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| myauntspeaksfrench.blogspot.com
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| It has been 2525 days since I started this blog (no, I am not a freak, well, yes, I am, but that's not why I know that number, I know it because xanga tells me every time I log in). And I think that it is time for me to break away like so many a Kelly Clarkson before me. (No, I am not in any way shape or form a Kelly Clarkson fan, and in fact do not even picture/hear Kelly Clarkson singing that song, but rather a chorus of red-capped and red-gowned 18-year-olds singing it at my sister's graduation, dewy-eyed at their imminent departure from the chive-scented cherry-and-white world of Momence High.) And I have my reasons:
1) Xanga, you are not hip anymore. No one uses you. No one knows what you are. You were all the rage between 2525 and 2000 days ago, but these last 2000 days I've been living in the past, trying to rekindle a flame that had been snuffed out by xangalebrities, survey-taking spam that stuffs the xanga inbox I do not check, and "friendships" that have no benefits, no benefits whatsoever. (Not to mention most of my friend requests are from those faceless "featured" blogs, and I don't even know what they want with my little old journal, and it makes me feel violated and wrong.)
2) Xanga, the ways in which you interact with my facebook will never cease to baffle me and cause me great emotional stress.
3) 2525 days is a long time and of course everyone changes. I don't want to mislead anyone who stumbles upon my blog. I don't want them thinking that the me from 2525, 1515, or 755.5 days ago is the same person I am today.
I was going to add some nameless messages, words-left-unsaid type crap, to those who I have loved during the past 2525 days and who have populated the pages of my xanga, but I deleted that, and instead I just leave my heartfelt gratitude to the people who have followed my career as gary_the_wise, especially during those 5 years when it was stuck playing the My Neighbor Tortoro music on an endless loop because I put it on there as a joke once and couldn't figure out how to take it off.
Of course I will continue to blog. I will have a new blog by the end of the week, and I'll update my xanga and link to my facebook so you have the new location. I don't know what its name will be yet. Please give me suggestions!!!
I leave you with this passage from "Everything is Illuminated" by Jonathan Safran Foer that perhaps describes why we all blog. Even though English is this character's second language, I think I understand him very well here.
"I think this is why I relish writing for you so much... I can be funny, because I have time to meditate about how to be funny, and I can repair my mistakes when I perform mistakes, and I can be a melancholy person in manners that are interesting, not only melancholy. With writing, we have second chances. You mentioned to me that first evening of our voyage that you thought you might have been born to be a writer. What a terrible thing, I think... It is true, I am certain, that you will write very many more books than I will, but it is me, not you, who was born to be the writer."
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| So, yesterday Mollie and I decide to stop and split a beer at a bar in Momence where we've never been before. We walk in unnoticed, take a seat pretty close to the bar (well, it's a small place, so all the tables are pretty much right in front of the bar). Mollie isn't used to socializing with white people yet, so I go up to place the order. I manage to catch the attention of one of the two bartenders, a guy aged maybe about 40.
Me: Can I have a Miller Lite, please?
Bartender: Did she card you? (points to the other bartender, or should I say bartendress)
(At this point, I could have made everyone's lives a lot easier and just lied and said yes. But I am a morally upright citizen and I, like this starry-eyed dreamer of a Momencian bartender, would like to believe in a system where honesty and trust are the only things standing between beer and potentially underage, though really old-looking, beer purchasers.)
Me: No. (I pull out my license.)
(Bartender looks at license for a while, looks very confused, and tells me:)
Bartender: Hold on a sec, I have to ask her something.
(Bartender takes 2 steps to the right to show Bartendress my license)
Bartender: There are 3 dates on here. I don't know which of the years I'm supposed to be looking at.
(At this point I am pretty much speechless. So, maybe this bar doesn't get a lot of out-of-towners, or a lot of people under 30, and he's not used to carding people. And maybe he doesn't realize that "DOB" could possibly mean birthdate, while "Expires" and "Issued" could not. But still, THE OTHER TWO DATES LISTED ARE 5-5-15 AND 4-30-11.)
Bartendress: It's the top one. She's good. She can drink.
(Bartender gives me my card back.)
Me (to the guy sitting next to me at the bar): Do I LOOK like I was born in 2011 or 2015?
(You might say that I should not flatter myself, because the bartender could easily think I was born in 1911 or 1915, especially since 2015 hasn't happened yet. But no, I know he was thinking of the latter dates, because there is no maximum drinking age, only a minimum drinking age, and, God help him, no pre-fetuses are going to be served in Momence, be they over 5 feet tall or not, not on his watch.)
(I realize bartender is staring confusedly at something taped to the back of the beer tap and is not working on my order)
Bartender: Wait. Isn't the date I'm looking for supposed to be in the nineties?
Bartendress: No, you see, it says anything 1990 or BEFORE can drink. She was born in the 80s.
Bartender (finally somewhat convinced that it is absolutely 100% legal and right for him to pour me $1.25 worth of light beer): Ok. (pauses, looks at me) What did you order again?
Finally, I get my beer and promptly walk back to my table, where, in plain sight of the bar, I offer some to my sister, who is younger than me and who hasn't been carded or acknowledged at all.
Oh Momence...
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| I had been planning to make Mollie a CD to give to her when she got back to the U.S. of all the most popular songs from the past year so she'd know what she'd missed, and because listening to Q101 is the one constant in my life, it would be like catching up with me as well. But I decided what I was going to do instead was make a CD of the songs that have meant the most to me over the past year. They're not necessarily the most popular, but I think they will make a more meaningful CD. Here's what I think will go on it, and why:
1) Sum 41. "Screaming Bloody Murder."
I love this song. And the first time I heard it, I thought, If I ever make a CD about my life, I hope this is the first song on it. If you know me, you know I'm not kidding when I say stuff like that.
2) Linkin Park. "Numb."
This song IS 2010. Every year, there's a song that describes me and my life at that particular time in such a way that it would be pointless for me to keep a diary, and in 2010, this was it.
3) Jimmy Eat World. "My Best Theory."
This song filled me with such joie de vivre that every time I heard it, I would remove my hands from the steering wheel and clap at least 3 times.
4) Avenged Sevenfold. "So Far Away."
The first time I heard this song (well, the first time I heard it while I was sober) I cried. Why? Is it because Avenged Sevenfold departed from the awesomeness of their previous two singles (Nightmare and Welcome to the Family) and wrote a country-esque ballad? No, it's because it was right after Mollie left for China. This song is a tribute to Avenged Sevenfold's drummer, who died in 2009, and the lyrics about being so far away from someone you love really got me.
5) Sick Puppies. "Odd One."
This was Q101's most played song of 2010. Cheesy? A little. But I took a strange kind of comfort sometimes in listening to this song on my way to and from the power plant. I definitely felt like the odd one working there.
6) Matchbook Romance. "Surrender."
Remember how I said "Numb" WAS me in 2010? This song is the second runner-up in me-in-2010-ness. Especially the second half of the year.
7) My Chemical Romance. "Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)."
This song empowers me. It makes me feel like I can do all things. It shall forever remind me of how I got it stuck in my head to help me breeze through the 15K I ran in November, and how it was the opening song when I saw My Chemical Romance in December, completing my bucket list of bands to see live and making me realize how incredibly hot Gerard Way is in person... cough...
8) Shinedown. "Diamond Eyes."
Ok, if I said "Odd One" was cheesy, this song puts it to shame as far as cheese factor. There's that melodramatic spoken part at the beginning that reminds me of a line from that CGI "Beowulf" movie, and there's the fact that the song's alternate title is "Boo Lay, Boo Lay, Boom" or something like that. But still, I took a strange kind of comfort sometimes in listening to this song on my way to and from the podiatrist's office where I worked. I said goodbye to my weakness, so long to my regrets, from now on I see that-other-receptionist-who-was-really-mean-to-me through diamond eyes (boo lay)...
9) Linkin Park. "Waiting for the End."
Oh, Mollie, you've missed it. You've missed what has happened to one of our family's favorite bands. They have fallen from grace and done horrible horrible things and some of those horrible horrible things have ended up on the radio. This is the only one of Linkin Park's recent singles that I can stand. It may not sound like the old Linkin, but it's an impressive showcase for the lead singer's voice. I just listen to him sing, and I feel like I'm being wrapped in a comforting blanket of sadness and yearning. sigh...
10) Rise Against. "Help Is on the Way."
The latest single from a band that never disappoints. Including when I saw this song LIVE at the fantastic closing show of their 2011 tour. It was totally worth getting a bruise on my arm that I and two other people I polled thought was shaped like an angel. (but not the kind with wings, not the kind with halos...)
11) AM Taxi. "The Mistake."
Singing the chorus of this song makes verbal self-flagellation both melodic and fun. Over the past year I've had the joyously cathartic experience of screaming along with it at a concert AND delivering the message to the band itself (I know someone who knows someone in AM Taxi) that I love this song and that I AM the mistake. (Which might not sound great, but, whatever.) I would post lyrics from this as my facebook status every day if I didn't think it would only accelerate the dwindling of my friends list.
12) Incubus. "Neither of Us Can See."
So beautiful. I think I need a 12-step program to get me off of this song. I'm serious.
13) Madina Lake. "House of Cards."
It's far too early to decide what song will BE 2011, but as far as the first half of 2011 goes, this is definitely a contender. I don't identify with the song overall, but just the line "Because my life's a flame in a house of cards" is enough. I don't even know exactly what that means but I find it a compelling metaphor, and one I can relate to. After the series of job fails and life fails that have made up the past year, I am hesitant to lean on anything, for fear I will burn it down, and am also afraid that my environment is so unstable that even if I don't move it may just collapse around me...
And while this song is not new, it's been an eventful year for Madina Lake, and not in a good way. Last year, bassist Matthew Leone intervened when he witnessed a Chicago man beating his wife and ended up in critical condition. Q101 had a 24-hour-request-a-thon to raise money for Matthew, and local bands that included, if memory serves, Smashing Pumpkins, AM Taxi, and Kill Hannah threw together last-minute charity concerts to support him. I was really touched by the kindness of the Chicago alternative rock scene... and, I guess, disappointed in the Chicago non-alternative-rock scene, embodied by the local guy who beats up his wife AND a good samaritan bass player. One could easily jump to the conclusion that Chicago non-musicians suck.
But Mandie, you don't know the profession of the guy who beat up his wife and Matthew Leone. What if he was also an alternative rock musician? It very easily could have been Chicago musician Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy. The motive is definitely there. He's probably been on edge ever since Patrick Stump got that makeover and threatened his pretty boy title, and so he probably decked Ashlee Simpson-Wentz because that is a natural reaction to Ashlee Simpson-Wentz, especially when she tries to sing, and then took out more aggression on Matthew Leone because he's a rival bass player.
No, voice in my head, that couldn't have been Pete Wentz who put Matthew Leone in critical condition. That story definitely would have leaked.
No, Mandie, not necessarily. The Simpson-Wentzes are a celebrity power couple who could have easily bribed the press in order to cover for Pete's little mistake. In fact, they probably control the media in a Big Brother-esque fashion. In fact, they probably are somehow reading this blog before you publish it and are sending assassins to your house right now.
You know what, voice in my head, I don't care. The people need to know the truth. I'm gonna post this blog, and all three of the people who read it are going to- what's that? Knocking at my door? I'll be right ba
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| 1) Yesterday I tried to make instant scalloped potatoes and I failed. How do you fail at instant scalloped potatoes? I don't know! All you have to do is add water and cook for the designated amount of time. I did that and MORE, literally. More water because I don't own measuring cups and had to use some kind of beer glass, and more time because I forgot I was making potatoes and cooked them extra. They aren't cooked. They taste disgusting. I tried the only Betty Crockerish knowledge I possess and added half a bottle of barbecue sauce to them. Barbecue sauce is like the Jesus of cooking and it covers a multitude of sins. They still tasted gross, but I was a trooper and/or fat so I finished most of them anyway. 2) I have run out of places to hang clothes in my room. This morning when I went to hang my towel after my shower, I was dismayed to find both handlebars of my exercise bike (I call it a towel hanger with wheels, but whatever, tomato tomato, and that really means nothing when it's typed instead of spoken) already occupied by clothes that got wet when I went for my run in the rain and I didn't have enough quarters to wash them. So, I had to hang my towel on the SEAT of my towel hanger with wheels. Somehow, this seemed like destroying the last thread of what made me a human being, like when Brad Pitt makes a vampire mom for Kirsten Dunst, and if you haven't seen that movie, retroactive spoiler alert with possibly inaccurate character names. 3) I grocery shopped today. When I had finally selected my purchases and was heading toward the checkout aisle, I got a phone call. "What are you doing?" "Grocery shopping." "So, you're buying beer and... probably something unhealthy... hummus?" (I look down in dismay at the hummus and Bud Light cradled in my arms (I have recently switched my allegiance to Budweiser because their radio commercials are the least annoying (I miss Miller, but there is only so much "good is better than bad, nobody says BADbye" one girl can take))) "No... I was also going to get some... gum... in the checkout aisle" As it was, the aisle I chose had no gum, but I stepped out of line, stole gum from another checkout aisle, and got back in line, all to keep my purchase relatively well balanced and make my breath smell like the North Pole instead of like hummus. I know there are many more reasons I will never be a housewife, but for better or worse I'm not going to try to think of them, partially because I am halfway through my groceries, eating AND drinking wise, and I'm beginning to feel it. Should I even post what I just wrote? Probably not... | | |
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