Maybe This Is Finally The Year I Move To Florida....

I think it's really weird that every year in the Midwest, no matter how butt-fuckingly brutal this last winter became, I am somehow still excited for fall.

Don't get me wrong, I'm soaking up every last minute of sunshine and warmth and if it's above 55 degrees, I'm in a sundress and loving life, but I smelled an apple a few days ago and longed for the fun things about autumn.

I am having a fantastic summer and I know there's still at least a month and a half left that is absolutely jam packed with events and concerts and fun, but I also saw Target stocked with all the trappings that incoming college freshmen will need for their dorms and I got a case of the warm fuzzies!!

It's hilarious to me that last Saturday, I was making out on beach up north at night with a sky full of stars and a warm breeze and fireworks going off in the distance and giggling about how it was literally the perfect rom-com night and wishing summer would never ever end. Now I'm getting excited for spooky clouds and color leaves and tailgating.

I don't think it helped that this last Friday we went to the Detroit City FC game and it absolutely felt like the drunk, rowdy adult version of going to a high school football game...if every single game was Homecoming. WHAT a fun time. But definitely reminded me of fall other than the fact that I was wearing jorts and sweating my tits off.

Whatever. I hear that it's going to be Polar Vortext v2.0 and I plan to spend the entire winter either snuggling or at formal charity events only so I better enjoy a snowless ground while that shit lasts!

Please, Please, Please, Come Back And Sing To Me....Dream Chris Martin

So, I'm just sleeping along like nobody's biz and I have the bestest dream.

I'm in a small crowd in a little venue that is pretty bright, looks maybe like a nice cocktail party in a beach house. Coldplay is playing on a stage. Yeah. Stay with me.

I'm grooving right along, trying not to make obvious orgasm faces because Chris Martin keeps making eye contact with me while playing. I tell myself "this is normal, performers do this when they can see the crowd". (John Legend made eye contact with me several times during a filming in real life and it was so fucking hard not to faint because DIMPLES) I'm just singing right along quietly, swaying and such and I feel a little person pair of hands on my legs. I look down and a small blond boy is snuggling right up to the back of my thigh. I see a person lean down to grab him off of me and I look up at the face and it's none other than fucking Gwyneth Paltrow.

She apologizes for her small son attaching himself to my glorious quad and I say that's totally ok and we strike up a conversation because she compliments my blouse. While Coldplay is still just rocking along, she and I discuss a few recipes we like and a restaurant I've been wanting to try and the sunscreens we prefer and my inner dialogue is all "Fuck yes! I'm now totally friends with GP and I'm about to be all up in the GOOP life, Spain, here we come!!" and then I decide to take the less-is-more approach to our new BFF status and get back to watching her consciously uncoupled babydaddy sing my feelings right back to me in hit song form.

While he's playing, he continues to make eye contact and as he's done with one song and the band decided to take a break, he comes down through the crowd and he's greeting people and he shakes my hand and walks away to talk to others. My pants are on fire, I'm trying SO hard to play it cool, but I assume my face looks like a high powered fan is blowing at it and every single one of my teeth is showing via my smile.

I go take a seat on a group of couches and ol GP's spidey senses must  have been tingling, because she comes to chill with me. Her kids are playing with me and we're shooting the shit about mutual friends like Taylor Swift (what??) and blahing and blahing and I'm marveling at how great she looks when she's not trying, but I also want a drink because always.

I get up to talk to a waiter because walking to the bar is for peasants, and over comes Chris Martin. He orders a cocktail as well and starts talking to me about English vodka (again, what??) and I'm just hanging on every word he says (exactly like my favorite Lifehouse song, weird) and we're chatting and he's making faces at me like he's totally relieved to have finally met me and then we discuss our love of deli sandwiches and delis in general. Not Jewish delis, so probably should call them sandwich shops. Then, just as I realize I should walk away, he's all "There's a great deli down the street and they have cupcakes, you want to go sometime?" and I almost explode into one giant glittery pile of yes, but I calmly just say "yeah! great." and he smiles and walks away. I don't even have time in this dream to realize he didn't grab my number because I then have to decide if it's cooler to be friends with Gwynie than to date her ex husband.

I think about it for about 4.1 seconds and realize "screw that vegan bitch, this man is all English smiles and stage hopping and writes love songs that literally cause me to burst into tears, plus she cheated on him according to Vanity Fair, so she's out, he's in". I don't throw my drink in her face or anything, I calmly go back and sit down and pretend she doesn't have eyes and didn't witness that entire encounter. I think Ill just pretend nothing happened as experience has told me to just keep shit to yourself until you are full-on confronted and absolutely have to say something.  She can suck it. And bloody seventh hell, I'll leave that talk to him, he's the one who stayed with that blond ball and chain for so long. I smile to myself in my dream as I have reached peace with the situation and I think Melissa J. Martin will look AMAZEBALLS on my stationery because we are now in love.

And then I wake up.

Fuck you alarm. Fuck you right in your stupid ass.

The Monday After July 4th Weekend

Is just.... the fucking.....worst.

I'M MY OWN BIGGEST HERO!

You know. Like any other lunch hour. Until....

I decided to head to the Lake Lansing bank branch today for my afternoon money drop. Lovely day, I can also drop off my rent, get some ice cream, you know, some me time. I always dread this area during lunch hour. I have no idea where all the people come from, but everyone in the greater Lansing area heads to this part of town around 11:30am on week days. I figure, it's no big deal, I'll get a cone and take my time weaving through a pattern of intersections I like to refer to as "The Devil's Nest". Anyway... I get my cone, I'm lickin' away and singing along to Mariah Carey on flashback lunch when I think I see a wayward squirrel slowly attempting to fumble his way across a busy street. As I get closer, and other cars coming the other direction do as well, I realize this is actually a baby woodchuck.

Yep.

My brain shifts into automatic hero mode as if I am seeing a member of my family inside a burning house. Zero fucks given for my own safety, I stop my car (and all the cars behind me) and put on my flashers. I leap out, simultaneously chucking my delicious ice cream cone over my car to the side of the road like I wasn't waiting all day for that frozen sugar, and throw up my hands to the cars coming my direction. Not gonna lie, I cut this close and I'm pretty lucky I didn't get just fucking mowed down, but I'm NOT going to watch a baby animal get squished. I'm just not. ESPECIALLY not a woodchuck.

Poor guy is just paralyzed with fear. He is not moving. I walk toward him with my hands down and my thoughts are 1. "Please hurry out of the road before people start yelling." and 2. "If I get my hands on you, you are my pet now, hold still, please." I get right up to him and I bend down and he tries to juke left, juke right, and then he turns his back on me. I clap and tell him to shoo and he scoots his ridiculously cute little fat ass out of the road and up into the deep weeds.

I take a bow, attempt my cutest smile/wave combo to the angry lunch commuters probably just fucking salivating to get to the Burger King behind me, and return to my care feeling like THAT WAS THE BEST THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED TO ME.

Could have been better if I'd actually gotten to pick up the baby woodchuck and get it into my car, but I'm not looking to get rabies right before 4th of July, you know? I've got booze to drink and burns to give myself with sparklers.

Stop Cheating! It's Sequence, Not The Olympics!

Last weekend was pretty damn fun. Discovering at 2:15am that Sonic now has fucking pickle chips alone was pretty epic, but then throw in the biking pub craw of Detroit and that's just a solid time, man. Drinking a hummer and eating fried green tomatoes on a patio with the crew? Really great vibes. And there are so many more to come before the season is over.

I am fixing to have one of those long weekends I loooooooove.

So much booze I slur and stumble and laugh at my own jokes. Glowing with sweat. Hair in a constant bun. Getting too much sun and not caring. Eating every five minutes because I have no idea if I'm full or not. More booze. Attempting to "get ready" to go out at night and realizing that just means taking off my swim suit. Fuck make up. Getting serious side-eye from the local girls. Giving zero fucks. Counting the lake as showering. Shoving each other while hiking. Trying to find Petoskey stones on the shore. Putting more lime in the guac than people prefer. Constant sandy feet. More booze. Playing Sequence until I scream at everyone. My hair blowing across my mouth, getting stuck in my chapstick. Sneaky sex. Wearing a bandana as a headband so everyone remembers I'm from a farm. Swearing I'll get a pedicure as soon as the 4th is over. Sparklers. Fireworks. More American Flag apparel than is necessary or tasteful. The rocks on my feet. Cannonballing off the pier. So much laughing my tummy starts to hurt. Never sleeping. The sound of the waves. The feel of the breeze. The pink of the sunset. Never wanting to go back home. Winery stops on the trip easing that pain.

Oh, summer, how I love you. I love you so hard.

If I Leave Now I Might Get Away

I am sitting there and being pleasant and polite and giggly and he starts arguing about talentless fucks and that art as a whole has gone downhill and it's all cheese and hacks have taken over everything, but all I'm doing is enjoying the booze in my hand. I state my case that "art truly is in the eye of the lover or buyer, and that's ok", but oh, no... that's not ok. That's wrong. I argue a little more, a little louder, a little sharper, but I realize I just want to enjoy this evening and the sun and so I relent a little, thinking about things I forgot to do today, mentally listing, and one of those is buy Banks tickets. Then I mention how it's so weird we're not at Dave right now and how, that we should be. Then it really begins. It actually began before that, but that's when my brain explodes.

"I'm so sick of Dave, you, me, us, we've seen him a hundred times and he never gets worse or better, it's just the same fucking thing..." and ....as his mouth keeps moving, his voice is trailing off, it starts. I'm staring at his perfect face and the violins of The Stone start. They start their faux classical intro. His voice is no longer there. He's smiling at me and talking and everyone at the table is joining in and I'm making corresponding facial expressions, but the classical vibe has faded and all I hear is the furious, precise, desperate, notes of guitar with violin behind it..like a bee hive. My head is becoming a bee hive. So appropriate as my name, and my monogram, are a honey bee, but still so inappropriate as now ALL I am hearing in my head is I've this creeping suspicion that things are not as they seem. And he keeps talking and joking, and his face is as handsome as ever and people are eating it all up, but all I'm thinking of is every shitty thing he's ever said to me or done to me, but then as it goes on yes I have done wrong, but what I did I thought needed be done, I swear, and I soften. And he looks at me, and he makes that face. As if he just now noticed I was actually pretty. And I know exactly what I look like right then. 

I know that setting sun directly on my face, with my eyes wide open, is my very best light. My eyes look almost all white, As heavy as stone and as blue as I go, and the red in my hair is fire and the blond in my hair is gold and my happy face with stern, angry eyes is probably my very best face, according to him. And the song just gets louder and louder and I was just wondering if you'd come along to hold up my head when my head won't hold on and I'll do the same if the same's what you want, If not I'll go, I will go alone he just holds my gaze and looks at me as if that moment will last our whole lives and in the next moment he's gone, a pile of snickers at some terrible joke someone else makes and my eyes dart around wondering if I can just leave - I will run and I'll be ok. And my head swims and swirls, but then I take another drink and I check my phone to see my father has called me and I draw in a deep smiley breath and I remember I'm fine, but I was just wondering if you'd come along, hold up my head when my head won't hold on. I'll do the same if the same's what you want; If not I'll go I will go alone. 

The song plays on, I hear nothing else, I look over at the sunset and I feel his hand creep to my back, comforting, claiming, but my eyes stay on the sunset and the breeze pushes my hair, and the song pounds on and I hate not being there live and I want to bust out of my skin, or be figure skating and it all crescendos in my head and I need so to stay in your arms, see you smile, hold you close, and it weighs on me, as heavy as stone and a bone chilling cold and I look back to him. Lock his eyes again.

Everything I love and hate about him swirls and I wonder if this is what things are just supposed to feel like. If this is what it means to be committed to someone and a life. But, mostly, I wonder how the fuck I got here and get the feeling that I'm on the fucking moon and feel as though I wasn't meant for this, I was meant to be somewhere else, someone else, who lets things fly out of them onto paper or canvas or ice or the ballet studio, or the pitch, or the bed or all of the above.  One thing I know is that I was not meant to be right here, at this time, sipping champagne on a patio with people I do not love, and how, most of all I was just wondering if you'd come along ..tell me you will.... and my eyes close, cutting his lock on them and I dip my head as a sea of guitar and violin take me away ....

I will wake up tomorrow pleasant and giggly all over again. Before my hangover sets in.

"Who's For Eva Braun Here; Who Wants To Burn Books?!?"

I have absolutely no time to write a blog. That's exactly why I'm going to do it. Being in charge of things sucks, y'all. I need to write.

I was just watching Field of Dreams last night, because of course I was, and I was thinking it's the perfect summer movie.

All that dusty sunlight, the crickets in the background, the relaxed, loose cotton wardrobe that was the norm on farms in the late 80's, everything. I absolutely love everything about that movie. The authenticity of what a small farm town mill looks like (the scene when Ray goes to pick up supplies and ask other farmers if they've heard voices) right down to Patsy Cline playing in the background while the old farmers socialize and talk shop. Ray's perfectly work jeans that appear to be his uniform. Annie pouring a baking pan full of Tater Tots to cook for dinner's side dish. The small-minded PTA meeting that Annie revolutionizes. (Annie is my idol, if you didn't get that)

This art directer outdid himself. That farmhouse is perfection. You can tell that its residents are forward-thinking individuals that really just wanted to live on a farm. The rich colors and art placed around the house, they loved it there.  It's more than functional, it's aesthetically pleasing as well and that's not incredibly common in midwest farm houses unless you're talking paintings of other farms and fake flowers.

I just love it. I love the light they captured. Watching this movie literally makes me feel 9 years old again, out in the middle of nowhere, when putting on overalls and eating a hot dog in your side yard while watching random men play baseball would have been absolutely thrilling. I could have been Karen. Our yard and the fields around our house and the woods next door - that was my scene and I really didn't ever feel like leaving it back then. I didn't want to go to Kalamazoo, I didn't want to go shopping, I needed nothing except snacks and outdoor adventures.

When I watch that movie, I can almost smell the late August corn. The way it smells very earthy and rich, especially after it rains. The smell of fresh cut grass and the sound of hog feeders clanking shut off in the distance. I miss it. I miss that simplicity.

"Is this heaven?"
"No...it's Michigan."