Chinese Up My New Year.

It's the year of the dragon.  Hot news.

Some friends of mine and I went down to Chinatown to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

I thought we were spending our day studying dragons and dragon-behavioral-science.  But as it turns out what we actually witnessed was a Lion Dance.











I still learned a lot about Chinese lions.  I am going to break that down for you.

• Lions require snacks to dance.  They most prefer lettuce and oranges. 
• Despite the presence of PLENTY of young, fresh, fleshy children, lions are COMPLETELY vegan and did not take ONE bite of any child.
• Lions are extremely messy eaters.  I mean really, I was a little embarrassed for them.
• Lions hang out with trouble makers.  Although I witnessed no lions themselves light anything on fire, I saw their trouble-making companions light all sorts of things on fire.

That's the generalized breakdown of what lions are like, best I could gather.  The lion dance parade itself is an interesting thing.  It's a parade you follow around while they go from business to business dancing, making a mess with lettuce, tossing oranges at my head (true story, I got SMACKED hard upside the head by a wayward lion-orange), taking cards full of money, playing the drums and lighting off firecrackers.

It's totally fun!




Here's some cute-ass, vegan lions:

Glad I could provide you with a touch of culture.

Happy New Year!

My Latest Great Idea.

I'm going to take up spackling as a hobby.

This will go down great.  I will meet potential new friends (PNFs) and impress them with my eclectic hobby list.

PNF: It's great to meet you, Laura!  Tell me, what sort of things you like to do?

Me:  I spackle.

PNF: ...You mean like filling holes in the wall?

Me: Yes.

PNF: (So impressed they are rendered silent)

Frankly, who wouldn't? It's great.  Huge hole in the wall, toss up a piece of patch, spackle the crap out of it and VOILA! it's like the nothing never was*.

I watched Idlewild today.  I have no idea what those assholes as Rotten Tomatoes are on about.  It was a awesome movie with kick ass dance scenes.  I never have my finger on the pulse of what other people like...



*I will now be working a point based system^.  I will be giving 5 points for the first person to get this reference.

^points are not redeemable in the continental US, Alaska, Canada or anywhere.

Classy Broad I Am.

I have barnmates.  It's a social group that most people don't have.  You have friends, acquaintances, coworkers, relatives, maybe you like to chat up the bagger at the grocery store.

I board my horse.  This comes with barnmates. They are sort've what it would be like to try and combine coworkers and relatives and make them your friends.

Does that make any sense?... No, I didn't think so. They are the people who board their horses where mine lives.  I spend a lot of time with them.

Anyway, classy group my barnmates are we occasionally like to hit up Whipper Snappers (yes, I believe this to be a bar/night club geared towards an older demographic, but no one seems to care what I think) and listen to a cover band called Spiral Circus.

This is actually my life.

To continue, Spiral Circus is fronted by a (total guess) 19 year old male singer who wears uncomfortably tight khakis, he loves to shake his money-maker, and some lady-friend of his.

Oh! You're in luck! I found you a video:



We should back track a bit before we get to the disgusting conclusion of this story.

I will only say this once.  The word "moist" is disgusting.  Saying it, thinking it, hearing it makes my stomach churn.  Someone might as well say "moldy fish taco" in an attempt to be sexy.

And this word aversion is not uncommon!  Please see here:

http://www.good.is/post/why-do-we-hate-the-word-moist/

Now, apparently when you're 19 and front a cover band you can be easily bought off by jello shots. Easily. So, what did my barnmates do? They paid off the band with jello shots to say that heinous word for half of the night.

In conclusion my Friday night consisted of:

1. Riding my horse (she was a good girl)
2. Feeding everyone else's horses night hay
3. Arriving at Whipper Snappers and ordering a Reuben
4. Dancing like an idiot
5. Drinking more beer than I'd like to admit
6. Paying more than my fair share of the tab
7. Being sexually harassed by a cover band

I'm not sure if I love my barnmates or hate them.

Sorry for the content of this post.  Let me help you wash it down with some real music.

Making myself happy.

For some reason I tend to make friends with dream-crushers.  It's a personality type, like type A... type B... dream-crusher.  Sunday Megan and I had a lovely brunch (peach pancakes and turkey bacon!) cooked by Michelle.

Enter dream-crushing... they had the gall to inform me that if I want to get away from things such as Forever Lazy, Snuggie, and Pajama Jeans- Canada is not the place to do it.

Ain't gonna let nobody turn me 'round... 

Here's some art by Amy for good measure. (These are hanging on my wall and bring me great happiness)

I was feeling a bit shitty today.  Good news is the internet never lets me down and I discovered this gem: http://www.101waysyoucantgetpregnant.com/

How can that NOT make you happy?

And here's a picture of Lovey. Because I'm a cat-lady and it just is what it is.

I decided to watch that Werner Herzog film.  You will want to know my opinion so stay tuned, more documentary film reviews coming in the near future!

(even I was annoyed by that sentence...)

I'm moving to Canada.

I love the U.S.A.  No lie.  But ever since THIS travesty I feel I have no choice but to move to Canada.

This must be what it's like to have been a conscientious objector during Vietnam.

I guess Richard has reasons to doubt my patriotism, really.  Which he does strangely often.  This particular evening he was explaining to me that I don't support our troops.

When asked what he does to support our troops he explained that he is not raising his cat, Mileena, to follow Sharia Law.

I'm not sure he understands the spirit of the word "support".

Just to cut him off at the pass, he will point out to you things such as this and this, but these are just smoke and mirrors.  

I'm feeling ready to tighten the tourniquet and go on a documentary film bender.  I'm totally torn about watching this Werner Herzog production Cave of Forgotten Dreams. On one hand, it looks wicked pissa.  But on the other hand Werner Herzog is the Quentin Tarantino of documentary films and his ego could fill an ocean. That gets in the way of my enjoying his stuff for some reason...

Important Life Lessons.

I know you sometimes wonder "where do I get those really nifty, light up, moving waterfall pictures with sound to hang on the wall of my trailer/mother's assisted living/dentist office/ironically-tacky studio apartment?"

Luckily you read my blog and I know the answer to this quandary.  That would be Dollar Bill's Discount World in beautiful Derry, NH.



Frankly, you're welcome.

Speaking of beautiful things in Derry.  Not only can I be found there several nights a week, my gorgeous black beauty, Cherry, can as well.

I know you're thinking that Derry sounds just about damn perfect now, but there's a few downsides.

There's the Derry Friendship Center, which I hate to put as a downside, but it is a bit hooligan-central out front.

And then today I was at Cumberland Farms (I think that's what it was?) and there was about 6 people in the store and I was the ONLY sober person not working there.  Legitimately, there was a man who dropped and smashed his 40 of King Cobra Premium Malt Liquor all over the floor, laughed about it for a while, then went to the back to retrieve another.  The woman behind him looked more than a little familiar with methamphetamine and there was a gaggle of trouble-making teens high on life or something.

Oh what the hell.  These are all upsides... Derry is a great place. 

Birth Control Me.

My life has been rather humorless lately.  I tried to drum up some humor on Sunday by going to the Museum of Natural History (Free to Massachusetts residents before 12pm on Sundays!), but I showed up to the door to find out my friends had a change of plans and were running late, so I didn't get a chance to see all my favorite stuffed animals.

We did bop over to East Coast Grill to have "make your own" Bloody Marys.  That made my stomach hurt.  I'm off cocktails for a while.

I then worked like a dog for a few days.

Have you seen this M.I.A. ginger-slaughter video?  Probably.  I feel late to that party.

At least I get to come home to this face:

I did get a chance to visit Mary a few days ago.  She was fullagrace.

Which actually lead me down a path of trying to figure out what "full of grace" really means. I got a bunch of Catholic websites that would be a nice read if you hated your eyes.

It also reminded me of Maria Full of Grace.  Good movie.  Depressing.  If you're ever just feeling TOO happy give it a whirl.

I'm going to wrap this up with an old family photo of a Tom Thumb wedding (this is actually a family photo from my collection).Which is just a creepy tradition any way you split it.  How about a Tom Thumb divorce hearing? While we're playing dress up and make-believe with the children let's go all in.  

True story, ya'll. True.

So, if you have a blog you may know, blogger has this feature where you can look at some stats.  This allows you to see how many page views you've had today, yesterday, the past week etc.  It also allows you to see things like what sites refer people to yours and what country they are viewing from.

More importantly it allows you to see what sort of search key words they used to get onto your site.

Today I log on to see this:

If you take a close look at that you will see that the things that drive strangers to read my blog are searches such as "bitches are too dramatic" and "laura linney porn".

I can die a happy woman.

Black eyed peas.

I didn't eat my black eyed peas this year on January 1st.

The reasons for this are complicated and involve laziness, Blackstone, ginger bread and I just plain forgot.

Now I can't determined if I'm just completely fucked for all of 2012 or it I'll just lack SOME of my usual prosperity. I can't say I'm usually superstitious, but I usually eat my black eyed peas and have had pretty damn good luck up until this point.

Oh well, I already warned you... I'm dying young. Like a rock star.  I did eat some black eyed peas today. Hope that helps.  Maybe if I just eat them on the regular Oprah will decided to gift me half her fortune and I'll make it to the ripe old age of 101 and die peacefully in my sleep.

Anyway, I totally forgot to recap my social experimentation from 2010.  My new years resolution from 2010 was "be supportive".  Some of you may have noticed me running around like a dog trying to make it to people's special events, and picking up the phone when you called me at inappropriate times justincase you needed something. (I know it was a long time ago, but maybe you remember.)

I found out a few things that year about being supportive.  I stretched my support to not only family and friends, but acquaintances as well.  I think I got a few friends out of the deal.  I was also exhausted. I became too available.

Overall, I loved engaging in this social experiment.  I told no one that I was doing it.  I wanted to see how it would go and what the result of blindly being supportive of other human beings would be. We are social creatures. We want to love and be loved... well, mostly BE loved. I get a certain amount of joy in providing a positive, supportive face in someone's day.  If I had told people my plans the expectations would be different. They may believe I expected praise, or they may wonder why I didn't make it to their special day.

I can't tell you how my support effected others.  I never asked.

The results of my "be supportive" mantra had a mostly positive outcome for me. However, I did spread myself thin and was unable to fully devote my attention to some of the people in my life.

In 2011 I had no new years resolution.  I needed a break. I continued to do good things for my fellow humans though, and I think I have had a long term positive effect on myself from trying to be incredibly kind to others.  I hope you try it.  Even if you feel like shit sometimes just do nice things for people in your life. Do nice things for people you don't know. Show up and be a smiling face. It doesn't take much, really.

In 2012 I plan again to engage in some form of altruistic behavior.  I'll let you know how it goes.

I'm rocking this lately:

Please text me.

Here are a series of random texts I have gotten and sent over the past week (okay, I wrote this weeks ago) rearranged for my amusement to make a short play. (Names have been removed... to protect our jobs...)

I've entitled this work of art "Buy_Me_A_New_Phone_Please"

"Maybe an entire bottle of wine is not a good idea."
"Try roofies then. Makes more interesting"
"Why tell girls it's not going to happen?"
"I'm out on the town! We'll discuss that later. Don't get beat up."


"You want me to pick you up on the side of the road?"
"I only give out pity-handys. You'd probably find it unsatisfying.  They are inherently unsatisfying.  How can you not grocery shop?"
"Stupid examples. I Win. Showtime!"


"The sewer?"
"He fell in the sewer tunnel and was swept out to sea. A real shame..."

"Mama is hilarious. I come home last night and she says "who were you with?"... "A gentleman."... "does he have a job?"


"You shouldn't do that. If nothing else, it's like insulting my good taste."
"So if the day starts religiously, how will it end?"
"Sex, drinking... that's about it.'
"Oh, I just remembered, my date was legit quoting Bill Hicks word-for-word.  Hot."


"If I could send pictures from my phone I would send you like 10 pics of my kitten right now. She's so cute I could die. You're really missing out."
"At least someone saw some action last night. Good work!'
"I regret nothing!"


"Having clean, hot, running water available to us at all times really is an amazing thing that we should not take for granted."
"In his defense, he wanted to get off the phone when he realized he was making an ass of himself and I didn't let him."


"Well, I guess there's an end to the tour. Sitting on a slab."
"I might be too busy cracking Luis jokes. "You again ask her if she is in to feces. I no think she answer you true.""
"And where might one reassign their internal Chilean miner trying to sabotage them?"


"Is it time to make you look popular yet?"
"just one of my legion."


"Should I rent a rape van?"
"Think what you want, act how you are, don't tell me I'm not trying and we should be good."
"She says go for it! Next Tuesday!"


"it was meh. not bad but not good either. What time is John Waters/What are you up to?"
"oops! blinked my eyes and I have a date for tonight."
"Hmm that's a problem. And I don't think my date got my Bill Hicks reference. I'm disappointed."

"Buy_me_a_new_phone_please"
"200 dollars is a lot of money."