Way too much fun

Before I left Jersey to come back to the comfort of the south where I belong, my mom and I had way too much fun making cookies.  Here is a picture recap of our fun/competitive nature...

We started by baking a bunch of normal sugar cookies.

Well, normal except for the misshapen gingerbread men...

After icing and decorating most of them, I (shockingly) got inspired by all of the colorful crystalized sugar.

The more you know!

Which then inspired Mom....

...to make the gayest cookie in the bunch.

Which appropriately ended in a snowman decorating contest...because nothing is ever really "just for fun" in our house.  There is always a competition waiting in the wings :-)

Hope you enjoyed this as much as I did!

Today is brought to you by the letter M!

Sesame Street flashback anyone?

Ok, SOOOOOO, I joined in their reindeer game (sorry I couldn't resist, go ahead and roll your eyes) courtesy of Shea who joined from Hope.  Now, I was supposed to ask Hope for a letter, but I don't know Hope like that, so I asked Shea.  CLEARLY from my title I have the letter M, so without further adieu.....

10 Things I love that start with the letter M: 

(alphabetically as to not show partiality)

1. Macaroni-and/or all types of pasta.  Let's be real, pasta just makes the world a better place.

2. Math-it sounds as wierd as it is.  Math is concrete; it has a right and a wrong answer.  There is very little gray in math and especially living in a world of gray and frequent misunderstandings, math is there to tell you, "Hey, there is an answer out there!  There is a right and a wrong!"  Yes my math talks to me, don't judge.

3. Me time-it may sound selfish, but I love me time.  The time I have by myself to reflect, process, journal, read, etc.  I not only love it, I need it.  Without me time I'm not much fun to be around...ask my roommate of six years.

4. Mind-blowing books-it's no secret I love to read and a mind-blowing book is one I can read repeatedly and still find new things I love each time...some examples are The Pearl, Brave New World, and Body.

5. M&Ms-peanut not plain.  I seriously think I could live for a week on peanut M&Ms and black coffee.  I say a week because I don't think my internal organs would be very happy with me only eating these two things and would demand I add #1 into the diet too.

6. Mom-I love my mom.  It's corny.  I don't care.  When I look back on my life if I'm half of the mother/person she is I will count my life a success.

7. Mornings-specifically sunrises.  What out in nature makes you feel smaller, more insignificant, and in awe of God than watching the sun rise over the ocean?

8. Music-I heart music.  Each genre/artist has its own specific purpose in my life.  Classical=study/reading time, classic rock=cleaning the house, etc.  Music lifts your spirits, lets your anger out, makes you reminisce and laugh...and you can listen to it anywhere courtesy of the ipod.

9. Mutts-i.e. my puppy.  Simply put, he is a mess.  I wouldn't have it any other way. :-)

Last but certainly not least....

10. My people-ok, so this is a slight copout...but it's my list so whatever.  I love my people.  My family, my friends, my gay posse, my blogger crew (i.e. Shea and Carolyn), my students, my people.  I'm a very blessed chick.

And for the record I'd like to clarify about my copout. I could have gone on and on with things like monkeys, mint chocolate chip ice cream, mugs, marsupials, minor league baseball, mangos, mountains, etc. but my people needed to be on the list!  If you want to play along get a letter from Hope (if you know her like that), Shea (if you know her like that), or me (clearly if you are reading this you fit into #10 and know me like that).

Quick Question Y'all

Ok, I thought I was done posting until after Christmas, but seriously, this cannot wait.  It's topical, time limited and consuming all the empty space in my brain I need to think about more pertinent things.  Now I have heard about these in way too much recently in Christmas songs, seen them at nearly every street vendor, and smelled them blocks away.  However in all of my 25 years of life I have never gotten up the courage up to try them.  What is it you wonder?  What could I  hear about at Christmas time, see everywhere and smell around the block but refuse to try?  

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire.  Let's be real people, they f*cking stink.  They just do.  I feel like they are seriously pimped out in Christmas songs and by street vendors but I have never actually seen someone eat them.  

All of this brings me to four questions in numeric order:

1) Have you ever tried them?  

2) What do they taste like?  DO NOT SAY ROASTED CHESTNUTS!

3) Do they sell them by you or is this a distinctly northern thing?

4) Which state do you live in?

I'm seriously curious about this strange and smelly tradition.  So, now that you have read this leave me a comment below (anonymous if you so desire) answering the aforementioned four questions.  Even if you have never posted before, or wound up here by some convoluted blogger chain of links from other people's pages, please respond because I have been thinking about this WAY WAY WAY too much and need some outsider help!  

Gracias mis personas y Feliz Navidad!

Fish Out Of Water

Ok, so I realized something the other day and now in true fashion I must share it with you, my faithful (and sporadic and first time) readers.  I do not belong in Jersey anymore.  I am officially a Southerner, and no longer fit in in this culture.  And I'm completely okay with it.  Really.

Let's go back to the picture at the top, which will serve as my visually-aided analogy.  

Tiny bowl = Jersey (i.e. cramped, people up in your space, no where to move.)

Large bowl = NC (i.e. spacious, fabulously decorated, breathing room, places to swim.)  

Now, I will never ever ever deny that I come from the tiny bowl.  It is where I learned to be an independent person, a free thinker, and challenge everything presented to me.  It's made me me.  But really, would you go back to the little bowl after experiencing the large one?  I didn't think so.

For years I have considered myself a northerner in the south, a beacon of Jerseyness in a sea of Carolinians, a Yankee in a Confederate Court if you will.  However, I've realized over the last few days that this may have been true when I moved but alas, I now belong to (and in) the south.  I have lived in the south for almost 8 years now [WOW...I didn't realize it had been that long!], and when I am there you can definitely see elements of my personality and dialect that are distinctly northern.  But, now that I am back in the north, I recognize that I don't belong here.  I can't stand people everywhere, the hustle, the angry impatient attitude, it's just...yucky.  I miss my quiet neighborhood, my spacious yard, people who wave (and not the single finger wave you get here for letting someone in in traffic), holding doors open, etc.  

At first I thought maybe I'm just in a negative head space because I miss my puppy who is staying with my neighbors, or maybe it's because I miss my gay posse since I have no friends around here anymore, or maybe it's because I miss CLF and can't wait to see her when I get back, or maybe it's because both of my parents have to work until Christmas Eve and I've only been able to see them at night before they go to bed, or maybe it's because of all of these things wrapped up together.  But the reality is that I know I belong in the big fish bowl with my own hula-hoop of fabulously decorated space and can not be content to live in the little bowl again.  Jersey will always have a special place in my heart, but is not my home...that's the south for this former Jersey girl. 

LATE EDIT INSERT: As I've re-read and edited the above paragraph several times, I can't shake this feeling that it's going to read really negative...it's not intended to be that way at all.  I'm genuinely happy to be visiting my family and it's a strange revelation to realize you don't belong in this place anymore.  But it's also a great feeling to know that you have a lot waiting on you when you return to your home.  So yeah, I think that's what I've been trying to awkwardly write...I'm out of place here and socially awkward and lucky and blessed and humbled and anticipatory and it being all jumbled together is more than okay with me.

So, in conclusion...my gift to myself and my readers is this: it's okay not to belong where you are, it just means there is more out there for you to discover.  I mean, isn't that what this whole journey called life is about?  Finding your place and your role in a very mixed up world?  Search for it, find it, make it fabulous [I mean most of my readers are big homos...so yeah, fabulous is about right for an adjective here], and laugh a lot along the way...life is too short to live it mediocrely.  

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Winter Solstice, and any anything else I forgot that you may celebrate y'all!

Sure, if that makes you happy

Disclaimer: angry lesbian rant below.

So I love the holidays.  I do.  I love all things Christmas-from the music, to the decorations, to people being nice to complete strangers, I love it all.  Except...............for them.

Look, I'm sorry if you think they're awesome (no, I take that back, I'm not sorry but it's the holiday obligation to not directly be an ass) but I don't.  I abhor their slogan "doing the most good." because it's deceitful.  Do they do a lot of good?  Do they enlist people in the community to help?  Do they reach out and help those in need?  Do they have volunteers gain a sense of looking beyond themselves at the holidays? Absolutely...as long as you're straight.

I have always volunteered in my community.  It's never not been an option (yes, double negative used purposely and correctly) in our home.  Both of my parents are/were volunteer paramedics, my dad and grandpa volunteer fire fighters and I can remember often buying extra things at the grocery store to drop off at the food bank.  It's just how I was raised and now who I am.  It's not a choice, it's an obligation to serve in the community.

Now, I'm not mad at the institution of the Salvation Army for being "selective" at who they allow to help...but damn it, own up to it.  They are a private organization who have their own set of beliefs and codes of conduct, blah blah blah.  Whatever.  What irritates me is how they are super secretive and super misleading as to who they will help and who is allowed to volunteer.  You can volunteer if you are gay...as long as you deny it.  I'm sorry, but that's not doing the most good.  So to the Salvation Army who claims they do the most good-sure, if that makes you happy go ahead and say it-but own up to your exclusionary ways as well.

The Salvation Army, doing the most good....as long as you're straight.

Holy Hangover

Preface: It's my fault that I felt like crap all Saturday.  I fully acknowledge and accept this to be true.

Now that that's done...story time!  So Friday was the big party and it did not disappoint.  We had a blast, the gays and straights mixed well together, and everyone (sans DD) left trashed and in a great mood.  I started drinking around 7 when we were finishing the prep work, and people arrived around 8...at one point you could barely move in the house it was so packed.  The first wave of people left around 12, the second wave left around 2:30 and then there were about 15 people left.  We had already played Apples To Apples (which is way better drunk than sober) when some sober genius decided we should play Cranium...that didn't happen.  Clearly, if 6 of the 8 people playing have never played the game before, it's not going to work when we are 8 sheets to the wind.  (I know the phrase is 3 sheets, but we were way past that.)  We got the board out, rolled the dice and didn't know what to do [duh] and then decided to play Clue.  Let me just say, drunken Clue is awesome...every character got a different name and a background story (i.e. Madame Scarlet who owns the brothel down the street, Dr. Peacock with her feathers in a ruffle cuz someone stole her sh*t, Rev. Green who was avoiding the drunken debauchery-the only sober player in the game, General Poupon who was trying to score with the maid, etc.)  OBVIOUSLY Rev. Green won, because the drunken strategy we used went something like this, "I'm in the dining room with General Poupon cuz I'm hungry.  I'm bringing him because obviously he eats and would know what is good here, and we're bringing the knife cuz we'll need to cut the food."  At about 3:30 there were 4 people still awake and drinking-me [duh] one of my best friends K, my roommate's boyfriend J and his friend from college M.  We played Go F*cking Fish for a while, which then turned into Go F*ck Yourself with a Fish.  Around 4 there were 3 people still awake and drinking-me [duh again] K and M and we played Bitch War is not a game!  (i.e. War but slamming your hand on the table as hard as you can with each card....yeah) until our hands were throbbing and drunken-serious-talk started.  Finally we crashed a little after 5.  

Also, I realized something about my best friend K and me that night, I am her "safety flirt" because the more she drinks, the more she flirts, the more touchy-feely she is, and the dirtier she gets-which ultimately is why we are friends.  This would be fine if her boyfriend if 4 years was there, but he had to work.  So when he isn't around (and sometimes when he is) we get started in our own world of drunken inappropriateness.  Which is fun for us, and I guess entertaining for anyone else who is awake/around (M seemed to enjoy the banter and discussion about how if she was brunette she would be my type, what her type would be if she was a lesbian, good versus bad porn, who among our friends she would make out with, etc.)

So those of you who read to the end, if you were do the math...I got up at 5:30 Friday morning, worked all day, started drinking at 7 and stopped at 5 am Saturday morning...so yes, Holy Hangover (side note: Emitrol is a gift from the pharmaceutical gods-it gets rid of nausea instantly so you can eat again)  I only do this once a year and it was totally worth it, I wish you my peoples could have been here!

Stories find me

I was out at dinner with CLF last night and this is the conversation I overheard while in the bathroom.  Again, you can't make this sh*t up....

Girl 1-You know what I can't stand at Mexican restaurants?

Girl 2-What?

Girl 1-The music.  I mean, the song...it just goes on and on and on.

Girl 2-It's not the same song every time, and anyway most people don't stay here all evening so the songs are new to them.

Girl 1-It all sounds the same.  I mean why can't they play American music.  We are in America!

(at this point I am covering my mouth trying to be quiet, because REALLY??)

Girl 2-True, but it adds to the environment.  It's like going to a Chinese restaurant and hearing their music.  It fits to the restaurant.

Girl 1-Well it's annoying and all sounds exactly the same.

Girl 2-(clearly defeated) You're right, ready to go?

[end scene]

Seriously? WTF??? You are at a Mexican restaurant and are angry that they don't play "American" music.  Ethnocentric much?  

I had several competing thoughts all at once-

Why was no one else here to witness this?  

WTF??

I'm glad I'm not her friend, because I would leave that chick somewhere.  

WTF?? (again) 

Girl 2 is either a saint or an idiot for putting up with her.

I can't wait to tell CLF!  She will love this story! [by the way, she did :-)]

Sweet!  Now I have something to post about! (really)

Yeah, so I realized last night that stories find me.  Here I was, minding my own business and the story arrived like an unwrapped present just sitting there for me on the kitchen table...but verbal...and in a public bathroom...whatever you get my point.  Just like Wouldn't believe it if I didn't see it day.  There is the link for those of you who forgot about that story, are new, or would like to laugh/be disgusted again.

Dangerous

Dangerous new toy to play with...

Orange Box

If you too become obsessed, link them to me in the comment section!