looking back, and then forward, and then to the side real quick because i thought i saw a bug

well, it's dec. 31. what better day to look back on the year behind you and forward to the year ahead? maybe jan. 1, but i would argue they're about equal.

anyway, this post might get a bit personal, so if you hate that kind of stuff, stop reading now. TRIGGER WARNING! SPOILER ALERT! CAUTION: SPLASH ZONE! THIS MACHINE DOES NOT ACCEPT BILLS OVER $1!

i have some stuff to be proud of in 2014. i:

• flossed almost daily
• joined and regularly went to the gym, like worked out in it and everything
• took improv classes
• traveled abroad by myself

i also decided to give up on resolutions i just don't care about, but felt like i "should" do. like my counselor once said, "stop shoulding on yourself!" therefore i will no longer try to:

• learn to cook and stop eating out so much

because eating out is amazing.

ok! that concludes the looking back part of this blog post. now to 2015.

there are definitely some things i need to do next year. i want to:

• pay off my credit card. i already did my budget for the year and i can totally do this.
• write on the internet several times a week. already started. going great.
• travel abroad by myself again (different direction).
• stop being so mean to my skin. i think the key to this one is to stay busy and address the reasons i do this bad habit, because i really only do it when i'm super bored or sad and then i'll just stand in front of the mirror forever finding every little imperfection in my skin and "fixing" it by, you know, making it 1,000 times worse. this has felt like a big part of my life since i was a teenager so i honestly can't picture changing it now, but hey, look at those other things i did that i had never done before! things are possible, i guess?
• continue to floss and go to the gym. (i just added this one so i could definitely cross one off next year.)

in conclusion, i'm a privileged white middle-class american.

HAPPY @)!%!!

my upstairs neighbor

my upstairs neighbor has a very active 3-4am routine and is, tragically, a minotaur. he must work the graveyard shift somewhere -- probably the graveyard, where no one can be put off by his big, powerful, hairy thighs, because they're all dead. 

he gets home around 3am and has to stomp off all the dirt and mud from his hooves, and this takes approximately an hour. sometimes it wakes me up, but instead of getting angry, i just remind myself how grateful i am to have regular human legs.

one night the minotaur had a friend over! this friend also did not have regular human legs, but instead -- and this is very sad -- lived in one of those large rubbermaid bins and got around by kind of hop-scooting everywhere. again, this was quite noisy for me, the downstairs neighbor, but truly i am just heartwarmed that in such an image-obsessed society, a minotaur and a bin person can find each other and be friends. this brings me joy.

still, i wonder, would he prefer a basement apartment? NOT SAYING WE SHOULD PUT ALL MINOTAURS IN THE BASEMENT. i would never say that. but what if there were just some incentives, like living in a little minotaur community, and maybe free dry cleaning for all their shirts? i don't know, i'm just an ideas person. and ideas people can live anywhere.

think a little deeper

the other day i was watching a movie and i thought "oh my god, this is so symbolism!" because it was about one thing, but deep down, under one to two layers, it was actually about something else.

so today i want to talk about movies. deep movies.

i think around the holidays it's so easy to just be like "i love this movie. this popcorn needs more butter!" without taking time to think about what it all really means. and then you go get more butter and miss out on the symbolism.

in case that's happened to you, here's a quick recap of movies i can think of that had other meanings and those meanings:

1. avatar - this movie was probably actually about when white adult men go to a forest and chop it all down and see like these huge blue bugs that they've never seen before, and they're like "EW! GROSS!" and kill them with just a ton of bug spray. moral of the movie: white guys really need to stop doing that, because those bugs are actually really intelligent -- almost like humans.

2. the hunger games - just like in real life, very ugly people rule the world. maybe if we find a very beautiful person to be in charge, there will be no more suffering. moral of the movie: i nominate daisy fuentes.

3. all the batmans - all you REALLY need in life is one butler friend and one cop friend ;)

can you think of a movie that had symbolism in it? share it in the comments below, making this an interactive blog.

also about food

have you ever tried breastfeeding?

i have. back when i was younger, like an infant. it was kind of my thing. i was what you call a monopalettarian -- i only liked one type of food.

but then i grew up, and now i have my very own apartment! 

so next time you see a baby, be like, "yeah!"

food and butts

sometimes when i'm alone and trying to do things i call myself little nicknames as encouragement. for example, just now when i wanted to take a bite of a raw sausage because i'm hungry and don't wait to wait til it's cooked, i said, "eat a carrot instead, ya dumb bitch!" and then i did!

one time one of my best friends said to me, "you know your blog is only about how gross food is and how stupid computers are, right? you know that." and that's when i knew i'd found my niche! though i'd say over the years i've introduced more butt stuff into the mix. jokes about farts and toilets and such.

but really what's happening right now is i need to blog more, so here i am, and expect just a bunch more posts like this until i get good at blogging again.

"thanks for your patients!" -evil doctor after burning down his nemesis doctor's medical practice building and sending an introductory letter to all of his patients (he says it from behind a bush so no one hears him)

my new toaster oven!!

Summer Memories

It was a sweltering August evening, the kind that makes your toenails slide off your toes. I'd just finished shucking the corn out on the front porch for Ma when I saw him ride up on his motorcycle. He must've stopped to check his back tire, because he got off and looked at his back tire. I sat up and looked at him.

He had a broken-in black leather face and ripped jeans that went all the way up to his legs. When he leaned over to check the tire, a loose tendril of dirty blond hair fell over his forehead. He ran his chicken fingers through those honeyed locks it in a way that could only be described as "sultry golf dad." I was hooked like a golf dad on chicken fingers (w/honey mustard sauce).

I could tell he wanted to stop in for a glass of lemonade mixed with whole milk, but something wouldn't let him. Was it the look in my eyes? The scent of perspiration in the air around my armpits and crotch? Or was it the stuffed dog he had strapped into his sidecar that clearly wanted to go home now for sleepy bed-bye time?

I'll never know what was going through that crazy, ding-dong brain of his when he peeled out, giving me a single nod of the head, wink of the eye, and wink of the other eye, twice, as if he was trying to tell me the letter W in morse code. I stood as he rode on, into the wavy blur of the horizon, leaving only the sounds of crickets and my own heart beating those crickets to death with a teeny tiny meat cleaver behind.

I never saw him again — that white buffalo of a shadow of a mystery of a ghost of a man — but I never forgot him either. And here I am, 17 minutes later, still wondering if he ever thinks about me, just a girl in the top half of a spacesuit, shucking corn on the front porch on that hot, beefy August night.

Buzzfeed: 19 things that'll make you go "I remember that!"

19. Tetris

18. Roller skates

17. Troll dolls

16. Flare jeans

15. Beads

14. Certain kinds of ice cream or candy

13. Those Kaboodle things

12. Last Christmas

11. Movies for children

10. Privacy

9. Imagination

8. Ring Pops

7. Jumping on the trampoline

6. "Real" America

5. Being smaller

4. The things your parents wished for you

3. Smurfs

2. A general sense of hope and optimism about the world around you

1. Cap guns

new name, same great two-headed calf!

after years of declining ticket sales, Ripley's Believe It or Not decided to freshen up its brand:

dare to prepare

in honor of national preparedness month, which was in september, i'd like to talk about ways you can be prepared for the worst.

EARTHQUAKES

here in portland, we're due for a huge earthquake that will destroy everything and no one will be able to leave or contact their families for approximately 3-4 months (source).

what are you going to do?

might i suggest the ipad game "jelly splash." you connect the different color jellies to complete the level, but with an endless variety of challenges and bonuses, you can literally play this game for HOURS. trust me, you will not get bored while stuck under the rubble of your apartment building waiting for emergency rescue personnel to find you.

FIRES

the best thing you can do in a fire situation is run away from it. do you have sneakers? are they the sneakers you want to wear in a fire, getting soot all over them? and good luck getting that smoke smell out! no, you do not have sneakers. go to nordstrom rack and sign up for their credit card -- you get a $20 coupon for every $1,000 you spend there!

SERIAL KILLERS 

honestly, serial killers are pretty clever, otherwise they'd just be your average run-of-the-mill murderer. so there's not much you can do to prepare for a serial killer besides make sure your facebook profile pic is the one you want on the news.

WHEN YOU BROUGHT YOUR LUNCH TO WORK BUT IT'S NOT VERY SATISFYING

just go to chipotle!

well, i hope you feel more prepared. i definitely feel like i've done a good deed by sharing these tips with you. you kind of owe me one. so if there's an emergency, and i come to your house, you should split any food and water you have in your emergency preparedness kit with me. the only way we're going to survive this... is together. 

a visitor

hi, i'm white and i'm right outside your window. what am i?

a jehovah's witness? nope: a ghost. try again.

have you heard the good news? i was just wondering -- i haven't really heard any news since i became a ghost. "current events" aren't really a thing since my time is eternal now. earthquakes? plagues? meh, talk to me in 10,000 years when i'm still here, just hanging out.

that's why i ask about good news, it cheers me up for a minute. but what's a minute, anyway? i bet you think you know what a minute is. "oh it's 60 seconds, or 1/60th of an hour." great job, math boy. go pick up your trophy from the principal's office. guess what? everyone you love will die.

i'm sorry, i'm having a rough time. i'll leave. it's fine. there are other windows, other living souls out there. enjoy your dinner. that pasta looks amazing. enjoy it while you can.

Parenting Tips for Dogs

Birth

• DO give birth to all your puppies, even if you're tired.
• DON'T forget to eat the placenta! It's good for you!
• DO hold still while they're feeding.
• DON'T pick favorites. Each puppy is special in its own way. Except for the runt — that one is clearly not going to be a good dog.

The First Few Days

• ...That's pretty much it! They're going to be fine. They're dogs.

cat chat

cat chat.

rubber bands wow!

1-800-RUB-BERB

Party Dance Forever (DJ Club Mix)

Oooh-ooh-ooh

Oooh-ooh-ooh

Oooh-ooh-ooh

Oooh-ooh-ooh

Boy do you wanna

Cuz if you do

We can party dance forever

I wanna party dance forever

With you here around me

I can kinda tell

No shirt no shoes no service

I wanna party dance forever

[that sound that's in every club track where it gets faster & faster then explodes]

Party dance forever (yeah!)

Party dance forever (yeah!)

If citrus is in season

It's how I feel inside

Fresh sheets ooh yeah I washed them

Do you like going shopping?

Outstanding student loan debt

Nobody's gonna eat that?

Lexus December to remember

We can party dance forever

Oooh-ooh-ooh

Oooh-ooh-ooh

Oooh-ooh-ooh

Oooh-ooh-ooh

[that sound again]

We can party dance forever

We can party dance forever

Spaghetti rigatoni

We can party dance forever

You can't win them all, but you *can* win...

THE MALL!

Hi I'm Tav Gravy and this is Win That Mall, the game show where YOU can OWN A MALL.

Always wanted to revitalize a run-down neighborhood? Ever thought to yourself "That Baskin Robbins would look better over there"? Love telling punk kids NO SKATEBOARDING through the effective use of signage?

Well this is the game show for you! The rules are simple:

• Be the first to correctly answer all 5 questions about mall culture in the U.S. ("Can you get anything other than your ears pierced at a Claire's?")
• Successfully complete our Shopping Cart Mall Maze! The pusher wears a blindfold while the rider navigates -- just don't cross the yellow lines!
• Present your best business plan for bringing economic growth back to the area.

Get these right, and YOU can be the RIGHTFUL OWNER of your VERY OWN MALL!

Let's meet our contestants.

*photo by an internet person named Nicholas

Lost Dreams

I remember when I first learned to Segway. The thrill, the excitement, the leaning slightly forward and then back again. 

"You're a natural," they said, and I knew it to be true. I coulda been something. If only we didn't have to return them at the end of the 2-hour tour. If only I could've gone faster, farther, without a helmet -- the wind rushing through my hair. Then you'd see... you'd see what I'm capable of.

things no one has ever searched for on WebMD

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