Birthday Thoughts

I had a BIG OLD case of writer’s block trying to start this post. I was staring blankly at my iTunes wishing I could write when I thought, “OH, I should listen to some Squirrel Nut Zippers! That’ll help! So help me God, I don’t know what my logic was there.

My twenty-seventh birthday is November 25^th, 2011. I will officially be in my late twenties. This struck home the other day when I realized that early episodes of “Friends” were about people my age or marginally younger. This revelation was followed by “Oh, God. I hope I’m not Ross.” Advanced degree in something obscure? Check. “Not conventionally attractive,” in an ethnic way? Provided “cracker” counts as ethnic, check. Obsessed with a Jewish waitress? No, but it’s the kind of thing that WOULD happen to me. Let me warn you: figuring out that you’re a louder, bawdier, drunker, more Episcopalian David Schwimmer doesn’t make aging any easier.

It’s also going to be a sad birthday because Mom doesn’t have a phone. (“AT&T says I owe them three hundred dollars! We’ll see who gives in first.”) Mine was, apparently, a difficult birth, which my mother lovingly recounts every year like a war story. “Oh, around this time eight years ago, the midwife said she couldn’t do it, we’d have to go to the hospital.” “Twelve years ago, we were driving to the hospital in the sleet!” (This is a bigger deal in Texas than you might think.) “Sixteen years ago, the doctor told me he didn’t need to do an episiotomy, it was already torn.” I’ll spare you the details of “I had cold sores all over my face” and the destruction my skull allegedly wrought on her tailbone. Anyway, the story of The Birth is very much a part of my birthday, much like the recitations of the Ten Plagues are central to Passover. It’ll be sad not to hear it this year.

Being born on or near Thanksgiving, predictably, sucks. Not only does it mean I was conceived on Valentine’s Day, but no one ever is around or in the mood to do anything on my birthday. I used to sulk about this, but this year I’ve taken the opportunity to create Birthday Week:

Thursday November 24: Thanksgiving. I get a turkey leg because it’s “almost my birthday.”

Friday November 25: Actual Birthday. Giant Camel, Meg, Ex-Co-Blogger Eddie, “some of the West Philly hipster queers if they’re around,” and I are going to Ethiopian food, bowling, and the gay piano bar. Can you imagine? A gay piano bar AFTER a holiday and DURING a three day weekend? “Okay. Ooooookay. We’re going to have a drink, then we’re going to do ‘Thank You For Being a Friend’ again, then another drink, then ‘Those Were the Days,’ then drink, then ‘Moon River.’”

Saturday November 26: GWAAAAAAR! I love Gwar, and if you don’t, fuck you.

Sunday November 27: Rest; cake.

Monday November 28: “Alternate” birthday for people who were out of town for Actual Birthday. Saints play Giants. A shot for every touchdown, field goal, or safety. Will there be black and gold temporary hair color? Is the Pope a shithead?

Tuesday November 29: Write obscene fan mail to Zachary Quinto. LIBERAL use of construction paper.

Wednesday November 30: Rest; eat entire Whitman’s sampler in bed.

Thursday December 1: Philadelphia’s premier lesbian bar, Sisters, has a Thursday special: for ten bucks you get eight drink tickets and access to the buffet.

So, that’s my plan. 27. Halfway to 54, which is halfway to having been dead for twenty years.

Where do we go from here?

[I'd like to preface this post by saying that I wrote it early yesterday afternoon when I was f-f-fired up. I've cooled down considerably since then (I went over to my parent's house and ate a rotisserie chicken. It's not important), but I still feel like there's an important point to be made here and I want to make it. I've been pussyfooting (vomit, I'm so sorry) around the fact that something's been going on recently, and I irritate the crap out of myself when I get all 2003 emo LiveJournal and hint that something's wrong but don't actually say what it is. So, this is what it is.]

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This might be a little heavy for a Friday, but I want to break the fourth wall and address a few blog comments.

I swear to God this isn't me be sassy, but I'm absolutely looking for a part-time job and am always looking for freelance design work. I just wrapped up two big jobs, so my schedule is now wide open, design wise. If you have any leads, send 'em my way.

And the bigger issue:

Man. I've gotten this comment over and over again since our book came out, and those comments, along with reviews like this one that only bill Chris as the author, are troubling, at best. This book was a 50/50 effort. All of our books have been. All of our books are also written in the third-person about 101 hypothetical scenarios, some of which are centered around men and some of which are centered around women. It seems absurd to me that anyone would assume that just because I'm a woman, I only wrote the scenarios about women, but that's actually what's happening. And not to get all GeNdeR LOLZ! on you, but, frankly, this shit is going to hurt my career. Our writing style, and my writing style in general, is aggressive, dark, and vulgar, which in turn is interpreted as being "masculine". I always thought that my ability to write from both a male and female perspective was a credit to my writing and would make me marketable to television's male-dominated writing staffs, but how are they supposed to acknowledge my skill as a writer if they think I only wrote the 15% of the book that's about periods and hair dye and GIRL STUFFS? This obviously begs the question: why was our book written mostly from the male perspective? Well, I don't know. It wasn't a conscious choice. Maybe it's because I like lampooning frat boys and frat boy culture. Maybe it's because women are taught to be "nice girls" and aren't typically Misanthropes. Maybe it's because I have an aggressive personality and Chris is a man. I don't know. (But it's a damn good question for an intro to gender studies class at Mount Holyoke, I can tell you that much.)

What I do know is that this has been a major blow to me personally and to my partnership with Chris. Every time I have to explain to someone that, no, we both wrote the book and believe it or not, Chris wrote the scenarios about being pregnant and I'm responsible for most of the "Tits! Bros! Booze!" jokes because I'm just that kind of modern 90's gal-on-the-go, it kills me. Just the fact that I have to clarify this right now on my own blog makes me physically nauseous. It's just so much work to not get credit for. And I'm talking about the books and the four years of blogging I did to lead up to the point of even being asked to write a book. 

Intellectually, I know that none of this is Chris' fault, but I still resent him for it and as a result, our relationship has become extremely strained. (I cAn HaZ PeRioD???!~) This situation is also hurting the blog because for the past month or so, every time I sit down at my laptop to write a blog post, I get so mad. Because it's like, what's the fucking point? We write blog posts so we can write books that will end up launching Chris' career?? Fuck that noise. I'd rather just watch old episodes of Maude on youtube and cat nap. Life's too short.

So, this leads us back to the question I posed as the title of this post: where do we go from here? Do I suck it up and risk someone big reading one of our books and only taking Chris to the next level because they think he wrote the majority of it? Do I go around the country slapping a sticker on the cover of every copy that says, "Meghan Rowland: tits like a lady, LOLs like a man!"? Do I save myself the time and give up? I don't know what the right answer is. I've been talking this over with my friends and family and Chris for a few weeks now, and none of us know what to do about this.

So, here's what I am going to do: I'm going to keep blogging. I'm going to write my crass little fart jokes in this stupid little blog everyday, Monday through Friday, like I set out to do four years ago. Because next to playing slightly sharp versions of Hall and Oates songs on the bass, it's the only thing I know how to do, and I am goddamn good at it. I don't know if I'll ever make it as a comedy writer, or if Chris will, or if we will as a team, but I do know that I'd rather keep trying and fail than look back twenty years from now and wonder what would have happened if I hadn't quit. So, I will see you Monday morning because I've got a whole notebook full of post ideas, no job, and $9 in my bank account, and if you have a problem with any of that, you can just suck my dick. Brah.

...And, you know, T.G.I. Hagman.

As of 8:00am on October 14, 2011, Larry Hagman is...alive!

Have a great weekend, everyone. <3

The Funniest Picture I Have Ever Seen In My Entire Life

I know. It's a pretty big build up. But guess what? I'll deliver. OH, I will deliver.

The Funniest Picture I Have Ever Seen In My Entire Life comes to us from Teresa. (SIDENOTE: Speaking of Teresa, let's briefly discuss last Thursday night. Last Thursday night was a show. An X-rated sideshow from a lost lagoon. I don't even know what that means, but that's where it was fucking from. I've been pretty upset recently for reasons that nobody gives a shit about so let's move on, and Teresa and I went out to dinner at Star and Shamrock Thursday night at about 9:30ish to talk it out. There, I had a hot corned beef sandwich and one meager Guinness because we both agreed we were going to "take it easy". After dinner, however, we went to Jimmy Valentine's and things took a sharp left turn. We were the only people at the bar from around 10:30–1am, and we spent most of that time shooting the shit with the bartender and not taking it easy. Well, Teresa took it easy. I did not. Actually, that's bullshit, because I really didn't drink that much. I had a DC Brau when we first got there, but then I made the questionable decision to down three Mr. Lethals. And I. Said. God. Damn. A Mr. Lethal is like an alcoholic root beer float made with crushed ice, syrup and 100-proof root beer flavored vodka. Needless to say, I got drunk. But like drunk, drunk. Like first-weekend-at-college-lose-your-virginity-in-a-frat-house-bathtub-style drunk. I think I talked to the bartender a lot about my newfound love for the Insane Clown Posse, which seems counterproductive because I'm pretty sure I was also trying to hit on him. I'm also fairly sure I at some point slurred "we're like a psychopathic family", which kind of makes me want to take sixteen showers and change my name. And the text messages I sent, you guys...CHRIST. I think when my blood alcohol level hits a certain point, my phone should just automatically shut off. Like, I should have to blow into a little tube attached to it before it lets me text message anybody. Guys, friends, a parent, my priest, my rabbi, a trusted family friend or community leader—anyone. Because the text messages I sent Thursday night were basically like a one-woman performance of The Aristocrats, except it all lead up to the punchline: "Dude, you should totally come over tonight."

Anyway, besides getting blackout drunk on root beer vodka and hurling my genitals at the world, Thursday night was memorable because at around 1am, this older, yuppie-looking guy came in and made things incredibly weird and uncomfortable. And I'm not trying to be That Girl who's all, "Oh my gawd, why are guys constantly hitting on us?! GA-ross!", but he really was creepy. Like quite possibly has a collection of mannequin hands, creepy. And he was hitting on us. And he was also wearing a wedding ring. Sir, what are you doing at a bar in the middle of the hood at 1 o'clock on a Friday morning chatting up two young ladies, one of whom is clearly a Zima away from being legally dead, when you you have a wife waiting for you at home? Riddle me that. Either way, he wouldn't leave us alone, so Teresa, who had clearly had enough, put the most glorious stop to it. She said, in full Van Der Beek southern accent: "I DON'T WANT. YOUR. LIFE."

I mean, people just don't reference Varsity Blues in everyday conversation as much as they should. Later, when I asked Teresa where the hell that beautiful VB quote came from, she deadpanned: "I don't know Meg. It's been a weird week. Steve Jobs is dead. It's 2011. Anything's possible." ..................I'm sorry, but that is the greatest explanation for anything in the history of everything. Teresa has been my best friend since third grade and I'm not mad about it. She's like the Kramer to my Seinfeld. If Kramer had some tig ol' bitties and kind of looked like Zooey Deschanel.)

OK, sorry for that tangent. Back to The Funniest Picture I Have Ever Seen In My Entire Life. So, let me give you some back-story. Teresa’s boyfriend, Dave, is a rep for a major record label, so the two of them are always at some cool show hanging out with some cool band and just generally being two of the coolest people you’ve ever met. I obviously stopped looking at their Facebook photos a long time ago because I’m a hateful, spiteful, jealous person and it really wouldn’t help anything. So, I was talking to Dave the other day at the bar before Teresa got there, asking him how work was etc. etc. and he was like, “Oh, Teresa and I met My Chemical Romance the other day. Have you seen my Facebook photos? We got a picture with them and I look laughably Photoshopped in.” While obviously a funny concept, I never followed through and looked up the picture on Facebook. Then Teresa brought it up again on Thursday night and was like, “No…really. Look it up right now.” AND THAT’S WHEN MY LIFE. CHANGED. FOREVER. Take a gander:

That is the funniest fucking shit I have ever seen in my life for the following reasons:

1.) Dave really does look Photoshopped in. But like to the nth degree. Alex has this picture with Obama that he looks Photoshopped into, but it’s really only because he’s leaning in from an awkward angle. This shit is on a whole other level. Look at Dave. The scale is wrong, the color is wrong, the lighting is wrong, he's all slap-dash down there in the corner, he's got this look on his face that says, “HEY! LOOK AT THESE GUYS!!1!” and makes it feel like he’s trying slightly too hard…which is all uncontrollably funny because he was actually there. I want to start a Tom Sellek/Waterfall/Sandwich blog where everyday I Photoshop Dave into a picture with another band.

Dave with Aerosmith:

Dave with REO Speedwagon:

Dave with the Spice Girls:

Dave with the Glenn Miller Orchestra:

Dave with Dave:

...I genuinely think it could be a hit.

2.) Apparently it was really hot on the night this was taken and Teresa had been running around all day. After talking to the band for a while, they offered to take a picture with her and Dave. “Here," they told her, "Get the middle and put your arms around us!” It was at this point Teresa became acutely aware of the pit stains on her dress and didn’t want to lift up her arms and risk showing them in the picture. Understandable, right? Not so much understandable was what she did instead: raise her arms as high as they'd go without showing her pit stains and grab the members of My Chemical Romance at that point. Which in this case happened to be square on their asses. So, when given the choice of perhaps having some slight pit stains show in a picture or sexually harass two members of the band My Chemical Romance, Teresa went with the latter. A bold choice. A bold choice for a bold woman.

3.) I don’t know why, but it’s so much funnier to me that this is My Chemical Romance. And that’s not to hate on them—Lord knows there’s nothing I love in this world more than the video for Helena. I used to do that dance at parties in college. (Which answers a lot of questions I have about why I wasn't more popular in college.) My one issue with My Chemical Romance is that because my initials are also MCR, every time they trend on Twitter, there’s like this nano second where my heart drops into my asshole and I’m like, “Holy shit, I’m trending on Twitter!” And then I realize they just announced a tour or something, and all I did was illegally download a few episodes of Selling New York and make a sandwich, so it makes sense that they’re trending and I’m not. Anyway, my point being, had this been any other band in the world, it would have made the picture marginally less funny. But because it’s MCR? Gold.

So, really this picture is funny to me for three reasons. But they’re three solid ones! Either way, I can’t stop staring at it. It’s replaced shirtless Jeremy Piven as my desktop picture. 

I don't know if Teresa and Dave ever want to get married, but if they do, I will design their invitations for them, for free, as long as it can prominently feature this picture. Wanna see my Christmas card for this year?

BOOM. 

Hanukkah cards?

Kwanzaa cards?

I'm set for the holidays. Or any holiday that involves recognizable typography and a hat, really.

I don't know if this is one of those things that's only funny to me, but I feel like we're all richer for me having shared it. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is: you're welcome.

I've reached An Age...

So… I’m gonna be twenty-seven in two months. This leads me to two points: I’m going to a Gwar concert the day after my birthday and I’m incredibly excited, and I’ve reached An Age. Let me explain An Age. One of my favorite lines I ever wrote was in a blog entry about how my mother is gloomy, and I “quoted” her as saying of the aging process, “you’re lucky to have a week between acne and gout.” I was absurdly pleased with myself for this phrase, so it sucks to be An Age now and realize it’s not true. I’m clearly Getting Older, but my acne is still hanging around, like the last party guest who’s still on the couch at three AM, opening the last bottle of wine and telling you about how the price of gold “is only going to up from here.” I actually bought a blackhead extractor today, you know, so I can dig oxidized oil out of my face. 

Aside from my face, which still has the fresh inflamed bloom of a sixteen-year-old’s, I’m getting older. I’ve been logging these “I Feel Old Moments” and putting them in a Word document titled “Blog About This if the New Goddamn Book Ever Gets Done,” so – now that the new Goddamn book is done – here’s a chronicle of my increasingly headlong dash to the grave. I can only hope that there’s some kind of obscure relationship between my career getting better and my turning into a decrepit old man: I’m perfectly content to be a head in a jar with Danielle Steel-level sales figures. 

- I wrenched my shoulder the other week while scratching my back. The implication is that there are parts of my body that I simply can’t pay attention to anymore because they’re now “too distant,” despite being part of my body. The historian in me thinks about how this is like the Roman Empire abandoning Britain in 410 because it was too expensive to defend. The paranoid in me imagines being attacked at ankle level by a Yorkshire terrier and being unable to do anything about it because it’s too short to reach. 

- I was walking to work the other day and passed a sex store. I thought, “Oh, wouldn’t it be funny to skip work and go in there and poke around?” Then I thought, “That sounds infinitely, infinitely more stressful than just going and teaching kids about the SAT. I don’t want to pretend not to be shocked so the cashier won’t come over and try to guide me gently through the process of selecting a toy that really works the clitoris.” Three years ago I would have gone in and giggled at all the things people put in their butts. (Butts! Tee hee!) Now even thinking about other people’s sex lives makes me very, very tired. 

- A corollary to this: some people are apparently trying to force watersports into the porn mainstream. Not only does this annoy me because “back in my day” that was a fringe behavior, it annoys me that I’ve told at least three people, at length, about how annoyed I am about this. I’m turning into one of those people who rants about declining standards. 

- I’m paying attention to the presidential primaries, which arguably many of the candidates aren’t doing. 

- I can clearly remember staying up late to watch “Aeon Flux” the cartoon on MTV because I was about to be a teenager, and teenagers did cool things like watch weird cartoons with titties on MTV. Now people outgrow MTV by about eight years old and try to lose their virginities by twelve because teenagers aren’t virgins, how lame. 

- I look at the teenagers I teach SAT to and think about how they have their whole lives in front of them. I look at teenagers on the street and wonder why they have to be so fucking loud and weird. 

- Did I buy women’s laxative because it was half the price of gender-neutral laxative, and because I didn’t have anything to prove to the check-out guy at K-Mart? Did I take them one day when I was in a bad mood because I thought maybe “a good clean-out” would cheer me up? Did it work? Yes, yes, YES. 

- When Meg and I were getting cabin fever and frustrated with the new book, I didn’t fantasize about going out and getting wasted and making out with a dumb guy in a bar bathroom.* I fantasized about getting wasted and watching a BBC Mystery! special. 

- I can’t spell a fucking thing anymore, which I’m going to go ahead and chalk up to senility. I used to be a champion speller in elementary school; yesterday I wrote “bicycle” as “bicicycle” because I couldn’t remember if it was an I or a Y and then I just got carried away in the moment… 

*Are you with me on this? If you’re going to make out with a stranger it’s somehow more fun if they’re dumb as a post. I guess it’s because you know you have their full attention. 

The best part about all this Feeling Old business is that it’s freeing. I don’t care about being cool anymore, and increasingly I don’t even care if I look presentable when I leave the house. I used to wonder how 60-year-old men could walk around in jean shorts, black socks, and psedo-Birkenstocks. Now I realize it’s because it’s hot, they don’t want to get little chafe injuries on their feet from the straps, and because they’re sixty, dammit. Anyone who cares how you look while getting a half-price senior breakfast at Denny’s is not your friend.

"My mother, that's who I need"

I'd like to address the following comment from last Tuesday's post about my parents abandoning me on my sixth birthday to go to Monte Carlo:

So when I first read that, I was like, "BAHA, amazing pop culture reference. You are my new best friend," and replied saying as much. But then as the day went on, I started worrying, "Wait, maybe Jocelyn wasn't excited that my life shares a common thread with Troop Beverly Hills and really was accusing me of trying to pass off a TP storyline as my own...?" And let me tell you something: nothing gets my goat more than people accusing me of shenanigans. Because why would I lie to you? Why would I make shit up? Do you know how much effort it takes to make shit up? Too much. That's why this isn't Meg McBlogger's well-researched, Regency Era murder-mystery blog; it's Meg McBlogger's "today I choked on cantaloupe and played with my Aspie's Clip. It was a day," blog. One of these things is easier than the other.

(Side note: Speaking of accusations of shenanigans, about a year ago I got an email from a guy asking if I was actually "a real person," and it was the biggest mindfuck I'd ever experienced. My reply derailed at an almost impressive rate: "Dear [Said Guy]: I'm pretty sure I'm a real person. Or as a real as anyone can be sure they are. Because I suppose there's always a chance that none of this is actually happening and this is a simulated reality created by machines like in the Matrix, or we exist only in the complex fantasies of a kid with Down's Syndrome like in St. Elsewhere, in which case, no, I don't exist, but that means that that you don't exist either, so why would you be questioning my existence in the first place?" And that's when I had a panic attack and ran away from my computer like a small child because someone who has as many anxiety problems as I do should never think about that much about their own existence. But for the record: I am a real person. I am a real person, who just took a real Klonopin. While doing real breathing exercises. In a real hot shower.)

So, yes, I was pissed, but I was willing to let it go because I'm working on this new thing where I don't let blog comments and/or emails control my life to the point where I'm calling Tulane Chris on a semi-regular basis with bad acid reflux in the Self-Help section of Barnes & Noble asking him to bring me Zantac and hold me. But then I went out to dinner with my parents tonight and my mom was like, "CAN YOU BELEIVE SOMEONE ACCUSED YOU OF MAKING UP THE MONTE CARLO STORY?!?!" and it opened up that can of worms all over again. But thankfully for all of us, I recieved this email about an hour ago:

From: mom  

Subject: monte carlo

hi meg, 

you know that i don't like to invade your professional life, but i feel that i have to set the record straight for your readers. here goes.  

i realize that much of the time meg lives in her own world, a world inhabited by helper monkeys and fox dogs, and we love her for it. however, her tale of woe regarding a certain trip to monte carlo is absolutely factual. come on, readers, did you really think that things like that only happen in movies? i do take exception to the term "vacation". it was a business trip. a really nice business trip, but business none the less. despite all of the trials and tribulations, real or merely perceived, you survived. do you even remember that i went to england by myself when you were two years old, leaving you with...of all people... your father?! mothers do go away, meg, but most of the time, we do come back. i love you like a peacock loves rice krispies. 

mom mcb

(Hehehe...she threw in an inside joke. Peacocks.)

OK, look: I know my mom was trying to have my back there—and bless her heart for doing so—however, there are a few points I'd like to address:

1.) Diane: you are a lambchop for referring to this little goat 'n pony show as my "professional life". I know we've had our differences (specifically that you abandoned me on my sixth birthday to stretch out on a yacht like a cat in the sun for two weeks while I went on a hunger strike and contemplated the meaning of life,) but you're the best.

2.) Maybe I wouldn't have to live in my own world if this one didn't suck so much. (HAHAHAHA! I legitamtely just laughed-out-loud at my own emo-ness. That felt like something Dawn would say on Buffy.) (← Fag.)

3.) A BUSINESS TRIP. A "BUSINESS" TRIP. Are you kidding me? a.) What business is Dad in that he just has to jet set off to Monte Carlo for weeks on end or else he'll lose his job? MI6? Formula-1? High-stakes poker? Last time I checked he was in HR. b.) OK, let's just say hypothetically I'm willing to accept that Dad did have a business trip in Monte Carlo because it was the late 80's and everyone was going on lavish business trips and doing rails off their DeLoreans, it still doesn't make a lick of difference! You were gone for two weeks: one week was supposedly for "business" and one week was for funzies. My birthday fell on funzies. FUNZIES, MOM—FUNZIES.

4.) Your trip to England in no way compares to Monte Carlo. (God, how obnoxious do we sound right now? I'm 10 seconds away from deleting this entire post, throwing Turtle Rapes Shoe up for tomorrow and working this out in an emergency therapy session where they already think I'm a middle-class piece of shit just by virtue of being there.) First of all, as you yourself pointed out, you went to England. Not you and Dad, just you. And while I agree that Dad demonstrates a "unique" level of responsibility with his children (i.e. the time he paid me $5 to snort a line of fresh cracked pepper, I did, and subsequently burst into tears, ran upstairs and shoved a Q-tip so far up my nose I thought I was going to give myself a labotomy,) at least AN parent was there! If I couldn't have been with both of my parents on my sixth birthday, one would have been acceptable. Because you know what wasn't acceptable? Spending my birthday with some Bible-thumping Army wife who was all, "HEY, HALF-BREED JEW HEATHEN! GUESS WHAT I GOT YOU FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY? HORN POLISH AND A NOSE JOB! SEE YOU IN HEL!" Six. Years. Young.

5.) I don't actually have a fifth point, I just prefer to go out on odd numbers.

So. Yeah. Thank you for having my back slash I still don't forgive you slash you never apologized slash if you did, I wouldn't forgive you. So, you know, food for thought.

At least we'll always have that Girl Scouts orienteering trip when you got overzealous and took me and my troop on a short cut through the canyon, only to discover that the bridge was out, so I—cocky from my gymnastics lessons—decided to walk across a fallen tree to get to the other side and fix it, which was a good plan until I twisted my ankle and got stuck halfway across (classic Meg), but ever the loving mother and fearless troop leader, you conquered your fear of heights to get across the tree, save me, and ultimately SAVE THE DAY.

And attracted by your newfound confidence, Craig T. Nelson decided he wanted to hit that again.

THE AND.

My Top 5 Emotionally Scarring Childhood Movies

Yyyyyyyeah...so I kind of opened a Pandora's box of emotions yesterday with that whole Charlotte's Web rant, didn't I? Sorry about that. (Sorr about the bag...of emotions? Nope. Damnit. I'm horrible at this game and will never be as good as Chris, which is infuriating because I'm technically the one responsible for its creation.) Although, you have to admit, it's kind of nice to know we were all traumatized together, right?? Right. So I say we keep picking that emotional scab until we bleed to death or ask the homely co-worker in the cubicle next to us for a hug, shall we?! I present to you now, my Top 5 Emotionally Scarring Childhood Movies!

5.) The Lion King

THE STAMPEDE, YOU GUYS. The Stampede. Johnathan Taylor Thomas killed James Earl Jones. Way to go, asshole. If I were Tim Allen, I'd be shitting hammers right now. Or back in 1994, technically. And looking back, "shitting bricks" probably would have sufficed. If you consider bricks to be tools. Which after a lot of soul searching, I've decided I do. I don't really know why I insist on writing these posts at 3:45 in the morning. ANYWAY, although I was probably around 10 when my parents bought this movie, I to this day have never watched it on VHS without fast-forwarding through the scene where Mufasa dies. And you know what? That's a point of pride. I was old enough to take control of my destinty and chose not to subject myself to Disney's cheap torture. Unlike with...

4.) The Fox and the Hound

FRIENDS NEVER SAY GOODBYE! And Goonies never say die! Ah, the sage life advice of woodland creatures and Sean Astin. On a scale of one to soul-raping, I'd say The Fox and the Hound song, "Goodbye May Seem Forever", is a forced fingerblasting. The song on its own might be depressing, but what makes it really emotionally scarring is that we're forced to listen to it as the Widow Tweed abandons Tod in the forest. You know, after his mother was tragically killed by a hunter, thereby making him an orphan. (Down two mother figures in one movie? You, Mr. Disney, were a Nazi.) This scene is also uniquely cruel in that it taps into the pain of both being left behind and being the one forced to leave. "And now I find—we're both alone [...] But in my heart is a memory, and there you'll always be." Not to mention that foxes, animated or otherwise, are just god damn adorable. Wanna see something truly horrifying?

"Oh, hey best friend!"

"This feels like a lot of emotions for a woman who I know for a fact isn't raggin'..."

"Dinger."

"This feels premature..."

"So...so I'll just follow you, or did you wanna meet back up at the house or...?"

"You are aware that there was a recent death in the family, right? I kind of feel like I shouldn't be alone right now."

"K, well I'll just be slicing wrists in the forest if you need me..."

HORRIFYING.

3.) The Land Before Time

Now why did I think this movie was so traumatic again? Hmm...uhhh...OH, I KNOW! Because Little Foot's mom dies directly in front of him after promising that she'll always be with him, even if he can't see her. "What do you mean, 'if I can't see you'? I can always see you! Mother?...MOTHER??" Christ. I saw this at a friend's house, was immediately traumatized, and vowed to never watch it again. Then one day, by a cruel twist of fate, my elementary school randomly combined the AM and PM kindergarden classes, plopped us down in a room, popped in The Land Before Time and shut the door. I was like, "OOOF. Shit's about to get real." I can still feel my throat burning as I looked around the classroom, desperately trying to concentrate on anything but the TV because I was too embarrassed to cry in front of everyone. Looking back, I'm honestly baffled why they would ever play that movie for us in a group setting. I'm going to become a kindergarten teacher and force my students to watch The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas in front of their peers. Why? Two words: character building.

2.) Dumbo

Look, I spent a large part of last night on the phone with my mom harassing at her to sing the "mother-related torch song" from Dumbo to me. Am I proud? No. Will I call back and ask her to do it again later this afternoon? Probably. It's also worth noting that during said call, my mom made the excellent point that whereas Fern from Charlotte's Web was a bitch because she became a fast, dirty whore who abandoned Wilbur to explore a world of boys and partial-birth abortions, Christopher Robin callously abandoned Winnie the Pooh when he went off to school and left all of his toys behind. This enraged me in a way that makes me somewhat uncomfortable to look back on, and in the heat of my anger, I googled "Christopher Robin is an asshole" and found this Facebook group:

It's appropriately called, "Christopher Robin is an asshole", and the description is:

"Pooh thinks you're his best friend, but do you ever take the time to hang out with him. I don't think so. Pooh's always trying to find you, and going to look for you. Stop being such a dick and give Pooh the respect he deserves you cock."

It has one sole member: its founder, Bob Lowe, of Madison, Wisconsin. Mr. Lowe, if this Facebook group was your subtle way of proposing marriage to me—YES, YES, A THOUSAND TIMES YES!

1.) The Chipmunk Adventure

UH, remember this fucking movie?!!?!?! Laura and I watched a fair bit of it last night on youtube and I'm going to go ahead and make a bold statement: this movie has stood the test of time, if not gotten better since 1987. Is one of its songs currently my ringtone? No. But give me a few hours and it will be. Because the soundtrack is absurdly awesome. ALTHOUGH, can we talk about the musical number, "Getting Lucky"?

First and foremost, The Chipettes were 100% sold into sex slavery. BOOM—there it is. Second, I know this has become one of the most cliché sentences in the American lexicon, but Britney: you look like a whore. Finally, upon closer inspection, this song is grossly innaproprite:

Verse 1:

Honey, you're a sweet thing 

and you look so fine

all I ever wanted

is to make you mine

Chorus:

Give me

a clue

tell me what I need to do

to get lucky with you

Verse 2:

Boy I really love you

with my heart and soul

honey won't you take me

where I want to go

Chorus:

Give me 

a clue

tell me what I need to do 

to get lucky with you

Hook:

Getting lucky

hmmm getting lucky

is what's its really all about

getting lucky

hmmm getting lucky

its something I can't do without

Verse 3:

Honey I've been waiting

waiting patiently

let me unlock you're heart boy

I think I got the key

To get lucky with you

Right. Now I could analyze this song, the whorish outfits, the fact that in order for the girls to acquire diamonds and cash, they have to tame phallic snakes and "get lucky" with you, boy, and interpret what all of this says about our society, but at the end of the day, the four-year-old girl inside me and the 25-year-old woman that is me really just wants to strut around my apartment in a spangly, spangly Arabian Princess outfit and croon to a baby penguin. So there's that.

Speaking of crooning to baby penguins—"My Mother". That song crushes my soul every single time. You'll note, actually, that pretty much all of the movies in my traumatic Top 5 deal with mother/parent abandonment. One might assume that perhaps I have parental abandonment issues, right? "Where might that have come from?", you may be asking yourself. WELL SIT RIGHT DOWN AND LET ME TELL YOU A TALE. A TALE OF ABANDONMENT AND LUXERY VACATIONS.

On my sixth birthday, my parents abandoned me to go on vacation to Monte Carlo for two weeks. Yeah. I know. TWO WEEKS. On my birthday. (#uppermiddleclassproblems) And during those two weeks, I was shuffled back and forth between my aunt, my grandparents, and our freaky Evangelical Christian neighbors. ON MY BIRTHDAY. To say the least, I did not handle this well. If we're going to get specific, I went on a hunger strike and locked myself in my room for a few days. This has since become a staple McBlogger family inside joke. "HA HA, remember that time we went on vacation and old Meg freaked out and went on a hunger strike?? What a weirdo." Oh, I'm sorry—I was six-fucking-years old! My parents left me on my birthday! And I had to spend it with freaky Christians who wouldn't let me read my Simpsons comic books because they were "blasphemous" and "disrespected Christmas"! I was miserable and have never felt so alone in my entire life. And that pain has since been, and continues to be, a huge joke to my family. For example, I was out to dinner with my parents last week and told them that I wouldn't be in town this year for my birthday because I'll be in Charlotte for a friend's wedding. This opened up the door to a whole slew of "UH-OH! You won't be here for your birthday?? Looks like we all better go on a hunger strike! BAHAHA!" jokes. Assholes. 

Now, I know I only got a three on my A.P. Psychology exam and my current occupation is "Executive Fart Joke Broker", but I can't help but think that maybe part of the reason I was so hesitant to be separated from my parents for a long time at the tender age of six-years-old was because I had been conditioned from an early age to think that, oh, you know, they were going to DROP DEAD at any given moment, whether at the hands of hunters, wildebeests, circus workers, earthquakes, the ice age, tar pits, volcanic eruptions, evolution or a Sharptooth attack. Frankly, I can see why I didn't like those odds! So, fueled by this breakthrough and desperate for a little compassion, I tried to broach the topic with my mom again last night. This was the resulting conversation:

Me: I think I have abandonment issues.

Mom: I understand why you would, sweetheart.

Me: Wait...you do?

Mom: Well of course! All your friends are leaving and it must be very upsetting!

Me: Oh, no no no—what I meant to say was, I think you gave me abandonment issues.

Mom: Oh, Jesus Christ. I gave you abandonment issues because of one birthday in Europe? You wait until I die! That'll make me missing your birthday in Europe seem like a day at the beach—which it was, by the way.

And then she burst into uncontrollable laughter. 

...I wish I had studied slightly harder in A.P. Psych. Now if you need me, I'll be in the fetal position somewhere not eating.