The Girl With The Blog Hiatus — Check Out My New Blog!
I’m either exceedingly arrogant or incredibly loyal, feeling the need to post a blog about my blog’s hiatus. But I’m doing this because I do feel a sense of obligation to this domain and to the reader friends I have made, so allow me to explain.
In the past month my life has endured mammoth change. I quit the job I have been having hemorrhoids over the decision to NOT write about, I moved out of my crack den apartment and temporarily back in with my mother as the able-bearded bodied man I recently began to live with and I planned a 3 month road trip around the United States.
We are leaving tomorrow.
I know I took a long time to tell you, but I’ve had good reason. This trip took a lot of planning, mostly due to the semi unconventional way we are going about it. We are WWOOFing. For those unfamiliar, WWOOF stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, which is an organization that connects travelers with farms seeking volunteers in exchange for free room,board, and meals. This took some coordination but we’ve mostly established a trip using this organization. In some places we will be sleeping on couches, in others we will be camping in someone’s yard. Can you handle the badassness?
So for this reason I am taking a hiatus from The Girl With The Blog. Not because I have stopped being a girl with a blog, but because I have become a girl with two blogs. Righteous right?
For those who have been loyal followers, fear not I will return. In the meantime, please check out my NEW blog where we hope to document the entire trip.
http://www.thisisablogaboutfarming.wordpress.com
For those of you too uninterested in my existence to check it out, no hard feelings (JK, you blow). I’ll see you in June! 
Love,
The girl with a blog about farming
Meet Me In D.C.!
When I was 8 years old I went to Washington D.C. for the first time. My only memories of the trip were $3 bottles of water, huge Lincoln knees, and first-time thigh chafing. Obviously, it made quite the impact.
Despite my love/hate relationship with politics I have never returned to D.C. as an adult. This weekend I have a great reason.
Sunday, February 17, 2013 will be the largest climate rally in history. Thousands of protesters around the country are joining together in downtown Washington to protest the Keystone XL Pipeline currently awaiting final legislation from President Obama. The Keystone XL Pipeline is a project designed by Trans-Canada to transfer crude oil throughout Canada and the United States all the way down to the Southern border. This damages the global environment not only by the increased use of oil, but it will threaten the very need and development of renewable clean energy that could help reduce green house gasses and global warming. But on a local level it is equally frightening, with water sources poisoned during pipe leaks, causing disease and death in thousands of individuals affected by the seizing of land by government and private corporations to force this project through.
But rather than preach to you about the pros and cons of the pipeline, I invite you to read up on it, learn about it, and decide for yourself what to believe. Should you determine for yourself that corporate interests are not worth continued destruction of the environment join me at the rally! I will be there with my able-bearded bodied man along with thousands of other people. If you are so inclined, send me an email woodstock788@gmail.com
Love,
The girl who hopes to see you there
Links to check out!
http://350.org/en/about/blogs/join-forwardonclimate-solidarity-rally-217
http://www.foe.org/projects/climate-and-energy/tar-sands/keystone-xl-pipeline
My Clumsy Transition Into Adulthood (In Pictures)
“All I get are dicks. Nobody needs this many dicks in their life.”
-This is something I just said out loud. A nice reminder that the world is better when not taken literally.
Anyway.
Today while at work I reviewed the contents of two 5 year old flashdrives and one 4 year old external hard drive. Because I need something to do between people hanging up on me and hexing my first born. Along with a plethora of rhyme-heavy wrist-cutting poetry, pictures of Penelope Cruz (?), and tear-filled letters to my ex-husband I found three photographs that perfectly depict my clumsy transition into adulthood, ages 16-18.
1. (age 16, summer before senior year)
I was very into looking homeless, when I was in high school.
And hunchbacked.
Like a homeless hunchbacked hippy.
With a huge rack.
2. Age 17 (Senior week, Ocean City, MD)
I…I can’t even talk about this.
3. 18 (Alternative Spring Break – Assateague Island, Maryland)
This is how I spent my freshman spring break. While my peers were doing body shots off of each other’s herpes scabs, I was logrolling down a sand dune. That’s me in the green. Don’t worry. I’m not pregnant. I just look that way sometimes.
That’s it.
That’s all I have to offer you right now. I’m in a funk de misery (not real French) with zero energy or desire to do anything but sit and stew in my own lack of motivation. It could have something to do with the mammoth storm pummeling the east coast and the fact that I work at the only school in a 4,000 mile radius of the storm that isn’t closing (not real figures). Or maybe that for the first time in my life, I referred to someone younger than me as “dear” during a phone call.
Either way I’m getting old. So old. We all are. All of us 80′s babies. These pictures coupled with this pop culture conversation prove how irrelevent we all are:
Me: But you do know who the Spice Girls are, right?
Him: Yeah. Beyonce and those two other chicks.
Even our memories are going. It’s sad. So so sad.
Love,
The girl no one believes when she tells them about her rape whistle. But it’s real. Very, very real.
This Blog is About Nothing
After 3 hours of Intervention, half of The Big Lebowski, and 2 more hours of Intervention, I fell asleep last night at 10:30, face down in the free Red Cross t-shirt I got for attempting to donate blood they ultimately rejected, as my able-bearded bodied man (who desperately needs a nickname less than 7 syllables) sat alone in the other room, likely asking himself why he ever bothered to move in. I personally believe he did, so I could have early morning conversations like this:
Me: (waking up, panicked) What time is it?
Him: (startled, disoriented) It’s 4 hours for each plant.
Me: (checks phone) It’s 6:53
Him: Right
I definitely find this funnier than it actually is.
Kind of like how he feels about The Big Lebowski.
Love,
The girl with the Dragon Tales tattoo
No Facebook February
February 2013 is “No Facebook February.” Or so I have declared it.
I have been using Facebook to replace real friendships since the spring of 2006, as a senior in high school.
It followed me to college where I be-”friended” the entire University baseball team and weird Renaissance Club kids I never had any actual interest in talking to but was too nice and desperate for a larger friend count, to deny.
I graduated from college and recorded the downfall of my “too-young-and-too-stupid-to-tell-the-difference-between-first-love-and-husband-material” marriage for two years; posting wedding photos, deleting wedding photos, quoting Bob Dylan lyrics, and depression-weight loss pictures.
Following up on that stellar life decision, I moved to Tennessee and used Facebook to screen romantic prospects, which didn’t help much when I was sitting in my living room with a drug addict musician whose only criteria for passing my Facebook screening was “liking” The Allman Brothers, revealed his recent release from a mental institution.
Moving back to Pennsylvania, Facebook kept me company as I bummed it on my mother’s couch for two months before getting a part-time job. It also continued to remind me of the incredible failure I am to the social advancements of the human race, with my lack of interest in interacting with anyone outside of a 2×2, blue and white chatbox.
It kept me relevant in random bar friendships, cultivated from my singular bar outing in 2012, when I moved to a new apartment, in a new town, where I had no friends, and no life plan beyond online dating and drinking alone.
But it lost its relevance when I fell in love with my able-bearded bodied man whose presence helped remind me of the value that could be contrived from life when real relationships were a larger focus than 2-dimensional cyber stalking.
Still it’s taken 7 months for me to stronghold the desire to break my Facebook habit, for me to actually do it. And even now I can only commit to a No Facebook February and not a No Facebook Life. I can only explain it with haphazard math that probably means nothing, but has to mean something, if you really think about it.
I have been on Facebook almost every single day for 7 years. I visit Facebook, admittedly, more than I visit my father, mother, brother, sister, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, or toilet, combined, each day. If I’m keeping it real, maybe 15 times a day, adding up to approximately 3 hours each day, give or take a few. Now here’s the (estimated) math that gives me ulcers:
7 years x 365 = 2,555 days on Facebook
2,555 days x 15 visits to Facebook per day = 38,325 visits since I started
Which ultimately means:
2,555 days x 3 hours a day = 7,665 hours on Facebook
Which further means that over my last 7 years of life, I have spent 319 days on Facebook, which is easily the most depressing, stupidest decision, I have ever made in my life. And the worst part is?
I have NOTHING to show for it.
SO…
For the naysayers, the nonbelievers, the bored readers who tuned out when I started doing math. If you are a Facebook user, I encourage you to do the math on your own Facebook life.
I then invite you to take the No Facebook February Challenge with me.
Drink the Kool-Aid. Drink it down.
I started 4 hours ago and it’s been interesting. I have already had to deny myself Facebook log-in three time. It’s been brutal.
So to entertain myself I’ve been coming up with band names for the indie/punk/emo/folk-rock group I’m starting as soon as I get fired and learn to play the ukulele. This is what I’ve got:
Stench of Saliva
Ted Bundy’s Mother
The Waffle House Whores
Asian Impregnation
Chest Day Motivational
Rock n’ Roll.
Love,
The girl who maintains that the world would be a better place if candles were edible
“Why I Hate Answering the Phone”: A Story About Work
Dear erratic possibly-possessed, asshole who called me today at work just to scream at me for 20 minutes (also known as Tom Johnston),
Thank you. I have been waiting for a reason to cry at work for months now, but I could never find one. I don’t know what I would have had to do if you hadn’t been transferred to my desk to interrupt my pleasant mood with your ill-conceived attempt at being a human being. Thrown myself down a flight of stairs? Stapled my face? Nope. Didn’t have to. Your phone call made tears possible without self-mutilation, and I thank you for that.
I want you to know, that I appreciate all that you bring to the world. Your problems are my fault, really. I’m sorry I ever doubted the role I played in your 46 years of misery on this planet. Clearly if I could sacrifice my entire existence for one moment of your happiness, I would, but I am certain it would never be enough. So I’d like to apologize to you for your life.
I’m sorry. Truly I am. I am sorry that a GED has only earned you $150,000 working on Wall Street, (although a terrible fate for a high school drop-out, this could explain a lot about the downfall of the American economy). I am sorry that your son, the consumer of my company’s product, could not talk to you openly about his decision to purchase it. You are after all, such a warm and sensitive man. Any child would be poorly lacking without you in their life.
But mostly, sir, I feel sorry for you. There, I said it. Because after I stopped crying and your intrusive phone call stopped replaying in my head, I went back to being me, and you are stuck being you, an overpaid, nasty, rapid baboon of a person, whose personal life is so out of reach your only solace is to interject 20 minutes of unprecedented rudeness into another person’s life, via telephone calls. I may make a quarter of what you make, with double the education, but I’m far better off than you’ll ever be.
Plus you’re a raging c***.
Love,
The girl too stubborn to hang up, too sensitive to brush it off
Under Construction
WordPress is giving me grief. It has deleted my most recent post and replaced it with my initial draft. I will not be posting until I figure this out. For those of you who have read the article I previously posted about Saudi Arabia, I apologize for any confusion.
Thank you.
70 year old man, marries 15 year old girl…Western World Indifferent?
The human race either needs to evolve or die off entirely.
I know. Good morning to you, too.
I guess I should forwarn regular readers of my blog, that this entry is going to be about as funny as Carrot Top, so don’t expect to laugh . It is topical and current and will leave you feeling there is no hope left in the world. Or simply indifferent, as the title would suggest.
Now, typically when I write topical blog posts, I do so the moment I begin to feel a tremor of interest in a topic, before I decide how I truly feel about it, and before I know if I have any facts straight. You know. Like cable news. So this time I decided to give myself 24 hours to ferment in anger and all around disgust before sharing my thoughts. But when I woke up this morning I was angry, which isn’t a good look for me and decided for the sake of my appearance, I would withold my feelings no more.
Which brings me back to my initial statement. The human race either needs to evolve or die off entirely. I’m not bitter, just realistic, and there are plenty of examples of why what I say is true; school shootings, American politics, the popularity of Honey Boo Boo, etc. But in this case, I am referring to the dangerous combination of headline news and Internet anonymity.
Yesterday the Internet was all a-twitter with a news story regarding a 70 year old man in Saudi Arabia, marrying a 15 year old girl who he purchased from her family for a US monetary equivalent of $20,000. The story become international news when the man contacted authorities about being “ripped off” when the girl ran away. I thought it was a given that this is a completely disgusting, tragic event, not only because of age difference but the very fact that human trafficking and slavery exists so openly in undeveloped parts of the world, never mind existing quietly in Western culture. However it wasn’t the headline that shocked me, but the reader comments.
Although a healthy majority of reader comments were aimed at the sadness of this situation, there was also a disturbingly large amount of people making jokes, calling it a scam on the old man, defending the practice as “heritage” or “culture,” and generally spouting indifference. Here are a few examples:
Again, these are only selected comments I have copied from a few different articles. I am not arguing that this is in any way a reflection of the majority of people in Western society. However the stark lack of empathy demonstrated in these comments says a lot about who and what we breed in our “first world.”
Many people argue that this issue is an example of “heritage” “culture” and “religion,” and that is partially true. It is a tradition of humanity to enslave miniorities, and particularly women, as seen in most cultures at some point in history. However if the excuse we are making for this man, the girls’ parents, and millions of others who have participated in human trafficking, is that it is part of their culture, what excuse do we have for the people above who have had the presumed benefit of Western education and upbringing?
The truth is, there is not much we can do as individuals to actually provoke change in other cultures. But we can control how we react to it and the example we choose to set in our own. Several of the people above as well as people I did not quote proudly profess their indifference.
“I don’t even know that girl so I feel sorry for no one”
“Get over it, that’s the way it is in that country. Not our business”
Am I unevolved if my first reaction is to beat these bitches down? Yes, probably. But I truly can’t understand the argument that it is not our business to care.
CARE.
It is not our business to have any sort of empathy or interest or sickened gut-wrenching feelings about something like child rape and human trafficking. How disconnected from humanity must people get to not only not care, but to tell others that it is not their business to care either? And where does this indifference end, if it does at all? Catholic church, Boy Scouts, Penn State Summer Camps? Down the street? When does it become our business to care?
I look at the people who make these comments, primarily Americans, and I think to myself, how lucky you are to live in a society so far removed from the horrors of third world human conditions, that you have the liberty to joke about them and mock their importance. Your essence, or soul, or whatever you refer to it as, could have just as easily been born into a body in Saudi Arabia as it was here. How arrogant to act as though it is wrong to care about what happens to the people who are born somewhere else, victims to a world that is either oppressing them or indifferent to their oppression.
Human enslavement is a human rights issue, not a cultural practice. Whether you believe Western culture should intervene in these practices is one thing, but trivializing the pain and suffering of oppressed people is a slipperly slope to becoming one of the oppressors.
Be the change you wish to see in the world.
EVOLVE.
And for the love of God, make it your business to care.
Love,
The girl with the monogramed soapbox
Letter to My Future Self
Dear Lena of January 2014,
I hope when you are reading this your hair is clean because today it is not. Today you look like Courtney Love had sex with a mongoose and then got extensions.
So sort of like Nick Nolte.
If Nick Nolte had sex with Steve Buschemi…
and then grew a vagina
…
So like Charlize Theron in Monster.
Only manlier.
Like Michelle Bachman on the cover of Newsweek.
How many images can I use in one blog post?
More than this many kittens.
Anyway.
I have a lot of plans for how I’m going to become you; a year older, clean-hair version of myself with a satisfying life plan and less shame bestowed upon my family. Here are some:
1. Reduce my butt watermark – I haven’t gone swimming in several years and although I don’t have a specific understanding of why, it might be because every time I have gone swimming and walked from a pool to a picnic bench, or a rock, or a bed, and sat down, I produced a monstrous butt watermark – the imprint of wet ass cheeks in cheap spandex left behind on a seat. As a child I would giggle at this. As an adult I feel inclined to pull out a tape measure and survey it for prospects of fitting into an airline seat. I don’t need this kind of math in my life. So I’m going to lose weight.
2. Reduce my dependence and use of technology – I admittedly do not have much work to do on this in comparison to my peers. I don’t have a smart phone and never will. I don’t have cable, an e-reader, a camera, an iPad, or a reliable source for hot water. But in comparison to the previous eras I admire and wish to emulate, I suck like Kristen Stewart.*
I spend a ridiculous amount of time on the Internet. Like. I’m embarrassed. I can’t help it when I’m at work, but there is no reason I should go home and continue the cycle. I realize that the Internet is very valuable and without websites like Google I might never know that the search “how do people start letters?” is related to “when do men start balding?” but there has got to be more to life than allowing automated search engines to connect the dots for me. So I’m going to transition out of Internet time-suck.
*This is not a vampire joke. Or a slut joke. But it does work well in both scenarios.
**I hope the person who told me they want more Kristen Stewart jokes is reading this. If not, I don’t see the point to my existence.
3. Finish my novel – It has been just over two years since I started my novel and now as I reach 50,000 words in I am on the slow decline. I can’t even joke about this. I am proud of it. When I read it I am happy not only with the writing but with the obvious evolution of self I have experienced in the two years since I started. So I’m going to finish this bitch once and for all, angry ex-husband style.*
*That was wrong.
4. Continue my education – This plan has always been there but has recently evolved into something I didn’t quite expect. Like starting this blog or falling in love again. More to come about this but let me say I’m really excited.
Now Lena, of January 2014, these aren’t so much resolutions, with the inevitable implication that they will be forgotten in two weeks, as they are intended life plans. Therefore, I intend to create you quite beautifully with my ability to follow-through. Lena of 2012 gave me a pretty good year, so I’m going to try to pay it forward.
So you better reflect these efforts. Like Jennifer Hudson in Weight Watchers ads only less digitally altered.
Love,
The girl who wrote you this letter
