Now You're Just Somebody That Used To Blog

First,

 Whoa, guys. 

Remember us back in the day? 

I might be a li'l dizzy and full of reignited joy in this moment. 

Is our spark sparkin'?

Napoleon Dynamite is on in the background. while I write this.

The last time I blogged here was 2018?  Dang.

How've you been?

I just logged into here, fucked around, and found a writing from New Year 2019 that was pretty brutal to read.

It made me proud of my 2019 self to have written so much when things were just....not as they appeared in this black mirror. 

Subscribe for Part 2!!! 

I'm just kidding. That's not why we're here. 

But I may or may not share that whole story very soon. Along with some others. 

Or maybe I won't. We'll see...

I've been thinking a lot about all the things.

Life. Death. Art. 

Tonight has been a time capsule of some of the things.

The past few years have been a massive observation and evolution.

It's all been a fascinating study of the human experience. I do hope that sharing some of my experiences might help you with navigating or validating your own learning experience.

You are not alone, sweet friend.

This life is for learning. It is not a competition. It is a co-creation.

It is a test in patience and surrender.

Also... Happy Father's Day. 

Here's what I'm thinking: 

We're gonna bring Brainure back. 

And we're gonna talk about this chapter of our lives. 

We can talk about anything here.

This is a safe space to process all of this and learn from life...Together.

I can't wait to have conversations and catch up with you.

The Return of Friday Jams

I was doing some video work this morning and remembered that Pogo is still out there doing shit.

So I went and looked him up and there was this video that he dropped recently:

And then my youtube just autoplayed Pogo.

So I'm having a very Pogo day and it's making me sooooo fuckin' happy.

I think he'd make some of you happy, too.

Don't think I won't tag you at some point if you sleep on this.

And honestly, I have Terribly Odd to thank for my intro to Pogo a bunch of years ago.

2013 Highlighting the Ups

Matthew and I were at dinner the other night talking & getting excited about what we want to do in 2014 and discussing how we thought 2013 went.
Apparently, I had my cranky pants on because I said it was an "OK" year and he said it was "pretty fuckin' awesome".
I've realized since then that unfortunately, and for some stupid reason, my noggin was choosing to highlight some of the more awkward 2013 moments instead of all the seriously amazing things that happened.

The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to write out the rundown of awesome (and skipping over all the not-so-awesome), not to be a douche braggart, but to further reinforce those in my head instead of those less than optimal and maybe it'll help you do the same. I've seen your facebook posts about how crappy the year was and/or how you're ready for 2013 to be over and it's ok if sometimes we need reminders to clear our perspectives.

January was again full of drunken shenanigans at the Scottish Highland Games.  I dove head first into renovating the Dollhouse of Horrors and started building out stage pieces for the Bloody Jug Band...some by request, others not so much. We also saw Charlie Murphy down at the Improv.

February was more Dollhouse of Horrors work and a trip to Helen, GA.  We also went to see Muse at Amway Center and I cried a little bit at how amazing their show was.

In March, we saw the Dropkick Murphys again, I puppeteered for the Bloody Jug Band's video for "Roadkill Boys".  This was also the month we did Whole30 for the first time and I submitted my last photo for the 12month long Inspired class I'd signed up for in January.
Yep...I totally fell out of it for the rest of the year because of shiny new things and being inspired elsewhere.  But I'm glad I went out with a bang.

April started with a trip to see The Marvelous Mehegans up in Corning, NY.  I took a banjo lesson, we finally ate at Cask & Larder and Ravenous Pig, saw Tony Bourdain at Hard Rock, and visited Disney. This is also when I started thinking about a miniatures.com contest entry.

May was, of course, insane with a Mother's Day pool party that got way more rowdy than what was intended, a concert poster design class on Skillshare, a couple of BJB shows, and was capped off by a trip to New Orleans, LA for my & Pannacakes' birthdays.

June included a Glassman show at Peacock that was pretty killer, a visit with Vaughn & Jen to pick up one of my favorite purchases of the year (Betty & Veronica pictured below), jury duty selections for George Zimmerman, and was also when I received my walking papers from the company I'd worked for over the previous 12 years.

July started off with new hair to celebrate my corporate departure, a crazy 3rd of July party at Pannacakes', followed by a rained out pool party at the Merriam's for the 4th, a Khal Drogo costume for Matthew, the 8th Annual Summer Bomb, a couple of visits to DRIP, and Marilyn Manson at Hard Rock.

August had a The Cult show at HOB, another couple of BJB shows, a trip to Busch Gardens followed by a viewing of Blackfish, a Danny Leggett show, Cedric's surprise birthday party, a drunk monologues shoot (shut up, I'll get to that later), and a trip to Ocala to see April and her fam.  Made a fake movie poster for a friend's birthday and finished up a painting for Cedric & Michelle's anniversary.

September we rocked our own logo for a Labor Day weekend pub crawl, went and saw Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes at Hard Rock and then went to see them again during the Gentlemen of the Road festival weekend where we also saw Mumford & Sons and stayed at a dumpy St. Aug beach hotel.  And we attended a lovely DIY wedding.

In October we went to see Terribly Odd's Haunted Mansion inspired show, Ghost at Amway Center where they shook my pants and hair, I made a mermaid costume, had the best weekend at Spooky Empire where I finally met Tom Savini, hugged Bill Moseley & Ve Neill, told Glenn Hetrick that I'd be his huckleberry, fingered Kane Hodder's left gloved hand during a photobomb, and sang "Goodbye Horses" to Jason Mewes. We finished off October in Austin, TX to celebrate my & Matthew's wedding anniversary and dress up like the 11th Doctor and a Reptilian Shapeshifter for Halloween, and met up with The Krutikovs for some kick ass high-end mexican food with the first best mescal drink I've ever put down my neck followed by the best burlesesque show I've ever seen.

November I made a sideshow freak light-up sign out of an old guitar case & built out two rickety crate shelves for the Jugly Art show at Peacock and then Matthew & I left to spend a week in Amsterdam for his birthday where I lost my passport.  If you ever lose your passport in another country...hope you're in Amsterdam.  They were so nice and the whole process was a lot smoother than expected. We also met some great & crazy party people and Matthew gave up a Heisenberg shirt to a loud Scotsman. We spent Thanksgiving in Arizona with Matt's family during which we had a lovely evening strolling through the botanical gardens looking at giant lit up Chihuly glass sculptures in awe.

And so here we are at the tail end of December and I've submitted my Evil Dead Cabin to the miniatures.com contest before deadline and am making a Gatsby-style dress for New Year's Eve. We had a crazy drunken Pannacakes party, and a silly family presents exchange day that included Cards Against Humanity and boxing robots. We spent Christmas in San Francisco where we saw Brian Setzer Orchestra on Christmas Eve, Matthew got his first proper straight razor shave, dim sum in Chinatown, lobster bisque & crab salad at Pier 39, and we ate some pretty awesome food at some pretty awesome hotel restaurants and had The Best gin & tonic either one of us had ever had and the second best mescal drink I've ever put down my neck.

And peppered in throughout the year we were bombarded with Harlem Shakes, BatDad Vines, Breaking Bad, Red Weddings, Doctor Who, A Fox That Says Things, Goat remixes, Miley Cyrus' tongue, Blurred Lines, Twerking, Grumpy Cat & Li'l Bub, and an Astronaut Singing Space Oddity on the freakin' Space Station.

This year, like all other's before it, has included lots of ups and downs and were it not for the downs...how would you know just how up the ups are?
Plus, you'd probably be an insufferable asshole.

Even if you're a generally positive person like me, and incredibly lucky with a shit ton of ups, there are times that the Veil of Crap can fall down over your eyes to muddy your vision.
I am SO grateful for how up my ups were this year and I appreciate having those downs when they came along....but there's No. Possible. Reason. a down should ever overshadow an up....so remember to not let them, ok?

Thank you, Matthew for reminding me of that & helping to remove my Crap Veil.
You're absolutely right....2013 was pretty fuckin' awesome.

Cheers, everyone, to 2014!!  May your ups be fuckin' killer and your downs be valuable lessons to overcome.

Where's the Rape Culture Outrage In December?

Remember over the summer when Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" was blowin' up and there were folks yelling about how it was promoting "rape culture"?
Go ahead...google it if you don't. We'll wait.

Well, now that it's The Holidays...I'd kinda like to know where all the damn outrage is for one of the creepiest winter season songs, "Baby, It's Cold Outside".

The one Will Ferrell's fun-for-the-whole-family Elf made insanely repopular that one year.


I heard this version the other day and maybe it was Sammy's occasional silly voices and attempt to be overly accommodating and Carmen's stern "no, sir" that got me actually visualizing the scene the lyrics were setting:


Seriously, listen to those lyrics.
How many times does she say no?  And then he may or may not have slipped something in her drink?
All she's trying to do through the whole song is freakin' LEAVE!!

CREEPY CREEPER


So, now JGL and Lady Gaga are promoting rape culture, but with a female aggressor. And Kermit MC'ing.
Which is more my style anyway. :)

A First Friday

As mentioned in yesterday's ramblings, I'm unemployed....was RIF'd back in July.
Here's a cute little throw back in case we wanna reminisce.

There's a funny thing about being in sales.
It's called a 'sales cycle'.
Everything is measured on a quarterly basis and due to this, for some odd reason (*cough* quotas) everyone decides to wait until the last month of every quarter (or every third month, for you yearly calendar folks) to push mega hard, and give discounts, and draw-up endless revisions of contracts & spreadsheets, and have war room concalls, and wait around for signatures in the lobbies of corporate offices, and do everything they frantically can to pull in at the very last minute whatever big elephant deal they might be working on....

And usually all of this is going on within the last 2-3 weeks of that magical beast of a third month.
As if that magical beast of a third month were somehow unexpectedly sneaking up on everyone.

And all the field reps you support are doing all the same cram-it-in things all at the same time.
And your regular 40-50hr work week turns into an 80hr work week for at least 2 weeks in a row.
Every. Third. Month.

And on the last Friday of each quarter....
It's like Christmas with none of the fun stuff.
Because we'd all be staying up late, glued to our laptops til 2 or 3 or 4a.m. babysitting those big elephant deals because they'd just come in that afternoon and they're complex in backend paperwork and everything has to match up just so for processing....
And there'd be emergency fire drill concalls with teams of management at 1a.m. and additional confirmations needed via email or someone forgot to click a checkbox in some system and everyone that's ever been associated with the big elephant deal is asking you if it's booked yet....
"Is there an SO#?"
"Is there an SO#?"
"Is there an SO#?"
"Is there an SO#?"

And in the past 10yrs, this is the first Friday at the End of The Quarter that I don't have to do ANY of that.

Tonight, I'm pouring one out for my corporate homies that kick so much ass.

______________________

PS. If you're reading this and you know who I'm talking about when I say "Sales Associate", hug them, send them flowers, liquor, beer, strippers, buy them a car. They take really good care of you and do their best for you and, at times, get little in return.

That One Time We Went To Gentlemen of The Road

We got to the venue and it looked like this:

And we looked like this:

And at night, that 1st thing looked like this:

 (there was also a head that appeared to be coming up out of the ground. I have no drunken pictures of that, though)

And I looked like this when I whizzed after the shuttle bus back to our hotel area:

And this guy was hell bent on shooting pool with Pannacakes:

(crazy ass mofo) 

And this is what my shadow looked like on Crabby Bill The Bartender's shirt:

And this is what I looked like drinkin' a Heineken:

And this is what Crabby Bill looks like when he's not being crabby:

And this is what Crystal looks like when she wakes us up in the morning:

And this is what Pannacakes looks like poolside with a Miller Lite:

And this is what me & Crystal look like when we're poolside with Miller Lites:

And this is what we look like in the pool drinkin' pina coladas under Crystal's umbrella:

And this is what Crystal looks like when she's a badass with mermaid hair:

(which is all the freakin' time)

And this guy wore Pannacakes' bra on his head:

And then we went back to the venue and ran into these guys:

(Pannacakes would later end up at the bar marrying the dude with the awesome staff and shirt)

And this is what I looked like while Mumford was playing:

And this is what Mumford looked like when they were playing:

And after that weekend....we all had to take a break.

POP BOMB VID!!!

BOOM!!*

OK...now that you've seen it...

Here are some fun things to look for whenever you go back to watch it again, like we all know you will:

• At the beginning, we have 2 cameras, so you're getting what Trina's seeing inside the obstacle course while Johnny's outside filming. This only happened at the beginning of the event, while we were still somewhat sober.

• Trina on the hop-n-bop is similarly captured and while we were still somewhat sober.

• A lot of what you're seeing throughout is timed with the lyrics you're hearing.  Example: When Chrystal's got the whipped cream...it's not on accident that you were also hearing the words "milky way".

• When you see StayPuft dancing to "Party Hard", it looks like Johnny (Steve Irwin to the right) puppets the echoing "Party Hard" and it makes me laugh every time.

• All the pics included at the end were ones you guys posted on the event page. Thank you for those!

I might have enough footage of everyone looking at the camera to see if "it's on?" to make a montage of just that. Stay tuned, maybe.

PS. I don't wanna hear any bitching about how they look fat or bald or wasted or ridiculous.* We're being captured in our natural environment, not posing for Olan Mills.  Believe me, there's way worse I could've included in here. You're welcome very much.

-----------------------------------

*Yep, I said it.

That One Time I Forgot To Share The NOLA Video

Pannacakes and I went to NOLA for our birthdays earlier this year.
Matthew met us there after a work trip in Austin.
Here's what that mess looked like:

Sunday Confession - A Dissection of Emo

"...I certainly don’t want everyone just to admire it or approve of it without knowing why." - VanGogh on The Potato Eaters.

"Art with a story behind it is the best kind, silly." - Martha M.

I made this 36x24 piece of whatever a few years back after my family fell apart. I treated it as an outlet for all the pent up crap being dealt with during this particular time in my life.
I've never really explained any of it in detail or have been comfortable enough to, but I've often thought about sharing it & how to go about doing so.
Time to nut up or shut up.
Plus, looking back at it - my style has changed a little and this looks like a kid did it.
Reckon that might've been my frame of mind at the time. Or maybe my style is just kid-like.
Not that my shit recently is great, or even good...it's not about that. It's about putting it out there.*
What if I died tomorrow and my family goes through all my crap and looks at this and they go all, "what the fuck is this?" on it and never know what it meant to me?

Right then...here we go:

The dollhouse torn into 4 parts: That's a B&W photo on cheap paper of the dollhouse my father's father built when I was a kidlet. Grew up with that house and there was a time when it was given to another family while I bounced around between apartments and whatnot. The house was returned to me about 5 years ago (a strange precursor to what happened a year later). Each torn piece represents a member in my immediate family. The upper left being my brother, me on the upper right (which is how our rooms were set up in the house we grew up in), my mother on the bottom left, and father on the bottom right. There's a round oil can stain on my father's section because he was a mechanic and antique boat restorer. My mom's section has cuts in it cuz she's a self-admitted emotional force and it amazes me that with so many fractures and cracks, she hasn't completely snapped. My brother's section is on fire with the bigger flame because he was in a wreck 8 years ago. The car he was in slid off of the road and into a tree, bursting into flames, killing both him and his friend that was driving. My section has the smaller fire - my brother's catching part of mine on fire....the flames a bit of a high-five between us.
My & my mother's sections have snippets of this song lining the edges.

The edges of the house are torn but being held together by a frayed and strained red yarn. Red for blood, of course, because we're family....& meaning that not even blood can really keep a family together.
Not when built upon an unstable foundation.

The Unstable Foundation: This area has a bit of a complicated meaning for it being such a simple shape. The instability under the house being a mix of sand and acrylic paint. It stems from my father coming out to my mother and I about 4 years ago. Their divorce followed shortly after but the house we grew up in was finally split and sold just earlier this year. My father has gone through a few boyfriends since the initial "outage" and we rarely speak. Mostly because when we do, I can't handle the dumb shit he says. Like the time he told me that if my brother had lived, none of this would've happened. Which is the other meaning for that section, for the sweeping & winding escape into the night sky, and because snippets of this song line the edges of that section and I imagine those words coming from my brother/me:


The Moon & Stars: Metaconfession: I have, what some would call, Pagan tendencies. Though the generic category label on society's filing cabinet for Belief Systems would have me under Agnostic....aspects of Paganism make a lot of sense to me. Balance & cycles. The moon is a Goddess symbol. The full moon has always been hopeful & comforting to me and along with her in the night sky, I included raised silver stars for an Orion and a dipper (or saucepan, as Kim B. would call it). Reminders that there are still things that...remain...***

And that about wraps things up.
For now.
Hope it wasn't too awkward and you feel like maybe you know me a little better.
If you have any thoughts or feelings or experiences to share, please...feel free.
If you have any shitty/nit-picky/snarky comments to make, please....also feel free because I've probably been lookin' for a reason to punch you in the crotch anyway.

-------------------------------------
*plus it's a nice lead into next weekend's confession
***(I was going to put another word or three there, but "remain" seemed to be enough).

Ireland - Dublin, to be specific

Christmas Playlist

 

I made a youtube playlist for Christmasness.

You can watch, listen, and enjoy HERE!!

Thursday Thank-Yous

To Brian Stokes Mitchell for appearing out of, seemingly, nowhere on 9/23 just off Times Sq. while Willie and I were walking off our Shake Shack and after I'd been watching clips on youtube of and listening to the soundtrack for Ragtime all week leading up to that trip.  It was truly a magical moment.  And you didn't even know it happened.


To all you turds that 'liked' & commented on the Little Orphan Annie photo that Willie posted on facebook:  when I was a kid, my mother used to have my BFF's mom perm my hair.  It would end up looking like a little old lady's do (haha I made you yodel).  I'm naturally strawberry blonde.  A ginger.  People called me Annie.  I hated Annie...with her stupid hair and empty blank eyes and ugly dress and dumb song.
The sun will come out tomorrow, you can bet your bottom fuckin' dollar.

To the kid at the food place that giggled with me when I ordered a medium #2.

To the radio station for playing Dirty Deeds immediately after I'd heard it...twice, I think...in the living room.  The living room version was pretty damn good, I gotta say.  I don't even like that song.  But then, I don't like AC/DC either.

To Brian for making me retune my banjo.  That's a good thing to practice.

To John for giving me a flashback to 1995 when I heard the AOL "Goodbye".


To Sugar Ray for making me realize how difficult it is to get someone to go with you to Epcot on a rainy Weds night to try and catch 1 of 3 performances on the last night of your trip.
I knew they wouldn't play my favorite song anyway.


And to Pannacakes, who uttered a great sentence today, "He had two arms when I was growing up." when we were talking about Def Leppard.  I just looked it up and he lost his arm NYE 1984/85.  You're not that old, darlin'.

F-Bomb Highlights and The Week Ahead (now behind)

Its fuzzy Monday.*
Pretty sure my noggin is still not firing on all cylinders yet.  Although, I doubt it ever really is.
Saturday started at about 7 or 8 a.m. with a mad rush of chores.  Matthew put quite a list together for the day and we ran around knockin' each task off the list until there was only booze and food errands left.
At about 4, some folks started to show up and we got our costumes on and started actin' like fools.

This was the first year there was no keg.  Was kinda sad but we made doo (haha) with lots of cheap garbage beers....which makes for very full recycling bins and trash cans.
---------- (stuff went on later Monday and then I crashed early.  Tuesday was full of running around, so now I'm writing this on Wednesday.  keep up.) ------------

11 XL pizza boxes are still a tower out front because recycle day isn't til Friday.  We probably could've built a clubhouse had they not been rained on.  We also still have a big cooler full of aforementioned garbage beers and neither of us wants to drink them.
I found a pair of men's Hanes boxer briefs on the bathroom floor if anyone wants to claim those (if not, I'll keep them as a souvenir like last year's tiny spidermanties).

Anyway, enough about all the garbage, let's get back to the thing...
So, we did shit, and then Michelle did my hairs so I could be a Fighter.

Matthew threw on his Flash costume and we went outside to go start playing and hangin' with a handful of folks and getting the pizza situated and crap and stuff.

Among the costumes were:
Pats from Absolutely Fabulous.
Red Fraggle from Fraggle Rock
Flava Flav
a Freeloader
a Flasher
Frieda Kahlo
a Fallen Angel
a few Fairies
a Frankentigger
Flashdance
Nick Fury
2 Frenchmen
2 sets of Flinstones
a Foreign Tourist
a Flamingo
a Fluffer
a Function
Fanta!
a Fisherman
Flo from Mel's Diner
a Fuckin' Pregnant lady
and a Fuckin' Surprise (thanks, Tom and Martha!!)

I'm sure I'm Forgetting some.
The costumes were great - the slide and bouncehouse were awesome, as always....and the pool was.....
fucking warm.
Later in the night there were Fire dancers and synchronized swimming along with grandiose toasts and drunk jenga.
There's some great footage I'll be piecing together this weekend and hope to have it done over the next few days.
-------------(now its Saturday and I need to recap the week)------------
Monday, we had dance class and the big boss gave us some feedback and pointers.  I feel we'll be better next Tuesday when we go in.  His pointers were simple but made a huge difference.  We've discovered that 6:30 pm is NOT our time slot.  We much prefer the 8:45.  Hustle is our shit, which is an easy transition into Swing (which is the whole reason I signed us up).  Waltz we kinda choked on since it had been a couple weeks.
Tuesday, was some family stuff I won't talk about here.
Wednesday, I got my hairs did and then we went to see Static-X at the Beacham.  They were awesome and I got to push boys into the pit.  Andrew was pitblockin' me.  He's very protective.  I bought him a shirt and some shots cuz he took good care of me.  Planet Pizza afterwards was heavenly.
Thursday, was Thursday.
Friday, we went to a birthday shindig for a musician friend and chatted up some new folks, drank a bunch of rum, and watched some beer pong but gave the Stephenson Slip before the cake was cut.

This morning, I awoke to the smell of Matthew cooking organic bacon.
Bliss.



------------------------------
*Obviously, it isn't Monday anymore.

Dance Class The Other Night

We hustled all night with some stumbles on hammerlocks.

Later in the evening (back at home), we decided we wanted to try doing a tango to this The Kills song:



And we want to do a waltz to The Game of Thrones intro song (skipping the middle part that gets slow):



So we'll be practicing to those songs.  I gotta find a good hustle song for us to practice to.  In the studio, we practiced to MJ's Billy Jean last night before someone switched it up again.  The music is difficult in there because there are folks practicing competition stuff so the music's constantly changing.

Also, I don't think I showed off my new shoes, ones I had on Pinterest - the ones Instructor Brian says are 'angry':

------------------------------------
UPDATE!!
We found a song to hustle to!

The Neverending Birthday Week -or- Karenpalooza 2012 Part III

Saturday Day 6 - DAY OF!! - The morning greeted us with a maid cop knock, Matthew sleepily saying, "come back later" and then me freaking out that my camera bag wasn't in my room.  We went looking back at the band stage and I told Matt that I kinda remember Willie saying that he had my camera bag but I didn't trust my drunken head at that point.  We did the quick stage search (did not see the washtub bass in the bushes) and talked to the towel boy, to end up back in the room with my phone finally plugged in to recharge and a reply from Willie saying, "Yes, I still have your camera bag." with relief washing over.  This made us hungry and we headed over to the restaurant for breakfast buffet where Matthew told me to check my email on my phone.  I looked and smiled seeing the Two Door Cinema Club tickets for the Beacham Theater on June 4th.  YAY!!!
We went and wandered around the vendor room and picked up some prints by this dude, Willie gave us some badass prints from this dude and this set as a bday present that I'm effin' excited about.
This next bit, I feel the need to preface with the following:
About a month ago, I told Front Man John of The Bloody Jug Band that, with my bday coming up, Matt would probably be hitting him up for a merch/souvenir size washboard that the band sells during shows.  I'd made a little noise about how great it would be to have one on our "gallery" wall at home.
And this bit is the actual turn of events:
After running through the vendor room and pickin' up cards and prints and shakin' hands and playin' games, we went back by the Band booth to say "see ya" and Seth, John, & Stormy were there.  We chatted a minute and then John said something about my birthday and picked up the washboard he plays during shows and recent practices and took the straps & eye-hooks off and handed it to me with a "Happy Birthday" or something or other.
I say "something or other" because at some point while he was handing it to me, my brain shut down in disbelief.
I say "disbelief" because 1) that was the one he uses in shows and I knew they had a show the following night and 2) I asked for A washboard, not THE washboard.
There were 2 thimbles included even.

Completely overwhelmed and in a slight state of shock, I said my thank you's and "see ya" laters and we headed out.

Once home, Matthew said, "Close your eyes and put your hands out flat...." which was shortly followed by, "OK, open'em."  This is what I saw in my hands:

I totally know what you're saying....I was saying the same thing.
"HOLY CRAP, HOW COULD ANY ONE DAY GET ANY MORE AWESOME?!?"
I'll tell ya....
A 2.5 hour nap surely helps.
And dinner at Hawkers might've had something to do with it.
And then a trip with crazy friends to Lil 500 to ride go-karts might contribute, too.

The bumpy track was....
There was NO POSSIBLE WAY to NOT laugh or smile while driving.  The boobahs were bouncing, the track was ridiculous, everyone was doing something different and clownin'.
The fast track was....
Fast...and slippery and awesome.
Perma-grins for the night and sore faces later on from smiling/laughing so much.
We also sang "We Are Young" by Fun at the top of our lungs while we were driving.

This bit of awesome was followed by dive bar karaoke at Cheers and singin' "Man In A Box", "Road To Nowhere", "Bobby McGee", "Roadhouse Blues" and trainwreck shots with an improv LMFAO "I'm Sexy & I Know It" group dance.

Seriously, even just thinking about it now is bringing a giant effing smile to my face.

We finished off the night with sign stealing and 7/11 sammiches.

The Never-Ending Birthday Week -or- Karenpalooza 2012 Part II

Wednesday Day 3 - This was productive day.  And unintentionally so.  After rifling through the house looking for our marriage certificate in the myriad of unorganized boxes of shit, I went to the DMV to renew my driver's license.  I think that because I'd lost my license (and then found it later) and ordered a new one, it flagged me and that was why I couldn't do the renewal online.  I'd much rather have been able to keep the ID photo from 8yrs ago.
After that mess, I came home to a cable company bill that was charging us for not returning their boxes after we dumped the cable service.  So, having lunch at Willow Tree seemed appropriate since the cable company office was over that way.  Followed by the cable company drop off and another forgotten check card incident and a quick other couple of errands and then a run back home to freshen up before meeting Chrystal's birthday party people at Flats.  Then it was rehearsal night which was followed by an Oblivion stop and the night ended up in stomach cramps and uncomfortableness until 4:30a.m.  I think my body was over-awesomed.

Thursday Day 4 - Because my body was so over-awesomed, Pannacakes and I decided to take it easy with a water filled lazy day over at New Smyrna.  Lunch at Off The Hook and a beach nap in my beach tent and sunburnt tops of legs were included.  Peeing in the ocean and lots of chatting were also thrown in there.  There were 2 accidents on I-4 on the way home.  That was pretty crazy...there were shoes in the road and a flipped truck.  Got home and got cleaned up and went to our rescheduled dance class and wore my new "angry tango" shoes.  That's what Instructor Brian called them cuz they're red and black.  We killed the hustle and did some tango.  Our next lesson, Instructor Brian said, we'd be split up and doing a focus lesson.  Matt will be with Lindsay and I'll be with Brian and then we're back together towards the end of the lesson to go over what we learned apart.

Friday Day 5 - I had a date with Mom for lunch.  We met up in downtown Mt. Dora and ate at the Palm and went over to the Aveda spa for a pre-birthday massage from Mom that left me all noodley & soft-skinned.  We ran through The Drawer to visit Bootie and pick up a few treasures.  Mom ran back to Aveda for a hair appt and I ran home to pack up for Mayhem.  Willie stopped by and Matt came home and gave me some crap for not having seen my first birthday present hanging in the upstairs hall (that I promptly moved to the red dining room wall):

After some squealing and celebrating, we all loaded up and caravanned down to the Wyndham to get situated for the evening's Pool Party with The Bloody Jug Band.  The night was insane...as anticipated with fire breathing clowns, the band, mermaids in the pool, conversations with Brazilians, and Kraken releasing.
It would end with a room party that included beatboxing and a shy amateur gangsta rapper with an awesome gold grill.  His name was Tunk.

Happy Birthday, Brother

You'da been 30 this year.
We woulda set the world on fire in celebration.

I miss you every day.
Jason - May 16, 1982-November 27, 2005
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p.s.: This album will always make me think of you.  It was in your Jeep's cd player and I listened to it on loop for weeks afterwards.

The Kills @ HOB

These 2 were at House of Blues Sunday night.
Allison changed her hair color - now its a bleached out pinkish.  She looked like Animal when she danced/played.
I love how spastic their movements are when the music's got'em.
Their percussionists had glow in the dark drumsticks and looked like robots.  I didn't get any pictures of them cuz they were around the corner from where we were standing by the bar.  Plus, my phone pics usually suck.
Everyone had skinny jeans on.  Out of the 500ish people that were there - I'd say a good 3/4 were in skinny jeans.
Matthew was wearing his kilt.  I didn't see anyone else wearing one.
The merch stand was fantastic!  They rolled up our shirts with the poster we bought into a triangular tube so nothin' got messed up.
Fans blew up and started tossin' around black balloons for when they played "Black Balloon".  That was fun.
They saved my jam for the encore.  Made me happy.
They also did "Fuck The People" towards the end, cuz everyone who comes through HOB at Disney has to throw a finger up at the machine at some point during the show.  Its a requirement now.