Best. Gift. Ever.

This? Pretty much one of my favourite books of all time.

Ever since I heard about the musical I have wanted to see it. I know every single song by heart. I also have not so minor crushes on Idena Minzel and Kristen Chenoweth (seeing her on Glee? LOVED it.)

One item on my bucket list is to see another show on Broadway (Lion King was amazing). This probably stems from me being a TOTAL tech theatre geek.

As some of you may know, me and Scarlett flew to New York City to help Marilyn prepare for her wedding and Scarlettt was also one of the bridesmaids while I got roped into the catering service when the actual service was short-handed. To those of you who cater for a living, I have no idea how you do it but you are now my heroes. We had a blast with the third member of our trio and kind of ignored her when she said she would pay us back for all our help thinking it would be like sending us a thank you card or something of the like.

No.

No it wasn’t.

So today, November 11th in the year 2009 at about 10:40 AM EST I hear a knock at the door and see a Fed Ex truck in the driveway. Trying to remember if either me or Scarlett had anything on order, I answer the door for the man who is carrying two packages. One adressed to Scarlett. The other adressed to me.

I signed for them as Scarlett was at class and wouldn’t be back for hours, thanked the man, and went to the table  to open my box. Now when I see it is from Marilyn, I’m expecting something like a dildo.

Because she’s just that kind of person and knows I would find it funny.

When I opened it up, I felt like Pumpkin opening up Wallace’s package. I might have stared for a full minute.

While I always knew Marilyn’s family was rather well off, I never really understood what that meant until seeing their summer home where the rehearsal dinner would be. I find out that Marilyn talked to a friend of hers who works with Broadway productions. How it was pulled off I do not know but sitting on my table were two, not one, TWO tickets to the Gershwin Theatre to see Wicked on January 12 complete with an invitation to go backstage and meet some of the cast.

There may have been an intense desire to squee.

There was a moment of hyperventilation.

Followed by an acid-inspired improptu dance party in my kitchen.

I called Marilyn and left her a voicemail that was half-screaming in the most undignified way and half-thanking her profusely while promising to find some way to pay her back.

I’m going to Broadway. I’m going to Broadway. I’m going to Broadway.

 

NaNoWriMo – Week #2

So for those of you who managed to dodge the bullet, you might be wondering why you’re friends who are participating in the slow-torture that is National Novel Writing Month are so stressed right now. To answer that I ask you to remember all those times in your English comp classes where you had to write several pages worth of material in a week or so and you at first thought it was IMPOSSIBLE.

Remember that feeling?

Now try wrapping your head around writing what is essentially 2/3 pages a day for a grand total of 50,000 words on November 30th.

You know now why your friend is cursing themselves and the carpal tunnel they are sure to develop.

Now for those of us who are participating, hats off to you. It takes a very stubborn brand of masochism to even make the attempt.

By the time you read this, it will likely be November 8th or 9th and we will be nearing the half-way mark. That beginning rush of adrenaline has worn off, writer’s block is occurring much more frequently, and you are asking yourself whether you should just give it up as a bad job and say you clocked in over 10K words.

Bully on that.

We are reaching, what it in my opinion, the most strenuous part of the process. When you have both come so far and know just how far you have left to go. It’s discouraging, I’ll admit. You’re not alone in the frustration by a long shot.

I know it may well be like pulling teeth but do not worry about grammar. You really don’t have the luxury of worrying about finesse here. The name of the game here is endurance. However, this does not excuse a swiss cheese plot. Especially those of you writing romance novels. Do not fumble it like certain other authors do. Looking at you, Meyer.

The biggest thing to remember though? Have fun with it. Get a little crazy.  “Kick reality to the curb and go beyond the impossible.” That is the Team WriMo way.

I’ll see you at the finish line. First cup of coffee’s on me.

“Hello Boys and Girls. Welcome to Sesame Street.”

40 years of excellent children’s programming as the pioneer of a genre that was largely an experiment. It has one 118 Emmy Awards and it has been estimated that 77 million Americans watched it as children. I am, of course, talking about Sesame Street.

To the people who gave us Big Bird and Grover, Kermit and Oscar the Grouch, Bert and Ernie, Grover, Elmo, The Cookie Monster and The Count, a very happy 40th anniversary to you.

You’ve taught children how to count, to read, to cook with their family, to be hygienic, to share, to be kind, and to deal with death. And you’ve done it with enough parental bonus that even older teens and adults can find it funny.

And to you Mr. Henson, for helping to make it possible.

Sunny day

Sweeping the clouds away

On my way to where the air is sweet

Can you tell me how to get

How to get to Sesame Street

Confession: I was singing said theme song under my breath in the teacher’s lounge this morning. The history teacher who heard me (and who is in her mid 40’s) joined in with me. Both of us went away smiling.

If Only “Wax On, Wax Off” Worked On Self-Doubt

If you asked the people who know me what my worst personality trait was, all but two or three would say my tendency to be lacking in the self-worth department. I admit that I do have a nagging tendency to see the worst in myself.

For a rather long time, I despised who I was. When it got to the point where I shattered a mirror with my fist, I pretty much passed the “dislike” point don’t you think? I barely slept for fear of nightmares. What I ate would find its way into the toilet which lead to me dropping from 215 to about 170 pounds. I am pretty sure I spent at least five months in a state of post-traumatic stress. And yet I hid a lot of it through jokes and a Stepford smile.

I became so singularly focused on trying to be better. To be more honest. To be kinder. To be the person that others thought I could be. In hindsight, I can see that it became an obsession of mine. And no matter how far I came it was never enough. I still saw myself as trash and it truly felt like that would never change. This was the main reason why I kept at Eva at a distance for half a year and one of the reasons why it freaked me out so badly when Daybreak started to see me as her dad.

Yet somewhere between March 2008 and now, I stopped trying to redeem myself as it were. I ignored my thoughts of inadequacy and just focused on rebuilding my life and looking out for the friends I made. Simply put, I was happy. And then me and Eva broke up and while yes, I did go through a period of anger/depression when I came out I was still largely the same person. Still too compassionate for my own good. Still ridiculously stubborn. Still too loyal to people who may not deserve it.

From the broken kid of 8 to the far too angry teenager at 16, I changed. I learned to trust. Learned loyalty. Learned to control my temper. Learned to have faith. Learned to forgive. Learned to smile and more importantly mean it. And somewhere along the way I learned to let the baggage go. To  live in the now without worrying about the past.

I grew up.

Now I can stand up and walk forward with my head held high and the knowledge that I will not break.

The freedom in that simple act is more precious that I can begin to describe.

This confidence thing is going to take some definite getting used to.

When have you needed to just be patient and let things happen?

Horrors from my Childhood

I discovered something about myself during a trip through a haunted house this past weekend.

I hate clowns.

Chainsaws, blood, fantastically realistic intestines? No effect.

Walk through a tunnel with no light whatsoever and a rather…interesting sounding moans? I laugh.

Let me turn around and have a clown inches from my face? I freak the fuck out.

Now me being me, this was troublesome. So I thought about it, trying to figure out where this irrational (in my mind) fear came from.

I would say partially from Poltergeist (you know the scene) but the parody from Scary Movie 2 killed any terror that inspired whatsoever.

Next possibly culprit would be Pennywise, The Dancing Clown. I blame this on Tim Curry knowing how to play a monster clown/eldritch abomination as well as he can play a sweet tranvestite from Transexual, Transylvania. The book is still worse.

Then I thought WAY back. To the 90’s on  those Saturday nights where I would sit up with my sister to watch Nickeoldeon’s SNICK block. Specifically, Are You Afraid of the Dark? And it all clicked.

So submitted for your approval, I give you…

Happy Halloween ladies and gents.

Letters from the Mail Bag

Letter #1

Dear puberty,

Thanks to you I have pretty much always looked much older than I am. Being mistaken for your mother’s husband at the doctor’s office? No bueno. Being mistaken by your mother for your father on the phone? I call bullshit. I still haven’t forgiven that pleasant summer of ‘99 where it felt like my knees would shatter while my growth spurt hit and I do remember saying I was glad it was over when I slowed down. (Then I had to do physical therapy? Silly preteen-Kendall, that’ll teach you to tempt fate bitch.) But did you have to make it so that people outright disbelieve me when I say I am not quite 22? Bitch move, pituitary gland. Bitch move.

Sincerely,

Someone-who-has-had-his-license-called-a-fake

Letter #2

Dear PB & J,

I know I shouldn’t eat you. I know that my stomach is going to rebel later. You, dear sir, are worth it.

Don’t change,

A-lifelong-fan

Letter #3

Dear bitch who nearly sideswiped me this morning,

I hope that text message was really worth it. I must say I appreciated it when you rolled your window down to call me an asshole. Mostly, I just enjoyed the look on your face when I told you to fuck yourself with a hairbrush.

Not-so-sincerely,

Someone-who-had-a-shit-day-starting-with-you

Letter #4

Dear Geocities,

You were glitched as hell, full of really really NSFW RPGs, and the most godawful sparkled backgrounds ever. However, you were one of the first experiences I had with the Internet and for that you will be looked on fondly.

Fare well,

Someone-who-remembers-Oregon-Trail-.gifs

Letter #5

Dear Twilight Saga,

In honor of the wonderful Mystery Science Theater I look forward to bringing my full snark against you yet again when New Moon hits theaters.

Up Yours,

A-not-so-speshul-snowflake

Letter #6

Dear Tekken 6,

You took your sweet time in getting here. You were my first fighting game ever and I can’t wait to see what you can do on the Xbox 360.

Awaiting your arrival tomorrow,

Someone-ready-to-kick-ass

Letter #7

Dear New York City,

I miss you all ready.

Love,

Someone-who-thinks-the-weekend-was-too-short

UPDATED – Letter #8

Dear Gmail,

Why in the blue grassy hell are you not letting me send off my blog swap post?

Sincerely,

He-who-is-confused.

For Want of a Scream

If you’ve been on Twitter or Fbook at any length for the past…eh, 2 weeks or so you’ll notice a lot of buzz about the horror movie Paranormal Activity since its limited release at the end of last month. Now as someone who has been a horror movie fanatic since the age of 4, I had no choice but to give it a shot.

So after convincing Scarlett that we should go see it (read: wording the request so it sounds like it was her idea), we joined about 50+ people for its national release. Now having heard about how many people who saw the limited release had the leave the theatre because they were too scared. Too scared? To a horror movie junkie, those words are like liquid crack.

Having been told that this movie was as terrifying as The Blair Witch Project I came in with admittedly high expectations.

Had you been in the theatre with me, you would have been treated to me laughing my ass off. While others would scream as you saw something sprint by the camera, I would merely go “why are there coke addicts in this?” When a woman is dragged off by a blanket, I just had an Evil Dead flashback, hence my blanket rape tweet during the movie.

Yet another horror movie, that while giving some surprises, fails to horrify me.

Seriously movie industry? Every time you try to scare me you just end up giving me snark bait or just kinda disgusting me. Freaks (which could have never been made in this day and time), (the original) Halloween, Poltergeist, those were horror movies. The Japanese can still scare the shit out of me if Audition and Ringu (The Ring) are anything to go by. I can still be scared by video games. Dead Space? Yeah, after finishing that one I was jittery for days. Silent Hill? Pyramid Head. Just Pyramid Head.

Jeepers Creepers 3? No. A Nightmare on Elm Street remake? Blasphemy. Saw VI? You’d think Hollywood would know better than to invoke sequelitis. My Super Psycho Sweet 16? Please excuse me while I gag.

Real life? Aside from atrocities and reality TV, TV Tropes has a wonderful list of nightmare fuel animals there was an article that brought back a nightmare from my childhood and made it worse. Now I am pretty sure 99% of us 20somethings have seen at least one of the Jurassic Park movies. And we saw how badass/horrfying the raptors were as they hunted and killed the poor unsuspecing humans. Well if raptors did have feathers, then there is a theory about Wing-Assisted-Incline-Flight which allows birds (i. e. quails) to run up sharp inclines.

Because the intelligence, strength in numbers, Super Mario jumping skills, teeth, and claws weren’t bad enough? Now they run up motherfuckin’ walls?

This...

...plus this

equals me never leaving my bed. Ever.

Basically I want to be scared. I like the adrenaline  rush that I feel whenever I am going out of my mind wondering just what was that scratching noise I can barely hear. So dear movie industry, I am waiting for you to step that game  up. You have given me a lifelong aversion to clowns, shown me how to survive a zombie apocalypse, and have left me a paranoid heap on multiple ocassions. So what happened? When your scariest movies now just make me laugh and/or mock, then we most definitely have a problem.

Sincerely,

A disillusioned fan

This Too Shall Pass

Lie: A friend sees a GRE-study guide on my desk while I’m bleeding ink all over a few of my sophomores’ essays after the students have left.

“So Kendall, are you ready to take this? It’s in a few weeks right?”

“Yeah but I’m feeling pretty good about it. It’s just another test.”

Reality: I still cannot believe that a) I said such bullshit with a completely straight face and b) that she actually bought it.

Way back in 2005 when I first took the SAT, I honestly did think of it as just another test (albeit one that pretty much determined whether I could get into college) but it was like no big deal back then. Now I have the general GRE in less than a week and the English exam about a month. It’s like there are air raid alarms going off in my head. All of this on top of it being midterm season.

Panic? Doing It Right.

I was talking about this with my mom way back when I was registering for the damn things and the question she kept asking was why am I putting myself through the stress of it in the first place. The answer to that one is complicated. Partly that I want to be as marketable as possible which sounds vaguely like I’m trying to sell myself at the market. Also that I actually do want to continue learning as nerdy as that may be.

I’ll be upfront in saying that at least part of it is pride, that I eventually do want to earn a doctorate. But mostly? To prove to myself once and for all that I am fully capable of accomplishing this and to shut up that annoying  voice in my head.

She, however, can stay.

Basically my stomach is doing the mambo of uncertainty as I try to figure out just what the fuck am I going to do when May comes and I get handed those two pieces of paper. Other than dance a jig, of course. I have applications to UC-Berkley and NYU largely ready to be sent off. I intend to have finished my Teach For America application by the time their Summer 2010 session starts. I also have all the information the Navy recruiter offered me after I took the ASVAB on a whim and pissed all over it.

So right now, my two main choices right now are to join Teach For America and finance grad studies that way or enlist as a Navy officer and work for them as a linguist. The second one is doubly attractive as my starting salary would be ridiculous and I would be traveling often. Downside, it would be a six-year commitment. Both look eniticing from here and now but I still have plenty of time to make my decision as long as I have options open.

Of course I could always choose “C) none of the above” and just go straight into the teaching field instead but for some reason that one doesn’t seem all that appealing. No matter what though, I’ll have to pack up my life and move to a strange new place. It’ll mean saying goodbye for now to the family I’ve gathered for myself here over the last two years.

That thought hurts like a shot in the nuts.

Just ask this guy.

I may obsess over the choice now but I all ready know what I’ll do when the time comes. I’ll research, I’ll weigh the options, and then I’ll do whatever I feel is best for me. But I still reserve the right to freak the fuck out in the interim. I would like to think I’ve earned it and if I haven’t, I simply plug my ears and go ’bout my business.

So here’s to the next big step, to something new and more than just a little horrifying. Here is to the future and all that it brings with it, both good and bad, as it is all part of the adventure.

Cheers, folks!

“Don’t take life too seriously. You’ll never get out alive.” – Ryan Reynolds in National Lampoon’s Van Wilder

Shuttle-Fu, The Next Step in Ramming Technique

Dear NASA,

So I hear you’re about to bomb the shit out of the Moon? Oh, you’re not. Wait, you’re ramming the Moon? You’re ramming the Moon?! Kamina would approve.

The way I understand it, you are going to ram the surface with a  rocket sending a plume of debris into the air, big enough that a good amateur telescope can see it with another right behind it collecting samples to search for ice and water vapor mainly to use in the creation of fuel. While all this is going on, you’ll still be receiving data from the shuttle.

As a kid who once wanted to work for you, this coverage has been like crack to me.

And just when I thought you had outdone yourself, you up the ante and make a theme song?

The nerdgasm. It is intense.

All we need now is Worf to say “prepare for ramming speed!”

Keep up the good work,

Kendall

TMI Thursday: Your Childhood? Ruined FOREVER

[or "But Mommy, where do Baby Smurfs come from?"]

As our dear Lilu always says: “Join us all in humiliating the crap out of ourselves every Thursday by sharing some completely tasteless, wholly unclassy, “how many readers can I estrange THIS week?” TMI story about your life. Or hell, about someone else’s!”

I all ready know I’m going to Hell. My handbasket has long been on layaway at Michael’s and the decorations are on stand-by.  With the things that come out of my mouth, this is simply advance preparation.

But sometimes I am convinced that somewhere inside of me is the unconscious desire to piss all over my box seat in Hell. Things like making zombie jokes about Michael Jackson the day he died, failing to not snigger when Anna Nicole Smith died, and finding the mullet equal parts horrific and utterly fascinating? All sure-fire tickets to burning. Today’s story is worse.

I’m fairly positive most of us saw Hanna-Barbera cartoons when we were kids even if it was just the Flintstones and the Jetsons. Another little “nugget” were the quirky, communist pygmies more commonly referred to as the Smurfs. Here is a quick vid to refresh your memory.

The man in the dress, this real nutjob called Gargamel, basically wants to bake the little suckers into a pie. A pie? Seriously? Anyhoodle, so this guy comes up with all this crazy schemes to catch them with the…not quite sure “help” is the right word but he has this evil cat with a crazy ass laugh. I see this show now and can only wonder what the fuck the creators were smoking to come up with this shit.

Now the show caught a lot of flack for what is now called The Smurfette Principle where a show will feature just one female and she will be a highly stereotyped one. Considering the target audience, I don’t see it mattering all that much. But during a late-night conversation with Scarlett that involved a ridiculous amount of booze, we somehow get on the topic of where baby Smurfs come from.

Scarlett: “If there’s a Papa Smurf, then there has to be a Mama Smurf somewhere?”

Me: “Maybe she died or maybe she couldn’t handle that many kids.”

Scarlett: “Or maybe she never existed. If the cake is a lie then maybe Mama Smurf is too.”

Me: “If the smurf is a lie, then where the hell did that entire village come from?’

Scarlett: “Maybe the smurf fucked a rock. It would explain so much.”

Me: “Maybe Gargamel wasn’t evil. Maybe he was just a stalker with a crush.”

Scarlett: “You’re drunk.”

Me: “That doesn’t mean I’m  wrong though. Maybe he wanted Papa Smurf to himself hence the whole wanting-a-pie which we all know is a metaphor for some lovin’.”

Scarlett: “So what would happen if he succeeded?”

Me: “This.”

I pull out my laptop and show her the screen.

She looks.

She gives me a drunken glare which looks like constipation followed up with a smack to the back of the head.

Scarlett: “I hate you.”

Me: “And I revel in it.”

That picture folks? I’ll just post the link as it is very NSFW.

Have fun. The logical conclusion to the Smurfs.

You’re welcome Internets. You’re welcome.