Alas, the siren song of grad school has once again lured me into the comfort of its academic bosom. Did I say comfort? I meant “stranglehold.”
Nonetheless, going back to school and also working full time means I have to give up a few things, like sleep and seeing my family. I read through my first week of assignments in preparation, and as a final farewell I invite you into the out-of-control train that was my thought process upon reading it:
“Wow, that’s a lot of reading.”
“This is all for one week?”
“Ugh, I forgot that writing papers means like, research and stuff.”
“Citing references? Ughhhhh.”
“AND use outside resources besides my textbook? What do I look like, a journalist? I’m a creative writer.”
“Well, at least I use APA style at work… the bibliography has to be in APA style, too?! Dammit.”
“WHY DIDN’T I DO GRAD SCHOOL IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING UNDERGRAD? Past Jessie was the worst person ever.”
“How am I still hungry when I just ate a donut?”
“I really should have gone to the gym today.”
From there my thoughts slowed down in confusion until they screeched to a halt completely. Probably some kind of defense mechanism. My brain, slowly turning to mush on my long sabbatical from school, just had a lot of words to compute. And words are hard. Yes, I’m a writer, why do you ask?
I’d love to tell you that I’ll be back on my break, but I’m afraid that would be like telling your ex-coworker you’re totally going to keep in touch. It probably won’t happen. But I’ll call you, okay? (I’m not going to call you.)
If I had to describe this weekend, I would call it the Jabba the Hutt of weekends. Just a disgusting, unmotivated blob.
It’s too cold. Too snowy. Too February.
Every time I attempted to accomplish something this weekend, my body led me, zombie-like, toward my couch with mindless repetition.
“Maybe I’ll go to the gym,” I thought. My husband then came in the door, letting in frigid cold air. My body shriveled in protest, gluing me to the couch. So I took a nap instead.
“Maybe I’ll go to the store,” I tried again later. Just then a Friends marathon came on. “Or… not,” I said lamely, settling in once more.
“Maybe I should clean, or something.” This was really reaching. Needless to say, my cats decided at that exact moment to curl up on my lap, pinning me to the couch with their plushy, purry adorableness .
Okay, February. I shall fight you no longer. I surrender.
Even this blog post is lazy, right? But I just can’t. My brain has turned to bland mush, like oatmeal with no sugar. I need sun. I need to wear shoes that aren’t boots. I miss frying my skin with delicious UV rays. Oh, Creator of Fine Lines and Abnormal Moles, why hast thou forsaken us?
I’m tired of driving home from work in the dark. I’m starting to loathe my winter coat (even if it is bright cherry red and makes me feel like Mary Tyler Moore). I should be oozing lotion from applying it so much but, ignoring the laws of dermatology, my hands are still dry as sand. Dammit… I miss sand! I want to sit on a beach with a never-ending supply of margaritas yet never have to pee. (Hey, if I’m dreaming, I’m going all the way, baby!)
While I’m at it, I want to eat all the cheese but have no cellulite. I want to turn into Sofia Vergara, basically. Although that’s not just because of winter. Because, seriously?! Look at her!
HOW IS SHE A REAL PERSON?
That’s all I got, folks. Back to burrowing on my couch until spring. Which, in Ohio, is like a week long, so don’t let me miss it, okay?
Ah, tax time. It’s the time of year that never fails to remind me I have the organizational skills of a 3-month old golden retriever. You know how most normal, functioning adults have some kind of filing system (I assume)? Probably something involving drawers and files and tabs and labels and other things I don’t own. You want to know what my system is? “Throw Everything In a Box and Promptly Forget About It.”
As you can see, I have extensive box experience.
This usually works for me… except once a year, when the dreaded envelope arrives in the mail, bold type ominously proclaiming, “Federal tax information enclosed.”
Noooooooo! Not my W-2’s! That means I have to drag out The Box and sift through a year’s worth of receipts, bills and other paper miscellanea. It might as well be called Box O’Ambien.
This is a different box. GET OUT OF MY STUFF.
Since my husband handles the tax appointment, a horrifying expedition that literally takes half a work day, the responsibility of getting all those nasty papers together falls to me. As awful as it is, it’s a way lesser evil than sitting in Tax Lady’s house for hours, listening to her conspiracy theories and slowly suffocating from cigarette fumes and dog fur. While doing taxes. That’s what hell is, you know that, right? Okay, maybe not the dog fur part. Because all dogs go to heaven, duh. Everyone knows that.
So I was filling out my 2014-2015 FASFA for grad school (my life is full of fun right now) and realized I needed my 2012 taxes as a reference. To The Box! No taxes. A pile of birthday cards? Check. Grocery receipt from an ice cream run? Check. Empty container with no clues to what it formerly contained (possibly ice cream)? Check plus! This is what I’m talking about, folks. How am I allowed to function in society if this is how I run my life? I’m like a kid who constantly spins around in circles, runs into a wall, then gets up and start spinning again. My entire financial history can be summed up in one word: Derp!
Me doing taxes. Weeee!
And my husband is worse at this stuff than me, if that’s even possible. How we found each other and what cosmic joke brought our dysfunctional brains together in marriage is something humankind may never know. Instead of balancing each other out, we’re knocking each other down, like a never-ending game of chicken.
Marriage!
My new plan is to place an ad on LinkedIn for a self-loathing, down-on-their-luck and (preferably) desperate accountant-type person to transform our finances into a mecca of organization. I don’t know what that would look like. A really fancy box?
I’m really scraping the bottom of the idea barrel for this post, but I’m home sick today, bored and have only my cats to entertain me. So I apologize.
I’m in the bathroom when Emo, my cat, starts yowling like she’s being burned alive. This is a regular occurrence (the yowling, not her being burned alive) so I try to ignore her as best I can. But anyone with a vocal cat can tell you there’s a certain point where the human brain cannot ignore this horrible sound anymore. Don’t believe me? Watch:
Apparently my limit is about 52 seconds.
Anyway, I fling open the door to find her staring at me with a toy mouse head in her mouth. Not taking her eyes off me, she opens her mouth and drops it on the carpet, waiting expectantly.
I can just imagine if I could understand her cat language. For some reason, in my head it translates like this:
Emo: BEHOLD! I HAVE BROUGHT YOU THE HEAD OF A MOUSE. (drops it at my feet)
Me: Great. Thank you. That’s very nice.
Emo: I HOPE YOU HAVE FOUND MY GIFT WORTHY.
Me: I do. Only… why is it just the head?
Why is it looking at me?
Emo: I don’t know. The body’s around here somewhere. Why, don’t you like it?
Me: I love it. Obviously. So somewhere in my house there’s a headless mouse body?
Emo: Yes.
Me: But you don’t know where.
Emo: Correct.
Me: Great. Can I take my shower now?
Emo: I suppose.
I’ll be right here if you need me. Always.
I take my shower. I hear her yowling again. I ignore her and turn my music up louder. When I’m done drying off, I open the door to find Emo once again with what appears to be the mouse body, judging by the straggly tail hanging from her mouth.
Emo: I NOW PRESENT YOU WITH THE BODY OF A MOUSE. MY GIFT IS COMPLETE.
Me: Yeah. That’s great. It’s… wait, that’s another mouse head!
Emo: No, it’s not.
Me: Yes it is! (I pick it up and inspect it.) It’s a different mouse with the bottom half of its body torn off. What is wrong with you?
Emo: Do you want my gift or not?
Me: In my house there are two headless mouse bodies.
Emo: Well, technically one is half a headless mouse body.
Me: Please leave me alone.
Emo: No.
I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU ALONE. NOR YOU, PRECIOUS MOUSE HEAD.
I think I’m ready to start back to grad school again, what do you guys think?
It’s that time of year, folks. Everywhere you look, there’s a list of the Best Such-and-Such of 2013. Well, I thought I’d change things up by making a list of all the mundane non-events in my life this year. So who wants to read the most boring, narcissistic list of 2013? No one? Okay, let’s get to it!
1. I have not finished editing my book
I’ve said for two years now I’ve needed to edit my book. And guess what? I haven’t! In fact, I barely looked at it in 2013. Right now it’s sitting on my flash drive, eating nachos and contributing nothing to the household. Get a job!
2. I haven’t found paid freelance work
I started this blog in order to gain some followers/admirers/people who will throw money at me. So far? I’ve got nothing. Zero. Bupkes. I even pimped out my LinkedIn account, you guys. Pimped. It. Out. Still nada. Of course I haven’t exactly been pitching any ideas to anyone, either. In fact, I haven’t put any effort into it other than bitching about the lack of jobs, really. But shouldn’t that count for something?
3. I started grad school, only to take a break after completing one class
I took one graduate class at Franklin University. (Just a side note that their abbreviation is FU. Ha!) I decided to switch to online classes since driving to campus every week was too much and the next class doesn’t start until February. So, to recap: I took one class from the end of August to mid-September then took a break for about 4 months. Because my thinkin’ parts hurt.
But I did get an A- in my first college class in twelve years, so that’s an accomplishment, anyway. But this post is not about accomplishments, so let’s move on.
You know how sometimes retro things are good? The Poconos is not one of those things. If I had to choose one word to describe the Poconos it would be swingerish. The whole place stank (figuratively and literally) of swingers. Not sexy swingers. Droopy, elderly swingers.
The carpet in our room had clearly not been updated since the 1980’s and smelled like mildew and regret. The round-shaped bed sat on a raised platform and featured a mirror on the ceiling, because of course it did. Oh, and at night, with a flick of a switch the mirror twinkled with tiny lights that (I guess?) were supposed to be stars.
Sexy stars.
The “romance” extended into the bathroom with a red, heart-shaped Jacuzzi tub. But what really made the bathroom extra special was the utilitarian tile, grade-school-sized toilet (visible from the tub for added sexiness!) and astoundingly unflattering fluorescent lighting.
Oh, but they saved the best for last, those saucy Poconosians! If you (somehow) tired of the dingy bathroom, a magical door led you into a room with a tiny swimming pool that was too small to actually swim in. Not that it’s meant for swimming (insert bawdy wink). Now get in there for some kinky water aerobics, you crazy kids! That’s if you don’t gag on the chlorine smell first. Or become disoriented by the inexplicable Roman bath mural on the wall.
Drink wine in a plastic cup, just like the Romans!
And when you left the room (although why would you want to, amIright?) the staff was ready to assist you in any way by being rude, abrasive, and downright incompetent. The first night of our romantic getaway we arrived at 8p.m. and the dining room was closed. At 8p.m. But surely there was room service available, for couples who couldn’t bear to leave their Den of Venereal Disease, right?
No. No room service. We asked the staggeringly unhelpful man in a sequin vest what we could do for food, seeing as how we just drove 8 hours only to be turned away by a man in a sequin vest.
He suggested the closest town, which was (he said) 10 minutes away. THIRTY MINUTES later, we were still driving in the middle of nowhere. We ended up going through the drive through at McDonald’s for our first romantic dinner together on our anniversary. And that was probably the best meal we ate while in the Poconos.
The one ray of sunshine in that ill-advised trip was the revelation that if my husband and I could still have fun in a sticky shrine to the seventies, we’re clearly the perfect couple. Or swingers.
I have woefully neglected my blog this Christmas season. Even my last post was a rerun. What sucks is that I’ve had so many ideas for blog posts but have been too busy to write them down. Which means that my brain is overstuffed, filled to way beyond capacity and due for a meltdown any minute. So really, I’m writing this for my own safety.
How my brain would have exploded, probably.
I’ve had several people recently compliment me on my writing and tell me how funny they think I am—which is awesome. I love it. It gives me a warm glow similar to taking that first sip of wine. It makes me feel that all my nitpicky editing and agonizing over the perfect word has actually been worth it.
But then I remember how awkward and weird I am in person and that glow quickly turns to paranoia and self-consciousness. I do that thing where you just say words that don’t make sense just so you’re not standing in silence. But then you realize that what you’re saying is gibberish mixed with gobbly-gook and you say even more stupid things. Until your brain is screaming at you to SHUT UP FOR THE LOVE OF GOD but you can’t. So you finally stop talking but then laugh at things that aren’t funny until eventually whoever you’re talking to backs away, smiling nervously and probably blocking you from all social media like a digital restraining order.
“Maybe if I can’t see or hear her I can pretend this never happened.”
It makes me really wish I could just carry around my laptop so that when people talk to me, I’d write the perfect thing to say and then let them read it. And we’d all have a nice, unawkward chuckle because I’m wayyy better in written form than in actual human form.
I think this is why I love fashion and makeup and all that girly stuff so much. Like a magician, I dazzle with my finery so they won’t notice my maniacal jibberjabber. Or people may just think I’m a vacant airhead. Which is a much preferable option than causing them to lock their car doors when they see me in the parking lot, I gotta say.
So my point is, I suppose, that if you ever meet me in person and find yourself wanting to wrap my face in duct tape, don’t worry. I carry an emergency stash just for that purpose. I’ll even help you!
This is an old blog post from fall of ’09. Leftovers from an old blog, if you will. See what I did there? Okay, fine—I’m in the middle of a turkey hangover and didn’t feel like writing a new blog post. Anyway, enjoy.
This is a tale of the day I decided to take a walk and the disturbing events that transpired as a result. It was a beautiful late afternoon. I walked down down the main road, swinging my arms merrily, with no premonition of what horror would soon befall me. I was ready to turn left at the corner when a neighbor’s bulldog, which had been wandering aimlessly in the yard, saw me and started doing that growly barking thing that dogs do. Still staring at me, he then left the yard and trotted purposefully to where I had stopped short.
I sensed this wasn’t going to be a neighborly chat. Maybe because his flat eyes had no expression and he was squinting at me like a mob character.
“I’ll make ya an offer you can’t refuse.”
So I’m standing there, more irritated than afraid, even though at this point the dog is right in front of me and growling. Every time I’ve been by this house there were always twenty people lounging on the front porch but of course that day there was no one.
I finally spotted movement in the garage and called out impatiently, “Uh, could you call off your dog?”
When I said that, the dog began inching closer to me. (Still growling, by the way. When you picture this scene, just picture the dog constantly growling.)
The guy heard me, but took his sweet time until I started getting seriously ticked off. What kind of person just lets their dog accost innocent exercisers?
The dog, probably sensing his owner wasn’t quite done scratching his head over this puzzling conundrum, chose that moment to lunge at my leg. Luckily, I have long legs and the reflexes of a ninja. Or maybe I just have long legs and it had the stumpy legs of a bulldog. Whatever. Luckily, I was able to dance away before any damage was done. Although it didleave doggy saliva on my cute workout pants.
Unforgivable. Now I’m really steamed. “It just tried to bite me!”
Finally, finally, the owner lopes over and ineffectually makes a grab for the dog. Oh, and by the way? IT’S NOT EVEN WEARING A COLLAR. Do you know how hard it is to grab a dog that’s not wearing a collar? You could almost see it sneering as it easily backed away out of the owner’s reach. All it needed was a wife-beater and a cigarette dangling from its jowls.
“Maybe you didn’t hear me the first time. I ain’t goin’ nowheres.”
And what do I get from the esteemed owner by way of an apology? This:
DOG OWNER: Huh huh huh. [long pause] Sorry.
Um. What? Your freaking dog just tried tomaul me and that’s all I get? Although I think it was really more of an angry hump attempt rather than an attack but still. My leg almost got raped by your dog, pal. And that is NOTHING TO LAUGH ABOUT.
But this was not over, my friend. Not by a long shot.
The next morning I called the county dog warden where I reached an improbably cheerful woman and told her that a neighbor’s uncollared, unleashed dog tried to bite me. (I figured an attempted angry hump wouldn’t impress her so I left that part out.) She said they’d send someone to the house.
I pictured some 7 foot, 300 pound guy coming to the owner’s door and removing the dog from the house in disgrace. Maybe in handcuffs, with all the other dogs in the neighborhood pointing and laughing. The idea gave me great pleasure.
So after work Eric informs me that the dog warden left a note on our door. What?Did they mix up the address or something? He then says in horror, “You didn’t give them our address, did you?” Like the dude would go up to the owner’s house, point and say, “Hey, the lady who lives in that house said your dog tried to molest her so he must be destroyed. Preferably in front of your children. And I heard her husband say you walk like a woman.” Because dog wardens are troublemaking pot-stirrers, I guess.
How my husband pictured the dog warden. In Eric’s defense, this guy is clearly up to no good.
Even though I was sure he was just being a paranoid, I called the dog warden again and was informed they check on both the complainer and the complainee. Okay, whatever. So what happened to the dog?I ask. Waterboarding? A non-stop marathon of The Aristicats? What?
“NOOOOOOO! I’ll be a good dog, I swear!”
Do you want to know what happened? The dog warden went by a couple times when no one was home, then when he showed up again a kid answered the door. A kid who claimed he didn’t “know anything about a dog.”
“What dog? I don’t know nuthin’ about no dog.”
What kind of kid denies the existence of his own dog?! Let me get a hold of that kid—then we’ll see if his memory improves. (cracks knuckles) But apparently there’s some law against that or something. Stupid hippies are ruining this country.
Anyway, they can’t give a citation to a minor so that’s it. A crazed dog tries to molest me and gets away with it. This is the direction America is going, people.
However, the kid must have said something to his parents, because while looking out the window one day (not spying on the neighbors), I noticed the Bulldog from Hell on a leash as a woman followed behind picking up doggie poo. AlthoughI think she should make the dog pick up his own poop as punishment. But one step at a time, my friends. For now, I guess that’s good enough.
It’s so gratifying to finally work in a place where you’re not the only weird one. A place where weird is normal. Ergo, I’m finally normal.
“You can’t argue with ergo.” ~ this guy
Believe it or not, this was not always the case. To make a long, painfully boring story short—but no less painful—my creativeness was once caged up during the workday hours, much like an accident-prone puppy.
Aww, my creativity is the CUTEST!
I worked okay jobs, it wasn’t like I was a coal miner or anything. Although I did work retail during Christmas season, which is essentially the same thing. But my poor, sad creativity! Whiling away the days staring mournfully out the window and peeing on itself. My creativity is gross sometimes.
I could only let my creativity roam free when I was off work. Which was really hard for me, as I’ve always been a writer, just like I’ve always been female and super-hot.
It’s a curse, really.
But girlfriend can’t live on her sweet Dorothy Hamill haircut forever, right? She gots to get paid. And the tiny percentage of my life allotted to writing just wasn’t doing it for me.
So I finally broke out of the cage, free to pee wherever I wanted. STOP WITH THE PUPPY METAPHOR, JESSIE.
“I’m free to peeeee!” ~ my creativity, apparently.
A fellow Ohio University graduate let me know about an open copywriter position, after which I wowed them with my sick writing skillz and sparkling personality. Soon after: boo-ya! I’m a professional writer. (Do people still say “boo-ya?”If I have to ask, then probably not. Moving on.)
I’ve been at my job for two-and-a-half years now (three years in May) and I’m still getting used to my weird ways being the normal way in my department.
It really hits me when we talk to normal people outside our department—people who are not scared of business-y things like percentages, columns and… some other business terminology. Profit margins are a thing, right?
Anyway, we were in this meeting recently where they passed out spreadsheets with the aforementioned business mumbo-jumbo and we all recoiled like they just handed us a basket of snakes.
“Nooooooooooo… anything but Excel!”
And this was when I had a minor epiphany. I had found my people. For once, it wasn’t just me backing away in horror at the sight of those damn grids, waving my hands and shaking my head as if warding off an evil spirit (which Excel totally is). We did it as a team, gosh darn it. “We’re creatives, don’t show us numbers!”
Numbers are DISGUSTING.
The moral of this post, I guess, is that everyone should find their people. Whether you are a numbers person (and therefore in league with the Devil himself) or an artsy person—FIND YOUR PEOPLE. Your work life will improve about a thousand percent.
But don’t quote me on that percentage, because… you know. Numbers.
You know I saw you see me, right? I saw you see me.
Here’s a quick sketch of my baffled disapproval. Although I don’t remember carrying beakers.
In case the incident wasn’t as memorable to you as it was to me, here’s how it went down:
I opened the bathroom door. You were wiping your hands on a paper towel, getting ready to use said paper towel as to not taint your delicate hands on the germy door. To save you the small yet significant inconvenience of opening the door, I held it open for you.
And here is where society as we know it fell apart.
Your eyes slid over in my general direction. I held the door, smiling and waiting. Waiting in vain for a THANK YOU THAT NEVER APPEARED. Because you sailed out the door without so much as a nod.
There I was, smiling like a fool with my folksy, corn-fed Midwestern manners. Wasting valuable face muscles. Face muscles that I could have used to do other things, like chew corn and yell at the Buckeyes.
Because as we all know, us Ohioans eat corn and love OSU football. At the SAME TIME.
And it’s not like the bathroom was wall-to-wall women, bustling with feminine chatter and chaos, and in all the confusion you forgot to say thank you.
No. It was just the two of us, wasn’t it? Two women in an almost empty building, drawn together by biology. We should have been comrades, you and I. At the very least we should have given each other the “office greeting.” You know what I mean. The generic things you say to an office coworker you don’t know. “Is it Friday yet?” is a popular example.
I literally Googled “office workers is it Friday yet” and got HUNDREDS of similar images. That’s kind of depressing.
But no. No acknowledgment of the extra seconds and mouth muscles I set aside just so your precious fingers wouldn’t touch the bathroom door. Nothing.
Just the breeze as you kept walking, right past my arm—the arm supporting the door that allowed you to leave the bathroom. Taking with you the tiny, sad remains of polite society and leaving the extinction of human decency in your wake. That’s all.
Oh, and by the way? Those pants were NOT FLATTERING on you.
Well. Today is Halloween. Usually I’m pretty into Halloween, but this year I’ve been feeling kind of meh about it. There are a few reasons for this and you will sit here while I tell you allll about them.
When I was little, obviously I loved Halloween. I enjoyed playing dress-up anyway, so not only did I get to dress up and go out, I showed up at my neighbors’ houses and demanded candy! And they had to give it to me. Take that, GROWN UPS. The day was all about me, my rockin’ witch costume, candy, candy and more mother#$%^ing candy.
Back up off my candy, beeyotch.
But then suddenly I was too old to go out trick or treating. I stayed home (still wore a costume, because hello, have you met me?) and answered the door for all the lucky little ones who still got to go out. My biggest pet peeve was giving candy to kids who were clearly wayyy older than me. The worst part about it was their total lack of effort: they just threw on jeans and their Metallica sweatshirt or whatever, lurking there until I resentfully dropped candy in their pillowcase. Ugh. Freaking teenagers. And now I have two of them!
Then it was on to high school. What sucked about high school (besides everything) was that a lot of kids didn’t want to dress up for Halloween because “dressing up is lame.” Back then I was super-shy (I WAS. No one ever believes me!) but I still rocked a costume. My favorite high school Halloween memory: senior year my friends and I did a group costume as Aladdin and his harem of genies. (Not as slutty as it sounds. The movie Aladdin was very big that year. Yes, I’m old.)
Then: college. And, as every college student eventually discovers, I found the best Halloween treat since mini-Hershey bars—alcohol!
Ah, youth.
It was roughly a decade of costumed debauchery, and I’m not too boringly adult to admit that I miss it.
But now that I’m old and staid (shut up, you guys), you know what I miss? Taking my stepsons out trick or treating. As I have mentioned previously, they are both in high school now, and yes, that’s just as awful as it sounds. I miss them when they looked like this:
Exactly like this.
Now, when I think back to how they wore those masks approximately 12 seconds before they began whining, it’s funny instead of infuriating. “It’s hot. I can’t see. It’s itchy. I can’t breathe!” Gahhhhh. Why do kids ALWAYS pick out the costume with a mask/something to carry/both? And why do costume-makers hate parents?
But I miss watching them trot up to our neighbors and chorus, “Trick or treat!” And they even remembered to say thank you, most of the time. They weren’t like those rude kids who just grunt and thrust their plastic pumpkin at you. You gotta work for that candy, kid. Dance for me! DANCE, I SAY!
Oh, gawd. Stop. STOP DANCING.
So now I’m in this weird phase in my life where I still enjoy Halloween but my “Halloween plans” go like this:
ME: Huh. There’s a Halloween party at The Lodge on Saturday. (a local bar/restaurant)
ERIC: That sounds fun.
ME: Yeah. It does. We should go.
ERIC: We should.
[silence]
And that’s as far as it got! The day of the party we got all involved with the kids…. we had just went out of town the weekend before… Eric didn’t sleep well… we had church in the morning… you could almost hear the fizzle as life just let the air out of our big plans.
But that’s fine. Because we had a good night with the kids and I don’t regret not going to that party at all. Ish.
So instead of going out this year I thought I’d trot out the sexy ghosts of Halloween past. (That costumed debauchery I mentioned earlier? There’s evidence. You’re welcome, Internet.)
19-year old me and my BFF dressed as Marcia Brady and a gypsy, respectively. (Or NOT so respectively, amIright?) Much Zima and other disgusting alcohol was consumed this night. So much that a group of us made a trip to Kroger to get more… while dressed in costume. We’re lucky we didn’t get arrested. (We had a DD, don’t worry. He was dressed as Phantom of the Opera, but for that part of the evening he was Phantom of the Overly Crowded Toyota Corolla.)
My God, LOOK AT MY ABS. Look at them. This is 22 (?) year old me with my boss at Sunglass Hut on “Malloween.” (Where parents bring their kids to the mall for trick or treat. I’m not sure why I felt I had to explain that.) We had so many dads bringing their kids over that we ran out of candy. Sigh.
25-ish old me dressed as an angel (ha!) with friends. Recognize the pregnant chic dressed as a prostitute? Yep, my bestie from the first picture! That baby in her belly? She’s about to turn 11 in a few months. Fun fact: since she was pregnant and couldn’t drink, her hubby thoughtfully got TWICE as drunk and puked all over himself. Memories!
This is actually the same Halloween, different day. Actually I think the party above was the weekend before Halloween and this is on Halloween night. Can’t wear the same costume twice, duh. The scary looking person next to me (not Winnie the Pooh) is the one and only picture I kept of my ex-husband. Bonus! Fun fact #2: He had already been out for hours by the time that picture was taken, and was so drunk that we left shortly thereafter. I’ll just leave you to draw your own conclusions why that marriage didn’t last.
Eric and I are at a themed Halloween party—the theme was Movie Characters so he went as Maximus from Gladiator and I’m Roller Girl from Boogie Nights. Yes, I wore those skates all night and NO I did not fall down.
29-year old me as a Goth Fairy. This is one of my favorite costumes. So fun! I bought fake eyelashes and fake tattoos, borrowed the wings and the outfit is mine. Cheap + adorbs. My favorite combination, other than chocolate and peppermint. Which totally beats chocolate and peanut butter no matter WHAT MY HUSBAND SAYS.
This was the last time Eric and I went out for Halloween and I had to almost physically drag him out. Since I’m a bunny I wanted him to dress as a magician. CUTE, RIGHT? But he “couldn’t find a costume,” meaning “If I don’t have costume, maybe she won’t make me go out.” Ha, think again, Pingle! So he had to throw something together last minute and he came up with, um… what he’s wearing above. I think he is supposed to be “Sith Lord working at the Death Star on Casual Friday.” So. Yeah.
And, you can’t tell from the pics above, but I’m wearing super-sweet white go-go boots, which I originally bought for an office Halloween costume:
Groovy, right? I wish I could wear those boots every day. EVERY DAY.
Jessie Lea Pingle 