The ramblings of a somewhat bawdy, opinionated, pop-culture-loving thirty-some-year-old woman who feels like sharing her random thoughts with the world.
Oh, this election cycle has the country so divided and angry that it's truly sad to watch. I'm not terribly happy with the choices we have in November, so I'm making a wish list of fictional Presidents I'd rather have sitting in the Oval Office come January.
Abraham Lincoln: Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies
Sure, I could have gone with his incarnation in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, but this movie was so much better because it didn't try to be what it wasn't. And this Lincoln was intelligent, well spoken, and full of zombie ass-kicking skills. We'll need that come the zombie apocalypse.
President James Dale:Mars Attacks!
He wasn't perfect, but he tried. He listened to others and did what he thought was best, even if it backfired terribly. Can you blame a guy for wanting everyone to "just get along"?
Dave Kovic: Dave
A look-alike replaces the actual President in an emergency and becomes the President we would all hope for. Can this happen? Please?
President Beck: Deep Impact
I know we all feel like the end of the world is coming soon sometimes. Who else would you want to hear calmly telling you about your impending doom other than Morgan Freeman?
President James Marshall: Air Force One
Harrison Ford and this line. Need I say more?
President Thomas J. Whitmore: Independence Day
He stayed in the White House to make people feel safe. He found out all about Area 51. He flew a fighter jet to try to shoot down the aliens. And he gave one of the most inspiring speeches ever. I'd take him over a couple of serial tweeters.
President Josiah "Jed" Bartlet: The West Wing
I'm so sorry that I was late to the West Wing party. I've been watching it lately and dream of a President the likes of Jed Bartlet. We can only hope that come 2020, the stars will align, the Super PACs will dissolve, and a worthy presidential candidate will appear.
After seeing this picture on Twitter this morning,
my stomach dropped, twisted and sank again. I was astonished that this is the year 2016 and human beings still have this much hatred and ignorance. I was fearful for humanity and sad that we still have so far to go.
And then my brain switched to something completely different, yet so related:
I think that's how I survive in this crazy, unfair, frightening world. My mind is so full of odd movie references, old tv show clips and obscure song lyrics that it brings them up as a defense mechanism. I'm able to laugh at myself for thinking of these things so I don't go insane. It's not that I don't care, trust me - I do, it's just that I don't dwell. If I dwelled, I would never leave my apartment.
Once again, I made my pilgrimage to Woodstock, IL for their annual Groundhog Day Festival (Quick recap - it's where the movie was filmed, they have the locations marked, a walking tour, a prognostication, etc.), and this year dragged the kid along. Yes, he ended up enjoying it.
We visited the filming sites, stepped in the puddle, visited the theater, drank to world peace (I had sweet vermouth - he had water), and took our pictures at Ned's corner.
Ned's corner, you ask? Watch and learn:
Being the social media guru (HA!) that I am, I posted the (completely unflattering) picture of me at the corner on Twitter and went about my merry way, completely forgetting about it until I got a notification saying that I had a response. What a rarity!
I took a look and found this:
@GoddessR_75 That corner looks fancier than I recall!
How people can get liposuction just to get rid of fat because they don't want to exercise is now completely beyond me. Well, it was kind of beyond me before, but now that I've had the procedure done, I think they're completely bonkers. Oh my god! To put your body through this because of vanity paired with laziness is insane. Let me take you through an abridged story of my day yesterday.
It started as any other surgery day, 50 questions from every nurse, the urine sample, the temperature-controlled hospital gown (Oh, how I wish they'd make casual clothing with that feature.), the hospital socks with the treads, the compression sleeves on the legs.
The plastic surgeon came in and started marking me up. I've had that done every time, but this time it was much more extensive. By the time he was done with me, it looked like he had done a topographic map of my whole torso. It was hilarious! We would have taken pictures, but you know, NSFW. Let me substitute it with this map of the big island of Hawaii instead...
Then after waiting a little while longer, they gave me my happy juice and wheeled me into the OR.
I woke up feeling a little sore, but that quickly escalated, so they gave me a pain pill...and some pretzels because I hadn't eaten all day...and some water because I was parched and any pretzels I put in my mouth just turned to paste with the lack of saliva.
My next step in getting out of there was going to the bathroom. For some reason, they don't let you leave until you pee. I didn't even have a catheter in, so I don't know why it's an issue, but I digress... Of course you have to call the nurse in when you decide it's time to go, so I did, but my regular nurse was at lunch and the replacement was very confused. I hadn't realized that I was wearing a full-on girdle after the procedure. I knew I'd be wearing a compression garment, but I didn't know they'd be full-on capri length. The nurse had to call to ask how I was supposed to go to the bathroom while wearing them. (I was still drugged and not really comprehending what was going on at the time.) After talking to the other nurse, she was told that my garment had a "slit" that I would have to hold open in order for me to go.
She offered to give me some help. You know, hold it open for me so I could go. "I've seen it all, honey." No....no thank you.
So, I made my way to the latrine, wondering what a simple thing like going to the bathroom was going to entail. As I sat down I realized it was more than a slit. It was more like a gaping hole. That's right people. They had put me in crotchless spanx.
I'm totally calling the band name Crotchless Spanx. It's mine.
Anyhoo, moving on from that subject....
After a very long car ride home because I didn't request an anti-nausea patch (lesson learned) and once the pain meds wore off, I sat there asking why people would do this if they didn't have to? Why put your body through trauma just because you don't like a little gut or think the angle of your nose is a little steep? Don't get me wrong, I love my plastic surgeon, but he works with the hospital and helps people look like their old selves after major surgery. It's nothing like you'd see in an episode of Nip/Tuck.
So, here I sit. Scratchy throat, sore abdomen, spanx...compressing, still covered in marker because I can't shower until tomorrow, rambling on about something that really doesn't need to be such a large blog post. All I can say is if you don't have to do it...don't do it!!!
*Of course, I'll probably feel much better about all of this once I'm healed...
I made the mistake today (and yesterday) of reading the comments sections of internet articles. Apparently I never learn, but that's what happens when boredom gets the best of me. It's amazing how the most innocent of subjects turns into a heated political argument with vile words and tired sound bites.
Come on, people! Why are you so angry? Why must you make an argument out of everything? Why do you keep going on and on and on as if the other people you're arguing with are going to change their minds because of a comment?
I mean, really. I can see things getting heated in the comments section of an article about politicians or Supreme Court decisions because those are...well...political. They're setting themselves up for that kind of talk. But stories about good deeds turning into ugly political arguments because of tangents that other commenters have gone on? Can't you just leave things be?
Sometimes there arguments within arguments or five arguments going on at the same time, and they're all so ugly. I don't get the anger out there. I really don't.
And when words don't work, they resort to meme wars, because they have to be pissy about that too.
I just don't get it. It's stuff like this that makes me get fed up to the point where I unplug for a while. (Not that that's a bad thing...)
Then I wonder what these people are like in real life - out from behind the safety of the computer monitor. Are they just as angry? Are they always shoving their opinions around where they're not needed? Are they the people who you wish you never started a conversation with at parties?
Breathe in...breathe out... I'm hoping this is just a small, but far too vocal section of humanity and they'll wear their voices out sooner rather than later, because if these voices only gain strength, I'd hate so see what the world becomes.
Ah, how I love this song / video. No, it's not artistry at its finest - by a long shot - but it takes me right back to the peak of the 80's. Kitschy soundtrack song, clips of one of my favorite movies of all time, Lionel Ritchie in amazingly huge shoulder pads, the light/fog tunnel, Baryshnikov & Helen Mirren....
I LOVE THIS VIDEO!
I just had to share it with my friends because I figured you could use the flashback as well. Say you, say me, y'all!
Oh, and for an added bonus, at no extra charge, I'll throw in this video of Fergie singing the same song to some creepy pedophile-esque clown on Kids, Incorporated.
It was one of those crazy vivid dreams that I barely ever have, sometime during the last week of December, and it seemed to go on for hours. I was in a car with my husband driving, our son was in the backseat. It was some sort of war scenario. Hundreds of airplanes were being shot down from above us. As we drove, my husband had to keep swerving left and right to avoid wheels and wings and fuselage that were falling like fireballs from the sky. When we finally got to safety in a hotel, about 20 people rushed the building and held everyone hostage. We were somehow separated and it took what seems like forever but I finally found them. We were trapped and afraid. We didn't know what the outcome would be, but we still had hope. It was war and we were all in it together. I didn't know what it meant until New Years Day.
You see, that was the day I found out I had breast cancer.
You might remember me posting in my blog a little while ago that I was writing an epic post about something that many women have probably gone through. Well, that was supposed to be all about having found a lump and getting all worried and worked up because of the over-hype of breast cancer awareness, to have it turn out to be nothing. I guess the joke was on me.
I've been through every kind of testing you can think of. I've had mammograms, ultrasounds, this scan and that scan. I've seen nurses and techs and surgeons and oncologists. Because of all of these things, I have a plan in place and I start killing off those nasty cells on February 6th. Like my dream, we're all in this together, but this time I know how it all turns out - I win.
As for that blog post, I've saved it somewhere else and it has started my chronicle of this journey. This blog will remain as my outlet for random observations and silliness. No cancer talk here, we have a different place for that. (Okay, maybe a few bald jokes here or there.) No self-pity, no pink ribbons, no cancer education. The blog remains the same.
I'm trying to figure out why so many people hate clowns these days. Is it because they weren't brought up on the Bozo Show? Geez, I'd watch it every single morning before I went to elementary school. Bozo wasn't creepy - he was a bit of a smart ass. Cooky wasn't creepy - he was awesome and just as much a smart ass. The only one who was creepy was Wizzo the Wizard. Dooo-dee-doo-dee-doo! Really? He was the least clown-like of them all and he was just icky. I always got a "bad touch" vibe from that one. (Nothing against Marshall Brodien who played Wizzo - I'm sure he's a very nice man. But just look at this character...)
Wizzo's gonna get ya!
Maybe I'm just not that creeped out by them because I happened to grow up in the 19th Century Circus Capital of America. WooHoo!
Oy.
Clowns and circus stuff were everywhere. It was commonplace. Our Octoberfest (or was it Oktoberfest?) celebration didn't have a German beer and pretzel theme, it was clown themed. Admission buttons featured Festy the Clown and on one day after school every year, we would stand in line for hours in our school gym to have our faces painted like the tiny angelic clowns we were and then they'd let us loose on the fest. People with coulrophobia would not have lasted long in our town.
The huge clown-a-palooza came in the late 80's when the International Clown Hall of Fame opened its doors in town. I shit you not. In celebration of this, the town went a little more off of its circus rocker. It erected not one, but two fiberglass statues in a park on the main street downtown. One of a giraffe and one of an elephant and - you guessed it - a clown.
I know I have many pictures of this thing, but of course I can't find them now.
Pic via wikimedia commons
The town also replaced all of its downtown garbage cans with huge, large-mouthed clowns. Because it's more fun to throw away your garbage with the fear of having your arm bitten off.
This isn't from our town, but it is identical to the ones we had.
I think it was around this same time, or not long after, that Stephen King's IT hit television screens across the nation and gave us Tim Curry's Pennywise.
Ack! Okay, me no likey.
Honestly, I didn't watch it until I was an adult, but I can see how this changed clowns for.ev.er.
Well, him and John Wayne Gacy.
Thankfully the Clown Hall of Fame moved away from town (to an even more circus-centric town in the state) and much of the three-ring hooplah went with it. Of course, our lovely statues still stand for children to have their pictures taken on. Otherwise we're virtually clown-free!
So that's my history with clowns. I suppose not many other people would have the same backstory.
As for the state of clowning today, things are looking pretty grim. Kids now scream and cry when they see them instead of laughing and wanting to play. NPR actually did a story on it, based on an article in Smithsonian Magazine, that's pretty interesting. I recommend catching it here. I think it goes a little too far back into the history that kids have no clue about, but it's still an interesting take.
Just recently, a mysterious clown had been spotted popping up all over Northampton and scaring the begeezus out of people. He was just unmasked and talked about the death threats he was getting. A clown. Getting death threats. Keep calm, people!
All in all, I'm not a fan of clowns, but I'm not creeped out by them either...well, except for Pennywise. They're silly, not terribly funny, but they're out to make kids laugh and that's not a bad thing, right? In the long run, I prefer clowns in makeup over the clowns we have running the government.
Ohhhh...did she just go there? Yes. Yes she did...
On yet another day when my Twitter feed was making me sad for humanity - the subject was either the terribly depressing and scary situation in Syria or the equally depressing and scary fact that people were devoting brain cells to a 20-year-old former Disney princess who will "rebel" to get as much attention as possible...like many others before her - I found one shining gem of a conversation:
Billy Zane swoops in with a line from Titanic for the win! But that's not quite the end...
He gives Val Kilmer a Memphis Belle reference?! Epic! My high school self is full of squee!
It's moments like this random conversation between two of my former crushes (and the breaking news) that keep me signed up with Twitter. Though most of it caters to those much younger than I am, Beliebers, people who like to #ReplaceASongNameWithTwerk, and beg celebrities for a retweet, it does give me a smile every now and then.
I pass an ostrich farm on my way to work every day. Considering I've been driving this path for the past nine years, I kind of know how they usually look and act on any normal day. (Not to mention I've seen them doing things that I really have never had any desire to see. Ostrich luvin')
Oh! Did I tell you I hate ostriches?
They peck hard, they kick hard, they're really fast and birds just shouldn't be that big. At all. Unless they're a Muppet with a person standing inside them. And even then they're still kind of creepy.
Anyway, as I was getting up to the farm on my drive this morning, I noticed that the ostriches were standing in a group up near the fence line and they were holding their wings down in an odd way that I hadn't seen before. Hmm, wonder what that's all about? Then I get to the point where I'm right in front of them and I saw something horrific. They were all staring in the same direction with almost zombie-like eyes and their mouths (beaks? bills?) were all gaping open like you see in horror movies - thinkInvasion of the Body Snatchers.
Ahhhhhhh!
Okay, the picture above is from wiki commons and is only one bird, but imagine seeing twenty of these things doing exactly the same thing.I'll have to update this later with my own illustration.
EDIT: I've done a quick sketch of what I saw. Well, a smaller number of them anyway...
They don't look happy, do they?
So now I'm convinced that their demon ostrich overlord is sending the message that it's time for them to attack. The human race will not be wiped out by global warming, disease, zombies or even a Sharknado, it will be taken over by possessed ostriches.
Well! What an interesting few days it's been. I could easily write separate posts about each of these events, but the way they've been running one right into another calls for one longish post. Consider yourself warned.
It started off on Friday when the hubby received a call from one of the tenants saying that there were a bunch of ducklings following everybody around outside. We had known that there was a nest there and that it would be full of little ducks soon, but for some reason the mother was nowhere to be found and the six little fuzzy chirping babies wanted to be led to food! They followed people into their garages, up hills, around driveways - it was so dang cute! But we also knew it wasn't safe for them. As the neighbors gathered, it was decided we'd call the people over at Fellow Mortals, an amazing non-profit wildlife hospital in the next town over, to see what they recommended. While we waited to hear back from them, we thought we'd better gather them up and thought maybe if we left them by their nest, the mom would come back. You know, like those starlings last year. We grabbed a big plastic bin and gently placed them inside. We shortly got a call back from Fellow Mortals and they said that it's not right for the mother to be absent like that after her babies have hatched and to bring them in to their facility in the morning. Our only other question was do we leave them outside or is it too cold? Too cold! So I brought the bin of tiny ducks into our apartment where they spent the night.
Rub-a-dub-dub, six ducks in a tub
I got up on Saturday morning, went to work for a few hours (more weekend joy) and then went home to collect the bin and the babies and take them to the facility. They apparently fall asleep on car rides just like baby humans. When I got there, they took them right in the back and checked them out. They looked pretty healthy, but because they didn't know if maybe the mom ate something poisonous and fed it to them, they were going to keep a close eye on them for a while. Turns out they were about three days old (therefore hatched on our kid's birthday) and were about a month behind normal egg-laying schedule. They would have to be housed there probably until next spring when they could safely be released back into the wild. Wow - this place is amazing! (Seriously, if you want to give to a worth-while charity, please give to this one. Follow the link above and click on "Donate". You can even say it's in the name of the ducklings admitted on 8/3/13.)
Napping in the car
So, with the little duckies taken care of, it was time to head home and mentally prep for my son's birthday party - a sleepover and trip to a local waterpark. With a group of 4 or 5 thirteen-year-old boys. Give me strength!!
There was an interesting phenomenon that I saw though that I'd never seen before at one of his birthday parties, and I've shared this with a couple of friends already, so excuse the repetition, but it baffles me. Apparently when one-on-one with a thirteen-year-old boy, he comprehends what you're saying, follows directions (to a point), is a normal human being, but put him in a group of kids who are the same age and all of that disappears. They become easily distracted, don't finish sentences or thoughts, start doing something like heading to the locker room to change, but instead stop after one step and try to whack each other with towels...for five minutes...before we had to start leading them to the locker room physically. It was like we had never said anything at all. I knew this day would come eventually, but I was hoping it would wait until he hit high school, and my hope of it ending around 18 was squashed by the hubby telling me it lasted until at least 40. (Still glad I had a boy though)
We eventually got them to a place where they could change and went back to our place for a sleepover. Pizza, Doritos, Combos, soda and video games. They were pretty content and the hubster and I went to bed at 11:30, leaving the dogs to make sure they didn't tear up the place. The dogs did well. Everyone survived and we sent them home in the morning. Success!
Sunday was a day of recuperation for everyone (booze and naps!), but today became interesting. The hubby was accosted by some psycho ex-boyfriend of another one of our tenants. Apparently this guy thinks that she's such a winner that every man who has ever talked to her (my husband included) is obviously boning her and must be dealt with. Even though he's not with her anymore and hasn't been for quite some time (gee, I wonder why). Can we say loony? He threatened him, threatened to f*ck up his family (meaning us), blah blah blah, and drove off.
Well that's awesome!
Now I get to make sure I carry my phone with me at all times and watch out for his car and keep the doors locked, but of course I'll do all of this without being paranoid because I'm freaking Wonder Woman, dammit!
(Okay, I started writing this post a looooong time ago and never got around to finishing it. Sue me. No, don't. I have no money.)
In geekdom, this is a sacred holiday. It's Star Wars Day! Why? So all of us can go around posting "May the Fourth be with you" on Facebook, Twitter and every other annoyingly memeful social media outlet imaginable. It was a day to don my Han Solo / James Bond mashup t-shirt (my favoritest shirt) and let my geek flag fly.
I bought this baby on riptapparel.com.
Sorry, it was only available for a day.
This year, the day was doubly exciting for people because it was also Free Comic Book Day. Now, I've never been a comic book person. I mean, I might have had two when I was a kid, but I just never got into it. My son has been into graphic novels ever since he learned how to read, but never really had access to comic books, so he was somewhat interested in going to get a few freebies to find out if it was something he'd like to get into.
Sure, I'm game for new experiences - especially the ones with the word "FREE" in them.
We headed out into the nearest comic store that was listed on the official Free Comic Book Day website and were greeted by two of the most stereotypical comic book "nerds" in the world. They took one look at us, sighed, and said "Free Comic Book Day?" I smiled and nodded. They pointed to the back corner and said "Follow the path to the back corner." Ooookay. Thanks?
Per their directions, we followed the path to the back corner. There we found wall displays of the latest issues of the standards - The Avengers, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Walking Dead, and a few anthologies for $35, and then there was a big bin of back issues that were 50% off. A logical place to start, right? Unfortunately there was no rhyme nor reason that we could see as to how they were arranged. I'm sure there probably was some system, but being new to a store of this type, we couldn't see it. Of course there was nobody there offering to help. In fact it seemed like they hated this day for the very reason that it was created - exposing a new group of people to the immense world of comics.
After digging around for a while, we finally decided on three back issues along with two of the free offerings. The kid was sooo ready to get out of there. Apparently girls in bright pink wigs and men with bad BO who look like they live in basements aren't his cup of tea. And neither are comic book stores.
So, we bought our sampling of comics and went back home where I celebrated Star Wars Day with a movie marathon and he went back to his video games. Geeks we are, but apparently not of the Comic Book Genus.
I've only recently become aware of the hell that is Mercury in Retrograde. I'm sure you've heard of it before, but if you're anything like me, you have no idea what the heck people are talking about. Apparently it's when everything goes awry - communication, electronics, life in general. It's a whole pile o' crapola in the span of 3 weeks or so. Okay, okay, that doesn't explain anything, does it?. Let's consult About.com, shall we?
"This happens three to four times per year, when the planet Mercury slows down, and appears to stop (station) and move backward (retrograde). It's an optical illusion, since there is forward movement, like speeding by a slow-moving train -- as it recedes, it appears to go backward."
Okay, but what does that have to do with everything going on the fritz? Well Mercury is apparently the god/planet of communications and travel, so if that stalls out or goes backwards, then it toys with our lives as we know it.
Bastard!
What can we expect from the backward motion of a dinky hot planet named after a guy with tiny wings on his feet? (I know, it's not the size that matters, right, Twinkle-toes?)
It’s like everyone you know has suddenly gone mad! You might find yourself getting into bizarre arguments about nothing at all, being unable to finish sentences or barely even able to form a coherent thought. Your computer & other electronic equipment is more likely to go on the fritz. You could experience travel delays, too. Double-check your flights &take a book with you to keep you occupied while you wait for the train! We don’t tend to get all the information we need at this time, so it can be hard to make big decisions & it’s not always the best time to sign a contract, either.
Bizarre arguments about nothing at all? Check! Unable to form a coherent thought? Check! Oh, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it!
I think from now on, I'm going to mark my calendar to warn me about this horrid time of the year. Or, better yet, I'm bookmarking this site to give me an instant answer. For now, I'm going to huddle up in a corner, keep to myself, and try not to talk to anyone until it's over. Then I can go back to thinking of Mercury as a manlier god.
Brendan Fraser - the nakey god
Well, I'll try to anyway. I just can't get over those little wings...
You might remember me giving a few random facts about myself in this post, and it was requested that I expand on the subject. Well, it was just announced that these people are going to be performing less than an hour away from me in July and it's brought up the conversation again, so I guess it's time to talk about it.
The day was January 10, 1990. It was the day that I met two of the New Kids on the Block.
I was a freshman in high school. I was chubby, had a huge mound of bangs on the front of my head, wore vests over t-shirts and rolled up my ripped jeans in a tight roll. A total goddess among women. I was constantly listening to them, watching them, my room was truly wallpapered with posters of them. I was a tad obsessed.
My whole room looked like this. It helped to cover up the blue flowery walls.
The New Kids on the Block were going to be performing in Milwaukee that night and my friends and I had tickets to go see them. (Throughout my obsession, I saw them 6 times in concert.) After months and months of reading about them in informative magazines like Bop! and Teen Beat, we had a feeling they'd be hitting the mall near the concert venue during that day, so we begged and pleaded with politely asked our parents if we could take the day off from school and go into the city...to the mall...on the off chance that we'd run into them. (Of course we never told our parents the reason we wanted to run into them was so they'd fall madly in love with us and whisk us away to a life of love and fortune...or maybe even just take our virginity on the tour bus. This would surely happen given the description I just mustered in the previous paragraph.) Because we were such good, responsible girls, they agreed and we were on our way.
One of our moms was kind enough to drive us there and tag along. (I have to pause here and give props to all of our parents for enduring us through this phase. They had to put up with screaming girls screaming - not only their own girls, but also the thousands of other girls at the concerts that they were forced to sit through. Way to go moms and dads!) Exciting things began happening right away. As we were driving into the city, we just happened to end up right behind their tour bus. How did we know it was their tour bus? Because we had seen it over and over on the VHS tape that they had sold that was full of backstage antics, the "real them" and music videos - we had the whole thing memorized.
And there was the bus....right in front of us. And we were breathing in it's exhaust and squealing. We followed the bus to the parking lot of the arena where the concert was being held and waited for them to come out. There was already a group of other eligible pre-teen to teen girls there waiting for the same thing, chanting their names. There was movement on the bus and then out came....their security guard. He was on the video too, so we knew him by name - Biscuit. We waited some more and decided they were never coming out, so we went to our main destination, the mall.
I don't remember what my friends were wearing, but I distinctly remember my ensemble for the day because I had so carefully planned it out. Black pants, tight-rolled of course; black button-down short-sleeved shirt, most likely men's; off-white brocade vest; black patent leather (plastic) mens-style shoes; atop my head and neatly behind the mound of bangs sat a black hat much like the ones that they were known to wear. Over the whole ensemble, because it was January and I live in Wisconsin, was a full-length down-filled acid-washed jean jacket. Honestly, I'm not sure if that made things better or worse.
We walked around the mall for quite some time and though we would run into other fans every now and then, never saw any of the young men...until...
Walking up one hallway, we heard a girl squeal in the distance. It was a sign. The call of the teen girl fan. Someone was there. We looked at each other and raced toward the call. All of the sudden there was a group of girls (How did so many convince their parents to let them take the day off of school?) and coming out of the store was a tall man in a black leather coat and following him was Joe McIntyre. We stood there, mouths probably hanging open, as he walked past us, smiled when we said "Hi" and continued on, followed by the gaggle of girls. His blue eyes were enhanced by the turquoise blue jacket and hat he wore. I was never his biggest fan - I didn't like the cutsey ones, I liked the bad boys - but I remember how dang blue his eyes were. We stood there for a couple of minutes and then started bouncing around. "Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!" We were sure there had to be more than one of them there, so we continued our quest.
Another squeal, another direction change, and there was Jordan Knight coming out of another store, bodyguard in tow. The inevitable group of girls surrounded him for a little while, but they were still kind enough to let him get on with his browsing. Again - we just stood there in stunned silence as he walked right past us, so close that I could smell his leather jacket. Why didn't we say anything? I have no freaking idea. We decided to keep walking around to see who else we could find.
Eventually, we ended up seeing Jordan again. He and his counterpart were headed to the end of the hall about 25 yards ahead of us and they were about to go downstairs. We sped up. We didn't want the opportunity to pass us by again, but nobody else was saying anything. He was going to get away when I heard myself say, "Jordan!" Me - the introvert - go figure. He stopped (probably rolling his eyes), and turned around. Oh crap, what do I do now? I remembered that I had been carrying around a manila envelope of drawings that I had done of each of them in hopes of getting them signed. We caught up to him and I asked him for his autograph. His bodyguard said no, said he was in a hurry and had to go, but Jordan said, "No, it's okay." My Knight (pun intended) in shining armor was so enamoured by my beauty that he was making time for me! I quickly found the picture that I had sketched of him and pulled it out. He chuckled (for good reason - seriously) and asked for my name then signed the picture (with the Sharpie I was so kind to supply) "To Becca, Love always, Jordan Knight" Oh. my. god. LOVE ALWAYS!! I took the marker from him, our fingers touched. Gah! I should have hugged him, I should have said "Thanks for the best birthday gift ever," to get the obligatory Happy Birthday response from him, I should have asked to have my picture taken with him, but instead I pulled out my Instamatic camera and snapped this picture:
I thanked him and he went on his way. Yup. That was our amazing encounter. What my friends were doing this whole time, I have no idea. I think they were just standing behind me watching the whole episode unfold. They worshipped my newly-signed sketch for a little while and we moved on again.
We were hungry, so we went up to the food court, which unlike most malls is actually located on the second and third floors. We were milling about trying to find just the right mall food to eat (Sbarro? Orange Julius?) when we noticed the turquoise ensemble sported by Joe. Ack! I wasn't ready for that. He was eating a gyro and I didn't really want to bother him, but the chance might pass again and my friends were pushing me to go up, so I did...and I was denied. I asked for an autograph, but his bodyguard refused and gave me some pre-printed photo of all of them with their pre-printed signatures on it. Lame. I said thanks anyway and asked if I could take his picture, which he agreed to (you know thinking about it, I don't think I ever heard him mutter a word), and I snapped this one:
And that was it. We stayed a while longer, but none of the other guys showed up. After talking to some of the mall employees, it turns out that they had been there a little earlier. Drat! The tour bus was a decoy! We had heard through the grapevine that they were staying at a hotel just a couple of blocks away, so we headed there. Sure enough, another group of girls was hanging out outside the doors. We just walked right in and got into the elevator. Was there security? Did they figure we were just hotel guests? It's a mystery to me. Anyway, we headed up a few floors, got out of the elevator, and across the atrium and up a floor, we saw the back of Danny's head as he walked into his room. Meh. It was just Danny. We decided to get out of there before we got into trouble.
Finally the time for the concert came. We had nosebleed seats, but ended up running into some girls from our school and proceeded to tell them everything that happened. The whole section of people, complete strangers, wanted to hear the whole story of how we met them. The concert went on into the wee hours of the night and we went home. Unfortunately I lost the sharpie that Jordan had used somewhere in the arena. I was gonna frame that thing too...
I took my autographed sketch to school with me the next day. I was tired, but I was on cloud nine. I had no photos to show yet because they were taken on a camera with film and we didn't have instant gratification like we do now. We were the most popular girls in that school that day. Even the teachers were happy for us (though I'm amazed we didn't get into trouble for skipping school). I remember one of the most popular girls in the school saying, "I don't even like New Kids, and I think that's pretty cool." I cared about stuff like that back then - especially since I was just a freshman who got picked on quite a bit.
My mom was kind enough to take the film to be processed at a one-hour photo place about a half-hour away while I was at school so they'd be ready for me when I got home. Photographic evidence that it actually happened! I didn't forge any signatures, I actually saw them. Those went to school with me the next day, were framed immediately after that, and hung on my bedroom wall right next to my signed sketch.
And there you have it - my brush with fame followed by my own 15 minutes of fame in our small town high school. *Bows*
I don't think I'll be attending the concert this summer. Though I think it would be fun to get together with all of my friends who were also into them back then and go to another concert...it's just not the same if we're not screaming and crying at every pelvic thrust because we're lusting over them and thinking that every song is just for us, you know? (Especially not for the ticket prices that they'll be asking.) Sure, I'd still probably remember all the dance moves and sing along and bounce around with all of the other thirty-somethings, but maybe I can do that at my upcoming 20-year high school reunion instead. (Gulp)
I have been on the verge of an anxiety attack (or in the midst of a mild one) all day. Possibly even longer than that - I don't know. I've never had one before...that I know of. All I know is that all day today, and for some time last night when I was trying to get to sleep and at the end of last week for a little while, I've been so tense that it feels like my skin is crawling, my heart rate accelerates from time to time, my mind shoots from one thing to another and I can't focus, I've been dizzy and on the verge of a headache and anytime I'm presented with any little bit of tension, my heart feels like it's about to jump right out of my chest until I breathe my way out of it. What the hell?!
I'm the mellow laid-back one. I don't stress out. I don't let things get to me. I mean, yeah - things have been pretty stressful lately, but they're now starting to turn around. And I had a couple of little hiccups in my groove today, but nothing that isn't going to be okay soon. I don't get it. Why now? And why ever?!
I looked it up on WebMD (because that's the first thing you should always do), and my symptoms matched perfectly. I looked up the causes and it said, "Anxiety may be caused by a mental condition, a physical condition, the effects of drugs, or from a combination of these." Gee, that's helpful.
Okay, fine. I know I'm having some sort of attack so what do I do about it? Ever-knowledgeable WebMD suggests the following:
Exercise. I do this every morning.
Meditation. Again, every morning - sometimes just a quick one and other times for an hour or so.
Don't partake in illegal drugs. Ummmm...duh.
Stay away from caffeine and chocolate. I don't think my one cup of coffee routine is making me wacko, nor is the possible one bite of chocolate I take a day.
So, I'm already doing everything I'm supposed to be doing in order to help calm any anxiety, but I'm still sitting here full of anxiety! So does this mean that I have some sort of a mental problem? Am I going to have to start taking medication? Oh great, one of the other symptoms is fear of having more attacks. Gah!
Okay, okay....I'm going to sit here in my office surrounded by the fragrance of "Sandalwood and Soothe", say some mantras, listen to some 16th century lute music, and sip on some Zen tea. If that doesn't do the trick, someone better have me committed.
