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.

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.

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:

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'.

You Know You're Fat When -or- A Declaration

1. Your 'fat' jeans are tight.
2. You break a sweat trying on different outfits.
3. XL shirts don't hide the rolls.
4. Your tits muffin top.*
5. The spot where your thighs touch threaten to start a fire when you walk.
6. The spot where your thighs touch are the only hole worn in your 'fat' jeans that are now tight.
7. You look like a stack of mower tires from behind.
8. Your elbows are but mere dimples.
9. Your underwear rolls down when you sit.
10. Your shirt rolls up when you take it off.
11. An Englishman calls you the "softest bird" he's ever danced with.
12. You wear your husband's swim trunks to a waterpark.
13. You sunburnt your stretchmarks.
14. You stand in the mirror and see a more fit you underneath the fatsuit you're currently wearing.
15. All pictures with you in them, suck.

Seriously, you guys....I've been a horrible disappointment to myself over the past year or two, or three, or six.

I even told me so a couple weeks ago when I tried (and failed, yet again) to keep a weight loss journal**.

This one lasted for not even 2 weeks.

ARGH!!!

Back in November, I started actin' like I was going to tackle this thing for real and wanted to do a 365 photo/vlog project and blah blah blah.

That one lasted about 2 weeks, too.

I HATE THE TWO WEEK CYCLE!!

Why do I do that?

Why am I letting me down?

Pannacakes just recently told me she hit a goal and is treating herself with some junk from Amazon.

I have no goals.

I've never had any real goals.

I usually just say what I want and then later on (days, weeks, months, years) it happens, but its not like I have a goal set list.

So, here it is.

I'm saying it, outloud, to you and the rest of the universe:

I WANT TO LOSE 30LBS BY THE END OF 2012.

We have 7 months left of the year.

That's 28 weeks.

And that's roughly 2lbs per week (with an added little challenge thrown in)

Here's how I plan to do it.  (holy crap...is this a goal??)

• Gym 5 days a week.  Bonuses if I have dance class or other high movement-type outings.
• Knock off the beer consumption drastically.  If I have any, it'll be dark and heavenly and 2 is my cutoff.
• Cut out the carb intake.  No breads, pastas, noodles, or other baked goods.  Even whole wheat type crap.  This has worked for me before, why don't I go back to what works?
• Lean meats and veg.  Fruits in the a.m.  Nothing crazy or new here.
• No friggin' CHEESE.  This one's a bitch.  I fuckin' love cheese...BUT like I said, I've done it before.

Its just time for me to do this again.

I don't like the way I feel.  I don't need anyone to make it a competition.  I don't need to keep talking about it.

What I do need is encouragement, constant reminders, and to fuckin' DO IT ALREADY.

If you don't like something, change it, right?

Its time to fucking change things.

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

*I'm so not mad at this one.  It took me getting fat to even have tits.

**Written in the book Pannacakes got me that has a picture of a chihuahua dressed up like Michael Jackson on the cover.

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.

Played Hookie

Took a day off last week and went to New Smyrna Beach with Pannacakes.
First stop was to Beachside Tavern for a drink or two.
Followed by a drive down to Turtle Mound where we saw this stuff:

 There were all these little pale yellow/white butterflies everyfreakin'where.

 More of those butterflies and the moon sliver.

There's a crab in there peakin' out.  Was only able to see that little bit of him.

After we hung out there and scoped out fishing spots and tried to find the camping spots, we headed back to Chase's for lunch and rum buckets.  Their fish fingers & blackened tuna tips were killer.  The umbrella was broken so my shoulders got some color and Pannacake's back sizzled.

We left there for another quick margarita back at Beachside before calling it a day.  There was a dude playin' a guitar and some other dude with a harmonica (the guitar dude had never met before) jumped up on stage and started playing along.

The guitar kid was cute and had floppy curls and we girl giggled with Chantelle the bartender when he called her "darlin'".

After naps and showers, we ended up going back out with the menfolk and sang karaoke over at the scary Cheers until about 1a.m.  Pannacakes lost her voice & J did a lot of Beevis/Butthead dancing.  Matthew wore his kilt and sang backup for me on "Man In A Box".

Was a damn good hookie day.

The Coke Whore Gold Chain

One weekend, about 5 years ago, me and the girls (Pannacakes & Krackwhore) went to NYC for a May birthdays trip.

We went to see Fischerspooner at a club in Tribeca (which was killer) and afterwards found a bar to grab a seat and get loud and rowdy.
Or in Pannacake's case, angry & sleepy.

At one point, it was time for me to visit the ladies room and I went downstairs to see another girl waiting outside the bathroom door.
She rolled her eyes and said she'd been waiting a while - we knocked.
There came a raspy voiced, "Hold on a fucking minute!" from inside.
A few minutes later a drunk chick in a tight black dress and heels staggers out and starts talkin' shit to us, obviously upset we'd ruined her bathroom party.
I say obviously because once she staggered out, a gentleman, of about 65 or 70 with white anchorman hair and a pimp 'stache follows her.
He's wearing a black suit with a black mock turtleneck.
He also has white powder on his lapel.

Rockstar gramps, fo'sho.
In my head, I'm high-five-ing him & laughing my ass off.  In real life, I have a full bladder and hope this drunk hooker don't start a fight I gotta finish.
The girl that was waiting goes & comes out, we laugh about what we just saw, I go, bladder happy once again.

I return to my beer and my friends and tell them what transpired.
Pannacakes makes a monster noise, takes an angry swing at someone for waking her up, then puts her head back down.

Moments later, the drunk hooker staggers towards our table.  She holds out her hand and from it drops a gold neck chain.  She says, "Yo, I'm sorry for talkin' shit at you downstairs when you was just tryin'a take a piss.  As a sign of my apology, I would like you to have this.  Its a really nice necklace."
She drops it in my hand and wanders off to return to her gentleman booger sugar friend.

This is the necklace she gave me:

Not as OG as gramps.

I still have it - but probably not for long, which is why I'm telling its story and snappin' a photo of it.

Thinkin' about putting it towards some creative jewelry ideas.

Details on that some other time.

Effin' Friday - New Orleans

Went to New Orleans a couple weeks ago.
It was supposed to be for a work thing but they cancelled it once we got there so we were forced an impromptu 3 day weekend that the company partially paid for.  SCORE.

Here are a few highlights:

Suckit Saturday - Doodle

Pannacake's artstudio doodle:

The Knife - Deep Cuts

I like this song.

Pannacakes sent me a live version youtube video for it a year or 2 ago, I think.

I also like this song.

It makes me laugh.

There's no video for it.

Happy Friday, Turds!

You deserve a beer or 3.

Or whatever you feel like rewarding yourself with for making it through another week.

Except Broken Barn. They dropped off on Tuesday. No reward for them.

Summer Bomb Highlights (that I can remember)

Breakfast of champions.
Early arrivals.
Balloons for the bounce house.
Worried about the costumes going on easily due to being sticky from no a/c.
A/C repair guy: "you're fucked. 3-7 biz days"
Testing the slide for quality assurance.
Testing the keg for quality assurance.
Getting dressed.
Taking pictures & LMAO with IronFist & Weezy Cage (aka Power[wo]Man)
Not being able to see through my mask.
Poison Ivy's eyebrows.
Ash's chainsaw.
Venom adjusting his cup.
Pool shots of washington apple dripping into my ear.
Orgasmic carrotcake balls.
Cool clouds/sky & threat of rain.
Butt spanks.
Jesus smoking & drinking.
Batmanties.
Spidermanties.
Losing beer pong.
Wonder Woman in boottops & flipflops.
Black Widow.
Floating keg.
Catwoman doing the splits.
Spiderman with no batteries.
Toe shots of tequila.
Snoop chillin' at the pool with us.
Gag reflexes being tested by Bomb Pops.
Crotch grabs & cleavage pictures.
Cake shots in the kitchen while Catwoman was still doing splits.
Catwoman unmasking while doing the splits.
Finding Jesus behind the couch.
Cousin phone call.
Waking up in the bouncehouse at 3:30a.m. with the sprinklers on.
Waking Matt up to bring the inflatables' fans in.
Black Widow passed out on the couch infront of a fan.
Watermelon stabbed through with the big knife.
Changing into pjs & passing out in bed with 3 fans on.
--------------------------------
Somewhere in there that I don't remember, was a laughter filled romp in the bounce house with Black Widow, a chat with Dr. Manhattan, and a demand for SAMMICHES!!
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Morning After Finds:
1. 1 Jesus costume with hair and beard.
2. 1 flip flop
3. 1 pair of roxy flip flops.
4. 1 Batman shirt
5. 1 blackfist afro pick
6. 1 olive green & white striped towel
7. 1 set of platinum/diamond wedding bands
8. 1 Michael Kors watch
9. 1 red headband
10. 8 cigarette butts (in my flower pots)
11. 1 Green Lantern ring
12. 1 pair of fuzzy Catwoman gloves.
13. 2 Poison Ivy vines
14. 1 half drunk bottle of red zin.
15. 1 half drunk bottle of margarita mix.
16. a skinny boy's swim trunks
17. Aforementioned Spidermanties draped around the Rockband drumset
18. 1 pile of mayo in the grass
19. 1 7/11 lighter
20. 2 Dr. Shots syringes & one sippy bottle with 1/5 remaining washington apple.
21. 1 defiled bag of Doritos
22. 1 pool key missing it's key ring.
23. 1 busted industrial toilet seat used for redneck horseshoes

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones

I was going to do a different album today, but while I started to type shit out, "Warrior" popped up in my head.*

And when Karen O speaks, you have no choice but to listen.

If you turds live under a rock and don't know YYYs, you might recognize her voice from the "Where The Wild Things Are" movie soundtrack, but I think at this point their songs have been around in commercials and on RockBand and stuff, so its hard to not be aware of them.

Show Your Bones was the 2nd album from the trio.

All their albums are effing wonderful. I love them all equally. They should have another one coming out pretty soon. The last one came out in 2009. Would be nice to hear something new from them.

Matt, Pannacakes, & I went to see them back in...shit....2003?

At The Social downtown.

Matt drank himself sick (not the barfy kind) on PBRs that night and talked to Karen O.

We looked like this:

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*Chose not to use "Warrior" for the blog cuz you can look it up for yourself. Seriously, if you haven't listened to YYYs before, do yourself a favor. Your earholes will thank you....

Pannacakes Goes To Washington

"hahaha...this guy's dead."

"hahaha...this dinosaur is dead."

"hahaha...the lady that wore this is dead....but she had a pretty belt."

"hahaha...the lady that wore this is also dead and had to wear WAY more clothes."

"hahaha...isn't this the rover that got flipped over after hitting a rock and died??"

"hahaha....that astronaut has no head. that means he's dead."

"hahaha...nobody tells me what to do or else they die!"

"hahaha...is that your anus?"

"hahaha...that IS your anus. RUN, KAREN, RUN...that guy is gonna bite your arm and you'll die!!"

"hahaha...HOOKAH OR DIE!!!"