Believe it or not, drinking, watching Dynasty and being awkward aren't the only things that I'm good at. (Although I am extremely good at all three.) I'm also incredibly crafty. And I don't mean that in the devious, cunning kind of way. (Although, let's not lie; I'm that too.) I mean that in a I-can-arts-and-crafts-your-fucking-face-off kind of way. Yeah. I said it. Bold statement. AND I'M STANDING BY IT. Need a book bound? ON IT. Invitations designed? DID 'EM ALREADY. Adorable holiday cards made? EMBOSSED AND ALREADY IN THE MAIL. Something crocheted? I KNOW AN SINGLE STITCH, SO I HOPE YOU LIKE SCARVES.
Working where I'm working again has really reignited my love of DIY and crafting. I have like 5,000 projects lined up that I want to do and at the top of that list is making a graduation present for old Ex Co-Blogger Eddie. Unfortunately before I could do that, I had to find all of my design/art/craft supplies packed away from college somewhere in my parent's basement; a task I tackled yesterday. I thought I had like, one meager shopping bag with a few supplies in it, but holy jumping Jehoshaphat—I found an extra large packing box labeled "Meg's Arts & Crafts Supplies" FILLED with supplies yesterday and fucking creamed my pants. (Vom. I'm so sorry.)
The box contained the following: (Absolutely nobody is going to appreciate this except maybe Ex Co-Blogger Eddie, who's a crafty bitch and worked at said establishment in college as well, so...you're welcome!)
- 10 packs of assorted 8.5 x 11 papers, cover and text - Heating tool - 4 different kinds of embossing powders - 2 different width hole punches - MY ROUNDED CORNER PUNCH - two roles of brand new Incredi-tape (!) - endless amounts of book board, book cloth, text blocks, needles, awls and screwposts - an entire tub of unused PVA - a 5" Xyron machine with 2 refills - stack of assorted decorative 12 x 12 paper - baby envelope template - collection of envelope liner templates ranging from 4bar to #10 - 1 pack of X-Acto blade replacements - 10 yards of 2" double satin curry ribbon - self-healing cutting mat - 2 rulers - 1 T-square (the T-square I've had since freshman year! BAHHH OLD FRIEND!) - 2 unopened glue sticks - 1 pack of photo corners - 2 pairs of really nice Tonic scissors - 2 boxes of 11 x 17 cover weight matte Epson printer paper - 1 box of 11 x 17 cover weight glossy Epson printer paper - 1 pack of origami paper - 1 pack of portfolio sleeves - 4 easel backs - 1 pot of India ink - 1 fountain pen with 7 different nibs - 4 mounting boards - 1 Bristol board pad - Rotary cutter - Utility knife - ALL of my negatives from any photo I took in college, ever - old CONTACT SHEETS, CONTACT SHEETS, CONTACT SHEETS
...Pardon my geeking out, but that is a big fucking deal. I could supply a small charter school with that. I mean, I won't. But I could. Also, two random side notes regarding that list:
1.) Uh, Print Design was a fucking expensive major. That 20% off coupon at Plaza that AU supplied us with at the beginning of the year was pretty much worth fuck all. Kudos to me for going to the $42,000 a year school and majoring in pissing on solid gold...
2.) There was a contact sheet from a photoshoot College Roommate Danielle took of me Senior year and crickey I was skinny as shit. I think that primarily had to do with the fact that I didn't really eat that year because I was so ungodly busy and stressed out all the time, but, man. Sometimes I really wish I had the willpower to sustain an eating disorder because I looked good.
So kudos to my dad for finding and unloading all that shit from my car when I went abroad after graduation and hiding it in a clearly marked box in the basement. HA HA, you, sir, are tricky. And I am simple. And together, it took me three years to find a box filled with a babillion dollars worth of art supplies. Oh, mercy.
My favorite part of going through the box was when I found a small Paper Source bag marked "Sentimental Stuff." I was like, "Oh god, this is going to have all sorts of long and meaningful graduation letters from friends and family, pictures, little things that inspired me...I better sit down when I go through this because things might get a little eMoTiOnAL!" So I sat down, took a deep breath, opened the bag and spilled out it's contents. And I swear to god, this is what was inside:
1.) A photograph of Joanna Lumley as Patsy Stone from Absolutely Fabulous
2.) A mini-flask key chain
3.) A haiku my friend Meli wrote for me on the back of a gum wrapper one day in Info Graphics:
A Haiku for Meg Designer of smut Enjoys S&M designs The next E. Lupton
4.) A list of t-shirts Alex and I were going to make during the Summer of '06:
- (Front:) "Aw Skeet, Skeet motherfucker" (Back:) "Aw Skeet Ulrich has game (geographically speaking)"
- "I'd go gay for Gwen Stefani"
- Conversely, "I'd go straight for Gwen Stefani"
- (Front:) "I Survived the Haunted Olney Ghost Tour" (Back:) "...Barely"
5.) The Fall 2006 lineup of a fictional adult Nickelodeon channel I call, Dickelodeon:
- Who Would You Do?
- Dick's Wild 'n' Crazy Kids
- The Adventures of Pete on Pete
- Salute My Shorts
- Hey, Prude!
And that's the ballgame.
...Soooo, just to recap, when cleaning out my apartment, those are the things that I felt a deep attachment to, physically put in a bag, took out a Sharpie and marked "Sentimental Stuff."
[Sorry for the delay in today's post. I had extreme technical difficulties. Which makes item #4 in this post that much more infuriating. HA HA, oh...tears. Tears of a clown.]
I am feeling ultra nostalgic for college this morning, you guys. Ultra nostalgic. I blame this on the following:
1.) John Forsythe aka Blake Carrington from my beloved Dynasty died over the weekend at the age of 92 years young. And it's always in the end that we look back at the beginning...
2.) The other day AU sent free holographic luggage tags in the mail to their alums trying to hit them up for money and the accompanying letter had the ominous reminder: "wherever you go, remember AU is always with you." Kind of like Christ. But holographic!
3.) I'm working at my college job again. And let me tell you; shifts are far more manageable when you don't show up all hung over and banged out six ways to the weekend. I guess this is growing up...
4.) I've officially given up on the dream of buying myself a new laptop because I desperately need the money I saved to buy sandwiches and pants and pay bills and blah blah responsible blah. I'm so unbelievably depressed about it. I certainly don't miss my old job, but I do miss my computer. I still have Alex's old laptop, yes, but it doesn't have Microsoft Word or any of the design programs I need on it and is just generally one megabyte away from biting the dust. Bless it's heart. Now that getting a new laptop is officially out of the question, I decided to gank the computer I used in college last night from my parent's house and whooo! This bitch be a throwback! I literally haven't turned it on since 2008 and browsing through the files is like stepping into a time machine. (Side note: I can't bring myself to delete a single one of the papers I wrote in college. Christ only knows when I'll ever need a Gender in Society term paper on Herland again, but should the day come, I am more than prepared.)
Looking through my photo library was a total blast from the past. I forgot that I used to be That Girl in college who always had a camera with her and took pictures of everything. Which is weird because I don't think I've taken a picture of anything since 2007. I spent a solid hour last night browsing through the 6000+ pictures and I'd completely forgotten half of this shit. Not that I blocked it out or anything; I just straight up forgot. Here are some of my favorite discoveries:
- Valentine's Day 2003. Ah, memories. My friend from high school, Billy, came to stay for the night and got so drunk that he vomited all over god's green earth. And by god's green earth, I mean Helena's bed, pillow, rug, notebooks and photo albums before promptly passing out on her floor. Talia was also visiting for the night, so we did to Billy what any good friends would do—we shaved his legs, defaced his t-shirt and invited people from other floors to come over and gawk and take pictures:
The best part is that while shaving his legs, we cleaned out the razor in Helena's Brita filter so when Billy woke up a few hours later and poured himself a drink, he got a nice tall glass of leg hair water. Well, technically this was funny until we informed Billy (mid-gulp) that he was drinking leg hair water and he vomited all over again—except this time on Ashleigh's side of the room. OH BILLY. I miss that kid. He called me Friday night and left a voicemail that I haven't listened to yet. I should do that. I'm writing my inner monologue again, aren't I? - FORK POPE! God I miss the Fork Pope. I created Fork Pope when I was out to dinner with my friends from high school one night and got rull ADD while waiting for the check. I started fiddling with my fork, napkin and ring and suddenly the Fork Pope was born. I should mention this was really, really funny to me and only me. I made him strut regally around the table and bless people. Again, I'm continually shocked that I have any friends.
- I have an oddly high number of pictures of me flicking off paper assignments:
-I also have an oddly high number of pictures of when attractive people poked me on Facebook:
- And I made Alex put Ziplock bags on his feet (or "feet condoms," as I called them) when he did homework on my bed to keep his grubby little feet away from my clean pillows. Again, reason #2352341243 I'm shocked Alex still wants to hang.
- I HAD CATS! I don't want to say I always "forget" about Graydon and Kirikou because that sounds so heartless...yet, I kind of always do. It's a defense mechanism, really. College Roommate Danielle and I got Graydon and Kou when we moved into our apartment Junior year and she got custody of them after graduation. It made sense. She was going back to her animal-friendly parent's house in Texas whereas I was traveling abroad for a while and then moving to New York and Christ knows they were not welcomed at my parent's house in the interim. I'm apt to make it a race issue, but mostly I think it was just because Graydon would have eaten Evie. Let's not lie.
- Remember when Alex had long, luxurious, shaggy hair?? And remember when I got bored and Coolio-d that long, luxurious, shaggy hair up good? Now I do!
- There is an honest-to-god photo shoot of myself, taken by myself, from the day I got my Jack Daniel's pajama pants a.k.a. second skin:
And I'm making it look like I have a boner in one of them:
...I would like it to be known that I want to be married and buried in those pants. Kthnx.
-Ex-Co-Blogger Eddie and I once created a "Sports Bar & Key West Style Grille" called The American Shocker out of boxes from L.L. Bean.
...That's never not the funniest sentence I've ever read.
- Helena's Poon Cake! Helena despises the word poon and is an all around class act. So, naturally, at the stroke of midnight on her 21st birthday, we made her watch Portuguese porn (a film entitled Butt Fuckin' Bi's) and eat the section of her cake with POON on it. You're welcome Helena. You're welcome.
- THE ONLY SURVIVING PICTURE FROM MATTHEW LILLARD NIGHT! Holy crap. This is the one surviving photo from the night we met Matthew Lillard's Doppelganger. Apparently someone shoved multi-colored straws in a colander and set it out on display. This is Danielle being like "WTF is wrong with this night?! What is going on?! Who did this? Who was just as bored as us??" And then five minutes later the cops came.
God. I am so happy I found this picture. I want it tattooed on my person.
- This is Alex doing an impression of me. And apparently to do an impression of me, all you need to do is put on a robe or other piece of loungewear, stuff your shirt with a towel (not socks, not a shirt, a towel) to replicate my boobs, grab a t-square and a bottle of tequila, put on jewelry and talk on your cell phone. Hmm.......I shall consider this payback from the Ziplock bags and/or Coolio hair and/or multiple phone pranks and move on.
- Ok, so one night Senior year Alex came over and we got drunk. This is pretty par for the course, except on this particular night I decided to haze him. Really that just means I stuck obnoxious post-it notes all over him and shouted "DRINK, FRESHMAN!" at him a few times for good measure. (I don't really know what to tell you about that. Boredom makes you do unique things. Back in the day a hoop and a stick was a party. In '07, posts-it notes and belligerent shouting got the job done.)
I bring this up because I remember making the post-it note that said "Class of 2010" and being like "HA HA, the freshman class is class of 2010! That's insane. We'll all have flying cars by then and robot butlers will do our homework for us!"
...The class of 2010 graduates next month and I turn 25 next week. Man I feel old. Old and nostalgic. Old, nostalgic and pissed off at Ava Cutrone.
Can we please talk about Mathew Lillard? Day 1 of Funemployment and that's pretty much all I want to do: discuss Matthew Lillard. Mateo. La Lillard, if you will. Matthew Lillard is very much an odd fascination of mine. In my mind, Matthew Lillard exists in a Bio-101 style terrarium made out of an empty Pepsi bottle filled with potting soil and worms where he perpetually wears an oversized v-neck sweater and a thumb ring. Because that's all I think of when I think of Mathew Lillard: an oversized V-neck sweater, a thumb ring and lots of physical animation. It's like he's a Never-Nude, but an Always-in-90's-Garb. Sometimes I like to imagine him in a various situations—grocery shopping; at movie premiers; working out at the gym; in the shower; at his own wedding—but always in an oversized v-neck sweater and thumb ring. And this, for some ungodly reason, is just endlessly funny to me. I can't explain it. It's like how I can't not laugh when I think about the fact that Asher Roth loves college. And just like the fact that Asher Roth loves college, I think it about it way too often to be deemed normal.
I was out at Big Hunt with Becky Friday night, having drinks and catching up, as you do, when we for some reason started discussing random actors that nobody thinks of anymore and how odd it is that they still exist. Becky's example? "Like...like, I don't know—Mathew Lillard."
The second she finished saying "—illard", I 100% Aspied out. I choked on my beer and my eyes bugged out of my head like I was in a god damn Warner Brother's cartoon. I'm pretty sure Becky already thinks I'm significantly bizarre, so I don't think it helped anything that when I finally regained my composure, I slammed my hands on the table, looked her dead in the eyes and in a voice 10 octaves lower than normal said:
I. THINK. ABOUT. MATHEW LILLARD. CONSTANTLY.
Becky stared at me as if I...well, frankly as if I had just said that I think about Matthew Lillard "constantly." I tried to explain the origin of my Lillard obsession, but I really have no idea where it came from. It's not like I was a huge fan of his growing up. I mean, Scream is a classic, obviously, and SLC Punk is awesome, sure, but I wouldn't say he delivered an obsession-worthy performance in either. I honestly think my fixation with Matthew Lillard started one night in college when Alex, Helena and I watched Scream and found ourselves sitting in the darkness giggling back and forth like a couple of 12-year-olds going, "HAHA......Matthew Lillard," over and over again. That's it. That's all it took. The concept of Matthew Lillard is just that funny for some reason. I'm apt to blame it on the oversized v-neck sweater/thumb ring situation, of course, but we'll never really know why for sure. All that matters is an obsession was born. We even wanted to make t-shirts that said "VIVA LA LILLARD!" that summer, a plan I'm still upset never came to fruition.
Things only got more Lillard-tastic a year later when College Roommate Danielle and I went to a party at the Rugby House one Saturday night. I should mention that this was just a bizarre night in general. Have you ever had one of those nights where there's a really weird and ominous vibe in the air and you know something's up, but you don't know what? Well, that was this night. Later, of course we'd find out that this was the night when the Rugby House would get busted by the cops and all us (just barely) under 21 party-goers would get sold down the river to keep the cops from exploring the house, as there was a metric ton of opium and cocaine in the next room, but! That's a much different story for a much different day.
Now, in college we hung out at the Rugby House quite a lot. It was our party spot. Or, as much of a "party spot" as you can have at AU, I guess. A bunch of our friends, including Ex-Co-Blogger Eddie, lived there and we pretty much always knew or knew of everyone at their parties. This night in question, however, the most random fucking people on god's green earth were in attendance—including Matthew Lillard's Doppelganger.
Danielle and I became obsessed with this kid. We had no idea where he came from or if he even went to our school at all. It was a freezing cold night in December and all of a sudden this kid sauntered into the party without a coat or friend to his name, just lookin' to hang. And as his name suggests, he looked just like Matthew Lillard. He was tall, lanky, had sandy blonde hair and sharp features and I shit you not, was wearing a green v-neck sweater, a bona fide silver thumb ring and (BONUS ROUND!) had a single silver hoop dangling in his left ear. He was a specimen. Danielle and I cornered him in the kitchen and berated him with questions. Things were going fine until I asked him if he was aware that he looks exactly like Matthew Lillard.
"Who's Matthew Lillard?" he asked.
"You know, Matthew Lillard!" I explained. "The guy from Scream and SLC Punk and She's All That. He's like the international That Guy."
It was as if I told him he looked like if Hilter and Joan Rivers had a pig-baby. His mood immediately became 98% less jovial and he stared at me with hatred in his eyes.
"You honestly shouldn't be offended," I said, "It's a compliment! We love Mathew Lillard! VIVA LA LILLARD!
He paused for a moment, legitimately told me to go fuck myself and vanished for the rest of the party. I was so confused. Last time I checked Matthew Lillard was a 90's movie legend who got his stomach licked by Taylor Vaughan. Cool out, kid and take a compliment where you can get 'em. You are wearing an earring, after all.
A few hours later, we all found ourselves sitting Indian-style on the disguising Rugby House floor as Montgomery County's finest issued us underage drinking citations, a charge that would later be expunged from everyone else's records after 24 hours of community service but due to "complications" landed me with three years unsupervised probation and is forever ingrained in the MCPD computer system. What were these complications? Uh, being Meghan McBlogger. Obviously. But again, that's another story for another day. After receiving my citation, I stood in the driveway hugging myself for warmth as I waited for Danielle and wondered how the hell we were going to get home. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Matthew Lillard's Doppelganger reappeared, sprinted past me, stopped in the middle of the street, turned back around and with two raised fists of glory in the air shouted, "I AM OUTTA HERE, YOU BITCHES!!!!! GOODNIGHT!!!!" and continued to run off into oblivion.
".......Did Matthew Lillard's Doppleganger just scamper off into the woods like a mythical forest creature?" Danielle asked as she walked up behind me holding her citation.
"I.........think so?" I said, somewhat trepidatiously.
"Yeah. It's clearly time to go." And with that we started the long journey home.
To this day I have no idea who that kid was or how he found himself at a Rugby Party in the middle of the woods in Bethesda, Maryland. I just know I think Christ every single day that he did. He enriched the legend that is Sleepy Matthew Lillard exponentially and I am eternally grateful.
Becky really got me thinking about Matthew Lillard again on Friday night, specifically about how I don't really know much about his career as of late. I mean, what exactly did he do after Scooby Doo, right? The answer? He played Lloyd B'Gosh in four minute short in 2009 about Osh Kosh B'Gosh titledOsh Kosh B'Gosh: Under the Overall. Because if anything ever needed to be purchased, framed and hung directly over my bed, it is the movie poster for that. You know that form of OCD, Objectum-Sexuality Disorder, where people fall in love with inanimate objects like the Golden Gate Bridge or Eiffel Tower? Welp, I have it and I am officially in love with and very sexually attracted to that movie title. We are getting married. It'll be a small ceremony with family and friends. You're all invited. Mozel tov to us.
In addition to starring in my husband, Matthew Lillard also entered a Dungeons and Dragons tournament in 2005 against members of the Quest Club Gaming Organization at the Magic Castle in Hollywood. And even better, it's on youtbe. I leave you now with a clip and ask you an important question—have you thought about your local Matthew Lillard lately? Viva la Lillard!
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