Background

Friday, March 11, 2011

Holy Matrimony!

My cousin Adrienne married a boy named Matt today.

I wrote this three hours before I had to read it. I guess I work better under pressure.

I struggled with finding the right thing to say, and I couldn't figure out why. Then it hit me--about three hours ago. To me, Adrienne, you are still the little girl that Rebecca and I forced to live on the porch of the playhouse. You're still the sweet and prissy little girl in the black stretch pants and the colorful tennis shoes that your sister and I tortured mercilessly...and I'm still your older, most-talented, best-looking and smartest cousin.

That little girl that I knew then wore her heart on her sleeve. She forgave us everyday for the things that happened the day before with an incredibly lovely and wide-eyed optimism despite what we'd done. She was grateful to be around at all (although I still can't figure out why--we were so rotten). She was giggly and non-assuming. Precocious and tender. A bit of a crier--but you forgave her for that. Looking back, She was a pretty cool kid.

It is my fondest wish for you, Adrienne, that even though you're someone's wife and mother that you still maintain all of the qualities of that little girl and bring them with you into the rest of your life and especially into your marriage.

If there's one thing I've learned from being married, even for a very short time, that nothing in life is guaranteed. You could turn around tomorrow and your spouse could live thousands of miles away, but if you keep the qualities of that little girl in your life and impart them to your own daughter, I'm sure that you'll find the happiness and love that we all search for.

Congratulations.

This is not the first reading that I've been asked to do for a wedding, but this is the first that I've written. I have to wonder why it is that people ask me to do things like this so often. Maybe it's because I look really horrible in dresses and I'm incredibly unphotogenic, so being a bridesmaid is completely out of the question.

Weddings are sweet and cute, but I often find myself misunderstanding the whole point. It could be that I'm just not the kind of person that needs a wedding, or perhaps I have a mild case of Asperger's Syndrome. Either way, after talking with my mother tonight about weddings and the like...I think that she feels incredibly lucky to be off-the-hook about having an expensive wedding for her only kid.

I'm still trying to talk her into writing a check and calling it even.Best Blogger Tips

Jett Pack

Who knew that Joan Jett was such a philosopher?






I don't give a damn 'bout my reputation
You're living in the past, it's a new generation
A girl can do what she wants to do and that's what I'm gonna do

An' I don't give a damn 'bout my bad reputation
Oh no, not me

An' I don't give a damn 'bout my reputation
Never said I wanted to improve my station
An' I'm only doin' good when I'm havin' fun
An' I don't have to please no one

An' I don't give a damn 'bout my bad reputation
Oh no, not me, oh no, not me

I don't give a damn 'bout my reputation
I've never been afraid of any deviation
An' I don't really care if ya think I'm strange
I ain't gonna change

An' I'm never gonna care 'bout my bad reputation
Oh no, not me, oh no, not me

An' I don't give a damn 'bout my reputation
The world's in trouble, there's no communication
An' everyone can say what they wanna say
It never gets better, anyway

So why should I care 'bout a bad reputation anyway?
Oh no, not me, oh no, not me

I don't give a damn 'bout my bad reputation
You're living in the past, it's a new generation
An' I only feel good when I got no pain
An' that's how I'm gonna stay

An' I don't give a damn 'bout my bad reputation
Oh no, not me, oh no, not me
Not me, not me
Best Blogger Tips

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Botany 500

I went to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History with my friend Dana. If anything, Pittsburgh has always had an interesting Natural History Museum that has always managed to teach me something about Science. Today, I learned that there is no actual Brontosaurus, but rather they're called the Aptosaurus. According to Scientific history, the same dinosaur was named by two separate scientists. The Aptosaurus was actually named two years prior to the Brontosaurus, but many people still use this incorrect name, as it has been a part of Scientific and Popular Culture for years.

When I was a kid, our docent tours often spent what seemed like a lot of time in the Hall of Botany. A place that was BEYOND boring for a budding teenager that was totally interested in the gift shop. While Dana was off completing her assignment, I found myself completely alone in the Hall of Botany for several minutes. No one seemed to care about the indigenous plants of the United States. The Hall is one of the last exhibits in the Museum that has yet to be remodeled, as well. You would think that of all of the hundreds of galas that the five wealthy families in Pittsburgh attend, that one of those dowdy old housewives would love plants. Brother, can you spare a dime?

With that being said, I really love the Hall the way it is now: totally Science Kitsch. It's old, it's poorly lit and it's got a lot of flair in a very sort-of plasticene way.

Fantastic Fungi.


When they finally do remodel, I hope I can have this.


Beautiful, no?


I love how sterile it is to plop these little models in a glass case, and yet, they're so completely life-like.


My Favorite.


Besides just the models and the poor lighting, the larger dioramas were quite beautiful. Each Diorama was carefully manicured and executed with amazing murals covering each backdrop.


The Alpine Valley.


The Pennsylvania Forest Floor.


I hope that when The Natural History Museum does raise the funds to remodel the Hall of Botany, that it keeps the charm of it's former self. The girl that, fifteen years earlier, couldn't stand the old-fashioned look of this exhibit...now relishes in what seems to be her own private place.
Best Blogger Tips

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

They Emptied the Entire Head of Turkey and Cheese

Is there anything that David Lynch can't do?


He paints, he directs movies, he draws, he writes, he buttons his shirt to the tippy-top.

While I do love David Lynch, I'm kind of pissed. I have to wonder what cosmic joke it is to endow people with talent upon talent, while the rest of us have to be happy with picking out the correct hand towels that match our kitchen potholders.

I remember the day that I had mastered Mod-Podge. I layered paper on paper and globbed on with reckless abandon. Twenty-four hours later a crusty and waxy masterpiece was left behind that was wrought with my half-assed and ethnically inappropriate cartoons. This...is talent.

From there, I wildly collaged every blank piece of canvas and cardboard I could find with old water-damaged life magazines that Dustin and I found in an over-priced antique mall. I've never really made anything worthwhile, but the moments when I'm completely immersed in a shitty collage, I feel like it's going to click and I'll have a David Lynch moment of complete artistic lunacy. Collage lunacy.

Are David Lynchs born? Are David Lynchs bred?Best Blogger Tips

Monday, March 7, 2011

Whatever, I'm Still Sick


Am I the only person that finds this insanely hilarious?
Best Blogger Tips

A Place Where Nothing Ever Happens

The Young at Heart Chorus with David Byrne singing The Talking Heads', "Heaven"



The Young at Heart Chorus is probably one of the most beautiful things that I've ever heard. A group of senior citizens that performs popular music, including selections from Radiohead, Jimi Hendrix, Coldplay, Nirvana, The Talking Heads, etc. I have spent many occasions watching video after video and crying my eyes out.

There is something so amazing about this group that I can't seem to put my finger on. They're fallible. They make mistakes, they're uninhibited about it all. While artists like Thom Yorke and Chris Martin take strides to make everything so very perfect, but Young at Heart is perfect with their oxygen machines and all.

More than Young at Heart, this song is especially poignant for me at this point in my life. Heaven in my life...is also known as Pittsburgh (who would've ever thought anyone would say that?).


Everyone is trying to get to the bar
The name of the bar
The bar is called heaven

The band in heaven
They play my favourite song
Play it one more time
Play it all night long

Oh heaven
Heaven is a place
A place where nothing
Nothing ever happens

Heaven
Heaven is a place
A place where nothing
Nothing ever happens

There is a party
Everyone is there
Everyone will leave at exactly the same time

When this party's over
It will start again
It will not be any different
It will be exactly the same

Oh heaven
Heaven is a place
A place where nothing
Nothing ever happens

When this kiss is over
It will start again
It will not be any different
It will be exactly the same

It's hard to imagine
That nothing at all
Could be so exciting
Could be this much fun

Oh heaven
Heaven is a place
A place where nothing
Nothing ever happens

Heaven
Heaven is a place
A place where nothing
Nothing ever happens


Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh is a place...where nothing ever happens. The same things start over and over again. Every year, the same polls call Pittsburgh one of the world's most liveable cities. Every year, I still can't find a job that pays a living wage that's not contained within a cubicle. Every year, the same people watch the same sports teams win and lose the same games (the Steelers and the Pirates, respectively). It will not be any different. It will be exactly the same.

I have to wonder how anyone can manage to get out of bed and hoof it to their retail, customer service, blue-color industrial job without having these kinds of feelings of depressing deja vu?

 When is enough, enough?

I have these dreams of selling everything I own and buying a yurt. A yurt with space-age polymers, access to an off-the-grid community with a like mind and a like heart. I hear these stories of people giving it all up and living like this, but I have to wonder how they do it?




I'll dream this dream. In a place where nothing...nothing ever happens.







Best Blogger Tips