An Ode to July and New Things

Got startled this morning at work by a reminder on my phone: Rent due. This prompted me to a moment of silence, to mourn the loss of July. I literally don’t know what happened to this month. It’s like it waved, said hi, and then left before I had a chance to even get to know it. I went to sleep on the 1^st and woke up on the 24^th. That’s what happens though, busy busy busy.

In my brief contemplation of the ups and downs of July, I realized there have been several fun new factors. Figured I’d streamline them all down into one list rather than raving about them each separately. All about efficiencies on a Friday half-day here. So here are some new things (you can tell I’m excited from all my exclamation points!) that've been happening:

#1) Caulk and float, don’t ford it!     

So I basically won the Oregon Trail, without dying of dysentery or an accidental gunshot wound (from killing all those digital buffalo), by flying out to the great Northwest to explore Oregon and Washington. Two beautiful states that I’d previously not explored and thoroughly enjoyed eating my way through. Both states are stupidly gorgeous, almost like they sucked the pretty landscape out of the square states and hoarded it for themselves. Extensive rambling about this trip will be written up eventually.

#2) Does your dress hang low? Sure does!     

Finally got on board and purchased a “maxi” dress, and it’s terribly confusing to me. What is this madness?? It can be worn as a dress, skirt, turban, a frickin’ cape, who knows! It’s weirdly versatile and yet I’m never quite sure I’m wearing it right. Two biggest struggles: not getting tangled and peeing. In terms of tangling, rolling over it with my desk chair is a big one. Now I just pull it up and sit cross legged, using it as a blanket. Still can’t master going up and down stairs without dying, but I’m getting there. As for the bathroom, someone can tell me if there’s a “right” way, please. I just hoist it up and toss it over my shoulder, like a man wearing a tie who wants to eat soup. Or a doctor on his way home from winning an award who sees someone collapse in the subway, dramatically throws his tie over his shoulder so it doesn’t get in his way as he performs miracle surgery using a pen and some lady’s gum. AKA when I have to go pee and I’m wearing a maxi dress, I’m somewhere between a soup eater and a g’damn hero.

#3) Can I offer you anything else? 

This has been a big month of adulting. Even today. I took a half day to be super adult and be home for the energy guy to come update the meter. A bit after noon, this hottie-with-the-body PYT in a hardhat and tool belt shows up at my door. ((Note: he was not nearly as good looking as my long suffering, handsome, wonderful, loving boyfriend of course – just to clarify.)) Turns out he needed to go into my old lady’s basement actually (I live in the upper of a house, you can only access her séance basement through her part of the house, not mine), so I sent him her way.

I stayed outside in case he needed something else (like to pose for a calendar), sweeping off my steps, like a lady. He came out a time later and said he’d better come in and “check some of my appliances.” Just in case. While he’s checking things, like a good happy housewife I ask if he’d like an ice cold glass of lemonade, since it’s such a hot day. He’ll politely declines. ((I quietly thank the lord and wonder what the hell I’m doing offering lemonade. I don’t have any g’damn lemonade. )) He makes small talk and says inquisitively, “Nice sized place - have it all to yourself?” I make a casual comment about how no, my husband is still at work. While standing next to my rainbow array of stuffed animals and several bags of empty fruit snacks. He gives a small smile. ((My internal monologue rages - what the hell is wrong with me?! I’m not even close to married and I very obviously live alone. This is why I was single so long. Because I’m terrified of strangers, who will surely find out I live alone and come kill me in my sleep later. Even good looking strangers. Ted Bundy’s first victim paranoia, right here.)) More small talk. Departure. I light up a cigarette. Just kidding. I don’t even smoke… Damn it, I need to watch less Mad Men.

#4) Who watches the Watchmen - I do! 

Prompted by a comment that I always leave my phone out on the table at dinner, I realized that it’s largely because I’m obsessed with knowing the time. Too busy, the clock keeps me in check. Solution: go back to wearing a watch so I quit looking like I’m being rude and checking my phone during conversation. I wore a watch throughout high school solely because my French teacher said it would be important to be on time during our trip abroad. So I wore a watch for four years to prep for one two-week trip. Clearly I’m very susceptible to the comments of others….

Look how TAN I look! And this angle makes me look GIANT!
Thanks, magic watch!

#5) Ponies have tails, and so do I!     

Growing my hair out again (for a wedding and then to donate) and I’m finally able to put my hair up into a pony tail again. Huzzah! That means that I’ll be motivated to start running again soon. Because, let’s face it, the only reason I like running is when I have a pony tail that swishes and bobs behind me like a badass as I hit the pavement (or treadmill). Else, what’s the point?

#6) Those who drink from glass water bottles shouldn’t throw stones     

(But for real, don’t throw rocks, at all, it’s not nice, we’re not ten anymore) Speaking of how I’ll eventually start running and doing things that are good for me, I also got on the “glass bottle” bandwagon. Because plastic is killing us apparently. My hand might be damn cold when I use it, but I’m reppin’ theawesomest bookstore ever and looking damn cool when drinking from it! (I forgot it at work, else there’d be a photo)

#7) I watch what I eat to make sure it’s not watching me… 

Yeah, ever think about that one? But seriously, after one too many dinners (read: happy hours) and a vacation based around food stuffs, this gal needed to get control of the eats again and quit being the walrus. Which has led to another new thing, something I’ve never done in my life: counting calories. After only a week, it’s very obvious what the sources are: stress snacking and alcohol. Working on cutting back on those two things, both of which are near and dear to my heart. There will be a turning point soon. Surely. 

Hagrid says, "Eat your veggies!"

Planes, Trains and Teams

Not that one likes to think morbid thoughts while sharing a space with strangers (a confined, rapidly moving space least of all), but in the back of my mind, planes and trains are really all about who is on your team.

First off, let me say that I genuinely LOVE modern transportation. Getting from point A to B swiftly, with little effort on my part, is a brilliant miracle. A few hours to cross a country? Being a human, up in the air and flying? Yeah, it’s literally magic. Gypsy voodoo magic. And it’s amazing. An absolute marvel.  I’m sure I’ll rave about it more in the future.

You're flying, you frickin' wizard you.
And there's an in-flight movie.

That being said, much like with automobiles, planes/trains are really just hurtling metal death boxes. Humans don’t naturally go those speeds. With technology being what it is, the odds of being in a plane or train crash are not high. That’s why when one occurs, it’s on the news as an alarming tragedy. Due to a loss of human life, of course, but also because we don’t expect it to happen. They’re supposed to be safe. We take for granted that they’re safe. Really though, when you’re in a plane, you’re almost 40,000 feet in the air going over 500 MPH, suspended by a thin wall of metal… There’s a chance something could go wrong.

Because my brain spends a lot of time going over unlikely scenarios (and because I only ever saw the series finale of Lost), I’ve thought a good deal about the eventuality of a crash, particularly on a plane. My solution: always prepping my team when I fly and over communicating my travel plans to my family. The latter is for tracking purposes. If I don’t text that I’ve landed, they should assume my plane dropped off the face of the earth and send a search party.

Glitter nail polish will help flag down the search party.

As for the team, it starts as soon as I arrive at the airport/station. I make a point to be as kind as possible to people in advance of and while boarding. I don’t need to be their BFF, but I want no negative thoughts harbored toward me. And then the draft begins. Since people watching is a favorite hobby of mine, I start looking around, Sherlocking people. Locate someone strong in the near vicinity. Locate a mama bear. Weed out the sick, or the ones throwing back Xanax and mini booze bottles. Determine who will be a benefit to me if shit goes down. I hand pick my Lord of the Flies style tribe and then do what I can to casually interact. Let them know I’ll share the conch.

People immediately excluded are those who put their seats in full recline. These people are only looking out for #1, only care for their own comfort, and have no regard for the ripple effect of their actions. I don’t want that sort of disregard for others on my team. The only exception to this rule is for flights over six hours and red eyes. Else keep your seat back upright or get off my team.

Sure this level of arbitrary judgment of strangers is borderline creepy. And I certainly don’t mean to make light of crash tragedies. But when you end up on the Island, you want to be ready. No point in trying to go at it alone. 

So it goes.

It’s not that I “eat my feelings.” It’s just that my emotions are starving and if you feed them, they only grow stronger until they win out. That’s why it’s best feed a frivolity, and to starve a sorrow.  

When my brain is in the grieving process, it literally jumps to the conclusion that if you stuff food into it, then the emotional rhetoric will just get smothered into silence. The selective hearing kicks in. At the drive thru, the unsuspecting disembodied voices asks if that’s all, if I’d like anything else. My inner monologue begs, “What was that you said? Make all my items the largest size possible? Add in some buckets of ranch to drown my sorrows in? Of course I’d like a shake, I didn’t even know you had shakes; I’ll take them all…” That empty pit in my stomach, the ache, it can just be filled with food. 

The face stuffing is just one phase in mourning the loss of my beloved, spunky Grandma, who passed away this weekend (despite my insistence that she was too stubborn and would outlive us all). Another phase is the reflection of all the wonderful years I had with her.  A huge part of that is blubbery, but most of it just makes my heart smile. I figured I’d save the blubbery bits for while I’m spooning a bushel of mashed potatoes into my mouth (them Shannons, they’re potato eaters!) and just share a few of the others.

There are far too many to list, but here are a few things my grandma taught me over the years…

• You’re never too old to be a trend setter. Many of my friends still know her as my “VC Grandma” from the years spent drinking Vodka Collins. Why? Because we were too young to know what to order at a bar, and if you want to sound like you’re an old pro, order what an old pro would. Too many toasts to count, and many more to be had in her honor. She inspired a generation of classy cocktailers.
• Lilac bushes really do make the very best forts.
• Wrinkles are just smile lines. You earn those lines from years of joy and laughter. Whether it was chuckles during the later years, when I told her that she needed to work hard at PT because “bikini season” was coming. Or laughing about how she’d be sure to get the front man’s attention at a concert if she threw her bra on stage – since it had a weighted fake boob in it that would probably knock him out (breast cancer survivor). 
• Moles are just “kissy freckles.”
• If you go to church on Sunday, you get Hardee's for breakfast afterwards. You don’t get Hardee's unless you go talk to God first. 
• The secrets to making a good pumpkin pie and great fudge. Can’t tell you those ones. Kitchen magic stays in the kitchen.
• Don’t smoke or wear high heels, but always have your lipstick on and your hair done before leaving the house. My grandma smoked for almost 70 years of her life while strutting about in the most fashionable (albeit tiny) high heels and her health paid the price as she got older; but the lipstick kept it all together somehow. As for the hair, even when she didn’t have much she still went to the beauty shop once a week, at dawn, to keep looking classy.
• Always sleep with a silk pillow case, to keep your curls intact. And if you have a bad dream, just flip the pillow over and start fresh. 
• The best snack in the world is a buttered saltine cracker. Or a cheese single, folded down into four little squares so it’s like four snacks instead of one. (Seriously, it’s a wonder I wasn't obese as a child.)
• Some of the best memories can involve TV, and that’s okay. Whether it’s learning everything there is to know about the prices of consumer goods, from watching Bob Barker on the Price is Right. Or figuring out how to tell who’s lying, who’s cheating and who’s really the evil twin, from hours of soap operas. Or learning how to polka to Lawrence Welk. Or secretly wishing you could grow up to be Ginger Rogers – seriously, my grandma really only put fuel to the fire during my teenage years with my Fred Astaire obsession. Thank goodness she taught me how to do those pin curls…  
• If you drop a spoon, it means that a baby is coming. (I’ve literally thrown myself over to catch a spoon before. I’m not risking that shit.) 
• Always be friendly to bus drivers. That way if one of the sailors is following you home, they’ll help you out. 
• How to not park a car like an idiot. We spent hours driving up and down the river walk, parking in every spot, just so I could get it down. Still didn’t master parallel parking, but at least I’m in the lines the rest of the time!
• If you’re going to collect something, display it. She had hundreds of Avon bottles, all beautiful and unique. We all had our favorites from the years we spent staring up at them on the shelves. 
• You can always tell a good man by his eyes. He has to have kind eyes. A fella can’t fake kind eyes. That’s literally the only requirement for finding your future husband. 

She also made me realize what mortality was, even if it was on accident. During my middle school years, I use to call her every single night before I went to bed just so I could talk to her, tell her about my day, see how she was, etc. Every single night.

One night she didn’t answer right away. The phone just kept ringing and ringing. Finally she picked up. She said she’d been in the other room or something, I told her no big deal; I just had thought she might not answer. And she told me that was silly; she would always answer when I called.  But I knew that was a lie. She was getting older and one day the phone would ring and she wouldn’t be able to answer. So I stopped calling every night, because as a teen, that thought really upset me...  I regret that. 

Luckily I had many years with her beyond that, for advice and laughs. And even though she’s gone in this moment, she was a real gem in so many other moments. Timeless. So it goes. 

Rock Out(side of my personal space)

My inner 90 year old woman is a real crank when it comes to concert etiquette. Having been a small town girl, I wasn’t a legit concert goer until my adult years. I totally support the youths attending musical events, but I don’t support idiot youths under any circumstance, so… therein lies the problem of attending large music festivals.

YOUTHS. Youths...everywhere.

Since I love me a good list (with a story or two tied in), here are my top SIX rules of concert etiquette (for festivals, without any assigned seating, not regular concerts):

1) If you want to be up front, show up early and hold your ground

Do NOT show up twenty minutes before the show and drunkenly shove your way through the crowd. I don’t care if you “have a friend up there” that you’re “trying to get back to.” Everyone “has a friend up front.” Shouting a random name doesn’t help. And if there really is someone up there, then too bad, you shouldn’t have left that friend; you can’t go back, just accept it. Also, if you do start trying to push your way closer, people are squeezing together to let you through usually. When you stop because you realize you can’t get closer, you have just pissed off EVERYONE around you who is now sandwiched awkwardly together. Don’t be jovial about it; just back the fuck out to where you came from because there is no space here (in the inner circles of hell). Stack on and add a new layer to the outside edges, like a proper person. This is especially true for TALL people. Don’t stop in front of me and say, “This looks good enough.” Because I’ll head butt you in the small of your back until you move, you giant.

2) Keep your sins to yourself

• If you want to drink up a storm, cool, I support it. Just don’t spill your beer on me when you’re trying to bust a drunken move, please. And if you’re severely underaged, that counts double. 
• If you want to smoke some illegal drugs, that’s your thing, boo. Just don’t blow smoke on me or light up so often that everyone within 20 yards has a contact high (also: it’s still illegal in this state, so maybe hit it beforehand and not in public during the show?). 
• If you want to get it on with some cute thang you found at the show, get a room. I don’t want to look up/over and realize that I’m the accidental love child of two people hooked up while basically on top of me. Or have my ass grabbed on accident (several times) by some stoned guy reaching for someone else’s lovely lady lumps

3) Do not engage

If there’s a fight, someone provoking you, or you get shoved/pushed… just don’t engage. You’ll likely make it worse and possibly end up shanked in a crowd, where no ambulance (aka medi golf cart) can get to you and you’ll quietly just get trampled to death due to your weakened state.

Cue my sister at the Third Eye Blind concert. When a scrawny Gen-Xer fell on her while dancing with his spacy blond girlfriend, she shoved him right back. Most men, when you push them, will not move/will hold their ground. However, not being fully cognizant of where he was even, he instead went flying. I promptly opted to remove us from that concert, for fear of retaliation, but we departed to general applause from onlookers. One gent even proclaimed her as his hero, saying he wished he could have a t-shirt with her face on it, because that was badass. Don’t bank on this support from the crowd; assume that retaliation leads to getting shanked. Don’t be a hero. NOTE: this largely depends on the show as well (see #4).

4) Know your audience

Adjust your actions depending on the show. Jumping around like crazy and head-banging the whole concert is slightly less appropriate when you’re at Hall and Oates. If you’re going to retaliate when someone runs into you, the Third Eye Blind concert is a better place to do it than at the Slayer concert – Gen Xer’s are too jaded to fight back.

5) Don’t crowd surf (period)

Just don’t. If you really want to get violated by strangers, do it on your own time, don’t do it when I’m trying to watch a show. Especially if you’re trying to surf TOWARDS the stage, because no one can see you coming, so you end up risking injury to yourself and others.

At the very packed Walk the Moon show (why they got put on a small/free stage, I’ll never know), after hours of getting my ass kicked by the ever pressing crowd, getting nearly choked by my own necklace, getting stepped on, pushed about, spilled on, etc. by all the youths, I was pretty well at my wit’s end. That’s when the highest white chick you ever saw came and surfed her foot right into my head. Her friends were shouting words of encouragement, urging the crowd to pass her forward. But the second she hit me, I was done. I hulked out as she came above me and wrenched her down, saying, “No effin’ way, sweetheart, you’re done, you’re coming down.” I was like a mom lifting a car off of her child: pure adrenaline and rage. I held and safely lowered to the ground a girl who was at least of equal body weight, and about as mobile as a sack of potatoes. AKA I was awesome.

NOTE: the exception to this rule is if you’re with the band. The Flaming Lips literally put their lead singer in a hamster ball and he rolled over the crowd while singing. That is not only the awesomest thing ever; it’s also the only acceptable form of crowd surfing.

6) Wear deodorant, please

When there are so many people packed into a small space, in the summertime, for hours, all dancing around and drunk… sweat happens. Please put on your deo. Because otherwise, every time you put your hands up, because they’re playing your song, the butterflies will not fly away…. they’ll just die… because you stink.

So go get your groove on, friends, and enjoy the summer festival season. Just follow the rules, and don’t get to the point where you become THAT guy / girl…

Note that most of these stem from the events of this past Saturday night at the our-music-fest-is-better-than-yours event of the year: Summerfest.