"Is there anybody out there?"*

   Yes, hello, I’m still alive.

   But just barely.

   Just kidding. I’m fine and all my problems continue to be first world problems: I didn’t get enough sleep, my hair looks weird, my projects in school are hard, the boy I like hasn’t texted, etc. So, essentially, I have the same exact problems I had in high school except for now I have a smart phone so I can agonize about the lack of texts even while I'm having fun and my skin is slightly (SLIGHTLY) better. Then again I’m decidedly heavier than I was when I was waiting for phone calls in high school.

   Sigh out loud.

   Truly, I feel I’m writing tonight because I have to have an outlet to whine about all those pesky problems I manage to wrangle out of everyday life. I’m being utterly irresponsible for writing anything not school related right now. But I just gotta “dear diary” for a few minutes, you know?

   And now, that said, I pretty much have to go back to the ol’ grindstone, though I’m not putting my nose to it because I’m still a lady, after all. So I guess this isn’t much of a post.

   But I am alive, and I will be finished with school (for the summer, mind you) in mere weeks. And then prepared to be bombarded with all the crap I haven’t had time to write (or complain about) in months. I miss all the bitching, don’t you?

   Hang tight, dear reader (hi, Mom!). I got lots to tell you about.

*Pink Floyd (duh).

"A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others."*

   So, when listing my life skills in my head while trying to fall asleep at night, I rarely come up with more than a few solid entries. I have delightful penmanship. I can fry a mean egg. I know most of the cast and crew of just about any film from the 40’s. Yarl. See? Boo. Lackluster at best.

   But if there’s one thing I’m really good at, it’s correcting people. I do it all the time. It’s like I have a special government-issued license for telling people they’re wrong. And I’ve been consciously trying to NOT do that for…well, not very long. Maybe just the last month or so. It was a sort of subconsciously decided New Year's Resolution. And it’s really hard. Because I think I know better about everything than everyone. And it makes life super difficult for me. Wah.

   But the thing is, I don’t know much about much of anything, so I’m not entirely sure why I think I’m the proper person to correct someone’s grammar, or suggest that his/her way of making coffee is off, or point out why her/his opinions are stupid. 

   I’ve analyzed this shortcoming and I think it has a lot to do with my inherent feeling that people should think I’m really smart. Not that I’m the most intelligent person that ever was (read: not that I am ACTUALLY SMART), but because being passably smart has often been the only thing I felt I had going for me. You could say that I’m not quite pretty enough to model or funny enough for my own sitcom, and maybe you don’t want me on your soccer league or as a member of your band, but please think I’m smart! Please! I don’t know why this is so important, but clearly it is. And I maybe need more some therapy. 

   I’ve always been average. Average height, average weight, average hair color, average face. I hate average. I want to be AMAZING. At something. 

   So I tell you that you shouldn't eat your fish cooked past a sear or that you shouldn't shift into second gear until it feels right to me or that you shouldn't wear that shade of mascara with your skin/eyebrow color. It's so annoying, right? I thank my lucky stars every day that I have anyone that calls me their friend.

   I think I’m the classic case of the gal who could dish it out, but couldn’t take it. And part of that is my supreme sensitivity (I guess I’m above average in that department, but, again, boo, because who wants to be above average at being sensitive?). But part of it is also that I’m so easily discouraged. Fear often addles my brain and makes me inclined to do and say stupid, WEIRD things that I don’t even think about before they leave my mouth, but that if they were said to me by someone else would kill a little part of me.

   [Whispered aside: I wonder if Seth McFarlane or Rob McElhenney feel this way when people say shocking, offensive things to them. They’re hilarious, in my book, but they’re ridiculously offensive. When I’m offensive, I’m often just trying my best to be hilarious. But is it so offensive that it doesn’t work? I’m not a TV show. I’m just existing in the world, trying to maintain at least semi-healthy relationships with semi-regular people. Maybe the whole thing is just the setting? Like, if I were to channel all my “humor” into a book or an art project or TV show, would I stop being horrible in life?]

   Whoa, excuse me. That was a tad too much free styling, wasn’t it? I have issues, clearly. But the end-all-be-all is this: if I correct you, it’s not because I think I actually know things. I DON’T. But because I want you to like me. And, obviously, I just want to make you a better person.

*Ayn Rand.

"Death will be a great relief. No more interviews."*

   [After righting (really??) writing this and rereading it, I imagined it in a deep, emotional voice.]  

   Hello.

   It’s been a while.

   My life is a series of unimportant misadventures, so I won’t try to make this seem more epic than it is.

   But changes have occurred.

   No, I’m not majestically thin and one-chinned, like I hope for every year.

   And I do have new stories and drawings…but they mostly play on iterations of my failures at life, which is fair game for this blog. But still.

   Okay, enough. This post is veering toward what seems disturbingly like a Todd Rundgren song (not that there's anything wrong with Sir TR).

   I had the worst interview of my life the other day. (Just kidding I've had worse.)

   I’d been in Omaha for FOUR WEEKS (what?!?) and I’d only been back in Austin for a day when I received an email from one of the higher up professors here at school (we’ll call him Dr. W) saying that I’d been suggested as a viable candidate for a TA position (no idea who would have gotten that idea).

   These TA positions are rad. I mean, at the very least, you get in-state tuition, which would, if I were to receive it, significantly decrease the inevitable hell of debt I’ll face upon graduating from this super expensive lofty institution.

   So I pulled my hung over responsible, well-rested ass out of bed at the butt-crack of dawn to be at Dr. W’s office at 8:30. Okay, so it’s not really that early, but whatever, I was coming off 4 weeks of 13-hour sleeps. I was seemingly the first person in the building. The janitor was just getting started, classes hadn’t begun and I had on my most responsible looking ensemble (eye-drops, blazer, socks, etc..). Another gal was sort of sneaking in and out and around through the building, but I figured she was lost. Dr. W wasn’t in his office yet and so I had to be his first interview of the day.

   By 8:45, I was draped over a chair, my chin on the back, staring out the window at the fog.

   Dr. W stepped off the elevator with the creepster girl and started walking towards his office.

   I followed them.

   “I’m early,” she said.

   “No, I think you’re right on time.”

   “Maybe you’re thinking she’s me. I’m Lacey. I’m supposed to be your 8:30.”

   He turned and stared at me for a moment.

   “No, Lacey, I think I have you at 9.”

   The other girl said, “I’m supposed to be at 9.”

   He said, “Lacey, you won’t mind, will you?”

   I'm not gonna lie to you. I think he took her first because she's black. But whatever.

   So I slunk back to the lobby and read the 3^rd installment in the Caroline B. Cooney’s The Face on the Milk Carton series for young adult readers for half an hour.

   When he finally ushered me into the room, everything seemed odd.

   I sat down.

   He got on his computer and typed for a few minutes.

   “So, do you have any questions?”

   We hadn’t spoken before, so I had several.

   I began by asking him to explain the class.

   He said that in addition to one graduate TA, he would have 5 undergrad GA’s who would effectively do all the work. Then he explained the online discussion forum, how they'd tried it 3 or 4 times, how he didn't think it was so great and he wasn't sure why the University kept doing it.

   I said, “And you’ve done this before?”

   He said, “Yeah. I just said that. Literally one minute ago.”

   I suppose I’d meant the question as more of a rhetorical one, as in "why do you keep doing a virtual discussion that you think is counterproductive?" but okay. I was shamed, in the way I generally feel shamed anywhere I go outside of grocery stores, the only place where I feel free to tell people how rude and inappropriate their behavior is.

   “Sorry.”

   Meek.

   Then he talked some more about the class, and the program in general. He was mostly reading emails and looking out the door.

   “Do you have any questions?”

   I tried to explain what I felt the class was about, structured as a question. “It seems to be a class about the practical application of advertising in different career fields…?”

   “No. That’s not really it at all.” You could feel that what he meant to say was, "No, you fucking moron. That has nothing to do with anything. Shut your mouth when you're talking to me."

   I felt like I was in some sort of awkward shame spiral. I didn’t have anymore real questions to ask, because usually people ask me questions during interviews.

   “Well, do you have a syllabus I could look at?” I had asked him repeatedly to just tell me in plain language what the class was about and every way I approached it, he acted as though I were some sort of feeb who didn’t understand English.

   The syllabus cleared up a few points. But not many.

   But for some reason, we looked at it for a long time and then he started telling me stories about undergrads who'd tried to use this class to get into the advertising major and how they'd failed: Jason and Maria, in case you're interested. Yes, he was naming names. I was sweating in a weird, sick person sort of way. My face felt really hot.

   He asked me if I had any questions. I was very uncomfortable. I couldn't keep coming up with questions for a whole interview, could I?

   So I asked if he had any questions.

   He pulled out my résumé and stared at it.

   It was all misformatted (not a word), with a bunch of crapola HTML printed out in large type all over the top.

   “Oh no. That’s not right.” I pulled out a copy from my bag.

   “Well, now you know that this can happen,” he offered, throwing the ill-formatted résumé in the garbage. "And, so you know, you're here because what's-her-name Natalie bailed on me. Maybe you know her?"

   “I don't know if I do?"

   "Well, she flaked."

   "Sorry...?"

   Meek again. Who was I? Why couldn’t I speak? Why did he keep ratting people out?

   Long silence.

   “Why did you spell ‘copyeditor’ as one word?”

   I panicked. As you already know, if you read this blog at all, I AM A HORRIBLE SPELLER.

   “Um, I don’t know.” I crept behind him and read over his shoulder. “I thought it was one word?”

   “Hmmm…maybe it is. I don’t actually know.”

   He stared some more.

   “If you want to know, I’m actually a really bad speller. I mean, not bad. I’m a good writer. I write. I mean, I use the computer to help me when I’m spelling. I have a blog. It’s about how I’m good with ideas and not so much with spelling…?”

   (OH MY GOD WHY AM I TALKING ABOUT WHAT A BAD SPELLER I AM IN THE MIDDLE OF AN INTERVIEW FOR A TEACHING POSITION??)

   “Are you in creative?” he asked.

   “Yes. But I just got in.”

   “Okay, so what was your answer to the question?”

   He pulled out the prompt from a month ago. The one that caused me a lot of sleepless nights and hard, hard work.

   I told him my answer to the prompt.

   He raised one eyebrow and shook his head as if to indicate that he had no idea why a big old dumb-dumb such as myself could have made it into Texas Creative.

   Silence.

   “Why don’t you send me a copy of that application?”

   I agreed to it, though I was scared he'd tell people all about how bad it was. It seemed clear that he didn't keep secrets very well.

   “You wanna see some really great résumés?” he asked.

   We spent the next 15 minutes looking at résumés on his computer, beautiful résumés clearly created by graphic designers, with timelines and pie charts and arrows and colors, and he said he’d email them to me, so I could make mine better.

   I felt thoroughly shamed.

   My résumé was bad. And it was not well formatted. I couldn’t spell. My creative application was awful. I’d arrived at “the wrong time.” And I asked a question he’d already answered a minute before. I couldn’t wait to get back into bed.
   He said he'd be in touch and let me know by the day's end.

   On my walk of shame home, I looked up “copyeditor." Chicago Manual of Style agrees with me, as does Word. Your basic Google search and this here Blogger: not so much.

   But She of the 9 o’clock appointment got the gig, even though it turned out all the words on my résumé were spelled correctly..

   Life is a game of whack-a-mole, as my friend Rebecca always says. And I’ll talk more about my insane blessings in a future post (yeah right, who wants to hear about things going great for someone? Isn't that just a blog about bragging?), but it feels good to be back and telling you all my troubles. 

Do you think my résumé really needs work?

*Katharine Hepburn. Dark, admittedly, but she has a point. Although I'm pretty sure she wasn't referring to job interviews.

"Obsession is the single most wasteful human activity, because with an obsession you keep coming back and back and back to the same question and never get an answer." OR "Without obsession, life is nothing."*

   Okay so I haven’t been writing on this here blog so much lately. And yes, a lot of that is school-related. But there’s another critical factor that I haven’t mentioned, due to addiction and its related shame: I’m obsessed with Sudoku.

   It started about a year ago when I began finding it too physically taxing to print out crosswords from the New York Times and found I could play Sudoku online. It escalated once I realized that there was a free Sudoku app. It reached critical mass when I found myself playing Sudoku during boring lectures, while watching TV, and while using the bathroom (even just to go pee). I’ve probably played 300 games of Sudoku on my phone this week while “watching” Chopped and Family Ties reruns on Netflix. It’s taken over my life, like so many other things have in the past. I guess I’m an official addictive personality. But such a sad, lame one.

   When we were kids, we weren’t allowed video games at home. But I would spend the night at Em’s every week or so, and while she and James played Nintendo, I played on their sweet-ass, vintage Pinball machine. Video games have always scared me because I hate being chased. Every time I picked up a controller, I started to panic and sweat, thinking a mushroom or a turtle would attack me or I’d fall in a hole. So I didn’t really try, and let myself go down in the first moments, because the stress was too much to handle. I think that’s how I’d behave in real life if I were being chased by a bear or a mugger: I’d run really hard until the panic started to get overwhelming, and then I’d lie down in the fetal position and cry. (This might not be a horrible strategy for the bear scenario.) Solitary games that had little to do with dexterity have always worked best for me: Pinball, Solitaire, Oregon Trail, and crossword puzzles. And now, Sudoku. 

   It’s a disease, though, really, because I devote so much time to it. Nights when I should be writing or drawing, instead I’m trying to beat my Expert Level score while countless episodes of Family Ties play in the background. It’s mind numbing. Initially I thought: hey, I’ll never get dementia! I’m playing a brain game! But now I think that once again I’m just really bored. 

All the things I might be doing if not for Sudoku.

   It gets worse: sometimes I see that I’ve gotten three answers wrong. If you get four answers wrong, you’ve essentially “lost the game” and you’ve ruined your track record. So when I continue playing after already getting 3 x’s, I feel like I’m really living life on the edge. Just writing that sentence is so profoundly sad.

   Tell me about your addictions so I feel better about myselves. (Freudian? I meant to write “myself” but wrote “myselves.” Hmmm…)

*Okay, so I have two quotes up there. The first is Norman Mailer. The second is John Waters. I will always lean toward John Waters, WHATEVER THE ISSUE, but Mailer has a slight point as well. Eh?

"Eat that turkey all night long, 50 million Elvis fans can't be wrong. Turkey lurkey doo and turkey lurkey dap, I eat that turkey then I take a nap."*

   Happy Thanksgiving!

   Oh wow. It’s been so long since I’ve blogged.

   I’m sorry.

   I wanted to write tonight because it’s my favorite holiday! But also because I’d like to ease back in to the blogosphere without drawing too much attention to the fact that I’ve been totally AWOL for a month. Only my loyal reader will know this (thanks, Mom), but I still feel like an apology’s an order. I’m sorry.

   I turns out graduate school is hard, which is funny, because I always thought graduate school was for people who didn’t feel quite ready for the real world. But, oddly, graduate school is much harder than the real world in many ways. One of the ways it’s harder is that you have to work in groups a lot (at least, with advertising projects you do) and I’ve never been great at playing well with others. So that’s hard. Also, you’re only in school for about 6-8 hours a week, but when you’re not in school you’re working on school for about 35-60 hours a week. So that’s a little bit hard, too.

   I’m in no position to tell you one particular story today but I will tell you what I’m thankful for and a few things that have been on my mind over the last month, and hopefully in the next couple of weeks I’ll be a better blogger (if not a better friend, student, or person).

1.  I think Stephen King based Misery on Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? I’ve been thinking about this since Halloween, when Momma and I watched it. I don’t think I have to spell this out for you but consider this: a once-famous person is now wheelchair bound and at the mercy of a crazed psychopath who tortures her but also really wants her love and approval. Also, she is fed weird things and often starved. Hmmm…

2.  Along those same lines, I recently picked up a copy of Jackie Collins’ Hollywood Wives at the local Goodwill. I didn’t know it was erotica, and I’m not entirely sure Jackie thinks of her “novels” that way, but good lord there was a lot of sex in that book. But I read it all, of course. But while I was reading it I started thinking that Claire’s mother in Troop Beverly Hills was supposed to be Jackie Collins. Remember that part when they’re sitting in her fancy sports car and her mom says into her tape recorder, “He saw her underthings and then…” she turns to Claire and says, “Then what?” And Claire says “Felt his manhood rising to a frenzy?” And then the mom says, “And felt his manhood rising to a pulsating frenzy.” And then she’s super proud of her daughter? I think she’s supposed to be based on Jackie Collins! Wow, that was a long story for no reason.

3.  I think the word “cute” is really condescending unless you happen to be a small child or a rabbit or other tiny animal. When I show someone a piece of art or something I wrote and they call it “cute” I feel like they’re telling me “That is so wonderful for someone under the age of 7. Good job, Lace!” It’s basically a slap in the face. On the other hand, it’s totally okay when used to describe an outfit. Hmmm…weird.

   Okay, well there’s lots more on my mind, but this seems like a good place to leave things off. I just took some of this:

   So hopefully my night will be turning back in my favor in the next couple of hours. I hope you all had a great November and a wonderful Thanksgiving and I will be back on board with this blog over the next couple of weeks.
   I'm thankful for Central Heating, turkey, gloves, heartburn meds, and friends and family. And a country that builds a whole day around eating and being thankful. And wine. 

*Adam Sandler's "The Thanksgiving Song."

"Don't go to Corpus, go the other way!" "Where are we gonna go, Alaska?" "Anywhere but Corpus!"*

   This is Part Two of my trip to Corpus Christi with my friends Brandon, Katie, and Alex. Read Part One here.  

   We booked our hotel rooms in Corpus Christi a couple of weeks out. I think we all felt like we’d gotten a pretty decent deal. When we had finally passed the miles and miles of oil refineries and entered what seemed to be a booming metropolitan area, we breathed a collective sigh of relief. And as we crossed the bridge from Downtown Corpus Christi to an area known (we would learn later when we spent and hour trying to order a pizza) as Portland, we thought it looked pretty spectacular.

   There was a large battle ship, the USS Lexington, an aircraft carrier built during World War II that we could see from the bridge. Brandon and I are both WWII nerds, so we geeked out over the possibilities for later that day or the next. We saw sunlight sparkling off the Gulf of Mexico, sand and people, and loads of buildings on what looked to be a pedestrian pier. We felt pretty excellent about being in Corpus Christi. Pretty fucking proud of ourselves.

   And then we got to the hotel.

Here is a drawing of our hotel.

   The Days Inn Hotel in Corpus Christi is owned by a middle-aged Indian couple who seem both incredibly kind and incredibly confused at all times. Not to swing racist here, but in a not-so-good way, the lobby of the hotel smelled like Indian food. And don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Indian food. Just maybe not outside of a home or restaurant. I think in a lobby you maybe want to smell flowers or at least PineSol. Not a distant memory of Palak Paneer.

   I asked if I could fill up my water bottle, but the lady owner said they didn’t have “drinking water.” And there didn’t appear to be a vending machine. So, fine, I would subsist on cocktails until we left the old CC. No big deal.

   Alex and I were bunking together but our room wasn’t ready, so we changed in Brandon and Katie’s room, which smelled of unchanged air conditioning filters, and headed to the beach.

   After a mere two blocks past unoccupied apartment complexes and deserted parking lots, we came upon what Corpus Christians (that can’t be right, can it? Corpus Christiados?) call a beach. Alex and Brandon ran for the waves. Katie and I stood on the sand for a minute.

   “This can’t be all of it, right?” I gestured to the approximately 15-foot strip of shell- and rock-covered beach. “Is this the tiniest beach in the world?”

   “Maybe it’s just high tide? Really, really high tide?” Katie was trying to be positive. It was Brandon’s first time to the ocean and she was bound and determined to make the most of the experience, if only for his sake.

   I tried to take on her attitude and agreed that yes, perhaps, it was the highest of high tides and the beach was secretly 60 feet wider during its off hours.

   But we swam for a few hours in the bathtub warm, gray and green, high-waved water. It was my first time in the Gulf waters and it was just as pleasant as the Southern Atlantic: but slightly more fun due to the pleasant waves.

   I was initially nervous, having heard that the Gulf Coast is a hangout for jellyfish, but we saw nothing but oilrigs in the sea, and I have a feeling nothing much is able to survive in the water around Corpus Christi. The four other humans we saw on the beach may have known more about it.

   On our walk back to the hotel after a couple of hours of swimming we found a syringe on the sidewalk near the parking lot. It seemed pretty funny, since my buddy Mike had joked about me collecting pretty syringes from the beach for him when I told him about the trip. We stepped around it, changed, and headed for the nearest restaurant.

   After about a mile in the scorching heat, we found the “nearest restaurant.” It was maybe also the only restaurant. It was called “Fajitaville” and it was sort of like how you might feel if you’d walked for 20 miles and found a Chuck E. Cheese: it would do, but only if you had no other options or there were a gun to your head. We were hungry from heat and swimming and walking, so we ate dinner around 3 pm. And we drank cocktails. And we figured we could probably do better, so we walked further on down the boardwalk.

   Along the boardwalk near a Radisson a middle-aged man in a revealing red Speedo walked up to us confidently. He had a paunch and an inordinate amount of body confidence and faced us squarely from the sidewalk in all his sub-par body glory.

   “I’ll race any one of you for a thousand dollars!” He grinned and put his hands on his hips, sort of managing to thrust his gut and junk at us in one gesture.

   I was tempted for a second. I could really use a thousand dollars, if you want to know. But I stayed strong.

“Thanks, I’m pretty sure we’d lose,” I said. And we kept walking.

I figured: this is America, and anyone can stay at the Radisson if they can afford it. But I'd rather not win $1000 and not get stabbed in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. In Corpus Christi. What an unromantic way to die.

   When we reached the U.S.S. Lexington, we thought maybe we were probably pretty close to the exciting part of town. We took a couple photos of the ship and the naval planes and planned to take a tour the next day, since it was already closed. Then we walked 10 feet past the aircraft carrier and found the only other restaurant in Portland: Pier 99. Oh sigh out loud. Okay, so it wasn’t the only restaurant, but most of the other restaurants (all 4) were closed (at 5:30 on Friday) so it may as well have been the only restaurant. But it had a bathroom, so it wasn’t all that bad.

   The nice waitress gave me a Band-Aid for my walking-in-cute-but-impractical-shoes blister and brought us a round of margaritas. She told us some hip, happening spots in downtown Corpus Christi to check out: Pinky’s and Cassidy’s stand out in my mind. We thanked her and said we might check them out the next day. We listened to a strained local band play incredibly...audible covers of Neil Young and Tom Petty. We grimaced as grackles got so freaking close to us you’d have thought they were someone’s trained pets. And the margaritas were pretty foul. And yet, I managed to drink mine. But she refunded the remaining three, which remained on the table nearly full.  My friends have more taste and self-control than I do. Especially when I’m nervously trying to out-drink an uncomfortable situation.

   So we decided to go back to the hotel and just drink there. We paid up and headed back to Days Inn.

   More to follow!

*The quote is from Selena (Gregory Nava, 1997). She was a beautiful angel from Corpus Christi (and her life story brought J. Lo to fame, so she's doubly awesome). Thank you, dear Mary Killian, for cluing me in to this perfect quote! 

"In the regular world, Halloween is when children dress up in costumes and beg for candy. In Girl World, Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it."*

   Okay, so I know Halloween weeks away, but I’ve been trying to brainstorm an amazing costume idea for two weeks already because a. I have a fun Halloween party to go to and I already know about it so I am obligated and at leisure to plan and 2. I want to have a great, non-slutty costume all ready to go so I don’t get caught with my pants down (literally or figuratively).

   I tend to lean towards movie characters or Golden Age movie stars—I was Holly Golightly last year (and ended up having the sluttiest costume at that particular party, ironically).  But I would like to shoot for the stars this year, since Halloween really does matter to me. But I’d also like to avoid buying a wig, since, having disposed of my handy wig collection many years ago, I don’t really feel like heading down that road again. Wigs are expensive, so you end up keeping them, storing them, thinking you’ll use them again. And the next thing you know you’re a senior in college with a box full of wigs and no place to put it so you bust it out at dinner parties after you graduate and your landlord drops by unannounced and thinks you’re some sort of “dominatrix” weirdo when all you were trying to do was put your hair pieces to some good use. For an example.

   So I’ve been doing some scrolling through the Interwebs and hoping for inspiration to strike me. I’ve considered 80’s icons (Cyndi Lauper, Prince [Prince, Prince, Prince!], Freddie Mercury, and Pat Benetar). I’ve thought about 80’s movie characters (Baby from Dirty Dancing, Mrs. White from Clue). I’ve even considered revisiting some of the classic horror films (Regan from The Exorcist, Rhoda from The Bad Seed, Jane Hudson from What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Melanie Daniels from The Birds). 

Scary Rhoda from The Bad Seed.

   It was when I started really thinking about scary movies that it occurred to me that you SHOULD be scary on Halloween. If at all possible, your costume should have some element of horror or science fiction or thriller about it. And the more horror films and SCI-FI classics I thought of, the more I realized that most of those evil women characters, or even the female victims in those movies are BLONDES.

   Maybe you’ve already thought of this yourself, but if you haven’t, consider this:

REGAN, The Exorcist (Blonde—and later greenish, but mostly blonde)

RHODA, The Bad Seed (Blonde. Very, very blonde.)

JANE HUDSON, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (Scary, haunt-your-nightmares blonde.)

NELL, The Haunting (Annoying, hope-she-dies-soon blonde)

LAMIA, Stardust (Gorgeous and also hideous blonde)

CLAUDIA, Interview With a Vampire (Still blonde)

THE CHILDREN, Children of the Corn (Holy god, they’re blonde)

HITCHCOCK, Separate category (yeah, I know, he was obsessed with blondes)

Joan Fontaine (Suspicion, Rebecca)

Grace Kelly (To Catch a Thief, Dial M for Murder, Rear Window)

Doris Day (The Man Who Knew Too Much)

Eva Marie Saint (North by Northwest)

Janet Leigh (Psycho)

Tippi Hedren (The Birds, Marnie)

Blonde. Melanie Daniels.

   What the what? Why are all these scary ladies (or leading ladies in scary movies) blondes? Admittedly, blondes have more fun, but I thought being a brunette was supposed to be especially awesome because we are the embodiment of evil (you know, dark forces and what-not…and aren’t witches usually brunettes?). Cinema is saying otherwise, however, and unless I want to go as a Disney version of a bad lady (Malificent, Ursula, Snow White’s Stepmom—most recently portrayed in the movies by Charlize Theron, a blonde—or one of the Wicked Stepsisters), I’m stuck buying a blonde wig.

   Which bums me out a little bit.

   I should quit complaining. I guess as long as I don't dress like a whore, I'm okay. Unless I decide to go as an actual whore, in which case I can (and should) dress as one. They're usually not as pretty as you'd think, though, from my own personal experience.

   But I'll probably just go buy a wig.

   And, if you want to know the truth, I do look pretty scary with blonde hair. 

*Mean Girls (Mark Waters, 2004).

"Corpus Christi ranked fattest city in America by Men's Heath..."

   So last weekend I went to Corpus Christi, Texas, United States of America.

   My new friends Brandon and Katie thought it would be in our best interest to hit the Gulf Coast, seeing as we’re only 3 hours away, and get a feel for the warm waves and the sandy beaches. So we piled into the car with our buddy Alex and headed for Corpus Christi.

   There were many signs that it was a bad choice.

The essence of Corpus Christi, TX.

   I had gotten the impression beforehand from some of my friends who are Texas natives that maybe it isn’t so fun to go to Corpus Christi. I wasn’t sure why, but they all sounded remarkably confused when we mentioned our trip and I thought they were all just being haters.

   They said things like,

   “Corpus Christi? Why?”

   And

   “Make sure you pick up lots of pretty needles from the beach for me!”

More of the essence of Corpus Christi, TX.

   And

   “Oh hell no, I’m not going with you!”

   And yeah, these were real signs. Cuz, see, it turns out there was and is a reason Texans don’t go to Corpus Christi.

   It turns out that Corpus Christi, Texas, is the shit hole of the universe.

   There is much to tell, so for now I’ll leave you with these couple of images.

   Stay tuned for news of prostitutes, drug use, late-night pizza delivery, swimming challenges, and margaritas so bad they had to be returned (is it possible? Oh yes, yes it is!). And that was all within the course of 3 hours. 

   Yum.

   Corpus Christi.

*Just one of many interesting facts about Corpus Christi.

"Possum. Big freaky lookin' bitch. Since when did they change it to 'opossum'? When I was coming up it was just possum. Opossum makes it sound like he's Irish or something. Why they gotta go changing everything?"*

   So the other night I was sitting on my balcony overlooking my adorable, albeit dry, creek and minding my own business when—wait, back up. That’s not correct. I was inside at this point in the evening. There may have been wine involved, so bear with me. Rewind.

   Yes, so anyway, I was inside enjoying an episode of Monk (or twelve—I’m a spy, remember? So it’s okay), when there was a crash on the balcony (overlooking my adorable, albeit dry, creek blah blah blah. Alright, the creek isn’t mine. But the view is, so there you go.).

   My first thought was, “Godammit! That rascally opossum from the creek finally figured out how to swing from one of those tree branches onto the porch!” Now, despite the fact that the ‘possum would have to swing a good fifty feet from any tree to reach my porch is part of why it was so terrifying. It would have to be a high-climbing, industrious, and probably plagued ‘possum. And that has basically been my worst fear for the entire month I’ve lived in this apartment, so it would only make sense that I had willed it to happen. I half-expected to see his gnarly, rabid face all up in the glass of the sliding door. But no. The opossum was out somewhere in the neighborhood minding his own business as well. Opossum don’t care. Opossum don’t give a shit.

Rogue opossum swinging onto my porch. Nightmare realized.

   It was people that made the crash on my porch.

   I turned on the light and saw my coffee cup from earlier all smashed to shit and a paper airplane stuck inside what looked like a broken coffee machine piece (a cup holder?) or some such bullshit. I don’t know what things are called, okay? Here, I’ll show you:

I think I get easily carried away by Hipstagram and photo effects. Can't help it!

 

 

  And all masking-taped around the side was “You’re cute! You’re cute! You’re cute!”

   And the paper airplane had some UT student’s 8^th-grade-level algebra homework all over it.

   My first thought was, “Oh wow, someone has a huge crush on me!” I wondered if it was that little undergrad Tyler in the apartment above and to the right of mine who brought me incense one time and had friends over all that night making noise and having “deep” conversations about what they liked best about themselves.

   For a second, I thought it was kind of sweet.

   Then, as I was cleaning up the shards of glass from my balcony, I started to get a little pissed. Where’d those fuckers go, anyway? They threw a note onto my porch, broke my mug and then bolted? That’s not nice. And if I’m so cute, why not stick around to apologize for breaking my shit?

   And then the thoughts spiraled. I thought to myself: I bet none of them really thinks I’m cute! Besides boys never say you’re cute, girls say that. Those turds think they’re really clever and funny and they’re making fun of me! Those fucking jive-ass turkey shits!

   There was more evidence that the love note wasn’t legit: the algebra homework belonged to some girl named Jenell, and girls are always the ones who decide to do mean things to other girls (and say “you’re cute!”). I was thinking about how I was going to march upstairs and beat the shit out of Jenell, and then smash a bunch of shit on Tyler’s balcony and then unleash an opossum into their apartment! They’d be so sorry…

   But I’m kind of shy. And Jenell’s math homework made me sad. She’s clearly in some sort of remedial math class for morons, so life isn’t going to be too easy on her unless she happens to be really pretty (we already know she’s not smart or interesting).

   As I stepped out onto the balcony an hour or so later to talk to Regan on the phone, Tyler came outside.

   “Hi,” he said. He was alone.

   “Hi,” I wasn’t fuming anymore, but I didn’t know how to act.

   “Did we break some of your stuff earlier?”

   “Um, yeah.”

   “I’m really sorry about that. My friends were really drunk. They didn’t mean to break anything.”

   “It’s okay, I guess. Do you need your paper airplane back?” I was joking.

   “No.” He was really serious. I think he actually felt super bad. I guess if it were I, I would’ve hidden for months until the whole incident was a distant memory, so I had to give him credit for apologizing.

   “Alright then.”

   “Have a good night. I’m sorry.”

   “It’s okay.”

   Regan told me that if it’d happened to her, she’d take it as an omen from the spirits that she was super hot. I think she used the word “fine,” but she’s never really gotten over the 90’s, so we have to make allowances.

   I just can’t imagine what weird time warp I’ve fallen into that has me dealing with the ins-and-outs of a 19-year-old boy’s mind again. I've also kind of been thinking since I was 18 or so that I wouldn't have to deal with 19-year-olds again until I had a kid that was 19. I guess I’m just lucky to be back in college doing my thing, even if there happen to be 19-year-olds who live in my immediate vicinity. Life isn't perfect.

   I’ve also decided to take the note as a sweet gesture that went awry. What's the point in being negative? So I can work super hard to not like myself? Even if those kids don’t actually think I’m cute (though obviously I AM), they could’ve written something truly mean. And I don’t think they meant to break my mug. And the paper airplane was pretty decent. Maybe Jenell has a some kind of future in paper airplanes. (I certainly hope she never gets her hands near a real airplane... just based entirely on her math skills.)

*Jesse Pinkman on Breaking Bad (Vince Gilligan, 2008).