Sober Snapshots?

As I listen to Tool’s "Sober" and browse the photos on my MySpace, I notice a recurring theme in about 95 percent of the pictures taken - I’m drunk or most likely well on my way to an enhanced version of myself. The thing is, I really don’t think I drink that much. I know I used to... drink and drown in Mexico on Thursday nights and a subsequent absence in History Friday morning my Freshman year at NMSU. Tailgating in its many forms... whether it was Delta Chi’s jungle juice or Cold Duck with professors at Texas Tech at nine in the morning, good times, pictures taken. Weddings, wine festivals, Tom Selleck’s birthday (Amanda, you are my hero), it seems like it doesn’t take much to convince me it’s a holiday worth celebrating with a totty.

I guess my pending trip to Phoenix this weekend got me thinking about my crap camera (hate you) and the fact that we’ll probably be taking loads of pictures of drunken times with Jenny... I am actually kind of scared. I can’t drink like I used to and the last two times Evelyn and Jason had destination drink fests where I was involved, I vomited (once in Ruidoso, once in Dallas). But there’s nothing quite like telling the story of trying to stealthily remove a full beer from the Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 Club after a Mavs game, only to be stopped by the security guard, whom you take a photo of moments later to document how bad he sucked for not letting you take an open container into public.

Ah, so many classic drunken photographs, so little time. My all-time favorite has to be with the walker outside of the CVS by Amanda’s in DC... That was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I so took advantage of it. Killer.

So, wish me luck and look for a new album of photos posted next week if you’re so inclined. Hopefully I’ll find some other cool stuff to pose with (don’t get any weird ideas)...

On death and dying and euthanasia

It was a very long time ago that I decided I didn't want to be one of those people who lives a horrifically long life. I don't really understand people who want to live until they are so old and decrepit that they have regressed to an infant-like state of being. Truly, youth is wasted on the youth, and if we started old and grew progressively younger, knowing what age has taught us, perhaps we could live richer lives, but that's just not how it is.

A very old woman came into the restaurant yesterday. She looked very familiar to me; one of those people who isn't quite regular enough for me to know their name, but enough that I know she's local and has been here before. The cook came out to greet her while she was eating, only to discover her husband had passed recently. So here she is, dining alone, using a cane to walk, and expressing the sadness of her husband's death. Not the life I want to leave.

Another older couple who are regulars at the restaurant lost one half of their partnership a couple of weeks ago. I can remember they used to come in holding hands, struggling a bit to get around, until they were both using walkers to even get from the car to the door, twenty feet away. It's been sad to see their health go, but they were clearly still very smitten with each other and now I wonder how long the wife will last without her husband. Also not the life I want to leave.

Yet another instance of death surrounding the restaurant, a woman who had been battling cancer for many years finally succumbed to the disease. I would say she was in her mid-to-late fifties and was spry until the very end. She went quickly, which I suppose is fortunate, but her devastated husband remains with the rest of his life to live. Maybe the way she went is one way to go... Knowing you probably don't have long to be here, and living the way you want until you can't function any longer, slipping into a painless coma and moving on.

Maybe I don't know enough about life or death to be talking about it in this way, but I do know I never want to be in a position where someone else has to feed me and wipe my ass and I have to use a motorized scooter to get around. Now senile and functional is totally cool with me. If I can make it to the bathroom easily and think I'm on a throne of solid gold and am talking to myself about the conversation I had yesterday with Franklin Roosevelt, that is fine. It's the thought of me in an old people's home, drooling on myself while I watch Jeopardy! with my ass exposed that freaks me out.

So when is a good time to go? Why can't we choose? I know some people presently who'd be perfectly happy to go now because their health and wits are not entirely about them, which begs another question, why can't we make a decision when we're lucid to end our lives when they become less-than-beneficial to ourselves and our families? I am writing this right now... if I am ever in a vegetative state, pull the plug. Seriously. I should probably talk to a lawyer about this, but I mean it. None of the false hope that medical miracles will bring back a dead brain, ok?

Speaking of medicine, is it really extending productive lives when people cling to whatever sub par lives they have with whatever synthetic concoction the pharmaceutical gods decide to hand them? Or is it merely meddling with evolution and the survival of the fittest? We all know I loathe prescription drugs, and this is just one of the reasons. It comes from the same part of my brain that disapproves of in vitro fertilization and the crazy hormone treatments people go through in order to have children. If you can't make babies the regular way, there's a reason, one way or another. It doesn't matter. There are plenty of kids out there who are already born and need someone to take care of them. Angelina Jolie and Madonna have taught us that. Sorry... tangent.

A belligerent part of me feels somewhat entitled to talk freely about these things because I lost my brother. I count him lucky, and not in a sick, masochistic, feeling-sorry-for-myself-and-want-to-die kind of way. All I mean is that life is hard, no matter what way you look at it. I definitely touched on this in "Reproductive Prowess". This is not to say that wonderful things will not and do not happen to everyone, and a lot of it has to do with your own perspective on life and state of mind, but it is the struggle of mankind to just survive, and this is quite obviously not the same lot it was when we first started walking upright. Even if you have all the money in the world and it seems like you shouldn't have anything to worry about and be depressed about, and no Saber-Toothed Tigers are trying to eat you, you'll probably find something to be pissed and/or sad about. Mo' money, mo' problems, right, Biggie Smalls? Biggie Smalls... Biggie Smalls... Biggie Smalls...

I guess I don't really know what the point of this blog was. Just some random thoughts in support of euthanasia, generated by a contemplative sadness in being confronted with death and just getting old. Biggie Smalls.

Waiting Squared

You may or may not know I am a server at a smallish restaurant here in Ruidoso and normally I like my job. Or maybe I just like the money and lack of stress to take home with me when the day is done. That’s not to say that many a night during the summer I didn’t have crazy awake-dreams where I thought I was still at the restaurant, or that customers were at my house waiting to eat or something, but usually most of the manic stress happens at the P.O.B.

This is also not to say that I haven’t broken down from time to time (what my boss refers to as "cracking up"). I try to keep those instances to a minimum and just keep my adrenaline to myself until later, but I have been formulating a list in my head about stuff that makes me NUTS about restaurant customers, and thought I’d share what I can remember here....

Special eaters - Go the F*CK home. No one wants to deal with your aversion to butter or salt or peas or cheese or meat or eggs or capers or cumin. That’s why you go out to restaurants... the food tastes better because the cooks use more of that "bad" stuff to taste up your normally bland food. And your server pretends to care, but we don’t. We secretly loathe you and honestly, unless someone has a severe allergy, I probably don’t even say anything and neither do you because -GASP- your food tastes good that way! ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the time someone designed a recipe one way because it works. They know what they’re doing. Leave well enough alone.

Ten percenters - The year is 2008, not 1958. The norm for tipping these days is twenty percent. If you can’t afford to tip your server, you can’t afford to eat at an establishment that employs people to refill your drinks, bring you your food, ask you if you need anything else. Go to Arby’s. They don’t expect tips because they get paid more than three bucks an hour. And seriously, I don’t think restaurant patrons know how much this means to a server. Give them the twenty percent, and maybe give them a dollar more. ONE DOLLAR. You have no idea how you could make someone’s day.

Well-done steak eaters - Stop kidding yourself when you try to order a steak medium-rare by saying, "Wellllll... What’s medium here? I like it just pink in the middle, but still juicy." "Medium is still going to be a little bloody, dear patron." "Oh, no, no, no. No blood." Mental note: Hmmm, ok. How about medium-well, you nasty bastard? And when you say it’s too dry and ask for steak sauce you can kiss my ass because we don’t have any.... Just effing order the steak how you want it. I won’t say anything to your face...

Flavored tea drinkers/straw users - Let’s start here with a question: Who started this flavored tea trend? Trust me, I love a flavored tea as much as the next idiot, but I would never expect an establishment to carry flavored teas unless it was like "Aunt Bea’s Flavored Tea Emporium". So stop acting so surprised when I tell you we only have regular iced tea. And to those of you who require a straw to drink a beverage... I don’t get it. If you have serious tooth sensitivity, you should carry your own straws with you. If you don’t like your lips to touch a restaurant glass, you are a lunatic. And if you’re a kid, too bad. You need to learn how to drink out of a glass like the rest of functioning society.

Obese people - You gross me out and I don’t even want to feed you because it’s like enabling an alcoholic. You ask for a fourth basket of bread and extra butter and another Diet Coke, and I die a little bit inside. Then you can’t decide if you want to get dessert because you’re so full. Just get it. You know you’re going to eat that half gallon of rocky road when you get home regardless. Might as well add another six bucks to my sales...

Old people - You don’t have an appetite, so don’t go out to eat. You want your coffee at temperatures that cause evaporation. You ask for ice to put in your wine. You tip badly. You smell. You ask for salt and pepper before I have even given you a menu (Which reminds me to tell you that you are an uncouth jerk if you season your food before you taste it). You complain more than anyone and that makes me hate you.

Wannabe sommeliers - Having you taste the wine before I pour you a glass is NOT to see whether or not you like the wine. It is to make sure the bottle has not turned because of the cork, etc. If you don’t like it, that’s your fault because you don’t know what kind of wine you ordered/like. And by the way, smelling the cork is for morons. If you want to squeeze it to make sure it’s not dry or rotted, be my guest. But smelling it forces me to probably give you a look of severe disdain that you don’t recognize because you don’t know me. And to those of you who drink white zinfandel... I am not even going to go there. You are just revoltingly lame.

Table movers/chair swappers - I’ll keep this simple. The host seated you in one place for a reason. Stay there unless there is a REALLY good reason to move. And leave the chairs where they are. If you have a bony ass or hemorrhoids, carry around your donut cushion because that is not my fault.

Wow. I honestly probably have a list ten times this long with more nuggets you can’t live without. It’ll get worse. Maybe I’ll get some more written down. Until then, if you haven’t seen Waiting, watch it. It’s incredibly accurate where restaurants are concerned and if you’re never going to wait tables to see what it’s like, you need to be taught a lesson by Ryan Reynolds and Luis Guzman. Watch it immediately if not sooner. If nothing else, it’s funny as hell.

Exaggerated perceived benefits of big city life

I desired to move to a bigger city for three main reasons that I can think of:

1. More people
2. Music scene
3. Shopping

Not sure why you’d want to live in a friggin’ huge city otherwise, because as I have learned, it sort of sucks (well, Dallas sucked kinda). I have found that there are as many things that I love about living in a small town as there are things that irritate the hell out of me.

ONE.

Right now the number one item on my list of aggravations are tourists – from Texas and Mexico. They drive like shit, act like shits, look like shit, and even smell like shit because they’re all over-cologners. But on the flip side, they leave (they come back, but they do leave). In a big city, you have idiots driving all over the place from out of town, or even from the other side of town, constantly. They have no idea where they are or what’s going on… I have been this idiot on many an occasion.

So there’s one part of the "more people" item on my list. I figured, "There’s got to be more cool people in a big city as compared to this tiny mountain town…" No, not really. Maybe in some bigger cities the average age is lower, but as the city grows, so do the number of assholes inhabiting it. I believe that’s what we call correlation. So in a large town you’re just as screwed as you are in a small town. It’s all about statistics.

TWO.

Next on my list is music. I really enjoy going to concerts of bands I like, and there aren’t a lot in Ruidoso, or even New Mexico for that matter. I think Smash Mouth (You remember them… they’re on all the bad 90s compilation albums and the Shrek soundtracks!) just played out at the Inn of the Mountain Gods. Awesome, no? I check on tours of bands I’d like to see, and the list of venues maybe goes something like this: Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco (three dates), Seattle, Denver, Dallas, Washington, D.C., New York… you get the idea. The thing is, I really don’t have too much to complain about. We have a decent live music ring here and I am pretty sure I am dating the ring leader, who can talk DJ Pete into letting my East Coast BFF touch his afro (and there is definitely a picture of said ’fro-pulling in my pics, so check it out). So we have a good time regardless, I suppose.

And then because I am lucky and know like five people, sometimes I get cool opportunities to become the lucky recipient of two $100 tickets to see Willie Nelson out at the Inn before he stops touring. And by "stops touring," I mean dies, because we all know he’s going to smoke dope and sing songs until that day, right? That concert would have been insane if the venue hadn’t sucked and crazed hicks weren’t screaming, "WILLLLLAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!! WILL-(gasp)-layyyyyy…" Actually, that was incredibly entertaining all by itself.

THREE.

Shopping. All I can do when confronted with this topic is sigh. Too much thought could send me into fits of tears. There are a couple of cute shops in Ruidoso that may seem quaint and novel to visitors, but to me they’re just a bunch of Forever 21 clones in a charming store’s pajamas. The one shoe store SUCKS ("These shoes rule… these shoes SUCK!"). J. Roberts carries decent jeans from time to time that are reasonably priced, but unless you’re into buying $70 tops that fall apart after one outing, you’re effed. There’s no way someone else could borrow your top, betch. My purchases usually occur online or out of town, unfortunately. The good thing about this, however, is that I don’t do a lot of impulse buying. I give online purchases more thought and dedication because it’s a chore, and you can never be quite sure if what you’re getting will fit right, etc. A good Coach bag always fits, but anyways. I think I’m going to go to Walgreens now and look at the hair care products…

There are a plethora of other reasons why big cities suck or little towns suck in comparison to each other, like public transportation. Equally scary and entertaining if you ask me… wonky eyes on the Metro, the BP-riddled DART, breaking down on the El, Mohammed the cabbie in DC…

This blog brought to you by Sack, Amanda, and the letter B. Sack gave me the title and Amanda wrote a similar, but less cynical blog not too long ago. Thanks, yo!

Tales of Carbon Monoxide

I find myself at my house less and less these days, thanks to my own personal Latch Key program, also known as my boyfriend. When I am at my house, I'm tucked away in my "lair", tooling around on the internet, getting ready for work, doing laundry... Things that do not require my presence at the front of the house, which is maybe why I have the little bit of motivation it takes to do the things that construct my life. I suspect that some sort of a carbon monoxide leak is happening in the front of my house, ergo whenever I come home my family is mimicking the lives of house cats: sleep, eat, play (which equals watching TV), repeat. I really do think some sort of a gas leak must be the culprit.

I get it. I do. When I moved backed to Ruidoso from El Paso last April, I was (as Amanda has me saying) in a "bad way." Although I don't think I slept any more than normal (P.S. my "normal" is like nine hours... seriously), I think I had a daily routine of television and just hanging out, but that got old after about a week. I went and got my old job back, started jogging again, had my usual conversations with friends abroad via the computer and phone, etc. That's when I stop getting it. After two weeks of being a zombie, don't most people start to get stir crazy and need something other than programs hosted by Bill Kurtis to fill their days?

It's not like I do anything important, either. I'm not running marathons, or curing the HIV, or devising a plan to eradicate hunger worldwide. Monday I spent two hours at the tire place to find out I have to buy two new tires for my Jeep (while writing in my Moleskine about living with crazy people, which I have deduced I am really, really good at). I go to work every other day. On days off I run errands, go to the ever-popular shopping mecca of Ruidoso (Wal-Mart), have a meal or two with my beau, yog if the weather's nice, paint the lair... things like that.

But coming here, where narcolepsy reigns supreme, disrupts my well being for a few moments out of every day. How to motivate people, though? I'm not very good at motivating anyone by means that do not include "Dr. Philling" them, because I think most things are incredibly obvious (unless you're dealing with people who communicate on a purely metaphorical level daily). Por ejemplo, if you know you're not happy, don't you usually know why? Don't you know what could probably make it better, whether it's getting a pet, or exercising more, or finding a new job, or buying a new bag, or keeping your distance from crazy people? Someone send me a link for a book about lighting a fire under someone's ass without simultaneously destroying the shred of self-esteem they may or may not have left...

I am going to stop now. Before I become one of those idiots who blogs about their life as if other people actually give a shit. For some reason I have nothing interesting to say. :)

Sarah needs to figure out what the f*ck she's doing in this life.

Lately I have been enjoying utilizing the "Status" feature on MySpace. My status may or may not change a couple of times a day, depending on how busy I am or how "ninja" I feel. Tonight I am feeling particularly disappointed in myself and where my lot has taken me, so I made it known on MySpace. Talking with a friend today made me wonder if my problem of not knowing what I want to be when I grow up is just an issue of an unlucky few, or a generational flaw. I am grown up, but I have no real idea what the heck I want to do for the rest of my life, however long or short it may be. Or maybe I just don't have a plan.

Don't want: To work in an office ever again. To have people demean my intelligence on a daily basis. To be treated as lesser when I am better. To end up as the saddest person I know, whom I also happen to live with. To grieve anymore.

The pathetic part is my wants are so not focused. I want to write what I want to write, and get paid for it because I know I will never be fully satisfied in my life working to live as opposed to living to work. I like to listen to music, read about it, write about it, and maybe talk about it with people who aren't retarded. I want to write about my life (I put the ordinary in extraordinary, so we'll see where that goes). I need help with those things. I want love, fresh air, mountains, and to hang out with my friends and my dog. Ah, the things I like seem few and far between at times. I bitch about the same shit over and over again, but for some reason it doesn't do any good... Imagine that.

I've been composing a manifesto of sorts over the past day (since I had my keyboard replaced by one of the nerds from the movie Nerds) and have some great and thoroughly inappropriate one-liners I want to share with the world that made me wonder how - should I ever find an opportunity to publish some of the terribleness that is my private life - how could I openly be held accountable for what I write? Scathing rips on my family life, relationships and sex, the occasional illegal activity (ah, yes... use your imagination because that's probably more fun than my reality), death, friends, work, and so on and so forth. I'd become a pariah of all trades. Maybe it really is time to start posting on my other anonymous blog...

Gawd help us all if I should die before I can destroy all of my journals and the Dell's hard drive and an assortment of college notebooks I used for random thoughts after they'd served their scholarly purpose.

My "i" Problem

Trust me, i have wanted to blog at least three or four times since my last post, but pretty much right after i clicked "Publish Post" my "i" key on my Dell's keyboard finally gave out. My huge dog inadvertently hopped on the Dell about a year and a half ago or so when i was in Dallas and popped off the "n" and "i" keys. The "n" snapped right back on, but the "i" was on a road to slow death, ending in me having a horrible callous on my right pointer finger from pushing so hard where the key used to be, and finally having to Control+V every time i need an "i". And i am far too lazy to copy and paste uppercase and lowercase because i really like to talk about myself...

Anyways, a new keyboard is in the mail, ordered from William at Dell, also known as Nacho Libre ("Chancho, when you are a man, sometimes you wear stretchy pants in your room. It's for fun.") or Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite. i guess i was just thankful to not have an indian guy on the other line because they are hard for me to understand, and was the case when i called last week to order my keyboard (the guy's name was definitely not "Brian" like he said). So i hung up. Spanish accents i am used to. Clearly. So William/Pedro ended up not only selling me the keyboard, but also more memory for my beloved Dell. Sneaky, Pedro. Very sneaky. Tripled my cost, but whatever. Maybe someday i'll be cool and have an iPod and download music from the mystical force known as "iTunes".

More later on my indefinitely suspended move to Denver. Sometimes things seem to work out exactly the way they are supposed to, but then again, you never know. The older i get, the more i am learning to just go with the flow. i can say with great certainty that i am a spoiled person, and to have to live like i did in Dallas is just unacceptable at this juncture.

in other great news, my BFF from DC is coming to The Land of Enchantment via the a$$hole of Texas (a.k.a. El Paso) in like two weeks. i am very excited, and looking forward to drinking abnormal quantities of alcohol at inappropriate times of the day, making fun of and/or taking pictures with midgets at Quarters (a.k.a. Ziggy's, and Cheech and Chong's), spending quality time with the Pistachio in Alamogordo, maybe a Grease duet, all interspersed with sweet dance moves and viewing of Hell Date on BET. A splendid time is guaranteed for all!

I vote Sam!

For a while now I've been contemplating a fantastic blog about The Bravery versus The Killers, since they have an openly public feud, are on the same record label, and have similar sounds. I really liked The Killers when they first came out, back in the day. I distinctly recall seeing the "Somebody Told Me" video on MTV2 when they still played a lot of alt rock (now we know they play reruns of Run's House). That was in about two-double-ought-three, I believe. I got Hot Fuss in 2004, I think, and it was great. My favorite song off that album is still "Believe Me Natalie." Great drums...

Anyways, I started to like The Bravery as soon as I saw "An Honest Mistake," also on MTV2 (probably). Cool video, and Sam Endicott's vocals are seriously sexy, as opposed to Brandon Flowers', whose seem forced to me (read: suck it, Flowers). It cracked me up when The Killers had to cancel shows because of Brandon's voice going out or something last year and Madison on Alt Nation (Sirius) was like, "Uh, what voice?"

I sort of forgot about The Bravery after I saw that video, though. Maybe they should hire a new publicist (you know, call me, whatever). My love for The Bravery grew exponentially when I heard "Time Won't Let Me Go" early in 2007. I bought The Sun and the Moon the very next time I was in a real city and in its entirety is an incredible sophomore album, unlike Sam's Town, The Killers' failed attempt at another Hot Fuss. It's so monotonous, I could cry. Maybe that's why Brandon Flowers decided to talk smizzack about The Bravery and a bunch of other bands whose records didn't blow. Or maybe Flowers is jealous that every member of The Bravery is really, really ridiculously good-looking and The Killers are Brandon Flowers (little person) and a bunch of haggard dudes.

My partiality to The Bravery grew even more when I saw them on Halloween with Amanda in Washington, D.C. Rock and roll at it's finest... small venue, synthesizers, who could ask for anything more? Oh, except I am a huge fan of the two slower songs on The Sun and the Moon ("Tragedy Bound" and "The Ocean") and would have probably passed out if they would have played those... So has been created a life-long fan of The Bravery, necessitating me to judge The Killers very harshly.

Herein lies the fodder for this blog. I was getting ready to write about something else entirely, but the new Killers' single (no, not the Joy Division remake) came on IMF. The song's called "Tranquilize" and features legendary rock star, Lou Reed. If you don't know who Lou Reed is, you don't know much about rock n' roll. Or you don't know as much as I do, which is forgivable... you probably didn't have a hippie mother who took you to see The Rolling Stones when you were in high school (or The Grateful Dead while you were in utero, for that matter) and a dad who's worked in radio and played "Yellow Submarine" for you on his guitar when you were little.

But back to Lou Reed. Lou Reed's heel has probably seen more action than Brandon Flowers could ever imagine to experience in his little Mormon life, in his tiny Mormon body. How did these two meet and how did Brandon Flowers not spontaneously combust in the presence of heroin, punk rock, and bisexuality's poster child? They idolized Lou in Trainspotting. He dated a tranny for years. Brandon Flowers isn't allowed to smoke or drink, but maybe his selling point is that he's a cult member, I don't know. He'll never be tranquilized unless he gets stung by a bee or something... That I know.

Here's the rub: I like "Shadowplay" (the Joy Division remake) and "Tranquilize" so maybe I'll like Sawdust. All I know is that if Brandon Flowers and Sam Endicott ever came to fisticuffs, I vote Sam.

Short Thoughts on a Sad Day

It was two years today (January 6th) since my brother died. I have tried successfully not to dwell by sleeping until almost 1:30 this afternoon and then dulling my mind with TV, the internet, and making a ridiculous purchase from Sephora. When I finally stop watching TV and try to go to sleep is when it will be hard. I've also successfully avoided all contact through my phone today.

I do remember that day like it just happened, though. The feelings are just somewhat different. Sometimes that chest-crushing, broken-hearted feeling returns, but back then it was all day, every day. I couldn't sleep, and when I did, I had nightmares, or woke up crying. It was so hard. It still is. The hardest part is I don't think anyone understands on any level still. My family's dynamic was completely destroyed two years ago and we still haven't figured out how to make it work. How to just be around each other and not feel uncomfortable because someone is missing.

I still don't understand how someone can be here one day and gone forever the next. We're way beyond that point that maybe he's off fighting fires and he'll be home in a few months. This is a situation where you have to figure out how to adjust and live your life with a huge piece missing. It's like being an amputee or something. I last saw my brother on January 1st, 2006. He called me on January 3rd. On January 6th, he was dead.

On The Wheeler Blog you can read what Josh and I wrote for a printout for his memorial service. That was about the worst thing I've ever had to do. We should not have had to do it, and it felt like nothing could be good enough for Matt. I still don't feel like I can do anything to honor his memory. So I watched cartoons all day.

Reproductive Prowess

This rant brought to you by the people on MySpace who deem it necessary to post photos of their babies everywhere and the letter G.

While thumbing through my MySpace friends today I couldn't help but notice a recurring trend: Everyone with kids has a photograph of the child as their profile picture. First of all, why? I understand you are proud that you had sex and maybe something went "right," but why? I feel like it's an Amber Alert waiting to happen. A poster saying, "I live in _____ zip code, am __ years old, and this is my tiny, adorable and vulnerable baby!"

Which begs more questions. Why do intelligent humans reproduce? Just to see what "it" would look like? To have a Mini Me? Testing the parenting waters (would you be a good one)? Are they sadists? Because even people who have led the most charmed lives have pain and suffering inflicted by life. Life is hard, and even if your life is "easy" by other people's standards, you are going to find something fucked about it (Like why is Paris Hilton like that?). Do you really believe you can make a better life for your child(ren)? Do you really think having kids will fulfil you?

What frightens me is that stupid people truly are reproducing at an alarming rate. Smarties are waiting until they're financially stable and have truly taken the time to accept that their lives are about to be forever altered. They know how to use birth control. Stupid people apparently missed that day in life when the memo went out announcing sex begets babies and babies are goddamn expensive, and in my observations cause their parents equal amounts of joy and grief.

So let's do the math... If fewer intelligent people choose to reproduce (or have less kids), and the dumbasses are reproducing at a rate of how many 40s of malt liquor they can imbibe in any given hour, squared, evolution will eventually win and the human race will be retarded, hence leaders around the world like GWB, war abound, and then end of civilization as we know (knew) it. So that may be a dramatic oversimplification, but you wait. I will be the one laughing my ass off in the spirit world.

How can people be so idealistic and naive to think that "My kid is going to be different." Different how? Are you converting to Anabaptism and moving to an Amish community to keep your kids from all the horrible stuff in the media and society? Trust me, your kids will harbor resentment if pop culture is forbidden (and by pop culture, I mean all things cool). My mom sent us to school with a PBJ, an apple and a yogurt when everyone else had Lunchables, Fruit Roll-Ups, Snack Packs and Doritos. No MTV. No "Blossom," for chrissakes! And look at me now... the most cynical of all.

Which brings me to my last theory of the day: There are three types of people. Idealists who believe life should be one way, and because it isn't one way, they are depressed and/or angry. You know who you are. The second are realists who know life is what it is, there are ups and downs, downs, downs, but you go with the flow and accept that it will never be like it is in the movies (but you have movie moments to look forward to). Then there are the opposite-end idealists, who probably know that life will never be as satisfying as they had hoped, but they fake it. They're the magic Christians filled with the "light" and who also secretly (secretly) go home and cry or pop pills or beat their kids after a day of saccharin smiles and God-bless-yous.

Call me what you will... Cynic. Pessimist. Panda jerk. Genius. But I fall into that second group I mentioned above and even though you may not believe it, I will be happy for you if you choose to have or adopt children as long as you know what you're doing and don't kid yourself. Final Deep Thought: Christina Aguilera, get off the cover of Marie Claire before I vomit. I'd rather see naked Gene Hackman than that! Geez.

Attack of the Emo

Does anyone really know what "emo" is? The most popular (read: funny) definition on Urban Dictionary says:

Genre of softcore punk music that integrates unenthusiastic melodramatic 17 year olds who dont smile, high pitched overwrought lyrics and inaudible guitar rifts with tight wool sweaters, tighter jeans, itchy scarfs (even in the summer), ripped chucks with favorite bands signature, black square rimmed glasses, and ebony greasy unwashed hair that is required to cover at least 3/5 ths of the face at an angle.

Wikipedia tells me it originated in Washington, D.C., which makes sense to me because it's utterly depressing there if you might want to express yourself through any channel that isn't a political campaign. And fashion is like shopping at a country club uniform warehouse, so we can deduce that the emos "rebelled" in a sensitive yet angry manner. But I don't believe that it's a version of punk in the least.

I've compiled my own short list of bands I think are emo that you may or may not want to avoid, and here they are for your warning pleasure...

AFI
Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy
The Used
Saosin
Tiger Army
30 Seconds to Mars

We had three dishwashers over the summer who qualified as emo (I think). The first one, Emo Tim, age 19, looked emo. He even had an ever-bloodshot eye and a Friar Tuck haircut with the I-could-care-less-if-I-get-anywhere saunter. One day I asked him what emo was and he said, "It depends on who you ask." His protege, a lad about five years younger than Emo Tim, whom we lovingly referred to as Mr. Frodo because of his tiny stature, modeled himself after Tim, but couldn't quite pull it off with his blond hair and 14-year-old cherubic face. He did, however, have an emo-bang that covered his eye, so maybe he's gonna make it.

Really quick, I'd like to add Coheed & Cambria to my list. Here's a picture of the lead singer. He's on the far right.
The third dishwasher came after Mr. Frodo and Tim and claimed he was the one who Tim got all of his fashion ideas from, which pretty much were limited to fashion eyeglass frames, very thick belts, and skinny jeans. His name was Andrew and I asked him if he'd rather be called "Andy" or "Andrew" (I'm bossy, I need to know people's names so I can boss with convincing faux-authority) and he said he didn't care. This alerted me immediately to his feigned emo-ness. I think the correct emo answer would have been, "Drew," or "Robert Smith of The Cure." Not really. None of those dumbasses even know who Robert Smith is.


You can be pretty sure that any bands with a completely unnecessary "The" preceding the lame band name can secure a place in the emo bizzarro world along with some or any of the following characteristics:

-Any band members who wear eyeliner
-Music videos in grayscale
-Hair that "appears" dirty or flat-ironed (or both) or over an eye
-Skinny jeans
-Too short/tight t-shirts
-Fabricated and practiced sullen or pained facial expressions

Do we know what emo is yet?

Post Script: I just saw a commercial for Rockband.com, where the actors address the "The" phenomenon I wrote about a couple of months ago. Collective subconscious? I think not... Who's reading my blog besides Jaime?

Don't Worry, I Still Think Nickelback Sucks

No, I haven't blogged in a long, long stretch, but please rest assured that I still strongly believe Nickelback sucks. And I stand by the musings in my last blog concerning "newer" bands with names starting with "The".

Speaking of, I am so fortunate to have my former life partner in our Nation's Capitol looking out for my musical interests, and informing me that The Bravery are playing there at the end of October with tickets available for the low low price of only $25 (and Straylight Run is opening, so LUCKY). My trip has been pending (for well over a year) and is now scheduled. So look out D.C. and hot hot Sam Endicott. I CAN'T WAIT.

Ok, so clearly opposite of my future fourth ex-husband Sam is Jackie McKeown of 1990s (this is the name of the band). Their single "You're Supposed To Be My Friend" pretty much rocks and the video is effing hilarious (so check it out). Now, Jackie is fugly, and we know how I have a problem with fugly stars spotlighting their genealogical misgivings in my face on TV (please reference a blog from last year about Death Cab for Cutie). He quite literally looks like the lovechild of Shelly Duvall (The Shining) and Steve Buschemi (while Chad Kroeger looks like the lovechild of the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz and Danny Bonaduce). And for you Dallas friends, 1990s are playing on November 14 at The Palladium Ballroom, so I highly advise wearing your Fugly Protectivewear (whatever that may be) when you attend. And you should attend.

What else... Yeah, that's all I'm feelin' right now. It was an arduous summer sans Internet, so I didn't blog. Now I should be back to my normal, Internet-addicted life. I look forward to entertaining the three of you with minutes of jaded ramblings again.

"The" Trend

I found out a couple of days ago that Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs is a hip hop star in France and this bothers me. His video was on IMF and it was like a train wreck in a foreign tongue. Apparently he was raised in France and is undoubtedly rapping about their new president, the Eiffel Tower, and rims/grills. Granted, I can’t understand a word of it except for when he says, “Tony P.” and the text message his lady, Eva Longoria (who cameos in the video), sends him on his phone. Anyways, I keep hearing hip hop is dead, but I think Tony P. can single-handedly resurrect it. That is if he can cross over to the English language and try not to mirror the musical careers of other bi-talented stars like Shaq and Bruce Willis.

Other than T.P., I just want to give fair warning about emerging bands with names that start with “The”. Now historically it seems that more of these that bands broke through in the 60s, had a noun following “The”, and are visionary rock n’ roll mavericks. I just have this lingering suspicion that these new bands failed to come up with a decent name and felt like “The” (placed before whatever they could manifest over a bowl and some Arbor Mist) gave them a nonexistent edge (read: Manolo’s Shoe Blog). The only way I could accept their grammatical blasphemy is a band member with an advanced degree, and as far as I know there aren’t any Rivers Cuomos or MENSA members in those bands.

Beware The Almost, The Higher, The Used (who used to be cool…), The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, The Nickelback, and any other new band that looks like they have a preteen who abuses flat irons and straightening serum as a lead singer (or the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz… Chad Kroeger!). Fear not The Bravery, for their music rocks and might make your face melt. The National, The Fratellis, and The Kooks have yet to offend me with visuals or horrible music (I actually like all three bands), but it’s sort of like, “The National what? The National Mattress Sales Event?” And yes, I did refer to these bands as “emerging” although they may have been together since they were like 12 or 13 years old. Which was like last year.

Moving on, you may or may not have gathered that I am back at the French restaurant I have been employed by off and on for like the past three and a half years. It’s probably the most fun job I have ever had, and even when it’s slow I make more money than I have at any job I have ever held. Ever. So I can’t complain when I owed two grand to the apartment complex at which I broke my lease last month. I expect by the end of the summer, not only will I have had that paid off for a month or two, but will have a couple of new leather best friends from Coach and a zero balance on all of my credit cards. Glorious! How hard is it to find a “real” job I like this much and make this much money doing? I eagerly await your answers to this burning question.

I think next time I may blog about the merit of our current presidential candidates based solely on their names… It’s just too easy and abnormal to ignore.

Nickelback Sucks, Part I

So my life consists of: working, reading books, journaling, listening to alternative rock on Sirius on my television, and occasionally going out on the town (I mean village).

Work is pretty awesome. We have a chick who works only at lunch and keeps a knife in her biker boots. She also has a seemingly mentally challenged son who washed dishes one day, which brings me to our newest dishwasher… We “affectionately” refer to him as Pedro because he had hair like Pedro in Napoleon Dynamite until he shaved it all off. Like Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite. He talks to himself and our “sous chef” caught him talking to himself – no, more like having a conversation and taking the task of being the female he was talking to upon himself. In other words, he may also have multiple personality disorder and one of them is a female. I have also been delegated the task of firing the knife-wielder before Jeff gets back. So I may fall victim to work-related violence when she goes postal. Never a dull moment.

Going out is a little like going to an ugly conference. There used to be at least a few attractive people in Ruidoso. I guess they all died or moved away for fear of catching the ugly disease. Sorry, I shouldn’t make fun of these people because I know I’m not perfect, but seriously… I think global warming is more being caused by all the heat obese people conduct than pollution and the destruction of the rainforests combined.

Alt Nation 21 on Sirius is my new best friend. I can’t tell you how much I love Peter Bjorn & John (a little pissed yet intrigued that Kanye West sampled “Young Folks”), the new White Stripes song (well, you can’t be a pimp and a prostitute, too…), the synthesizers of Shiny Toy Guns and The Killers, and scary Amy Winehouse and bitchy Lily Allen. My Chemical Romance is even starting to grow on me a little. Everyone should check out The Bravery (if you haven’t already), Plain White T’s (not to be confused with Plain Brown Wrapper, a.k.a. Wet Brown Paper Sack, from Lubbock), and Cold War Kids. Yay! I still hate The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and Switchfoot, though. I also still loathe Nickelback, but luckily they never play that kanuck bullshit on this station. Boo Nickelback and all of their fans who willingly allow themselves to be exposed to mediocre music, thereby supporting the modern day equivalent to Air Supply, and creating an arena for more bands just like them. See you in hell, Chad Kroeger!!

I listen to Alt Nation when I’m off work and reading or sleeping or writing. I just finished The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. What I need to do is finish re-reading the last three Harry Potter books before the new movie and last book come out this summer and J.K. Rowling breaks my heart by ending the series. But I’m about to start The Time Traveler’s Wife, which I am told is amazing. So we shall see!

The Internet and I have all but ended our long and sordid affair as of about two months ago. I check my e-mail and MySpace about once a week if I’m lucky. And can I please tell you that not being attached to that crap is absolutely liberating? I hope we don’t get the Internet back because it will undoubtedly suck me into its electronic communication wiles. The bastard. But not blogging regularly sucks because I know how much like three people out there enjoy reading my musings. Maybe you all should tell other people about my blog and give me subject suggestions and feedback… I’m aiming for a weekly posting.

Planned highlights for the summer include Harry Potter and paying off my debt, minus my student loans. We’ll save those for my future third ex-husband, Peyton Manning, to settle when we get married in the next decade or so. My life is entirely too exciting!

Busy, busy, busy...

So all I pretty much ever do now is work and it's pretty fun again! I miss my partner in crime, Fancypants, but there are plenty of new characters to entertain me. This is merely a teaser blog since I have no time to blog right now while I sit at Schlotzsky's, using the internet since we have none, but anyways...

I will work on some sort of a manifesto about all of the interesting things that have occurred since I got back to Ruidoso (Sarah's back, back again...), like being called "evil incarnate" and hanging out with friends from years ago. And maybe I might bitch some more about music and the return of the synthesizer (UPGRADE!).

I should probably blog about my trip to Las Vegas, too...

Falsetto Madness

So I’ve happened upon the new Maroon 5 video a couple of times lately on Fuse and Vh1 and I’m undeniably unimpressed. What the hell was: a.) the video’s director thinking, and b.) the band thinking when succumbing to the idea that the video should just pretty much be a three-minute long head shot of Adam Levine?

Don’t get me wrong, Adam Levine is a good-looking dude. But apparently he’s so incredibly handsome that the whole band is just short of nonexistent. Might as well change the band’s name to Maroon 1. And who does he think he’s fooling, trying to gain street cred by “playing” the guitar (while wearing a scarf tucked into a blazer)? After studying the video, I’ve come to the executive conclusion that he can play guitar about as well as Mick Jagger, or those chicks in the late Robert Palmer’s “Simply Irresistible” video.

Levine should stick to what his bone structure dictates – Gillette or Axe commercials. Maybe he and David Beckam could start a club for famous guys with superhuman good looks who are clearly in the wrong profession. Or better yet, Levine should get in touch with Barry Gibb, Justin Timberlake, and Robin Thicke to form a falsetto force with a presence so formidable it would rival the likes of the Cosa Nostra.

This may be a premature judgment, but I don’t see Maroon 5 sticking around. Maybe they can take the hot dog route to band formation a la the Velvet Revolver and Audioslave, and get together for some jam sessions with the former members of N’Sync and 98 Degrees. I’ll leave that to your imagination, but I posit there will be much Zima consumption, pirouettes, and pensive looks into outer space.

Here's to the Artists!

Where in the Bible does it say, "Judge not, lest ye be judged?" Anyone? Bueller? Christian or not, I feel like that's a testament to live by. I used to live this way… then I went to college and developed a superiority complex. Don't get me wrong, I have some of the best friends ever and would not give them, or any of my experiences in college, up for the world. But I am so sad that he dreamer inside me was suppressed by an idea of what I'm supposed to be.

I've talked about this before – society's expectations. I used to write and draw. I used to be an English major. Then I was told there was no money in that, so I switched to Journalism. Then I was told there was no money in that, so I focused on PR – where the "money" is, apparently. Yeah… I was making $19K before taxes when I graduated and got my first job in PR doing mostly data entry. Anyways...

Now I look back and it's not quite regret I feel because I have learned so much, but it's sadness that I allowed money to influence and stall my dream. It laid dormant while I tried to make the bucks, went back to school to delay having to make the bucks with hopes of making more with my advanced degree…

Then something changed on January 6, 2006. Something that put everything in perspective and created complete chaos simultaneously. I don't really care about money anymore. I don't care about having the house, the car, the stuff.

What matters is my family, what few friends I have who understand (or at least try to understand) what I've been through and why I've made some of the random decisions I've made in the last fifteen months. Call it stupidity, call it post-traumatic stress disorder, call it whatever the fuck you want to. I'm calling it enlightenment because my dream isn't dead. I love to write. I feel lucky to have a passion for something I've been told I'm sort of good at. So I'm taking another chance – I call it an opportunity – to realize my dream.

Because I'm not that person who can run the rat race. I'd rather die. I don't like dressing up for work and having to wear a thong and heels every day. I hate having to hide my tattoo and take out my tongue ring because clearly those things affect my ability to function in the workplace (oh wait, maybe they do… maybe they're a sign of my contempt for the man). I hate, hate, hate being told what I can and cannot do between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. I work just as well at 9 p.m. and 4 a.m. as I do at 8:56 in the morning when I'd rather be watching Matt Lauer tell me about a new way to detect breast cancer on the Today Show than checking my e-mail.

And why should I be up in the middle of the night, stressed out to the point of tears because I am miserable doing anything less than what I dream? I'd rather wait tables and leave work at work, and be able to sleep at night for the rest of my life.

So here's to the artists! I know too few, which is why I feel I have to write an explanation for my erratic behavior. I wonder if Kerouac or Hunter S. had this problem… wondering what their peers thought. I'm going to go ahead and say not so much.

I'm not sorry I keep trying to find something that makes me happy and not discovering it. I am sorry if I'm a failure or that I can't handle pressure. So many things are no longer important to me, but I am learning what is. I don't want to waste any more time. My circumstances may not be the best, but maybe they are.

Don't you think crazy people make the best artists? Plath, Brando, Van Gogh, Bea Arthur (lol), the great Jeff Curtis, Jerry Seinfeld… you get the idea. Mental illness and/or a tortured life equal massive amounts of creativity that can be enjoyed by all. Even the sane ones.

ROSALITA???

Today I talked to the first celebrity I've talked to since telling Bruce Willis he wasn't allowed to catch his daughter (it was probably the condom-lover, Rumor) from the diving board back in '98. I mean besides heckling Sammy Hagar in Lubbock and telling Dave Matthews to take off his pants in Dallas...

Ok, so maybe she's not as famous as the Bruce or Dave, but she's clearly one of my personal heroes due solely to the fact that she was in The Goonies. I know you're thinking, "Wow, Sarah talked to Martha Plimpton!" No, not so much. "Kerri Green?" No... "Anne Ramsey??" No, she's dead. Ok, I'll tell you. It was Rosalita, also known as Lupe Ontiveros. She played Yolanda Salvidar in Selena and has most recently been "Mama Solis" in Desperate Housewives. She's also from the illustrious town of El Paso.

So I guess what's important is not that I talked to an Emmy-nominated actress. It's the ass I made of myself the three-ish times I talked to her assistant "Enrique" before I talked to her.

The first time I talked to him, I forgot who I was trying to score an interview with... "I'm calling in regards to... uh... uh... oh my gawd I'm drawing a blank... uh..." Did he help me? Not so much. Kind of an ass, actually. Said I would not be able to meet with her in person because they wanted to get more publicity for the event she's coming here for. So I had to ask my editor because this is not protocol.

Check.

Next time I talk to "Enrique", I am cool. I say we need photos since we aren't going to be meeting with Ms. Ontiveros, and we'd like a still from Babel since she was also nominated for an Academy Award for that film, which is what my publisher's wife told me. Yeah, that's not her. It's someone named Adriana Barraza. Wow, thanks publisher's genius wife. But, I schedule the interview and go home.

Check.

I get home and realize I have to be at City Council all day. And by all day, I mean during the time I had erroneously scheduled the interview. So I am frantically trying to get a hold of "Enrique" to reschedule. Thankfully she was available today because I was at City Hall for about six and a half hours. NOT thankfully, Enrique told Lupe about my faux pas. Who knows if he told her about the Babel thing.

Then yesterday after City Council, I'm telling Nick about the whole series of events and as if I'm not nervous enough about talking to a movie star the next day, his boss informs me that the Ontiveros wanted to be paid for the interview originally, so I went into the interview assuming she didn't want to talk to me...

All I can say is I.B.S. to the extreme.

Luckily my 45-minute chat with her went fairly swimmingly, although my publisher asked me to ask her how much money she made. I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Somebody kick this kid in the shin.

So you may or may not recall a while back that kid who was kidnapped in Florida by some sick-o pederast, only to escape and be rescued. The boy was touted a hero in his own right and I could not agree more. The child was taken against his will, was undoubtedly scared out of his gourd and was sharp enough to get away, unscathed.

You must have seen the story develop over the past few days of the 12-year-old Boy Scout who wandered away from his group camping trip and found himself lost in the woods. He, too, is being praised for his survival skills and seeming tenacity. For one thing, I'm sick of hearing about it when there's a presidential election coming up next year and people are dying in the war and Africa. If you want to warm my heart with a tear-jerking story about heroism, I'd rather hear about a mentally challenged person who saved a parakeet from a house fire, because that person clearly has more wits than this kid in my opinion.

The kid decided to take off on his own because the friends he liked didn't show for the camping trip, i.e. he was "homesick". I used to go to camp for an entire month during the summer when I was a kid in the mountains near Santa Fe. I got homesick sometimes. Common sense even at 10 told me I should not embark on a trek back to Farmington because it just wasn't a good idea. Did he think he'd pass a phone booth in the wilderness?

So when did this kid's common sense fail him and the foreshadowing of the rest of his certain failure of a life set in? I'm not sure, but luckily after a few days in the North Carolina woods at "freezing" temperatures, a woman and her dog named Gandalf found him. Reports say one of the first things he requested was a helicopter ride. Then food and water and whatnot. Then his dad tells cameras that he told his son before the camping trip that if he didn't have fun, dad would give him five dollars, and said he'd pay up. Dude, after the initial relief wore off that I was alive and well, I guarantee you I would not have been given my five dollars or a helicopter ride, but rather a grounding and incessant lectures on my bad decision.

And this child is being heralded a hero. He is being called a hero for making a bad choice and somehow, amazingly, surviving for a couple of days without his ADHD medication. Shocker... when he was off the meds, he somehow managed to make calculated survival decisions. That's amazing.

Please let's keep on rewarding mediocrity and see what happens. I can't WAIT for a kid who grew up on Ritalin and without dodge ball to be running the United States. We might as well elect Clay Aiken as President right now and get it over with.

Sun City, hangovers and stripper vans... OH MY!

I'm writing for a living now, so I haven't been feeling like blogging, although I have had some ideas. Let's just bullet through some of the happenings of late, shall we?

-I moved to El Paso for an awesome job at a weekly paper. I LOVE IT!!

-I stayed at a friend's apartment while he stayed at his parent's house for a week before I got my apartment, and I have some thoughts on guys decorating their spaces without the assistance of an interior design professional, or at least a female friend with some fashion and aesthetic sense to her being. In short, my content analysis over the years reveals that guys should never embark on interior design unless they have that special flair, should never allow their mothers to help them (unless said mother is an interior decorator, and even then you should proceed with caution), cheaper is never better. Save up for the good stuff.

-El Paso women make me look really good. I mean, I'm like fucking Gisele Bundchen compared to most of these chicks. And if you live here, you know I'm not being conceited. At all.

-I hate when radio stations play "Tainted Love" and cut off the snappy ending. You know the part that goes, "Baby, baby... where did our love goooo?" You know what I'm talking about.

-I have an idea for a funny column that includes me riding the Sun Metro for a month, but I'm afraid it would be so hilarious, my own head would explode.

-Sunsets and sunrises on mountains or mesas beat out a sunset or sunrise on building any day, any time, forever.

-I started thinking about it today, and I estimated I have spent at least 7,000 hours being hungover over the last ten years. And that's probably on the modest end...

-There is a huge difference between Hispanics and Mexican Nationals in El Paso and in Dallas.

-Being a pedestrian in El Paso is like having a contract out for your own death. I would not recommend walking here. Or driving, really. I have been passed on Mesa, driving 40 miles per hour, by people drag racing. Today it was a newer model Cadillac sedan and like a 1998 Mustang... WTF? I did, however, go for an exploratory walk the other evening and actually stopped traffic near my apartment. Granted, I was waiting to cross at a crosswalk, but there was no light. Some guy was nice enough to stop and about 15 other cars had to follow suit. It was quite touching! Thanks to that guy for being so polite.

-Riding around in the Jaguars van (Jaguars is a strip club in El Paso) is pretty fun. So is drinking Dom Perignon. And no, I am not moonlighting as a stripper... that would be scary.

-I had a Novocaine shot (actually two sets of shots) about four hours ago and my lip and chin are still numb.