Keepin' It Old School

I have to admit I really, really enjoy green bean casserole this time of year. It's simple, cheap-ass ingredients, baked to a golden, fat-laden perfection. I am currently drooling like Homer Simpson right now just thinking about it. Arrrggggghhhhh........I don't care if some of you have graduated to a classier version, sans Cream of Mushroom soup and ghetto French-Fried Onions, perhaps with pancetta, fresh organic French haricots verts, or even a creme fraiche sauce with scallions. Bite me, mine is better than yours and you know it.

I also still have a favorite cake, one that is so over-the-top sweet that the faint of heart might decline an offering of a slice of this delicacy. Cherry Chip cake, made only from the finest boxed mix, smothered in pink cherry frosting. Thank you, Betty Crocker, Your Highness. You are a genius. I sampled this treat in the form of cupcakes when I was a kid. This was when your mom could bake cupcakes for your damn birthday instead of having to bring a shitty pre-packaged snack. What kid in my class was allergic to wheat gluten, nuts, eggs, milk, and soy? That's right, NO ONE!!!!

I also love the taste of a little white trash special known as Poke Cake. Don't laugh, it's legit. In fact, it's too legit to quit...You pour unchilled, liquid Jello mix over a cake which you have poked holes into with a wooden spoon. Chill, frost with Cool Whip, and chill. Heaven in a 9X13" pan. Classy, no, but freakin' delicious. You know you want to make some right now.

And Cool Whip is another invention of the Gods. Real whipped cream tastes bad. It's just fluffed up fat with no flavor. Unless it comes compressed in a can that doubles as a party favor, don't bother. Cool Whip comes in a nifty tub and if you are sincerely desperado for a sweet treat, sit down with a spoon and go to town. Not that I have ever done this. With all this talk of cheesy ghetto food, I make myself sound like I'm sitting around in my KMart sweats, watching Montel Williams and Days of Our Lives all damn day. Puuuhhhleeeeze. My sweats are from the Gap and if I have time for TV during the day, I will watch Tivo'd Survivor. I do manage to get my (fat) ass to spin a few times per week ya' know.

I tried making Martha Stewart's macaroni and cheese with beschamel sauce and hand-grated cheeses. I ended up with bloody knuckles (cheap grater because it is such an ordeal to get out my $300 food processor just to grate some frickin' cheese), a dish that wasn't all melty and gooey like I enjoy, and kids who looked at me like, "What in THE HELL is this bullshit you expect me to eat?!" Okay, point taken. I will revert back to my famous "White Trash Mac'N'Cheese" which is made with lots of butter, sauteed onions, starchy croutons, and a huge brick of old school Velveeta Cheese. This shit is not even kept in the same area of the grocery store as the rest of the damn cheese. It's considered a "cheese product". Who cares, it probably has 10 times the cholesterol of normal cheddar if it can live for months on a hot shelf. But I'll tell you one thing it DOES do right, melt into a cheese orgy of gooey goodness, ready to please my white trash palate.

I enjoy eating food that tastes good. I do NOT enjoy getting all decked out in my finest attire to sit at a table where some fag-a-licious waiter (and some of my best friends are fags so don't get all up in arms, you queeny crusaders) gives me attitude because I don't want to order the $300 wine "flight", an appetizer, salad, main course, dessert, and espresso. My expensive dress is making me look fabulous but if I eat all the shit you are suggesting to give yourself a better tip, I will look like Roseanne Barr and you know you don't want that piece of trash being seated in your section. BACK OFF!

I'm just keepin' it real. Mama knows what she likes. I might serve you any of the aforementioned treats if you come over. And if you are in my house, you don't have to pretend I'm the declasse' queen of shameful foods. You can high five me, grab a pig in a blanket made from Pillsbury Crescent Rolls, and ask me how I made that delectable macaroni and cheese casserole. Would you like Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill with that or perhaps Franzia boxed White Zinfandel?

Feels Like Home

When you travel it is an adventure but it removes you from your familiar surroundings, things which are your creature comforts. You don't know what you'll miss till you don't have it for a week. I cannot express how overjoyed I was last night to have my own pillows squished to the exact specifications of my own massive noggin, my huge soft bed, covers just the right warmth and thickness, and the comfort of my own shower and toilet to take care of my "business" at my leisure.

Toilet paper in Europe is no good. If you ever saw the episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" where Cheryl uses only the scratchy, eco-friendly super thin crap and Larry replaces it with regular soft stuff, you recognize the humor in this. On one hand, yes, chopping down trees is sad. It depletes the environment which reduces our supply of oxygen, blah, blah, blah. Thanks to folks like Al Gore and Cameron Diaz, you can always be sure to know what "green thing" we are NOT doing in order to screw our planet. But when I sit upon the porcelain throne, whether it be something that requires one flush or two, I would like to wipe my ass with a material that is soft, cushy, absorbent, and doesn't give me a paper cuts on my labes. And Cameron, I will never use the potty at your house because I've heard your motto is "If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down." I'm sure your Beverly Hills eco-friendly mansion smells just like the truckstop restroom in Sawyer, Michigan. I guess you can't buy class.

And speaking of double flushes, European toilets often give you a choice in your flushing needs. There was a yin-yang shaped button on the back of our toilet in Paris, half of it being larger than the other. This button I fondly labeled "Grossen Shitzen", which in my German jive speak means "big shit". [Sultan really does speak German and claims I am FULL of shit but I think this is a funny title so it stays.] There are no massive water tanks on the backs of any toilets to flush 7000 gallons of water (or whatever I wasted when I flushed that Kleenex, sorry, Al..) If you are fond of leaving "upper deckers", where you leave a dump in the tank and people wonder for weeks where the fresh shit smell is coming from before they figure it out, you will have no game with this prank in Europe.

In Strasbourg we had a very large bed with very sparse covers. It was chilly sleeping with my sheet and summer gauze blanket, even though it was snowing outside. In Paris we had a small bed with poofy hot covers which made me sweat like Oprah at an All-You-Can-Eat buffet. I felt like Goldilocks except nothing was just right. In Paris and Strasbourg we had square pillows. This sounds like no big deal but these polyester lump bags cause neck cramps, writhing around, and exclamations of "mother fuckin' pillows!!" many times throughout the night. If you couple this sleeping obstacle with the fact that I began to depend on my Ambien, which is a sleeping pill that's a wee bit addictive, I was a mess. I decided to go cold turkey on my last night, no Ambien to seduce me into LaLa Land or even a Xanax to relax me. By the way, I'm not some junkie on this shit, I just like to cope with jetlag the best way I know how---drugs. I was a tornado of restless legs, flailing covers, and square pillows being punched and folded every ten minutes. My eyes were more bloodshot than Jerry Louis on hour 23 of the Labor Day Telethon. I know Sultan LOVED sleeping next to me that night...

If you would like to stand out as a complete American, by all means, please wear your brand new white Keds leather sneakers and socks with coordinating pom poms at your heels. It is written in some "Only Americans Do This" code that blindingly white sneakers are reserved for those visitors who ask, "Does this menu come in English?" or "Where is the closest McDonald's?". I even thought I could pass as comfortable and stylish with my plum and grey-colored Adidas running shoes. Nope, welcome to Paris, you American Asswipe. Would you like fries with that? The French set the trend last time we visited and it was clearly the case again. It was all about the skinny jeans tucked into tall boots with low heels. No stillettos, no boot-cut jeans, no wide-leg pants that all the stores in the USA claim are so hot. I looked like I bought my pants from the "Before" cast of The Biggest Loser with my ultra wide-legged trousers as I strolled about the city. The only day I felt cool is when I discovered the real reason I hated skinny jeans all this time, and it's not because I needed to be an anorexic teenager to wear them. American jeans suck ass!!! I found a pair that, gasp!, was not low-rise down to my ass crack, did not make me look like a denim kielbasa, and I could actually sit down in without feeling like I had a clitorectomy. Praise be the creator of these French jeans that made me look, well, FRENCH!!!

For a few days, I felt cool, not quite like a local, but cool enough to cope. I no longer felt like Rusty in European Vacation with his embroidered beret. I almost felt like joining the crusade in the strike the railway workers were having (does every fucking place we go have to be striking?....). French people don't rent other protestors for their cause, that's only here in the lazy States. I kept looking for a giant infaltable protest rat, with it's beret and hand-rolled cigarette but I found none. So I returned to the good old USA after my 9 hour flight (good Lord..) a little more cultured, a little constipated, and a lot more stylish. Je t'aime Paris!!! But I also love my All-American toilet paper, too. Charmin rocks my world.

You Call This Art????

Today I ventured out to the Museum of Modern and Contemporary art here in Strasbourg. I stopped at a tiny cafe where, surprise surprise, the owner spoke no English. Not a problem, I know how to order my "sandwich avec poulet" (chicken sandwich), which I think I've eaten variations of for four days now. (I wish I could find some damn fruits or veggies. They eat so much freakin' bread here. Let's just say the dam is getting a little backed up, if ya' catch my drift.) I got a little lost, had to bust out my French dictionary a few times, and froze my ass off in the chilly weather, but I finally made it to the museum. I am not an artsy person, per se, but I do enjoy looking at pieces of work from people who have possessed great skill in honing their artistic expression. Apparently there were some jack-off Joe Schmoes who thought that their shit should be considered art, too. Wow.

I saw some Sisley, Renoir, Picasso, and Gauguin. I saw an enormous painting by Gustav Dore depicting Jesus and a crowd. It had to have been 20 feet high and 30 feet wide. Now THAT, my friends, is art. It took him from 1867-1872 to complete this. I can't even complete my grocery list so it stands to reason, I guess. If you are painting something as big as a small house, it should take awhile to make it realistic. When I see stuff like this it makes me speechless. And if you know me, you know what a big mouth I have and the need to fill uncomfortable silence with inane bullshit chatter, so know this is a huge feat.

On the other hand, there was some shit I saw that was subjective at best. In other words, I found myself asking ,"What the fuck is this?!" under my breath because no one knows what the hell I am saying here anyways. There was an entire room filled with a particular artist's work, who obviously was such an ass-clown that I neglected to recall his name. He had painted square canvasses with bright paint and arranged them in squares or lines in a room. How is this art? It looked like a paint sample expo from Home Depot. "Yes, Honey, I can't quite decide which color of red I want to paint the foyer. Let's get giant paint chips and hang them so we can get a better idea of how it looks." And you know someone paid out the ass for this "art". Morons.

Another artist had taken the liberty of taking a piece of plywood, perhaps a remnant from his son's old skateboard ramp, and crudely nailing it into the shape of a table. On top of this was some sort of platform and a plexiglass box. Inside was a plastic fishing lure box filled with tiny plastic animals from a birthday cake, perhaps. A fake plant leaf had a piece of paper, which appeared to have colored with a marker by a 3 year-old, and a pipe cleaner monkey hanging from it. And this artist had the enormous balls to call it "Untitled". Excuse me, you throw a bunch of shit together that you found in your junk drawer and at your neighbor's garage sale, you are coming down from a 3-day bender on PCP and you expect a museum to house your "grand work" but you can't, for the life of you, come up with a name for it. Screw you, you arrogant piece of shit artist.

There were way too many "Untitled" works to count. So you are telling me, that with your years of going to art school, studying the great artists of our time, becoming a master of your work, that when you put hours, days, or even YEARS into a piece of your artwork that you couldn't possibly come up with a name that inspired your work? I've come up with a few titles I think I might go back and place with Post-Its around the museum...

For the giant flourescent light bridge schlepped together onto a wooden walkway (I actually thought I was in a section under renovation it was so bad): "Asswipe Light Bridge From Hell"
Plexiglas box of toys and monkey: "I Am So Stupid I Can't Create Real Art"
Styrofoam brick labeled "The saddest day I ever had": "Someone Punch Me In The Balls Because I Am a Dickwad Who Screws People Out of Their Money"
Man's sportcoat hanging on hanger: "I Am Jobless But I Got This Curator To Buy My Shit"
Stack of old frames bought at flea market:" You IS Stupid, Ain't You?!"
If you like art, please enlighten me with this insanity. I'll be the one at the corner table with the French dictionary eating my 27th chicken sandwich. And please pass the FiberCon while you're at it.

How Do You Say "Asshole" in French?

I am here in Strasbourg, France, traveling with Sultan as he works all day. I would like to expressly thank Ron Goodyke for giving me four useless years of French language education in high school that have amounted to me asking, "Parlais vous anglais?" every damn place I go. I am an asshole in a foreign land.

I visited the Cathedral of Notre Dame today. It was massively huge, which I know is redundant, but if you were here you would understand. My camera cannot even begin to do it justice. Just get your ass over here sometime before you die. It's splendid. The ornate details in the sculptures, statues, and architecture make our sad American churches look like our kids made them from graham crackers and Betty Crocker frosting. There is no comparing European architecture. There is some serious skill that was involved in making this and frankly, Americans were and still are too lazy to attempt anything even close. Our shit is faster, bigger, and with 40% more creamy filling. Sounds like porn but I'm referring to all the fatties out there who go to Mickey D's and get the Filet O' Fish AND two cheeseburgers and eat all of that greaseball wad in 5 bites. You know who you are. You sat next to me on my flight to DC a few weeks ago. But I digress.

So as my sinus headache began to throb, I sought out a cafe with a menu that had English for me, the blonde bimbo, big-boobed American dumb shit. At the point of either vomiting or passing out, I had to say screw it and go into Cafe Rohan, which seemed like a decent choice. Let me give all of you world travelers a bit of advice. If you want to make the locals respect you and not put pubes in your food, at least TRY to speak the language. I forgot this little detail, being on the verge of stabbing someone for a croissant. When I asked if he spoke English, Monsieur Up Yours (don't know the direct translation) gave me a smirk that told me he already hated me. Great. Now give me my God damn cappuccino since I have had no caffeine yet today. I ordered the Munster Chaud salad, which roughly translates to salad with funky greens and baguette with hot, creamy cheese that smells like dirty underwear and toe jam. DEEEEEEEEEE-LISH! (Once I got past the odor..) But no, it didn't stop there. My waiter told me this Tarte Flambee was an Alsacienne specialty equivalent to a pizza. He neglected to tell me that along with my trough of stinky cheese salad, this "pizza" was the size of a poster board. The cunt-wad female server snickered as she placed my All-You-Can-Eat, You Fat American Hog Special on my table. There was barely room.
This tarte flambee came with "creme" which I'm pretty sure is some type of jiz sauce, because it was VERY creamy. And everything in Strasbourg has to include some sort of pork product. EVERY damn "tarte" had lardons on them, which is minced little slivers of fatty bacon. With jiz and onions. By the time I tried to eat a few pieces of that, the dirty panties salad, and my cappuccino, let's just say no one in a ten kilometer radius would want to French kiss me, let alone give me directions back to my hotel.

So with headache and a finally full stomach (you would hope!!), I paid my bill to Monsieur Smart Ass and left because two French twats with black eyeliner a la' Amy Winehouse started chain smoking their unfiltered cigs right next to me. I used to be a smoker for about 5 years. It gives me a headache if I'm around it now. I can stand it for awhile but with a tummy full of fucked up French food, Momma needed to lie down. I walked around, holding my head because at this point I felt like a tumor was going to pop out of my eye socket, and tripped on the enchanting cobblestone roads. I'm sure I looked drunk, which was fine because my head hurt so much I started to cry. That's hot. Blonde, stumbling American with sensible lesbo sneakers and horrible breath. No wonder the French hate us. But for God's sake, how do these anorexic bitches stay skinny form eating all this pork AND manage to sprint down cobblestone roads in their stiletto fuck me boots? When I discover this international secret I will continue my post. Until then, au revoir!!!!!

Good bye, Swiffs

I never really thought I would get attached to a guinea pig. When Santa brought them last Christmas and one of them died, I felt bad for Isabella but I had not grown to love that hairy little thing yet. And as many of you know, I get sort of tired of the daily care my animals require. Food, water, poop removal, treats, play time, etc. It is time consuming as all hell. But even though Sultan and I just talked about how nice it would be when the guinea pigs and cats all die (strictly for convenience), to actually wish for an animal to die is pretty harsh.

Today as we were literally 5 minutes away from heading to the bus, I heard the phrase I HATE hearing, "Mom! Something's the matter with Swiffer!!" Oh shit. She had died and was pretty stiff already. She had gotten a chance to eat her last plate of veggies and fresh herbs, I even found some organic dill for those little critters to munch on. I think it was just her time. God needed some more guinea pig angels in the sky.

Sophie was such a brave little girl, she did not shed one single tear and got on the bus calmly. I later learned she did not want her face to be red, since this often happens when she cries, and she didn't want to talk about it with friends. She broke down later, once in the comfort of Daddy's car. Now I on the other hand, was an utter mess much of the day. I kept crying and crying, over this little long-haired guinea pig who was so cute and silly and obviously touched my life more than I knew. ( I hate that I am STILL crying as I write this. Damnit! I hate being so emotional!!) We buried her in our backyard, next to our fence. I wrapped Swiffer, who was named after the Swiffer sweeper because of her very long black coat which resembled a mop, in a piece of green fleece, a fabric she liked to cuddle with in her cage. Sophie drew a very touching picture of her with remarkable detail, even down to her single brown foot. She wrote "Best Guinea Pig Ever" and "My Favorite Pet--I will miss you!" and we wrapped this note up with her. I even bought a little grave marker stone that reads "Our Beloved Pet" and we placed some silk flowers by her. Sophie said some sweet words about her as Isabella held the flashlight on her mini grave. We all cried together and went inside.

So this is not a funny post. Sorry. Just wanted to share this moment. I know many of you think it's silly or over the top how this all happened. I will clean up the poop and feed them, I don't care, just please don't have any more of my little zoo die. I don't think my doctor can prescribe any more Xanax to handle more sadness, even if you think she was "just a guinea pig".

Nips Ahoy!!

Having lived in the mid-West for my entire life, you would assume I am used to the fluctuations in temperature. You would be wrong. With every season change I find renewed vigor in which I can spout off about how hot, cold, humid, or generally shitty the weather is outside. Winter, fall, spring, or summer bring an equal opportunity bitch-fest for me.

I don't like to be cold. The past few mornings there is more frost on the ground than on Linda Evans feathered bangs from an old episode of Dynasty. My crocs crunch into the too-long grass (shhh! don't tell my Nazi, er, I mean neighbor!) as I chase the dog and watch him leave steaming mini turds I am too lazy to pick up. (Hey, when your dog is a mere 9 lbs. you can get away with leaving a few Milk Duds in the lawn.) I shiver and my nose runs but most importantly, my Turbo Nips stick out like Tootsie Roll Midgees. I swear to God I was wearing a bra, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and a sweater the other day and you could STILL see those titty tips poking through my layers. Sort of awkward when the UPS guy knocks on the door. It's like when you see someone who is such a complete freak at the mall and you are simultaneously repulsed yet drawn to look at their misshapen melon, do-it-yourself haircut, and Chiclets in need of braces smile. Sometimes even the good ol' hand rub warm em' up doesn't tame my poking perkies.

I am also equally repulsed by the heat where I live. It get hot, damn hot, here from about May through October. It is accompanied by humidity and often a lack of rain. [Now folks who live in say, Florida, for example, might have a different appreciation of humidity. It's actually wet down there, like everything got sprayed with a big hose. So my friend in Ft. Lauderdale might think I'm a big fat pussy for comlaining about Chicago heat. I'd like to see the state of Florida handle one of our January snowstorms with ease. Now who's the pussy.] I am sweaty, I sweat from every pore in places you probably would not think a human has many sweat glands. Like my earlobes and wrists, for example. When I am pitting out after having one sip of coffee in my air-conditioned frosty dome or if I still see droplets of sweat trickling down my back and temples AFTER I get out of the shower, it's way too fucking hot. When my dog learns how to sign "Give me a damn icee pop, now, bitch!" it is too hot for me. When the leather seat of my car gives me second degree burns on my ass cheeks and it's been parked in my garage, it's way too hot. Get the picture? Let's turn it down just a tad, okay God? Say perhaps 80 degrees or so? This 100 degree crap is a crock of shit.

We do not get to enjoy a springtime in this part of the country either. It goes from frozen snot-cicle cold to rainforest sweat dome in a matter of 2 weeks. The tulips pop up, the cocksucking rabbits eat them within a day (would you like some ranch dressing, dickwad Thumper?!), and then BAM! It's Africa hot. The same applies to fall. It was particularly absent this year. It's November and I have a few trees that just started changing colors. Again, we were wearing shorts and tank tops in OCTOBER. Then we had about a week to prepare for nipple-tronic cold. Fall fashions rock but bronchitis and buying Robitussin do not.

I do not want to move to California, where I know the weather would be ideal. I do enjoy seeing friends and family, I love my kids' school, and my dance teaching job is a sweet deal. I know there's other dance schools, decent education, and more friends to be had somewhere else. I think there a little part of me that enjoys complaining about the weather. (Molly? Complaining? Never!) It's a good ice-breaker for me, who likes to make up reasons to converse with complete asshole strangers just to kill the silence. I'm retarded, I know. So until I am dragged from the icy hole that is mid-West America, I will deal with the cold, hot and little in between. I will wrap my head in 3 scarves and not be able to put my arms down, Randy-style a la' Christmas Story, from wearing so many layers. But you will still be able to distinguish my erect titty toppers so be sure to shout, "Nips ahoy!!" when you see me shoveling snow in my bedazzled down snowsuit.

Growin' Up in Grand Rapids

I never really considered Grand Rapids to be small town or conservative until I escaped the confines of Kent County. It was often referred to as Bland Rapids by many local disgruntled kids, including moi. I had a normal childhood, went to decent schools, had plenty of friends. There was just an air of arrogance I detected only AFTER I moved to Chicago and came home for holiday visits. (I will insert a disclaimer in here right now. All of my friends and family are exempt from these comments. I certainly would not mean to offend. I am a bit sarcastic and somehwat cynical but it's all in good fun so don't get your undies in a wad just yet..)

The majority of my childhood memories revolve around my grade school, Immaculate Heart of Mary, or IHM. I went to school there from 2nd-8th grade, clad in my red, white, and blue pleated plaid uniform, knee socks, and saddle shoes. SOOO hot. We were even given skin-tight pants in the same pattern to show off our adolescent curves. (I'm making myself sound cute. I was not. I sampled a variety of really bad haircuts, including a mullet and a few perms. I was NOT sexy schoolgirl, I was awkward, buck-toothed, did-you-cut-your-hair-yourself girl.) Those girls with "unfortunate figures" opted not to wear these polyester plaid tights with good reason. Kids from other Catholic school dubbed us I Have Money. Whatever. I don't think my family was loaded. Weren't they ALL paying for a parochial education here?

I was pretty studious and a bit of a kiss-ass. I was the kid who liked to stay in at recess to help the teacher create her winter bulletin board. Never really rebelled, that came much later in life. I was constantly concerned with whether or not I was considered popular. (I was giddy with joy when Shawn Vassell signed my yearbook and wrote "You are pretty AND popular". He was pretty high up on the echelon of 8th grade society so who could not be psyched about that?!) I joined the basketball team, not because I was good at sports (I royally sucked) or because I really enjoyed it but everyone played so I did, too. In the two years I played I think I only scored two baskets. One was by accident. My best friend and I screwed around at practice most of the time. We would make each other laugh by pulling each other's pants down. No wonder I never knew what the hell a free throw was...

I joined cheerleading because you also did not have to try out and everyone was doing it. Our coach, Kitty (no shit. It was a nickname but it truly suited her.), chanted clever cheers and we mimicked her. Well, except for the platinum blonde hair, tight skirts, waif-like figure, and perfectly tanned skin. And she was nice. Bitch. It was super fun plus cheerleaders are always popular, right? A-W-E-S-O-M-E!! Awesome! Awesome! Totally!!!!

Even though I'm definitely an extrovert now (shocking, I know), I used to be painfully shy. Even if I knew a boy liked me I would curl up and just about DIE before talking to him. I remember this boy liked me and we had planned to go to a nearby "mall", Breton Village. I put this in parentheses because it was essentially a strip mall that happened to be enclosed by 4 walls. The boy informed me that, since he was going to be a big, bad freshman in high school he was moving up and only hung out at Woodland Mall. This is still a poor excuse for a mall but it still ranked higher than Breton Village. I was crushed. I was too young and intimidated by the thought of a REAL mall. Plus my parents told me hell no. Sigh. This boy had immensely large nostrils and probably a very small penis, too. But since I was a shy little piece of shit, I would have to wait till I was nearly SEVENTEEN FRICKING YEARS-OLD till I got my first kiss. Now do you believe me that I was a pussy when it came to boys?!

Upon reaching 8th grade, I had to choose between ballet at a private dance school or parochial high school. Goodbye, dress code, and hello Guess zippered ankle jeans and Benetton sweaters!!!! Coming to a public high school scene as a timid new student, fresh from the confines of Catholic school, I was screwed. I was befriended by a nice girl named Jodi, who was uber-thin, uber-blonde, and fresh from the pages of Tiger Beat magazine with her Esprit ensemble. Thank you, popular cheerleader girl, for making me feel welcome!! (at least in art class. Beyond that she looked at me in the halls like I had antlers growing out of my head..)

Ballet was my life outside of school. (Go ahead say it. Dork. Bunhead. Geek. Loser.) I danced 5-6 days a week during high school. I suppose this did not help my social situation since I rarely went to football games on Friday nights. But at least I was good at it and I really enjoyed it. This is the place I broke out of my shyness shell. In fact, my running commentary was so wild and raunchy sometimes that I had parents complain about my "sense of humor". I got in trouble with the director of my ballet company and was told to "tone it down". I would still love to know which parent got offended by me styling my hair into the Dildo Bun. It was classic, how could you NOT laugh?! Prudish freaks.

I became social, I found my little niche of creative, somewhat alternative people to hang with. We opted to hang at our favorite nighclub, Top of the Rock, (which was dive with sticky floors and a mediocre sound system) most Friday nights. I wanted to be all goth and scary but that much black eyeliner and clove cigarettes were a little too crazy to commit to. I was just crazy enough to become enamored with a freakishly small, troll doll-looking freakshow who danced onstage here. His hair looked like a fucking mushroom. Could someone please let me know why you did not punch me in the head with one of your Doc Martins boots to knock some God damn sense into me?! Thanks for letting me look like a raging asshole for a year. Nice. I appreciate that.

My existence in GR was fine. I knew no better. My sun rose and set with my life there. I went of to college, much of which is blurry, but I DID manage to graduate in four years. Then I moved to Chicago and (aaahhhhh!!! -insert choir of angels here) my life changed. People of all ethnicities, great restaurants, shopping that never ended, great fashion, and really open-minded people. I know Grand Rapids has become a lot more diverse but when I lived there it was pretty white bread. My high school had a couple of black kids, a handful of Indians, maybe 10 Asians, and the rest were cracker-ass crackers like myself. Not the exact picture of a melting pot America's supposed to be. But that's my perspective.

With broadened horizons, I returned home for Thanksgiving and sometimes Christmas. Grand Rapids is a city where I always seem to run into someone I know, whether at the mall (the BIG one, I have gotten over my pre-pubescent fear and can handle Woodland now.) or the local pumpkin patch/apple orchard. People who still live there, who have never escaped beyond the city limits and have no desire to, are weird. Sorry but it's true. I'm not talking about those who sometimes visit your brother in Chicago or at MSU, it's just that living elsewhere changes your perspective a little. Okay, a shitload. And sometimes those "Screw You, GR Is the SHIZZLE" characters can be a little uppity. Do you really think your Dutch Christian-reformed shit doesn't stink? (GR has a massive population of this religion. Just look up the Vander prefix in the phone book. Good Lord.) It does.

Now granted, when I head home for Thanksgiving I am psyched to see family and friends, most of whom still live there. But I find myself searching for social opportunities, decent shopping, and unique restaurants when we're there. Not quite the selection as Chicago but now who sounds like a snobby bitch? Sorry, Grand Rapids Brewing Company and San Chez are not that yummy. You can do better, GR. The population is expanding, I don't feel the need to be paranoid about running into ex-boyfriends (although my brother spotted The Troll in Chicago a few years back. Eeewww...) or any other arch nemesis from my past.

I live in suburbia now, away from Chicago by a few miles. With kids and a house it was inevitbable. Maybe you think I'm a bitch for this rant. I don't care. This is my blog, get your own if you want to put your city on a pedestal. You know how I feel about uppity people. You are no better than me for remaining in your childhood city than me. Get over yourself. I don't consider myself superior over you. We're even, okay? But don't you think putting "Grand" in the title is a little ostentatious?