Megan's Top Vids of 2013

alice learns about hos. she needs to get out more.

i love the look on max's face when he realizes that he's recording himself in church.

me and lucy and our special fireworks fist bump.

i am very proud that i am teaching our youth of today about vocabulary. ek learns the words "trollop" and "floozy."

actual transcript from lucy: "grandmother and dipsey's hoooouuussse. dipsey. pretty flowers. AUUUNTTIEE-HEEE-HEEE-HEEE!!!!"

and i ain't ashamed to admit that this one is coming out when lucy gets married.

Happy 2014 everyone!

Happy New Year. No, seriously. Big fat Happy New Year!

Last New Year's Eve I sat at home alone after being promised company for the evening by the Ex-Mr. Smith. He's not a villain; I understood why he left. What I don't understand is why he agreed to spend the evening with me in the first place. I cried for four hours straight and made a new bed skirt for the guest room as a distraction. All I could think, the only mantra that ran through my head for those four hours while I alternately sewed and cried, was "This never happens again. I will not be in this position next year, or ever again. It never happens again."

I was right. Fancy that.

Tomorrow night after work on New Year's Eve, I have a date with the Roomstress and DJ Smith. We have a ton of places to go over the course of the evening, and I plan to dress up, wear a face full of makeup and be the life of the party. And that's just the one night!

In the new year, I get to take on a freelance dream job that I hope and pray springboards me into something wonderful. I have a wonderful circle of supportive friends. I got a fabulous boyfriend (ahead of schedule but DETAILS, so what?), I have a great place to live, and most importantly, I can without a doubt believe that whole parental unit "love you no matter what!" thing. I love that despite a year of hell, I came out on the other 365 days happier, healthier and with stronger relationships with my parents, my brother and sister, and my darling darling darling niece and nephew.

A few days ago my mother asked if I remembered telling her repeatedly that I was afraid I would be damaged goods if I got divorced. Of course I remember, I told her. Do you feel like damaged goods? she asked.

Nope. I feel like I'm growing. And I'm determined to keep going. As the great Adam Corolla famously says: "You never want to look around the room and realize you're the King of the Dipshits. You need to surround yourself with people who are constantly improving who you are."

Best wishes for a Happy New Year,
Megan (former King of the Dipshits)

is there something behind me?

Merry Christmas from the Roomstress, Megan, and 200 + Santas....

Merry Christmas from the Roomstress, Megan, and 200 + Santas....

Use your best judgement if you decide to read this whole post....

Ok, so anyone who is under the impression that it's all blonde curls and chipper peals of laughter all the time in my universe, let me assure you: it is not. I have a mouse that lives in my brain that chooses to run on the wheel when it's sleepy time. I have anxiety to the point that at times I chew my nails down to the quick and pick at my lip until it bleeds. I'm scared of spiders and terrified of flying.

And I am lactose intolerant.

The Ex-Mr. Smith and I used to have this routine where I'd text an hour after lunch and say "well, there went lunch." To which he would reply "YOU ARE LACTOSE INTOLERANT. What about this do you not understand?"

Cue to today, and friend Chrissy's birthday lunch. (HBD CHRISSY!) We enjoyed a nice pizza, and I agreed to go over to the courthouse for her to renew and update her driver's license. As it expired today, it seemed like excellent timing.

Until that pizza came calling.

I skittered around the courthouse rapidly until I stumbled upon the bathroom door. Given my state, I was a little unprepared to find the door open with a custodian's cart for all the world to see (and hear). Being close to desperation, I sallied forth to find a the cleaning lady cheerfully occupied inside. Singing.

Cleaning lady: (stopping singing) Oh hello! Come on in, don't mind me. Just trying to get caught up here.

Me: (mentally measuring the distance between the open bathroom door to the farthest stall and calculating the physics of sound reverberating over the marble floor - and deciding that it was a risk I was willing to accept) Hi there! (Tiptoes rapidly to the farthest stall)

CL: I like to sing while I work. Most people think I'm crazy.

Me: (trying desperately to shimmy out of skinny jeans and proceed as quietly as possible) Mmmm... ok.

CL: People say, what's that crazy lady doing in there? I'm just singing.

Me: (still working on that quiet thing. Not working out so well.) Mmm.... ok.

CL: It's just that with the holidays - (cuts off as what should have been painfully obvious is now rising like the sun from her subconscious to her conscious and.... singing goes off in the distance...)

Holy shit. LITERALLY. I pooped her out of the bathroom and she had the gall to leave with the goddamn door open for all of the courthouse to hear. And smell. PEOPLE. It is not for no reason that the Dipper avows that any man I marry needs to be deaf and have no sense of smell. I AM LACTOSE INTOLERANT. AND I HAVE AN UNHOLY LOVE OF PIZZA.

In the end, I decided that I'd far rather lose a friend than an intestine. So sorry courthouse. You deserve better.

So, there's my day. Props to me for voluntarily going to the DMV for no reason, but not for pooping out the whole courthouse. While Chrissy and I were leaving I was trying to quietly relay what had just happened and gain consensus from her on whether or not the lobby smelled like someone just blew it up in the rotunda when yet another (different) courthouse employee suddenly burst into song.

WHAT THE HELL WITH THE SINGING, COURTHOUSE?

Sigh. Over and out.

I really am not condoning grafftti

So I really do hate graffiti. I think it's tacky and trashy and I don't like people besmirching public property. That said... sometimes graffiti really makes me laugh. To wit:

my thoughts exactly

this says "knoxville is the milwaukee of the south." yeah. i'm not sure what that means. BUT I LIKE IT. and kind of agree with it - although i've never actually been to milwaukee.

there's so many funny things about this picture, but i especially like the "well obviously not" part.

Recently, I spent some time up in Gatlinburg at a retreat. I wandered through the hotel gift shop and was rifling through the card selection when I came across this:

what the hell is going on here?

So... what is going on here? There's a ghost buffalo, and a baby buffalo nursing from his mom (I think. I showed this to a student worker the other day and he made the comment that he wasn't sure that's where the udder goes. So this card just got either way creepier, or way funnier... I vote for option two.) And what occasion should this ghost buffalo card be sent for? In recognition of? In honor of? I cannot with this greeting card....

That's about all the news fit to print these days. I've had a cold for a week now, and my office mate has caught it too so we sound like a TB ward up here. But the cold has made me feel somewhat less funny than usual. BUT! Christmas is a week away and that makes me happy! Yippee!!! Over and OUT!

Time for a guest post!

I originally had planned this blog post to be another apology letter to the Roomstress due to my.... somewhat over-zealousness in regards to Christmas decorating. And after a long day of me joyfully decking the halls with a somewhat luke-warm Roomstress she looked at me very seriously and said "I think it's time we talked about -" (Megan here; my mind racing - talk about WHAT? Moving out? Taking down all the holiday decorations? Not living together next year? WHAT WHAT WHAT do we have to talk about?) " - me doing a guest post on your blog." (Megan here; WHEW. Ok. Fair enough.)

So here you go. Below is the Roomstress's account of our holiday decorating day. Enjoy!

It was last Saturday, a day we had set aside for Christmas decorating, when I  realized the time had finally come…for a guest post. Because people need to know about this. (Yeah. I'm not sure they do. But I digress.)

Now, since we've had 200+ Santa Clauses adorning our loft since the day after Halloween, I might be forgiven for assuming that “Christmas decorating” would consist of going to Lowe’s to purchase a modest and appropriately sized tree and putting a few lights and ornaments on it (pfffft.) and then relaxing with a festive adult beverage in honor of the season. (oh, yesplease!) In retrospect, this assumption was clearly a case of pathological denial on my part.

So last Saturday, not being a morning person, I stumbled out of bed and wandered blindly to the kitchen to get a glass of water, only to find that the cupboards were completely empty of glassware. “That’s odd,” I thought. “I’m sure we just unloaded the dishwasher yesterday.” So I looked in the dishwasher and found it full…of Christmas glassware.

That’s about the time I became aware of the lightning fast skittering of bunny-slippered feet (they are CATS, Roomstress!) racing back and forth behind me. I turned to catch a glimpse of my roommate, Christmas pajamas flapping, blond curls streaming behind her, as she zipped about bedecking everything in sight. Zip! Nativity set on the shelf. Zip! Christmas quilt and pillows on the chairs. Zip! Garland wrapped around my head.

Etc.

I retreated from the line of flight to the kitchen table and began to sip my water and get used to being conscious again, which always takes me awhile. Megan came to perch on a kitchen stool facing me. With a feverish gleam in her eyes that I can only assume was Christmas spirit, she spoke:

“So I told you about the Santas,” she began and paused with a sheepish look on her face. Then in a rush: “But I didn’t mention the snowman collection. Or the nutcracker collection. Or the angel collection. Ok bye.” Then she was off again in a whirl of golden locks and festive jammies.

But still, somehow, I had foolish hopes that the tree, at least, would be a modest affair. So at Lowes, when we made our way out to the trees (after a suitable time spent being made to admire all the Christmas decorations) I sought out the 5 footers and turned to point out to Megan their cute and manageable smallness, but she was not there. She stood down the aisle with her hands clasped to her heart gazing in rapture at a (I believe the technical term is) ginormous tree. She turned to me with wide glittering eyes and an entranced smile and said breathlessly, “This one!” pointing to an alpine monster.

Let me gloss over here the wrestling match to fit an approximately 800 foot tree into the trunk of a Jetta (told you it would fit), or the 20 mph hour drive down Washington Pike leading a parade of angry drivers (they need to work on patience), or the trek to drag it up to the loft (yea for elevators!), or the somewhat alarming way she enthusiastically hacked off some quite thick limbs with needle-nosed pliers. (hey, whatever works, amiright?)

Cut to the next day at brunch, as I shared the story with our guests. Megan took a brief break from gazing lovingly at our bedecked and dazzling tree to glower at us over her shoulder and say, “So sorry for the joy in my heart, y’all.”

And, well, that’s the thing. As her mother pointed out, she does come by it honestly. She is, after all, the granddaughter of a man who spent several days every year dressed as Santa, sitting in a sleigh in his front yard, welcoming all comers just for sheer enjoyment of it. So, as a roommate, I accept the 200+ Santas as a family heritage of joy, generosity, and celebration. I will carry the two crates of Christmas Spode dinnerware upstairs by myself while she makes potato soup for Santa parade revelers as my contribution to Christmas cheer. I will master the (to my mind, superfluous) use of a knife for eating bread. At this time of year, when there is a tendency to look back and reflect, I must admit, one thing about Megan, life is never dull. And it’s chocked full of more joy and laughter than you can shake a stick at, all year long. (I think it's also referred to as Stockholm Syndrome.)

So, this morning, after a week of more Christmas coming out of the woodwork every day (I promise, this is it!), I sipped my tea out of a Spode teacup and I remarked that it was actually quite pleasant to watch the mistletoe appear on the side of the cup as the tea disappeared. I felt vaguely cheery for a Monday (or, let’s face it, any day).

“The brainwashing is working!” Megan joked.

Well, being brainwashed to have joy in your heart, it could be worse, I thought.

Unless…this is just step one to getting me on board with her plan to kidnap Santa and keep him in the bathtub. It would make sense, as I AM the one with the tub.

Oh crap….

More lessons...

Never ask a doctor "Is that blood?" Because chances are yes. It's blood. And number two? It's likely your blood. Best just keep your trap shut.

My sweet  mama has learned that if she ever has to text  me from my father's phone she has learned to start each message with "ALL IS WELL" because otherwise I will freak out and think something is wrong. Because daddy never texts. And so from now on all texts I get from mama a la daddy go like this: ALL IS WELL. Can you come to lunch on Sunday?

I been listening to Christmas carols ad nauseam lately. Because of the Christmas spirit etc. And this one? The "I ain't been nuttin' but bad" one? That kid is AWFUL. He doesn't deserve anything from Santa Claus! I stand with his parents. And PS when you put ants in the sugar bowl WE ALL LOSE.

Off to a retreat this week. Back on the flop side.