11.22.2010

Thoughts I couldn't flesh out into full entries:

- I'm going to file this one under "Conversations that Just Hit the Spot":
Me: I went through a phase last week of being really into the idea of joining the National Guard.
Becca: I assume someone has since talked you out of it?
Me: Mom said, I "wouldn't be much of a soldier." I didn't even know the National Guard were soldiers.
Becca: Yeah, they're the Army, but for domestic issues. Although I think we've started sending them overseas recently, so it's probably a good thing that you changed your mind.
Me: I don't know why, but I've always pictured the National Guard like, going around breaking up raucous beach parties and such. What am I thinking of?
Becca: Uh, an 80's tittie movie?
And then I laughed for a really long time while my sister repeatedly asked, "You were, weren't you? You're laughing this hard because you were." And I was. But specifically some old school USA Up All Night shit with "car wash" somewhere in the title. That's what the National Guard has always been in my mind. But now that I know it's not, nuts to joining. Although I don't think it's a completely horrible idea for me and Tulane Chris to produce a low-budget Private Benjamin remake where I try to join the National Guard and walk up to my drill sargeant on the first day all, "Pardon me, but where are the busty girls in string bikinis and surfer dudes with ironic names like Tripod and Wipeout? This neon-colored frisbee isn't going to toss itself!" And then my drill seargant is like, "MCBLOGGERRRRRR! DROP AND GIVE ME 50!" And I'm like, "50? Sir, with a body like that, why don't I drop and give you 69?" And then the camera zooms in on me as I throw up my hands and make a "Whatcha gonna do??" face, and a slide-whistle goes off somewhere.


I don't know. The script still needs some workshopping, but you get the gist.


- I was going to make this a You Know What Ruffles My Feathers? feature, but a.) it's oddly specific and b.) it doesn't really have a conclusion. And if that's not a recipe for comedy, I don't know what is! But this topic does ruffle my feathers, so here we go: You know what really ruffles my feather? People who say their hair looks better if they only wash it once a week.


Who are you people? Where do you come from? More importantly, what kind of voodoo are you practicing that you can get away with only washing your hair once a week? Are your hair follicles made of Wonder bread and Bounty paper towels? Because my hair looks like I've spent a full day swimming in the ocean if I don't wash it after two days. And you know what they tell you then? They always say, "Oh, well that's why you use a dry shampoo or baby powder to manage the oil." First of all, strop trying to up-sell me in casual conversation. Secondly, at the end of those seven days, I would look like a founding father there would be so much powder in my hair. English people would actually come up to me in the street and ask for legal advice. And if it's between having oily hair or constantly looking like I'm in a period piece, I'll go with the oily hair, a-thank you.


The other thing they always tell you is that you shouldn't use product. Or blowdry your hair. Or flatiron it. These, apparently, are all things that make it oily while you're not shampooing. Oh, I'M sorry! I'm sorry I was cursed with hair that manages to defy the laws of physics and gravity and be flat and lifeless, yet frizzy and curly all at the same time. I'M sorry about that. You're right. It's more important to avoid a random split end here and there than to wash it everyday. Sure I might look like Bob Ross and Mortitia Addams' love child in the mean time, but at least technically I'll have "good hair." Hippie.


But, no. I need to use product. I need to use heat tools. I need to wash my hair everyday. Why? Because truthfully, I am empirically not an attractive human being. But!, if I put in the man hours, I can trick you into thinking that I'm about an 8. And by "about an 8", I mean a concrete 8. I know this because a guy walked up to me last year at Jäger Ball and said, " You're an 8." It felt like something I probably should have been offended by, but at the time I figured I've always shot for the lower, upper-half in life, why stop now? I'm like a suburb of Chicago with decent schools and families who can afford two mid-level luxury cars, but sorry Taylor, you're going to have to take out a student loan next year; Colgate is expensive. That is what I look like.


And you know the worst part? My mom is one of those people who looks better if she only washes her hair once a week. My own mother! The very woman who's gene pool I back floated and perhaps accidentally peed in! It's not fair. She has deep, olive-colored skin, but of course I got my dad's pasty Irish coloring. My dad has bright blue eyes, but I got my mom's dime a dozen brown. My dad is never hungry and rail thin, yet I got the sturdy, childbearing frame of an Eastern European woman. My mother's face bears flawless skin, but I got my dad's cleft chin, or butt chin, as certain evil third graders liked to call it. (Chris Curtis; asshole.) I feel like had they sat down and worked out a Punnett square for me, all of the cross-pairings would have just been a combination of sideways and frowny faces. And then on the next sonogram, all you'd be able to see is a little nub holding up a post-it note that says, "ABORTION: WOULDN'T HOLD A GRUDGE!"


And that's where that rant just kind of ends. With an abortion joke. And that's why it never grew up to become a real YKWRMF? BeHiNd ThE sCeNeS!


- Big ups to 2b1b reader-run vestique.com! You should absolutley mozy over there at some point today and check out Morgan and Caroline's new online boutique. (Nothing is over $100. As a girl who primarily eats gummy fangs and whores herself out on a monthly basis to pay her cable bill, I appreciate that.) Full Disclosure: they gave me a pair of these sassy and absurdly comfortable red flats for the linkage, but I wouldn't have agreed to do it if I wasn't into their stuffs. There's dignity in my selling out, thank you. So go there and buy everything! Because it's a great boutique! And because I also really want the flats in black, so maybe if you guys buy a bunch, I'll get a pity bonus. www.vestique.com. KNTHNX!


- I always thought that Shop Girl was my go-to "I Need a Good Cry" movie, but OOOOF. I've discovered one that takes it to a whole other level. Allow me to share with you my Saturday night:


All last week I felt like I was coming down with something, and I absolutley refuse to be sick on Thanksgiving and only be able to take meager bites of soft foods that I won't even be able to taste, so I pretty much locked myself in my apartment this weekend and just slept and drank a lot of fluids. Truthfully, most of those fluids were wine, but still. Fluids they were. Saturday night at around 11:45ish, I needed a break from sleeping (which happens) (and I think is just called, "being awake") so I curled up on the couch with a a bottle of Mucinex and a glass of wine and started channel surfing. That's when I saw that the 1976 animated version of Charlotte's Web was on and thought, "Oh, I used to watch that movie everyday when I was a wee Meglet! I'll watch that!" 


MISTAKE! MISTAKE! BIG, BIG MISTAKE!!!


Mother of godI do know the last time I cried that hard. Which means that the last time I cried that hard, there was a concrete, traumatic reason to do so, which made it all the more memorable. I cried in a way that was less crying and more just fluids exiting my face from various orafices, while I made soft little moans and grunted a lot. It was one of those cries where afterwards you're thirsty and completely out of toilet paper.


I'm pretty sure I know why I had this reaction to the movie, though: 1.) It's just a very nostalgic movie for me, and as my TDR Thanksgiving Dinner post last week proved, I don't deal with nostalgia very well. 2.) Whereas Shop Girl resonated so much with me last year because I was having relationship problems, Charlotte's Web did a number on me this year because I'm having friendship problems. I mean, I have friends, that's not the problem, it's just that they're all leaving the country in droves like rats on a ship. And while I know this is a result of living in a city like D.C. where everyone has their eye on the door, I'm still left with all of these emotions about my friends moving on and settling down, whereas I'm stalled, on no path to speak of, with no co-driver, and am ultimately afraid that everyone is going to leave and forget me. YOU KNOW, LIKE CHARLOTTE'S BABIES DID TO WILBUR. 


I honestly don't think this movie is appropriate for children (and 25-year-olds with a bottle of Riesling and emotions.) It's about people creating emotional dependencies on other people and then having those relationships ripped away from them. Except by people, I primarily mean animals and arachnids. And death! So much of the movie is about death! The only reason Wilbur and Charlotte meet in the first place is because they're about to fucking slaughter Wilbur and he's literally weeping for someone to save his life! So Charlotte does save himonly to die herself! But it's OK, she has babies to carry on her legacyexcept they're like, fuck you Wilbur, I do what I want! I'm going to Des Moines to study improv! and only three babies stay with him. Jesus fucking Christ. Are we classifying Schindler's List as a "children's classic" these days? Deliverance? Look at this pu-pu platter of quotes:


"I'm less than two months old and I'm tired of living." 
Seriously?? Seriously? I feel like that could also be lyrics to a Linkin Park song I listened to a lot when I got rejected from NYU and drove around soul-searching a lot.


Wilbur: Why did you do all this for me? I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you.
Charlotte: You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heavens knows anyone's life can stand a little of that."
I mean, is this a children's movie or a one-act based on that token old guy in every dive-bar named "Ernie" who's lived a lot of life?


Charlotte: I'm done for. In a day or two I'll be dead. I haven't strength enough to climb into the crate. I doubt if there is enough silk in my spinnerets to lower me to the ground.
Wilbur: Charlotte! No, Charlotte! My true friend.

Oh my fucking god...



Wilbur: Are you writers?
Charlotte's daughters: No, but we will be when we grow up. 

Wilbur: Then write this in your webs, when you learn: This hallowed doorway was once the home of Charlotte. She was brilliant, beautiful, and loyal to the end. Her memory will be treasured forever.
Charlotte's daughters: Ooh, that would take us a lifetime.
Wilbur: A lifetime. That's what we have.

I just can't.




Wilbur: No. Please don't go. I'll be all alone. Your mother wouldn't want that to happen, I'm sure. Please don't go.
Narrator: Soon the sky was filled with baby spiders, floating away on the wind. Wilbur sank to the ground, crying, his heart broken once more.
I mean, for fuck's sake. I'm crying right now.

But this is the one that
really got me:

Narrator: Wilbur never forgot Charlotte. Although he loved her children and grandchildren dearly, none of the new spiders quite took her place in his heart. She was in a class by herself. It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.

HYSTERICAL
LY. CRYING. Tulane Chris and I are obviously good friends, but we don't really have a "gushy" friendship. Like, you know you have those friends you get drunk with and have serious conversations with about how much you love each other and how important this friendship is and you just weep and hold each other a lot? That's not really me and Chris. We like each other, obviously, but we also respect each other as writers and at the end of the day have to do business together
it's the same reason why we won't fart in front of each other or why he won't let me call him when I'm on the john.


But after that line, I was a hot second away from calling him up at 1 o'clock on Sunday morning all, "YOU ARE A TRUE FRIEND AND A GOOD WRITER! YOU'RE BOTH! YOU'RE MY CHARLOTTE! YOU'RE. MY. CHARLOTTE! AND I DON'T SAY IT ENOUGH! YOU'RE IMPORTANT TO ME! AND, YES, I'M TAKING A SHIT RIGHT NOW AND I THINK IT'S IMPORTANT THAT YOU'RE OK WITH THAT! BECAUSE YOU'RE MY CHARLOTTEEEEEEEEE!"


But I didn't. Mostly because we were supposed to have a conference call that afternoon that I slept through and thought that if I skipped it and woke him up later that night to drunkenly ramble about my bowel movements and being my "Charlotte", he'd be another spider in the wind. Oh my god. Another spider in the wind. That was so prosaic. Now I'm tearing up again.


Time to cleanse the palate.


- I had to go to the bank the other day because I de-magnetized both of my ATM cards when I put a magnet in my wallet, and when I told the sassy black woman who was helping me how I did it she said, and I quote, "Baby, I wish I hadn't asked," and I've never felt more stupid.
There. That feels better.

37 comments:

Anonymous said...

i'm fixin to read this...but i wanted to be the first to say whooooo! i love meg!

2b1b: The sardonic voice of 20-somethings everywhere, Monday through Friday. said...

OH STOP!

(But don't. It'll make my mom more sympathetic when I ask her for money next time.)

Jen said...

ultimately afraid that everyone is going to leave and forget me. YOU KNOW, LIKE CHARLOTTE'S BABIES DID TO WILBUR.


hahah i have no idea why but that shizz cracked my shizz UP!

Rachel said...

Ohh loving vestique!! thanks for posting the link meg.

(re)becca said...

I'm sorry I was cursed with hair that manages to defy the laws of physics and gravity and be flat and lifeless, yet frizzy and curly all at the same time.

It gives me such relief to know that someone else in this universe suffers from this, you have no idea. My brother got curly/frizzy hair, but it's also thick and lustrous. My sister rolled the genetic lottery and got the thick, straight hair of supermodels (AND my Jewish mother's tan[ner] coloring, damn it all). And here I am with hair that needs to be scrubbed from oil daily just to cover my scalp, and two inches down deciding that the most prudent course of action is to grow STRAIGHT* OUT.

* No pun intended. But "curl straight out" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

Anonymous said...

OMG. Literally laughed (a lot) and then proceeded to cry. And I'm generally a very stoic person! How did I make it through that book as a child without going outside on a wintery day and burying myself in my sandbox because life is so daunting because I just learned that everyone is going to die or give me the spider-finger and blow away??

Blake said...

Oh Meg, what are we going to do with you? Haven't you ever seen the long movie theater commercial for the National Guard which makes it absolutely clear they are legit soldiers? You're too funny.

NotablyNeurotic said...

Oh my gosh ... I have like a thousand emotions reading this post. First of all, it was freaking hilarious because (I've said this once in a comment, and I'll probably say it a dozen more times) you have such a gift for comedic writing. I think you need to teach a seminar in how to be brilliant. I would attend. I'd board a plane from Indiana and attend the sh*t out of that seminar.

And this post also made me cry (for reals). My friends are getting knocked up or moving across the country and those are the very friends that I used to get intoxicated with and have the "I love you so much. No, sersiouly, SO MUCH" talk with. Time goes by too fast and things just change too much ...

Anonymous said...

so if other readers have businesses and offer you things, you'll plug them?

2b1b: The sardonic voice of 20-somethings everywhere, Monday through Friday. said...

so if other readers have businesses and offer you things, you'll plug them?

YEP. meg@2birds1blog.com

Anonymous said...

"English people would actually come up to me in the street and ask for legal advice."

Dying.

Christine said...

Oh man, Charlotte's Web made me cry when I was little and I would watch it at my grandma's house. This brought back so many awful memories, and you didn't even touch on the part when Wilbur realizes that Fern's growing up and too busy with boys at the fair to take an interest in him anymore. Poor Wilbur! Everyone leaves him!

Erin said...

omg. i feel the same way about my friends. i love it here in dc and have zero plans to leave. but all my friends are slowly disapating and it makes me sad. so just know i am down to be your one true friend charlotte style. and i promise not to fly away in the wind!

Sarah said...

"Baby, I wish I hadn't asked."

This is how every stranger I meet feels about me. Now I'm depressed, too.

Anonymous said...

what the heck ever happened to queer abby?

Nat said...

According to my father the nurse, who sometimes calls me up with random health related wisdom, I should drink more alcohol when I am sick because it makes you pee more than regular liquids and cleanses whatever is making you sick faster. I have ignored much advice from him over the years, but I think I will never let go of that bit. You probably sped up your recovery!

Anonymous said...

Anonymous at 10:23AM:

How did I make it through that book as a child without going outside on a wintery day and burying myself in my sandbox because life is so daunting because I just learned that everyone is going to die or give me the spider-finger and blow away??


Meg, you are hilarious. And whoever anonymous is, I legit lol'ed during work. Good thing everyone here is in a Thanksgiving potluck-related coma and didn't hear my snorting.

Anonymous said...

If you really want to torture your tear ducts watch Dear Zachary A letter from a father to his son (I think that's the title) it's a true story, and while somewhat clumsily presented, it will gut punch you like you have never been gut punched before. I had to pause it in the middle just so I could slow the sobbing enough to even take AN breath. AN.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 4:30, I just wikipedia'ed "Dear Zachary" and I teared up while reading the plot. What. The. Fuck. I think I'm emotionally scarred from that paragraph.

2b1b: The sardonic voice of 20-somethings everywhere, Monday through Friday. said...

Uh, no. Nothing but Arrested Development reruns and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills from now on.

Unknown said...

I reread Charlotte's Web for a Children's Literature class (yeah yeah) and I spent MONTHS reminding people of how BRUTALLY SAD it was because "No one was with her when she died."

HOW IS THAT AN APPROPRIATE LINE FOR A KID'S BOOK?!

Anonymous said...

Tulane University sent me a letter thingy and the FIRST thing I thought of was you guys <3
jus' sayin'

Ali said...

I'm convinced that Charlotte's Web scarred me for life.

I remember reading it in third grade and having a fucking meltdown between all the depressing death talk and hatred of being alive. The movie killed me too (the cartoon one, not that newer wannabe piece of shit).

And what's strange is, I regard it as one of my favorite books.

Brittan said...

oh meg. i love you, seriously. this is my favorite post from you in awhile. so endearing, so relatable, so. FUNNY.

Brittan said...

oh meg. i love you, seriously. this is my favorite post from you in awhile. so endearing, so relatable, so. FUNNY.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Brent said...

I laughed out loud at this: "First of all, strop trying to up-sell me in casual conversation. Secondly, at the end of those seven days, I would look like a founding father there would be so much powder in my hair."

Then, I laughed hysterically at your digression via CW quotes into a weepy pile of friend-love.

Also, I'm in Peace Corps, and a friend of mine here never uses shampoo. He's pretty good looking, and his hair looks pretty good... but always greasy. I think, maybe I should stop using shampoo. Then after two days, while squeegeeing my slick locks, I decide against it. Thanks for shoring up my resolve.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 6:34... yeah, I know. I had no idea what I was getting into when I watched Dear Zachary. I was like "Oh, I like true crime stories, I hope it's narrated by Keith Morrisson... click!" and I just had no idea what was really coming. No idea at all. I'm not sure I've ever cried that hard before.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I just watched "Dear Zachary" too. Full out sobbing, like with snot dripping out of my nose, ensued.

Anonymous said...

RE: Sexy Disney Songs. Please see The Great Mouse Detective's "Let Me Be Good To You."

Kori said...

I'm about four days too late on this, but being late never stopped me from putting my own hair on blast so I just want you to know that I am one of those people who only washes her hair a couple of times a week. AND I DO IT WITH A HEAVY HEART MEG. My hair is so thick I could make a fur coat for Shaq out of it and though it's not curly, it suckles at the teat of conditioner for the only semblance of moisture it gets on the regs. If I wash it more than a couple of times a week it becomes a dry ratty mess. I used to have so much sads in high school when all the girls with thin straight hair could bust out the hot iron and look faboosh and my hair just looked like I stuck my finger in a freaking electrical socket.

Okay uhh...I guess I have a lot of secret pain here.

Noodlepress said...

I seem to have the same DC problem of half my friends moving to other states. And then I feel all emo bunny thinking about how I don't have enough friends. Luckily I have your blog to restore my will to live.

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