. Youtube knows me well.

Cosmic Coincidence?

Twice in the last 12 hours, allusions to The Toxic Avenger have popped up in exceedingly unlikely places. Dear Universe - WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL ME ABOUT MY SORDID, HIGH SCHOOL PAST?!

I'm back in Roanoke. I'm working with the little siblings of the boys I grew up with. Their cult favorites are now haunting me. Alright already, I sent Brian a facebook message the other day - what more do you want from me?!

Holy hell - this is history

There are so many things I want to write about. I want to talk about being a picnic for Halloween and about my qualms with boys and digital diaries.

OH WAIT ALSO I WANT TO TALK ABOUT POLITICS OMFG. As I sat in my mother's den, obsessively refreshing CNN.com while watching CNN on her television I got to scream, "Virginia turned blue! THEY TURNED VIRGINIA BLUE!" Mere seconds before the announcer told us to hail our new President Elect, Barack Obama.

Maybe, one day, I will tell my kids I lived to see the first African American President of the United States like my parents tell me they lived through integration. I know, mentally, that there was a time before school integration, but I can't really fit that sort of belief system into my world view. Similarly, I hope that my children can know that, yes, as recently as in their mother's lifetime, we didn't have African American (or women?) Presidents - but that's a thing of the misguided past.

Yes we can. Yes we did. Yes we will.

Just for your viewing pleasure, these were some of my favorite ads during the campaign. Dear Celebrities: I don't care what Carrie Underwood says*, I'm all about your opinions. I'm all about their entertaining little ways.




(Watch all the way to the END of this one - THAT'S THE BEST PART!)


(I less-than-three you, Leo! I always have! ALWAYS.)


(I also less-than-three you, Snoop, but it's more in that, "I like to pretend you're actually sweet and cuddly in person and that'd be our little joke" way.)


*That's a total lie. I do care about what Carrie Underwood says. I don't know why I care, but I know that I most certainly do.