I Stole The TV.: October 2008

I've been feeling very quiet lately, which is probably why I haven't posted in a while. I'm not sad or super happy, I'm somewhere in the middle. I feel the sort of contentment you do when a lot has changed but you come out the other side of, yet another failed something or other, and you've survived, so it's ok.

I'm living with my dad(s) now officially. I'm all unpacked and I absolutely adore living there. It's really, really lovely. I like spending the time with my dad(s) and there isn't a lot of overhead lighting. I'm surrounded by beautiful things and there's always something on the stove or in the fryer.

I was walking through downtown Ferndale the other day and I felt really content. I love fall and I love this town and all of the people in it. I feel like I've taken some sort of happy pill/sedative combo. I have no idea what i want out of anything, from anyone or what i want to do with my life. And I'm really ok with that.

Right now, not knowing is the greatest feeling ever. I've known too much this year, carried so much weight on my shoulders that a break from that sort of responisibility/anxiety is so incredibly fabulous, I'm having a hard time expressing it w/o sounding incredibly cheesy/lame.

I thought about throwing my phone in the pond yesterday and not to be emo or dramatic; it just seemed like a good idea. But if there was an emergency id be fucked/out of the loop, so i didn't. But I really like this sort of disconnect I've felt these past few weeks.

It's even stranger b/c of the election and the state of our nation/the economy. There are so many things to freak out about. But I've done the best I can thus far and I will do my part again in november and there's not much i can change beyond that, so why get all worked up?

See, what I mean? It's creepy how calm I've been lately. Although, I should specify that by "calm", I mean I have basically avoided anything that would upset me.

For instance... any and all serious conversations are pretty much avoided completely whether they are via text, in person, over the phone (ps, i HATE talking on the phone to most anyone save for the people who live out of state who i never get to see) or email or whatever. I drop everything even slightly scary like a hot potato/bad habit/some other cliche and walk away. I just don't care.

I don't think I have the capacity to care for much right now. I'm a little tapped out in that department.

Lately, I identify a lot with this guy:

I've got sort of a hallow-tin-chest thing going on. It's really nice, though. Trust me. This is me being honest, not emo. I feel fantastic.

A lot of shit has gone down this year and I feel like I'm finally seeing a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. I feel like I'm doing a good bit of growing up too, which is pretty awesome.

I spend most of my nights at home working on music and watching my girlfriend on the teevee.

[Sidenote: I stage managed a production of The Wiz once. It was pretty awesome. When i went searching for a picture of The Tin Man, I thought back to the show I worked on at HFCC (ps: i think i learned more there than i did anywhere else even though i hated being there. they were underfunded and the director was a jack ass and everything smelled like a rotten appendage. but, dammit, i learned how to run a show and adopted a newfound aversion to sardines, almonds and shirts with holes in them. Anyway, here's a picture from that production.]

As of late, I have been fighting a bitch of a cold. I have officially annoyed the shit out of the few people I work with because of my incessant coughing. I have promised them on a number of occasions that I am doing everything in my power to fight the coughing. But still, the coughing continues. I'd stay home from work, but I'd rather be making money. And I've always had this rule, first put in place by my mother: "if you're not projectile vomiting, you're fine. go to work/school/wherevs". And she's right. I mean, personal obligations, like dinner plans or a movie or something, I've been cancelling those left and right cause I'm basically a walking sess pool of germs. But I will not skip out on work. I've never skipped out on work for a cold in my entire life.

Once, I had a tooth pulled on my lunch break, went back to work and finished out the day, gauze and all. Another time I lost my voice for three days in a row and I still went in every single day I was scheduled. I had my wisdom teeth pulled on a friday and by sunday i was still really swollen and miserable and the power was out in our house and most of our town and it was the dead of winter, but I still went to work because I was scheduled and we had generators to sell.

So, I definitely did not give even a moment's thought to not coming in to work. I don't care how annoying I am with my coughing. I want a normal paycheck, dammit. And since they won't put me on the health care plan yet, I feel like they deserve to listen to my cough.

One good thing about staying in and not getting sloshed on an all too regular basis is that I don't wake up feeling like shit anymore. Even with the cold, I feel better in the morning than I have in years. I know it's not rocket science, but some of us(mostly just me, probably) are a lot slower at learning some things.

I've become a little loopy and a lot goofier, I think. Exhibit A: band practice this past friday. I was swaying around a lot more than usual and doing a sort of interpretive dance to a couple songs. I think I probably acted a lot like I do when I'm drunk, just a lot quieter.

So, let's play catch-up on everything that you've missed since I last posted something here (a month and a half ago, ps)...

My dad's birthday was a hot mess. This photo really captures how ridiculous/fun that night was.

Then, less than a week later, I had my birthday. Jack Sparrow made me a hat. It was supposed to be a platypus.

Then, McMannus had her birthday. It started with hand made unicorn costumes...

and ended, like so many other nights at Soho do: on the 9 mile pony...

Roughly a week or so later (give or take, my memory is cloudy), I invented the bluetooth. You're welcome.

A few weeks after that, someone wrote this on the bathroom stall. And, ps, as of a few weeks ago, Soho started smelling absolutely awful. I mean, make you wanna vom, awful. It basically smelled like musty basement, wet, stale cigarettes, 3 day old caramelizing beer, and poopy shit.

The women's bathroom smelled like crotch rotch. And i apologize for using the term, but it is completely and totally accurate. I threw up in my mouth a little bit and i only had one drink. Trust me. It was bad.

I think it was because no one was cleaning the bathroom. There was a red shirt in the big handicapped stall that remained there for at least a week. I know, because i took pictures of it on my phone and sent it to Chelsea.

the nasty ass shirt:

the writing on the wall:

The other night at band practice, I caught Noel's cat Onyx drinking out of the toilet.

Thanks, to a one, Ms. Chelsea Fucking Carter, I have been listening to Adele somewhat obsessively. Now, before you start talking crazy, I am still madly in love with Missy Higgins and I've been playing "Secret" a lot lately (on the guitar. it's 3 notes, ps. ha!). But! I cannot get this song out of my head:

"Cold Shoulder" - Adele

And can we talk about how amazing Amy Poehler is at rapping?

I literally LOL-ed when I saw this the first time. Love, love, love it. I mean, she's soooo ready to pop and she's rapping with guys dressed up as Eskimos while shooting a different guy in a moose costume. I can't believe she's still on the show cause that kid is gonna come popping out in 2.5. Seriously. I feel like her water's gonna break in the middle of a show. And how funny is that kid gonna be? For anyone who doesn't already know, she's married to Will Arnett from Arrested Development (one of the greatest shows ever, ps) and Blades of Glory. They played husband and wife in the former and brother and sister in the latter. Both were hysterical.

Remember when "that's what she said" entered popular culture? Yeah, I do. It was funny, maybe the first 100 times I heard it and then a good friend of mine (for the sake of anonymity, we'll call him "Joe") picked it up and decided to run with it. I am not exaggerating when I say that, for the better part of a year, he could be counted on to say it after every single slight innuendo that would come up in conversation.

When he started saying it before anyone spoke, we knew it was probably time to cut him off.

Now, it's been quite some time since I've heard anyone throw the phrase around, but I made the mistake of talking about how much I hate it the other day while emailing Dave and Jen. This is what transpired after:

JEN's FRIEND: I had some fries today, for shame. I didn't eat too many, though, b/c they were thick and I like skinny, crispy ones.
JEN: Where did you go?
JEN'S FRIEND: Campus.
JEN: Jealous. I like the big thick ones.

JEN'S RESPONSE (to her own comment): That's what she said.

And then I heard from Dave...

JEN: Elida hates when people end things with "that's what she said". We have to be sure to start doing it around her a lot.
DAVE: That's what she said.

I can honestly say that I literally LOLed at their emails. Oh, btw, I think they stand a good chance at posing as the couples inside picture frames. Exhibit A:

I <3 Dave and Jen!

So, it's fall and the leaves are turning colors and I want to go for a walk or go to a cider mill or something. Oh! And i wanna bake apple pies. I freaking love apple pies. I would sell my first born into slavery for one of my mom's apple crisps. I swear to allah, i would totally do it.

I'd like to leave you with the following three videos:

1. "Run So Fast" Missy Higgins Live @ The Blind Pig 10.12.08: Chelsea took this video with my camera. Missy is so damn good and you won't find this song anywhere else yet...