Humbugs.

I can’t do it.

This year I simply can’t get into the holiday spirit. For the first time in my 22-year history, I feel absolutely no enthusiasm for winter or Christmas, and it’s unclear which is more depressing: my mood, or the fact that I can’t get into the season, period.

This past Sunday, after waiting on insane mall-people all morning, I came home with the intent of having a cup of cocoa, putting on my Christmas playlist for the first time, and putting up the tiny amount of holiday decor that Forth and I have. (Still no room for a Christmas tree this year….ornaments and a string of lights on the ficus will have to do again.) The cup of cocoa turned into a bottle of Malbec as I set about getting boxes down from the hall closet and about 30 seconds into “Silver Bells” my eyes welled up and I had to put on Ingrid Michaelson and Bon Iver instead. Forth had to take me on a walk and hold my hand to set me straight again.

There is little in life that creates more misery than snow and cold. The cold steals breath from the lungs and life from the soul. Snow is no longer a fun and magical thing. Real jobs don’t afford snow days (unless you are Forth….ahem), there are no rolling hills to sled down in the city–it just creates a white prison cell for my car and causes half an hour of shoveling, pushing, and scraping to get anywhere after a storm. Plus parking is fucked for the whole season. This side one day that side the other day three hours here half the street prohibited…..Why bother?

Christmas will never be like it used to. Traditions changed. Families expanded. People have gone away. New houses have been moved to. My parents have to share me with Forth’s now. The safety and reliability of seeing everyone and performing all the old rituals is lost. Last year, instead of celebrating Christmas Eve with my dad’s side of the family at my grandparents’, I sat in Forth’s childhood bedroom and called home from two and a half hours away to say hi to everyone. I then proceeded to drink a load of whiskey and threw up at a gas station bathroom in Illinois on Christmas morning. When we arrived at my house that afternoon, my parents forgot to stuff our stockings and handed us the goodies in Wal-Mart bags instead. My mom flirted with the idea foregoing turkey and ordering a Subway party-sub for Christmas instead. All my dad did to decorate outside was plug in a couple of plastic candles on the front steps. This, my friends, is not right, or comfortable.

Great things happened this year: Graduation, Marriage, & Aruba. But when a real job is not found, money is not being made, ambition is being lost, too much alcohol is being consumed, student loans are entering repayment, my car is deteriorating, my grandpa is days from death, Christmas plans are on hold, the sun is up for less than ten hours (if we’re lucky), and I spent Thanksgiving looking at this:

….what’s the point of being excited about reality?

17 shopping days left, folks. And 3 horrid months to go…..and I can assure you I’ll be trashed and sedated for most of it.

**Back.

P.S. After curling up with Forth and watching the best modern holiday movie ever, I can now stomach Otis Redding’s “White Christmas,” John and Yoko’s “Happy Christmas (The War is Over),” and Olivia Olson’s “All I Want for Christmas is You.” But that’s it.

And they both reached for the gun.

So this past weekend brought yet another trip to the Cities, which I feel as if I blogged about not so long ago. Then again, the last year feels like the blurriest of blurs, so what can you do?

My week leading up to Minneapolis began in the shittiest of forms. During the weekend I’d learned that my lung-cancer ridden grandfather had run out of treatment options and had begun hospice, so a detour to my hometown was planned…..just in case. Monday through Wednesday included double shifts–work from 8 a.m. till 10 p.m at both jobs, all the while feeling like crying. Thursday I finished work at 4 and got to experience two cities worth of rush hour plus getting pulled over for going 76 mph in a 65 mph zone (though thankfully it only resulted in a warning–my third, but who’s counting??) and arriving at my parent’s house half an hour later than I should have. A night of gin and shots with my best friend from high school cured the first of the week, but going to have a goodbye breakfast with my grandparents the next morning was still no picnic.

Cut to Friday evening: I have a pleasant drive up to Minneapolis, singing wildly to tunes from Mamma Mia!, Chicago, and Across the Universe, and greeting the welcoming St. Paul skyline through the glare of the setting autumn sun. However, once I arrive, I realize that my bestie Xenia has gotten her car towed due to pesky street-cleaning procedures. On our way to the impound lot, I run over a giant block of wood or some such thing while going 55 or so on 394…..a highway it turns out we didn’t need to be on in the first place, thanks to faulty Google directions. I see my hubcap fly off, and we quickly pull over to check for a flat and bend my front plastic mudflap back into place. All seems well, and we continue to the impound lot where Xenia is then slapped with a $42 parking ticket IN ADDITION to her $140 impound fee.

With FOL (f our lives?) echoing in our brains, we head out for a nice dinner and more than a few glasses of Skyy Melon + Cherry 7-Up, which raises our spirits in so many ways. Now cut to Saturday morning: I walk out the door to find my rear driver’s side tire completely and utterly deflated. With no time for repairs due to the Gopher vs. Illini game (fuck the FIBs!), we slug a couple Fat Tires, and head over to the newly built TCF Bank stadium. But OH HAI, apparently I need my old UMN id card to get in with my student ticket. After being shot down by scalpers for a regular non-student ticket, we end up spending $50 on a general ticket that will let me sit in any section anyhow. Copious amounts of coconut Malibu fix this issue, and we have a superb time at the game, followed by buffalo wings, chicken tenders, and the Fire Pit burger at Applebee’s which all makes my mouth water just thinking about it.

Later on in the afternoon I call around to local garages who all tell me they are closed for the day or the weekend period.com, so Xenia and I roll up our sleeves, bust out the jack, and change us a fucking flat tire. About five men pass on the street wanting to know if we need help, and we deny it every time. By the time the grease has soaked into my unbroken press-on French nails, and the little spare donut of a tire is fixed securely to my chassis, Xenia and I feel strangely empowered and independently feminine, and celebrate this with Chipotle, pajamas, and vodka.

Fast forward to 9 a.m. on Sunday. The Tires Plus near Xenia’s apartment doesn’t have any openings until 1 p.m. despite my pleas about this being an emergency and how I don’t even live in the city and need to be home by that evening. Luckily with some perseverence and a bit of Googling by Forth, I find a Tires Plus in my old neighborhood of Falcon Heights/Roseville that gladly take me and I’m on the road with a newly plugged tire by 11.

Around 11:07 a.m. my Dad says he’s proud that I know how to change a flat and at 11:47 I’m getting gas in Baldwin, WI and suddenly the pump decides not to stop and gas begins to guzzle over my poor, gimpy, hubcapless Lola, soaking my black studded Madden Girl flats, but these things do happen.

So, the moral of the story, kids? Drink. It can solve any problem–especially when you’re supposed to be having a stellar, stress-free girls’ weekend in the city you should have finished college in.

**Back.

Reasons Why I Had Fun at Home This Weekend

1.) My best friend is a bartender.

2.) So is my other best friend.

3.) Bars serve peanuts. Peanuts are salty.

4.) Long islands.

5.) Dancing a little.

6.) Embarrassing myself in front of lots of old high school classmates.

7.) I actually stayed awake past bar time.

8.) We sat on a patio and sobered up with free fried food. Free fried food free fried food free fried food free fried food.

9.) The hangover was cake compared to Hangover on a Plane.

Drunk

For your viewing pleasure. I added Sotting Drunk but its not on the list yet.  I’ll get to it.

Wordle.net is pretty cool. For the full on version look here: I am Drunk.

~Forth

41 Ways to say “DRUNK.”

As the first child born in my family, I am celestially inclined towards list-making. Hence, I present you with a little something Forth and I came up with last fall whilst sitting bored at a Starbucks:

1.) Inebriated

2.) Sauced

3.) A bit tight

4.) Wasted

5.) Three sheets to the wind

6.) Pissed

7.) Tossed

8.) Fucked up

9.) Overserved

10.) Crunk

11.) Intoxicated

12.) Plastered

13.) Bombed

14.) Liquored up

15.) Off your face

16.) Buzzed

17.) Getting tipsy

18.) Shitfaced

19.) Sotting with brandy

20.) Trashed

21.) Under the influence

22.) Sloshed (an obvious miss courtesy of Viana_17)

23.) Hammered (another obvious miss courtesy of lostincollegestation)

24.) Shithoused (courtesy of lostincollegestation)

25.) Smashed (yet another obvious miss courtesy of fearthepenguin44)

26.) Loaded (fearthepenguin44)

27.) Loopy (fearthepenguin44)

28.) Blotto (T-dizzle-and bonus points because it is Aussie/Kiwi slang)

29.) Pitschsnoggled

30.) Tanked

31.) Bushwacked

32.) Tore-up

32.) Tow-up (29-32 courtesy of T-dizzle-speak)

33.) Sotting drunk

34.) Sozzled

35.) Four to the floor

36.) Fershnookered

37.) Blitzed

38.) Got beer goggles on (34-38 thanks to TheBeardedMan)

39.) Messed up

40.) Obliterated (39-41 courtesy of MadHatter)

41.) “In the loony bin” (’cause apparently it’s common with college kids in Iowa)

Did we miss any? TELL US, and maybe I’ll post the list of 22 ways to say “boning…”

**Back.

The XX Chromosomes

First of all, “Xenia” managed to get herself wasted enough for hospital admittance early Friday morning, and I puked myself inside out for a total of 13 hours between last night and this afternoon so let’s hear it for us–*clap *clap, okay.

In other news, Xenia and I went to a bridal shop yesterday afternoon to try on wedding and bridesmaid dresses and things. If there is anything you should know about Back, it’s that I don’t like attention, or women. However, it was a decent, non-traumatic experience overall. Had Forth been there he would have gotten a massive kick out of my embarrassment, but he knows this.

First, they strapped me into a bra/corset thing that was too small but I couldn’t remember my bra size at the moment, so shame on me. Also, I was made to put on this huge foofy slip thing that was more of a petticoat, and I probably would have liked it more if I’d gotten to call it that. As if getting the corset on wasn’t exercise enough, the heft and pull of getting in and out of 8 different wedding dresses was enough to make me look like I’d spent two hours at the gym rather than a bridal shop. Thankfully, my “attendant” was helpful but not pushy, and spent plenty of time running errands for other more demanding “brides.” Xenia was also a great help, re-hanging the dresses and adjusting my zippers and stuff. I did my best to ignore the smiles and comments being made by the other sisters, friends, and mothers, and just smiled along politely, hoisting myself up on the viewing blocks only when necessary. I quietly got excited about being all prettied up in all these gowns, though I was not as decisive in picking as I think the employees would have liked. I narrowed it down to three dresses, and three dresses for my bridesmaids, which Xenia changed in and out of with extremely swift, puma-like agility. Impressive, I’m telling you. Of course my mother and sister will have to be there to help me make the final choice, but there has been progress. To be totally honest, I don’t really care a whole lot about my wedding dress. There are billions of dresses to be seen and I’m not going to waste my time look for perfection, especially when it will only be worn once. Either way, I’m going to be more dolled up than everyone there, so why waste my time?

If I learned anything, it’s this: don’t get shitty tattoos. Yes, I’m speaking to the cute little blond girl with angel-wings on her back that totally killed her gorgeous pick-up bottomed gown. There was also a rather…portly middle-aged woman with a variety of faded cheap-looking tattoos (one of which was crafted to look like her shoulder had been clawed open to reveal a cow hide beneath), who brought her baby-daddy along to look, and mused about getting veils at Wal-Mart for 20 bucks cheaper. This, my friends, is a no-no. Women are not kind, and I saw the looks the other chicks were shooting her, and they were not pretty. Just like the woman in question. Ahem.

Anyways, the experience was decent, much like last night’s drunken shenanigans. Let me officially declare here and now that after a month of celebrating my 21st birthday, it’s time to put the citrus vodka away and give my liver rest. It kicked my ass, and I don’t wanna mess.

**Back

Cerveceria Modelo

So I was thinking about what to write and I thought “Hmm, I’ll start out talking about the freak who keeps searching ‘fingers myself’” but then I looked and WHAM Forth beat me to it. It popped up again today, in another variation-’finger my self.’ And a note to the perv who searched ‘naked princess jasmine’: there’s a special place in hell, buddy. A very special place. AH! I almost forgot about the ’seth rogan naked’ query. For one I doubt he’s done any nudies. For two, SETH ROGAN? No Brad Pitt? Chance Crawford? McDreamy?

Since this is site is Forth AND Back, I suppose it would be appropriate to mention that today was a very productive day in the realm of wedding planning. We secured our reception venue, thanks to the 7 AM tenacity of my mother, and thus the date: June 20, 2009. The photographer was also booked today, and I got advice from a future new cousin on how far in advance to book blocks of hotel rooms. Yes, I shall pat myself on the……back. So far this wedding business seems to be fairly simple, and I’ve assured all those near me that I will be the calmest damned bride this world has ever seen. I’m fairly certain my mother will take care of freaking out enough for all of us anyways. The end result is going to be the same, no matter when, where, or what type of flowers.

Onto….LARS AND THE REAL GIRL. I didn’t think it was as great as Forth let on, but it was a very lovely film indeed. Ryan Gosling could have done with a shave and a hair-do, then again, I just like ‘em hot. As a friend mentioned, you’re laughing at things and then you realize Hmm….this IS sad. The scenery was also tragic in that it reminded me of 95% of the outlying little villages near my hometown–hideous home decor and horrid wardrobe choices. It all came together for a very pathetic effect though, that drove the movie perfectly. They also didn’t go too overboard with the psychology thing which was good. I was left with a couple questions upon finishing the movie: Would Lars ever admit that he knew Bianca was fake? And, Hmm, Lars is probably loaded, what with no rent and no social life, but how much does a Real Doll really cost? This, friends, led me to the Real Doll site, which I HIGHLY recommend you visit. Holy CRAP! First I was just curious to see if the dolls spoke their bios when scrolled over like Lars’ co-worker did, which I found hilarious, but unfortunately they do not. According to the site, Lars would have spent $6,499 + tax + $500 shipping and handling for Bianca. That folks, is frickin’ expensive. Want the specs on one of the saddest things EVAR?

Real Dolls are made with 100% silicone, and come in all sizes, with a variety of face choices. They are odorless and flavorless, and come with 3 orifices for your pleasure. While the vagina and anus locations are very lifelike (when water-based lube is used, of course), Real Doll users have reported extremely “intense sensations” while practicing oral sex (featuring ribbed mouths no less) with their dolls, namely Britney-Face 12, and Gabrielle-Face 16. Big men don’t fear—Real Dolls can support 400 lbs of sweaty, pathetic male-flesh. And yes boys, you can style their hair and safely shower with them. For those of you thinking, Wow, this is great, but I’d really like an additional penis extension, extra wigs, a Glowcock or more pairs of eyes for my Real Biatch, worry not–all of these accessories and more are available. Because some of us are into trannys and 6-eyed hos? Unfortunately for women, there is only one Real Doll face choice for men, and that is Charlie-Face M1, and he looks like a coked-out prison escapee. The penis choices, however, are ENDLESS. Like ‘em big? Tiny? Even flaccid, if you just want to look at it or something. You can put any sort of wang on Charlie, or just buy the torso with penis for only $1299. Not only can you pick the penis, but you can choose the pubic hair. Whether you like your men shaved, trimmed, or au natural, Real Doll can make all of your sad, lonely, neurotic fantasies a reality. Too much of a reality, come to that.

Ah, If only Lars had considered that $7000 could buy him like, 800 dates with a paid escort (only 3, if you’re rolling Spitzer-style.) Of course then, there would be no movie. Since this post has gotten a little out of hand (seriously…check the Real Doll site for a great laugh), I’ll wrap it up. More this weekend when I get a visit from one of my best high school friends, whom I shall call “Xenia” for all nostalgic purposes. She is turning 21 and I’ve got enough booze in this apartment to kill a small moose.

**Back

Eff Humanity.

Some people write songs about the kind of day I had today.

They write songs and then drink 3 cosmos on an empty stomach and pass out on the bed, drooling excessively for 3 hours while Forth watches The West Wing and thunder booms outside. Wait…did I? Oh yeah… Anyways, I’ve had enough of President Bartlett for one day. Also, do not be alarmed if the video that Forth posted does not work. It didn’t work when I clicked on it either. That is okay though—the last thing I want is for ALL OUR READERS to see what we look like and come stalk our hot asses. The video was pretty cute though. Forth is good with that kind of stuff.

Today I put in only 5 hours at the coffee shop. Given it is the second day in a row I’ve gotten off my shift early, it didn’t stop the most hideous customers in the world from coming in. 5 pounds of coffee, 4 extra large drinks, 5 cookies, writing a check? Excuse me? Oh wait Back, in addition to dealing with these ugly balls of rude without a break, please train somebody in on the register. Sweet. There is probably no real problem here aside from I was cranky and I have to close for the next 4 nights in a row. And essentially I won’t get to see Forth until Wednesday night. Speaking of Forth, we watched David Duchovny’s The TV Set the other night. I barely even remember it–and not because I was drinking, but because it was just that worthless of a movie. Seriously. Where did that hour and a half go? No freaking idea. David Duchovny did not even look hot because he was sporting a beard, so who really cares? Nobody.

And on that note, I shall go to bed. I believe I am hydrated enough and have gotten rid of most of my drool and vodka-breath. Anon, good fellows.

**Back

Animoto.com

Hey, check this out. Animoto.com is cool. I wish I could embed the video on here but I’m having trouble with it right now. I guess I’ll have to … wait a sec… I may have it. This is technology in motion.

I made this in a few short minutes and then sent it to Back’s mother and my mother. They’ll think it is fantastic. Back will ridicule me in some way shape or form.

Speaking of Back… She is going to go into the wild if she disappears?!? I don’t think so. She was just in Alaska last year and she wasn’t that impressed with the living conditions. Besides, if she ever disappears she’ll be at the beach and I’ll get there faster. Its five oclock somewhere. Actually… I wonder is she bought more rum.

~Forth

postscript: This is coming for Milwaukee.

$9 Martini, Here I Come

Hello World.

This post is an ode to the lighting at the Cheesecake Factory. It is dim. It is sexy. It looks like a theater. It promotes Back-getting-drunk. And ours in particular looked like an Egyptian Temple. The one at Mayfair is not that hot, let me tell you. The ceiling is painted in swirly colors which, after a martini and a mojito I happened to notice looked like Martha Stewart threw up on our solar system. I love a baby-blue Saturn, let me tell you. I’d also like to tell you that it too me 2 tries to spell ‘Saturn.’ Anyways…I do not like cheesecake anyway, so I guess I should end this post. The last one was too long anyway.

And that folks…..is what she said.

**Back

P.S. Happy Birthday Rebecca!