Lollipops, the secret to girl success

I know I’m being ridiculously gushy, and I know you’re sick of hearing about how happy I am, but seriously, I’m really, really grateful for all the support. Like Sabina pointed out in a comment, the fact that I’m 23 years old and I have a position as associate editor at such a huge online magazine is incredible. Plus the warm welcome I’ve been receiving from everyone, including the team, is mind-blowing. I feel really, really good right now. And I love being on the inside, it’s almost like that high school feeling of inclusion I never had. Hah!

 

And then of course I received another award, from one of my new favourite bloggers, and I’m pretty sure this qualifies as the greatest week ever! Thanks Carissa. If you haven’t already, check out her blog. She’s hilarious, outgoing, and totally, brutally honest. If you don’t believe me, just read her TMI posts.

So I’m supposed to list 10 things that nobody really knows about me. Tough job, considering I have no inner censorship.

 

1. I have seizures. I’ve been prone to seizure activity for years, but always minor ones that feel like insane bouts of deja vu with nausea and panic. Sometimes even intense feelings of relief. I was prescribed medication about two years ago, but stopped taking it once a rash broke out from head to toe, and never bothered going back to my doctor.
2. I have no idea what intimacy is. Not joking. The longest relationship I’ve ever had with a person is 0 seconds. The only guy I can somewhat claim to have dated for a few months slept with one of my good friends, banged multiple hos, and may actually be gay. Why do I suspect this? He once told me “I think I’m a little gay.”
3. I totally believe in ghosts. I’ve felt uneasy in a number of houses due to weird events, and have been later informed by other people that they’ve felt the same way. Just a “feeling.” In this 100 year old townhouse, I feel fine.
4. I’ve been having nightmares about t-rex since I was 9 years old, and it’s all the fault of Jurassic Park.
5. I was a head bangin’, heavy-metal lovin’, hardcore goth wannabe in high school.
6. I don’t fit in anywhere. I’m too artsy for the logical crowd, and too logical for the artsy crowd.
7. I keep a list of all the guys I’ve kissed in the back of my diary. Don’t ask what the stars besides some of the names mean.
8. I’ve written several book series as a kid/teenager, including one titled Pen Friends and another titled The Adventures of Lady and Beauty.
9. I can’t paint my own fingernails worth shit.
10. I was really good at drawing and painting. Then I took an art class in my first year of university, and haven’t picked up a pencil since. Going against his lumberjack appearance, my father is an incredibly talented painter.

 

I’m also supposed to award this to ten bloggers, but I’m just going to pass it on to two people I’ve seriously neglected. The first, of course, is V of Uncorked. FINALLY! An award you don’t already have! V is a kickass, sexy lawyer who enjoys shots as much as I do. She’s charmingly intelligent, witty, and has excellent taste in books.

 

The other is Cammy of Classroom Confessions. She recently went through a bad break-up, and I admire her for being honest about it on her blog. Takes guts to spill the beans. She’s sweet, talented, and an all around role model.

 

Weekend was fab! I decided last night that I hadn’t gotten “happy drunk” in a very long time, so I made it my mission to get sloshed without getting sick. Unfortunately the majority of my friends have become severely lame (seriously you guys, when did everyone become Mormon?), so the girls came over and I went downtown with Lottie and Lil Sister.

 

We decided to hit up Lottie’s Pub (not to be confused with the friend) for some cheap White Russians and Blue-Eyed Blonde shots from the hunky bartender with the rippling muscles and bald head. Did I ever mention my affinity towards bald men? It’s a little disturbing.

Devil shots

I knew I had reached the goal peak of drunkness when one of the girls commented on how young everyone at the bar was, but I hadn’t noticed due to being totally intoxicated. Then Lil Sis tried to make me hit on her friend who was apparently interested in me, but he didn’t make a move, and there’s nothing I find more attractive in a man than someone who has to express interest in me via a friend. Just sayin’.

 

When we left, me being significantly poorer, I had just chatted up a guy. We stood outside for a bit and him and his buddies tried to convince Sis and I to go to Trinity Pub. Then I pulled a random lollipop out of my purse and started sucking on it.

 

Here’s a tip: If you want to command the entire attention of a group of young men, stick a lollipop in your mouth. It doesn’t matter if you’re devouring the candy like a hungry wench, they will look on completely enraptured. Awkward.

I've missed partying with this babe

 

 

The Internet is watching

Wow, you guys rock my pants off, which is awkward because TOR is sitting next to me trying to watch the hockey game. I had no idea that last post would elicit such genuine concern about the well-being of my social life, but there you have it. I could nearly taste the panic. To clarify, folks, I won’t be cutting out my social life entirely. I’ll now be getting sloshed just once a week, as opposed to two. Seriously, that’s my idea of banning a social life. There are exceptions, of course.

 

So, the big news! Two days ago I received an email from David Miller, the senior editor at Matador, asking if I would like to join the team as an associate editor. I remember clicking down through my emails that morning at work, glancing at that subject briefly, and moving on…only to have this “WTF?” moment, and immediately scrolling back. I’m still having random “WTF?” moments all over the place, including random bouts of happiness which cause me to dance down my stairs at 8:00 a.m. In my pyjamas.

 

I’m still waiting for them to catch on and realize I’m not actually that smart, I just receive Daily Word emails from Dictionary.com.

 

Anyway! I’m incredibly excited, and unbelievably happy to be a part of such a kick-ass team. The whole thing is a little daunting right now, but if I can write technical manuals for software defined sonar, dammit, I can do this.

 

Friends, I think it’s safe to say I can cross off #9 on my 20 Before 30 list. I love life.

 

In other news, I’m also interning for Matt Kepnes of Nomadic Matt. It’s an unpaid position, but Matt is one ambitious fellow and I want to learn everything I can from him. Should be interesting.

 

With all this going on, and knowing now that I have more followers and I’m working with a team of incredibly bright people, I really feel like going back through all my old blog crap and deleting it. I’ve resolved to handling my writing more slowly and carefully. I tend to just spew words out on paper since I’m always pressed for time, but I have to work on that.

 

I’m also mad hating on this blog, and I’m super anxious to get the new site up and running so I can have a more professional (hah!) environment to work with, and I’m really looking forward to adding dozens more of you people to my blogroll. But my website designer seems to be MIA for whatever reason, and That’s Tangly was supposed to launch two weeks ago. He’s a friend of mine, so I trust him, I just hope everything’s okay. I’ve also decided to launch a separate travel website in addition to my blog, so I can have a place to reflect on just travel-related topics. Like starting a Global Pubcrawl.

 

There you have it! I really hope I can do a good job with this, and I’m going to try super hard. And if that means having to cut out some of my gym time…well, perhaps I’ll just cut out sleep instead.

Bye-bye, social life

Due to some incredibly amazing awesome outstanding fabulous opportunities that have come my way this past week or so, it appears as though my social life will be put on hiatus indefinitely. I will not elaborate at the moment but I can assure you that this thing called life is effing great. Unfortunately, I’ve lost all feeling in my ass from sitting here for about 12 hours per day. Secretary butt, I think it’s called. Did I mention I can now flex my glutes to the tune of a song? It’s a new party favour of mine.

 

And with respect to my newfound responsibilities, lack of social life and the decision to cut men out of my life entirely, the following is now my idea of foreplay:

 

 

Best conversation with a stranger ever

Oh, Chad.

 

An answer to the age-old question…where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?

Oh Halloween, my most beloved time of year. The only occasion in which it is perfectly acceptable for young children to take candy from strangers, and for women to take any sort of profession in the world and turn it into something slutty. Sexy hamburger-flipper? Skanky gas attendant? You got it.

 

I defied the odds by dressing as Carmen Sandiego, appropriate attire for milling around downtown. Turns out it’s not really appropriate attire for a house party, as my hair ended up becoming plastered to my head with hat-sweat and my black gloves have given me a rash. Such is life.

Carmen Sandiego double fists, do you?

Anyway, I tagged along with Hevs to her friend’s party, which was super decked out in Halloween gear. Not only was the party killer, but St. John’s radio station K-Rock showed up to host live from the dinette, bringing tidings of free beer and pizza. If you think having a radio show hosted from a Halloween party is pretty kickass, you’re right. Especially when the hosts are all dressed as Billy Mays. I’ve often wondered if radio talk-show hosts ditch the radio voice when they’re engaging in casual conversation. The answer? They don’t .

K-Rock came to hang out

 

The holy trinity

 

TOR, Lottie and I ended up going to the Mardi Gras celebrations on George Street, but I wasn’t nearly drunk enough to be there and I don’t remember the event EVER being so ridiculously chaotic. I couldn’t even call people on my cell phone because all the lines were blocked. FYI, Mardi Gras in St. John’s is a pretty momentous occasion, and one that involves huge cash prizes for best dressed, but it should never be confused with the REAL Mardi Gras. There are no beads, parades, or anything of that nature…just lots of naked people, and the opportunity to drag home a guy wearing a mask and then politely requesting that he not take it off lest your dreams be dashed.

 

Pumped that people knew who I was

I had a pretty good time, but this cold I’m wrestling with has zapped my will to live, and mostly I ended up being Ms. Cranky-Pants. I’m sorry, girls. I wasn’t feeling the general tiredness that accompanies ten bottles of beer and an early evening, it was more like my weary body screaming “Why are you doing this, you miserable fuck?”

 

On the upside, Halloween still rocks. What other time of year can you rock out with a Pimpin’ Jesus, a chimney sweeper, Lady Gaga, and the cast of The Price is Right?

And look, I finally got a sensible video!

Gold

Ah yes, one month later and the aftermath of Winefest still haunts me in the form of this delicious, questionable, mysterious image.

So let’s take a vote, shall we? How many of you think I’m pulling her hand forward, and how many of you think I’m pushing her hand away?

Bonus points if you can come up with a clever caption for the words that are coming out of my mouth.

Three-line book review: “Stardust” – Neil Gaiman

I stayed home today terrified that I was developing THE SWINE, but I’m apparently just too exhausted to function.  So I took a rest day. What did I do? Nothing. I watched The Tyra Banks Show and wondered what kinda drugs she smokes. Because I want some.

 

No writing accomplished. Nothing. Did I tell you my Halloween costume yet? Well I’m not gonna.

 

Stardust – Neil Gaiman

 

I haven’t read any fantasy genre books in for-freaking-ever, but this one was unique and fresh and I ate it up like cherry pie. I love Gaiman’s adult approach. Harry Potter doesn’t have sex with faeries, but freaking Tristan Thorne does.  ****/*****

 

Also, I want to thank all you guys for your lovely comments ALL THE TIME. I don’t know if anyone else gets some sorta sick, perverse thrill when they open their email to find comments of adoration, but man, I do. In case you couldn’t tell from my cleverly written innuendos, I’m a little confused about life. Having people who like to read about me makes me feel better.

 

AND, in case you missed it, here’s my Twilight rant, which I feel totally deserves to resurface since I didn’t have any followers before.

Lend me your ears. Or brains.

Well, I do believe the onslaught of the swine is upon me. Ironic, non? I was in the heart of Mexico when the outbreak occurred, and I was fine. Now that I’m back on the island, it’s like IMPENDING DOOM is lurking. Everywhere. My mother and I just got in a vicious fight about whether or not to get the vaccine. I say “no,” she says “yes.”  Then she said I had no respect for her and disappeared offline.

 

I’m incredibly ill today, so I can’t put the effort into this blog post as I’d like to. So I’ll copy over what I started last night, which is first a big “thank-you” to Cammy (again!) over at Classroom Confessions for honouring me with another award. Such kind words! She’s lovely.

Thanks, Cammy!

I’m supposed to answer these gripping questions about myself. I wrote these last night, FYI. I’m not actually sitting here on my lunch break without a bra.

1. Where is your cell phone: On the coffee table being lonely.
2. Your hair: Stays straight now that I’m living in the north pole.
3. Your mother: Is the strongest person I know. She also thinks I’m useless as tits on a nun.
4. Your father: Is a lumberjack with incredible artistic skills.
5. Your favorite food: NACHOSSSSS.
6. Your dream from last night: NACHOSSSS.
6. Your favorite drink: Uh. Do you read my blog?
7. Your dream/goal: Travel. Make a difference. Not have debt.
8. What room are you in: The living room, wrapped up in a blanket on the futon. Maybe I should invest in a snuggie. Then again, I wear a friggen robe backwards and save myself the money.
9. What is your hobby: Writing. Travel.
10. What is your fear: I won’t accomplish the things I need to accomplish.
11. Where do you want to be in 6 years: Married, on a plane flying to my next destination.
12. Where were you last night: Home alone, catching up on some episodes of House.
13. Something you are not: Drunk.
14. Muffins: Chocolate chip kind, with 40 grams of fat.
15. Wish list items: Some Dior perfume.
16. Where did you grow up: Bay d’Espoir, NL.
17. Last thing you did: Your mom.
18. What are you wearing: My IWFF volunteer shirt is on backwards, and pjs. No undies. Scandal.
19. Your TV: Is turned to Peachtree TV. WTF came up with the name of this station?
20. Your pets: Only Jetson now, my evil cat who likes to eat my fingers.
21. Your friends: Are the greatest people in the whole wide world.
22. Your life: Freaking awesome.
23. Your mood: Bone-deep exhaustion.
24. Missing someone: My family.
25. Vehicle: Two feet and some ugly boots.
26. Something you’re not wearing: A bra, dr’ars.
27. Your favorite store: Sirens, for real.
28. Your favorite color: BLUE.
29. When’s the last time you laughed: Probably something during a convo with Lottie.
30. When’s the last time you cried: Watching Crackie on Saturday.
31. Your best friend: Too many to pinpoint.
32. One place you go over and over: My cube, and Mustang Sally’s.
33. One person who emails me regularly: Coworkers, especially those lovely ones in Seattle.
34. Favorite place to eat: MUSTANG SALLY’S. The cheese, oh the cheese!

Alright, now to tag six bloggers (I’m sorry I can’t gush more, everything hurts):

Corn-Bean: Because she has an exceptional, conversational voice.

Blunt Delivery: I cannot BELIEVE I didn’t give her an award yet (or did I?), but considering the one she gave me, I wish I had something a little more creative/original.

Blonde Monde: Two girls blogging about their dating triumphs/disasters. They’re awesome.

MidLife Mommy: I admit, I don’t read a lot of Mommy Bloggers, but she’s hella cool. Word.

Nashe: Hopefully she doesn’t have this award already. She’s wicked sweet, and one of my long-term followers.

J @TwentySomethings: One of my recent blog loves, she’s “bitter” but “always fun”. Sound familiar?

Seriously, I love all my followers. One day, when I take over the Internets, you will all receive awards from me, and they will be of the highest caliber, more appreciated than the Nobel Peace Award. But without the million-dollar bonus.

So, I deleted the post I wrote last night. Thanks V, Cammy and Kris for your feedback/shake back to reality. I’m a wiener, it cannot be denied. Anyway, it was just me blabbing about my lack of direction, but MOSTLY, I need to ask this question: is it possible to incorporate a travel section into a personal website?

My friend Chris says “no”, that the content would conflict…and I think he might be right. Starting up two different sites might also be more beneficial to me as sycophant. While I’m busy latching onto people and networking, I can keep my personal life somewhat separate. Unless you want to get involved with this hot mess of a train wreck.

On the other hand, does this mean I have to buy a whole new friggen domain? I’m drowing people, drowning.

Dammit. This launch is gonna be more difficult than I thought.

 

 

 

The arts and the booze

I’m actually looking forward to the work week so I can relax. Seriously. I’m exhausted. I keep falling asleep on the couch and drooling all over my cushions. I don’t even have the energy to shower. So I’m not gonna. Deal with it.

In case you missed my mad pimpage, Matador Life picked up an article I wrote for MatadorU about my hometown. Remember how I said it was difficult to capture how I feel about home? The feedback from this article was amazing. Are the editors over there getting sick of me yet? I’m a little sick of myself. I’m not sure if every writer feels the way I do when getting published, but lately I’ve been finding myself in a constant state of shock and awe and profound gratefulness towards everyone at Matador. I’ll go into a deeper discussion later, but I have a feeling they’re mostly to thank for the slow shift of  my attitude towards the world/travel/people. Big things are about to happen, folks.

So, Friday night I dropped money I don’t have on a party bus for my roommate’s friend’s graduation. Are party buses popular anywhere else? Here, they’re HUGE; I’ve been on at least six. Actually, click the Boob Emancipation banner on this blog and it’ll take you to a special memory from my all-time favorite party bus night. Apparently St. John’s loves party buses way too much, but they’re rare elsewhere (?), so I’ve uploaded a video for your viewing pleasure. Note to self: take longer videos, stop moving the camera, and get some filmmaking lessons.

I don’t understand how this is legal. I mean, it’s a moving vehicle, everyone is drunk, and there is a POLE. At one point, the bus lurched forward and sent most of us flying to the back of the bus. Several minutes passed before I realized I was sitting on some girl I didn’t know. The best part? Not one drink was spilled.

Holding that pole is just so empowering.

Last night I volunteered at the closing gala for the Women’s Film Festival. HOLY CHAOS. I was terrified that I’d be manning the merchandise table because I can barely count to 10, never mind count change. The merch table is exactly where I ended up, as well as handing out comp tickets. Surprisingly, I handled it reasonably well and had a lot of fun in the process, met some cool people, and was able to watch the screening of Crackie.

Holy crap. I don’t know much about movies, but I LOVED Crackie. I even cried. A lot. If you ever get a chance to see it, I highly recommend doing so…it’s filmed locally and casts the amazing Mary Walsh and Meghan Greely. I’ll blog about it later for Signal Blog if you want all the deets.

I enjoyed getting mixed up in the arts scene again, although I never quite fit in. My favorite part of the night was when a guy was telling me and another girl about what kind of face painting he does, and I thought for SURE I heard him say he painted vaginas. But no one flinched.

I turned to the other volunteer when he left and said, “did that guy just say he paints vaginas?”

Man, that’d be sweet. Just walking around with a giant vagina painted on my face.

Anyway, then I met up with the lovely ladies and headed to Trapper John’s to see Crashing Carmine’s performance. Geez louise I love that band! And the bar. I mean, one of the girls hauled a 60-ouncer of Captain Morgan’s spiced rum out of her purse in the bathroom and gave me a swig. Perfect recipe for swine flu, agree?

Finally, today I went orienteering with the Girl Guides at Butterpot Park, situated right next to Candy Mountain. Just kidding, there’s no mountain. We trekked through bog, trees, rocks, paths, crappy trails and mud in search of candy. We lost miserably, but I deserve a fucking medal for dealing with all that, plus one extremely hyper kid, all on four hours of sleep and severely hungover.

I have tons of reading and writing to catch up on. I need to submit more articles. Goddamn.

I don’t care if you care if I’m a drinker

I find it funny that while I’ve been slowly removing my “angryredhead” identity from the Interwebs, I’m pretty angry about a topic that’s arisen lately. After reading this article on Brave New Traveler, it’s come to my attention that many non-drinkers are assholes.

Read the article. A lot of the information seems seriously flawed, like the fact that people who drink are less likely to be depressed or suffer from anxiety. I would assume most often, however, that these issues often drive a person to drinking.

But what pissed me off the most was the condescending, holier-than-thou commentary from the non-drinkers. More specifically, the people who abstain from booze because they chose to do so.

I love alcohol. I am a heavy drinker. Some days, all I need is a cold bottle of beer to set my nerves straight. And there is nothing, nothing more refreshing than sharing a pitcher of Molson with some good friends on the deck of a restaurant during the height of summer. People have different coping mechanisms. At least I’m not beating my children.

Waste of money? Depends on how you look at it. I enjoy spending money to go out with my friends, hang out at pubs, go dancing, and meet interesting people. Cute boys with dimples and firm bums. If that’s what I enjoy doing, then why is it a waste? My money is my business. I put in my hours as a good citizen, working with charities and doing local volunteer stunts. If I want to get hammered and unwind, who gives a shit?

Drinking has never interfered with my professional life. I openly share my drinking escapades with the Internet and my readers because never, ever has alcohol prevented me from getting my work done. In fact, during my second year of college, I went out at least three times a week, sometimes crawling into bed at 4 a.m and then heading to class at 8 a.m…and I made the honour roll. Again.

Yeah, some people are irresponsible and reckless. Some people cannot handle their booze. Some people drive their cars into fences, or worse, other people. But seriously, an incredibly large, global drinking community cannot be held responsible for the actions of some morons.

The thing is, I’ve never looked down on people who don’t drink. I’ve never had problems connecting with non-drinkers, unless you’re religious and you find my lack of morality offensive. If you’re able to go out and have a ridiculously awesome time without alcohol, good for you…very admirable quality indeed, and I’ll be the first to admit I’m a little envious. On the other hand shut the fuck up, because frankly, you’re a small minority and nobody wants an arrogant prick for a friend anyway. On that note, when drinkers make non-drinkers feel uncomfortable for not drinking, or try to force them to wrap their lips around a beer bottle, those people aren’t worthy of friendship either. Nine chances out of ten, they’re just teasing anyway and will forget all about it when they’re blitzed themselves.

I’m writing this because some of those comments made me feel guilty about being a drinker. I’m well aware of the fact that I’ve done some pretty stupid things while drunk, but I’m on a mission to bare myself honestly to the world and I’m not going to mask my life for anyone. The way I look at it, everybody needs a good hangover day every now and then to appreciate the rest of the week. Everyone should wake up at least once a month with a searing headache, a mouth that tastes like an ashtray, and an enormous amount of shame, just to put things in perspective. Laugh at yourself. Laugh at your ridiculous friends. Laugh at the random guy’s number in your phone. Laugh about how you get laid more than non-drinkers.

Most importantly, laugh at this photo:

See? New friend!

Three-line book reviews

New theme I’m incorporating into the new blog: three-line book reviews. Why? Because I’m lazy.

Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

I hated this book the first time around, but decided to give it a second shot since EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD loves it. I hated it again, up until this quote: “Catastrophes were lurking everywhere, too numerous to count. When he contemplated the many diseases and potential accidents threatening him, he was positively astounded that he had managed to survive in good health for as long as he had. It was miraculous. Each day he faced was another dangerous mission against mortality. And he had been surviving them for 28 years.” ***/*****

Longer than 3 lines. I suck.

Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut is stark and hilarious.***/*****

One line. Does that make up for it?