Posted by beth on February 27, 2010
Every few months, I get to feeling antsy and what’s-the-point-ish about my blog. Why bother? It’s not like I’m saying anything life-changing or earth-shattering, after all. But then I remember that I just really like doing it, and that some things that happen are just too good to keep to myself. For example, I went to this thing tonight. It was a Christian singles thing, and I honestly didn’t know what it was going to be exactly, but it turns out it was very much like a church service. Except sort of bizarre and depressing. As Christian singles events, sadly, often are.
Only one person spoke to me the entire night, and he did so because he thought I was someone else. Then he asked me to fill out an info sheet so they could get me on the mailing list. Um…no, thanks.
Also, the guy who spoke came out with some odd things, including, but in absolutely no way limited to:
“If you sneeze before breakfast on Sunday, there’s gonna be a death in the family by sundown.”
And my personal favorite:
“Have you had your cornbread and milk cleaned out on the INside?”
Believe me, even in context, these statements would not make much more sense than they do standing alone. I will probably not return to this biweekly event. But these are the kinds of things I like to just put out there – for your affirmation of my sanity, to make you laugh, to give you a short break at work, etc.
And once I realize that I’m not going to just throw in the towel, well that’s when I usually decide a design revamping is in order. Never mind me, though. I’ll just be shifting things around and changing colors, and MAYBE we’ll even come up with some logos for y’all to vote on! How exciting would that be?!
Stay tuned.
Posted by beth on February 25, 2010
It’s always a pleasure to catch up with either of my Joshes, but last night, Whitney-Josh had THE most amazing story for me. Ever. And let me just say that you know a story is going to be good when someone like Whitney kicks it off by saying, “So I was watching the Tyra show…” because people like Whitney do not just watch Tyra – not unless they are too ill to change the channel, or maybe if they happen to be passing by the channel just as Tyra says something like, “I like to cook with condiments at the table.” Really, Tyra? Cook? I’m sorry, but I thought that required some sort of heating implement. Is she planning on using the candles at the table? Or perhaps the bald head of the man eating the Vindaloo at the next table? No, no. She had no such plan, and I’m so glad that Josh was also intrigued enough to stop flipping channels and hear Tyra out because, y’all. It is incredible, and by “incredible,” I mean literally incredible. Unbelievable. Too weird for words.
So Tyra tells her audience she’s going to show them how to make fried chicken using things you might find on the table of a restaurant. And she whips the lid off of a platter to reveal several pieces of fried chicken, and she says, “We’re going to make fried chicken” (this is important). Now I don’t know about y’all, but my first thought was, Ok, she’s going to use the salt, pepper, olive oil maybe, red pepper flakes and oregano if she’s really stretching, and maybe some bread crumbs to season and prepare chicken. And then she’ll fry it. But that is where I was OH SO WRONG.
Tyra then tells the viewers that she’s going to use an ingredient that’s old. It’s really old, she says, like a hundred million trillion bazillion years old, like as old as food itself, like the dinosaurs ate it. Ok I don’t know if she said all of that, but I know she said it was old. She then opens it up to the audience to guess what this mega-uber-old ingredient is (my guess: salt), and one girl raises her hand and says, “Um, is it, like, soup?”
“No!” Tyra says, “It’s not soup. What’s your name?”
“Angelica!”
“Come on down here, Angelica!”
And now we have two idiots onstage.
So the first step, Tyra says, in making fried chicken at your table is to take a piece of bread from the bread basket. And everyone in the audience magically had a piece of bread under their seats! So the whole audience is pulling out bags of bread to make fried chicken along with Tyra.
Is it starting to sound really weird yet? Yeah, just wait.
So you take the bread, and you put a lot of butter on it. Just slather it right on there. Butter it up. Then, you’re going to need a little salt, but just a little because the butter’s already salted. And then you need a LOT of pepper. I mean really, a lot. And Tyra is shaking it and shaking it and shaking it onto the buttered, salted bread.
And THEN (and this is the key step, I think, because making fried chicken out of bread is 100% mental and 0% culinary skill), just before you take a bite, you say to yourself, “Fried chicken.”
Seriously. That’s it.
And the whole audience is eating this thing they have just made at their seats that is clearly not fried chicken, and Tyra is chowing down on hers and saying, “Ohmigodyouguys it tastes JUST like fried chicken!” while the audience – both in the studio and at home – is thinking, There is no way in this world or any other, or on any planet or in any parallel or fictional universe that that tastes anything like anything resembling fried chicken in ANY way.
Perhaps I am too harsh, though, having not tried it. But most likely not.
Posted by beth on February 24, 2010
Honestly, by the time I get around to talking about the boat show, no one is going to care (if there’s anyone even now who cares). But I still haven’t found the cord, and SOMEbody still hasn’t sent me The Picture, so today, I have two topics I’d like to discuss.
First of all, I FINALLY went to see Up in the Air last weekend in Raleigh, and y’all, I loved it. There were some present who found it depressing and nightmarish because it’s all about a guy with no friends who fires people for a living. But I saw it more as a wake-up call to people who don’t have any real relationships in their lives, people whose lives are all about reaching bizarre, pointless and/or silly goals like flying 10,000,000 miles, and people who are stuck in jobs they don’t really care for because it’s safer than pursuing what they love. Life is too short, man. You gotta make it count. Do go and see it if you haven’t already.
And second, I have these weird little dry patches all over my arms. They’re each maybe half an inch in diameter, some of them are reddish, and some are kind of scaly, but they don’t itch or hurt at all. At first, when there was only one, I thought maybe it was due to the drier air up in the mountains (the skin on my hands was really dry at the time, too, which happens to me in the winter), but now there are lots of them, and it’s weirding me out. I think I have leprosy. What do you think?
Posted by beth on February 23, 2010
I know many of you are just squirming in your office chairs waiting for me to post pictures and VIDEO!!!! from this weekend’s Powerboat Show and Sale. I can’t post them yet, though, for two reasons:
- I’m waiting for SOMEBODY to scan and email me The Picture because the one I have is not good. It wasn’t that great a photo to begin with (technically speaking – the subject matter is fantastic), and I took a picture of The Picture with the camera on my PunkBerry, and we all know what happens when you make a copy of a copy (She touched my pepe, Steve). So I need the original in digital form to share with the people. Pretty please??
- I can’t find the cord that hooks my camera up to my computer. It’s here somewhere, and when I find it, you’ll not only get to see more photos and video from the event, but you’ll also get to see pictures of Ugly Sweater New Year’s 2010, but until then, I got nothin’.
So for now, I’m going to tell you that until about five minutes ago, apparently I still had a myspace account. Why? I don’t know. I think it had something to do with planning my high school reunion and needing to find people, but I’m pretty sure all those people are on facebook now, so if I haven’t given up on facebook eight years from now, the next reunion should be easy to plan. I am not confident, however, that facebook will still exist in eight years. Or if it does, no one will be using it because something better will have come along, and facebook will be the thing that only old people, rednecks and internet prostitutes use. But I guess in eight years, if I stay in the mountains and never find a day job, I could become all of those things.
At least I deleted my myspace account. That’s a step in the right direction, I think.
Posted by beth on February 17, 2010
You know, Lent means a lot of things to a lot of people, but today, for me, it means that my roommate and her boyfriend gave up sweets before finishing off a bag of Double Stuf Oreos, leaving the rest for me!!
Also, I’m beginning to think that giving up Facebook is too easy, and that maybe I should add something more challenging like pillows or g-chat or talking on the phone or eyeliner.
Are y’all observing Lent? What did you give up?
Posted by beth on February 16, 2010
First of all, I’d just like to add to the title – That’s what she said.
Ok, now that that’s out (that’s also what she said), I was just lamenting yesterday how I had no birthday plans, and now I’ve got THREE parties in the works!! That’s one for every decade! I love it. So what appears to be forming is a weekend-long progressive party road trip with an Asheville party on Friday, a Raleigh party on Saturday and a Wilmington party on Sunday! And just like that, I’m happy to be without a day job (for now) because I can come back into town on Monday and not have to rush any of my birthday festivities and visits.
Hooray!!!! (She might have said that too.)
Posted by beth on February 15, 2010
So…my birthday is in less than three weeks. And it’s not just any birthday. It’s my THIRTIETH BIRTHDAY, and I don’t have any plans. That is either the biggest relief or the most depressing thought ever. On the up-side, I don’t have to bake a million cupcakes or clean my room or take a shower in preparation for people coming over. But on the other hand, no one is coming over. Frown.
And since I’m giving up facebook for Lent, that means I won’t get to have my self-esteem bolstered by the 500 birthday well-wishes that will be left on my wall (by people I never talk to) until after Easter. I think I need to make some plans.
So my birthday is on March 6. Any ideas?
Posted by beth on February 14, 2010
WE’RE AWESOME!!!
Posted by beth on February 13, 2010
So I’m not really a poet, but there’s this open mic night at Westville Pub on Tuesday, and since none of the chapters of my book are quite ready, I was thinking of reading this poem I just wrote. What do y’all think?
You’re the whisper of a summer breeze.
You’re the kiss that puts my soul at ease.
What I’m saying is I’m into you.
Here’s my story, and the story goes:
You give love, you get love,
And more than heaven knows,
You’re gonna see
I’m gonna run, I’m gonna try
I’m gonna take this love right to you.
All my heart, all the joy!
Oh baby, baby please!
And all I want from you is what you are.
And even if you’re right next to me,
You’re still too far away
If I’m not inside your arms.
I get dramatic baby,
Yes I know,
But I need you! I want you!
Oh man, I love you so.
You’re gonna see,
I’m gonna run, I’m gonna try,
I’m gonna take this love right to you.
All my heart, all the joy!
Oh baby, baby please!
When you kiss me up and down,
Turn my senses all around -
Oh baby, oh baby
I don’t know just how or why,
But no one else has touched me
So deep,
So deep,
So deep inside.
You’re gonna see,
I’m gonna run, I’m gonna try,
I’m gonna take this love right to you.
All my heart, all the joy!
Oh baby, baby please!
Rush! Rush!
Hurry, hurry lover,
Come to me!
Rush! Rush!
I want to see, I want to see you free with me!
Rush! Rush!
I can feel it – I can feel you all through me.
Rush! Rush!
Oh what you do to me!
Posted by beth on February 12, 2010
So I tweeted the other day:
Dear Single Christian Men in Asheville, Do y’all know people? ‘Cause none of them seem to know any of you?
And I received an email yesterday containing the following:
Thanks, faithful reader, for this reminder that they are out there…even though the fact that he’s on an online dating site would indicate that he does not, in fact know anyone, and the sender later admitted to correcting jaredwright23’s spelling and grammar before sending him my way. Y’all know me so well.
Yes, it’s really 1:45 a.m.
