Don't Read This. Seriously. Okay, Read It, But Don't Judge Me... Maybe Just Don't Read It.

I was still feeling kind of serious when I sat down to write this, but by the end of responding to you guys, I was feeling totally high on life and not at all serious, so there is a major lack of continuity between my responses.  At first I thought this was a bad thing because I wanted everybody to be even and get the same amount of seriousness in their reply from me, but then I realized that this whole post illustrates very clearly what you guys have done for me.  You guys are the difference between serious and whatever it is that I am being at the end of this post.  I don’t think there is a word for that yet.  Thank you.  From the bottom of my heart, thank you. Oh, and FYI: this will make a lot more sense (which is still not a lot of sense but more than none) if you open up the comments section on my previous post and read the questions that I am responding to.  Oh, and when I said I was being serious at the beginning of this post?  Remember that?  I really thought I was.  But then I read through this again and I totally wasn't serious at the beginning - just more serious than at the end.  I was feeling 40% serious at the beginning and -8000% serious at the end.  And that is not a real percent.  Maybe it is.  I should learn math better.  HOLY CRAP I NEED TO GO TO BED.  Please don't read this.  It is awful.  It is like a chintzy combination of puns, overly sentimental blabbering and randomly italicized sentences with some made-up words and a lot of exclamation points thrown in for good measure.  Please you guys.  Don't actually read it.  Just skim over to find the part where I talk about you and then go to bed because it has to be getting late where you are too.  

Okay, so I’ve been reading through all of your comments and… wow… I think I have the most amazing readers in the whole world!  I decided that I should respond to all of you individually in a new post so you are sure to see it because I really need all of you to know how much I appreciate your support. 

Amy – It makes me feel good to know that even my sad posts can be somewhat funny.  If I can’t laugh at myself, I am in a pretty dark place, so I am reassured by the fact that we can all see a little humor in the serious stuff. 

And you are right – I should get a thicker skin for what other think of me.  I don’t know if I will ever be able to not care, but I will definitely work toward a more rational attitude over the whole thing. 

I lay myself open for the world to look at, and I don’t really seem to care whether I am judged for my shortcomings, so why should I care if I am judged for trying to be successful?  I guess those are just too different kinds of judgments.  I am comfortable being vulnerable but not as comfortable being kickass.  And I simply have to throw in phrases like “kickass” to keep this from getting too serious :)

It is true what you say about not knowing any of you, but the truth is that I kind of feel like I do know you guys.   It’s weird.  Sometimes I’ll be thinking “what should I do today?” and then the first thing that pops into my head is “maybe I should call a whole bunch of my friends and go see a movie…” and then I realize that I just moved to a 3000 population town in the middle of B.F.N. Montana where I don’t know anyone except Boyfriend.  And those friends I was thinking I had?  Totally you guys. 

P.S.  I don’t think you even made a single typo.  

Angie – I have come to realize that funny people are the only ones to whom “you made me pee my pants” is a compliment :) So thank you for telling me that I made you pee your pants because, by the transitive property, that means I’m funny.  Is that how it works? 

I will look into being a columnist… but where?

Figworth – it is a common problem with women.  The more confident we look on the outside, the more fucked up we are on the inside.  At least usually.  Or maybe we are all really messed up inside because I’ve never really met anyone who appears to be fucked up on the outside but who is actually totally normal.  Sorry I said fuck twice.  Three times now.  Sorry

Memoirs of a Korean – I make people think?  That’s awesome!  I guess sometimes I try to throw a mind-bender in there, but now that I think of it, talking about how the inner workings of my mind work (can I say that sentence?) might promote self-reflection in others…  

And yes – please name your future baby(ies) Allie.  Especially if it/they is/are a boy.  Why have I included plural options?  Because you can never have too many kids named Allie.  

Okay, you know that part where I mentioned people that hate my blog and then you were all “I’m pretty positive no one could hate your blog”?  I totally made up the part about people hating my blog.  I have actually never received a negative comment.  I make these things up in my head and then I believe them.  It is crazy!  I will give myself all sorts of imaginary critics and put words in their mouths and then make myself feel bad all in the comfort of my own head.  None of it exists outside of my head.  Yet.  If they ever do, though, I fully expect that you will track them down and twist their nipples. 

P.S. What is your real name???  I looked everywhere on your blog for it (which actually turned out to be really awesome because your blog rocks) and I couldn’t find it and maybe I’m just blind and skipped over it because I kept getting wrapped up in your life and your band history and the part where your girlfriend’s mom said P’WOPOSE (because that was really freaking funny). 

Adelaide – The 1,500 visitors a day might be a little high because sometimes StatCounter does that.  I started out being totally psyched about getting twenty page hits and then, like a meth addiction, I started feeling like I needed more because I got more and then if I went back to where I was, that would mean I am losing.   Or something.  Forget about the meth part.  That doesn’t fit in as seamlessly as I’d hoped.

I will definitely ease into it (if I can make myself do it at all.)  I brainstormed for a few hours this afternoon and came up with some creative ideas for non-invasive money-making strategies that actually have the potential to be entertaining for you guys too.  I wouldn’t settle for less :)

BlackLOG – Totally.  The only reason I keep blogging is because I truly enjoy entertaining people.  It is one of those rare situations where everyone involved wins and I like that.  

And thus far, I have almost completely subscribed to the “build it and they will come” mentality (aside from setting up accounts on blog directories like 20sb and Humor Blogs).  I have never felt right about being a self-marketer (could I be any more redundant??) and so I have just kind of written stuff and hoped for the best.  And I will continue to hope for Mr. Zoot suit.  He is out there.  I know it.  I just hope he chooses me :)

Sara L – One of my favorite things about having this blog is that I can write something that I feel is too weird to even write (like some of the stuff that goes on in my head) and then I post it and lots of people come out and say they can identify with it.  That just blows my mind!  Here I am, thinking that I am all alone in the world and that no one will ever understand me - then I stumble upon this blogging thing and I find that there is a whole internet full of people who actually do understand me! 

I really do feel like I have made friends here.  And who knows?  Maybe someday when I am rich enough to organize it, we’ll all get together at the exact center of everything (so no one has to travel farther than anyone else) and then we can actually meet in real life.  (It won’t be a mandatory sex party -  I promise.)

Well, maybe we won’t be able to meet at the exact center of everything – I mean, it’s probably booked already.  We’ll have to find somewhere else.  Probably Iowa or something.  But maybe we will get to meet and that is the important part. 

And I really am trying to take all of this to heart.  I feel very conflicted.  On the one hand, I am overjoyed by the outpouring of praise from all of you.  On the other hand, there is a part of me that feels like all of these compliments are like a gift that I should feel guilty for accepting.   I have decided that it is good for me to try to work on accepting compliments, though.  

I will try to come up with a list of ways in which you guys can help, but I might not be able to work up the guts to actually publish it.   Because what if someone missed this whole post and they’re all “oh, so now she wants us to help her??” And then they judge me?

I promise I won’t get discouraged, though.   I use humor to deal with everything in my life.  It is very therapeutic for me because I get to solve my problems on a public forum in a funny way and then other people laugh and maybe get some insights into their own problems and then everyone wins, like, 10 times or something.   It is a win-win-win-win-win-win-win-win-win-win-win-win-win (I hope that was ten because I wasn’t counting) situation. 

Nikole – No you are the shit!  (Because you totally are anyway and also because “you spot it, you got it!”)

Can I use the part where you said that I am “a real girl living a less than perfect but more than hilarious life” in, like, everything I ever publish about myself ever? 

If I ever write a book, or pitch a book, or heck, even edit a book – I am totally putting that in there.  It sounds so awesome!  I really like myself now :) At least for the time being.  And now I have some ammunition against the bad thoughts. 

Bad thoughts:  RAAAWRRRRRRR!!!!

Me:  “I am a real girl living a less than perfect but more than hilarious life…” Pew! Pew!Pew!PewPewPew! (sound of laser guns shooting)

Bad thoughts:  (nothing.  Because they are dead.  Because you killed them with your awesome words.)

Thank you. 

And I am glad I can therapize you effectively.  We are all broken together and that makes us less broken. 

That was actually pretty profound and I don’t know if I am the first person to say that, but if I am I am trade-marking it and putting it in my book. 

Steam Me Up, Kid – First of all… you are fucking hilarious.  I just read your blog and got side-tracked from writing this note for way longer than I should have.  

And I appreciate the sentiment, but I am totally not the funniest shit out there because guess what other shit is out there?  You and The Bloggess and Memoirs of a Korean and Sherri and mysterg and Amy(who’s blog is new but totally hilarious) and Sarah fucking P (who is totally rad and makes me love her) and – how can I even make this list??  There are too many of you awesome people!!  If I get any more funny readers than I already have, I will never have enough time to write since I will be reading all of the time. 

BUT- the very fact that you guys are so funny and you think I’m funny makes me feel pretty fucking hilarious just by association.

One more thing – the part about setting the internet on fire?  I’m putting that on a shirt and wearing it because it is awesome!   But please don’t actually do it, okay? 

Mysterg – You guys will always be my favorites because I knew you first.  I could have a million readers and I would still be unhealthily attached to my first 200.  And yes, I am naming my first daughter “South Virginia.”  Wait…

Though I would never make you pay to read me, it makes me happy to know that I could if I wanted to. 

There are some parallels between being an athlete and the rest of my life, but the difference is that with running, I don’t really have to promote myself.  I can let my legs speak for themselves, and all the awards I earn are doled out based upon objective standards like place and time. 

Anyway, do you seriously think The Onion would hire someone like me?  Do you realize that I am me?  And that The Onion is THE FUCKING ONION????  Sorry I said fuck. 

Thank you for adoring me.  Adoration also helps with low self-esteem. 

Organic Meatbag – that made me feel better and it made me laugh at the same time.  And can I say how I love it that you are interacting with my other readers?  It’s practically like you are writing my content for me!  I think ASSHOLE BOYFRIEND likes you.  

Gigi – It is totally a woman thing.  Or maybe we just talk about it more than guys do.  I don’t know. 

Thank you for pointing out the age demographics thing.  I hadn’t previously thought about the breadth of my audience, but I guess it is pretty wide.  I found out that I made my mom and dad pee themselves the other night, and they are also at least 20 years older than me.  At least.  But I doubt that you are 20 years older than me.  At least judging by your pictures.  I know that I look like I am 15, Gigi, but I promise that I am not.  I am a real adult :)  I buy my own toilet paper. 

Sarah P – I think people need to start reading my comments regularly because some of you guys’ blog-post-length comments are more entertaining than my blog-post-length blog posts! 

A Facebook Fanpage?  Can I go under an alias?  Because here’s the thing:  I have only told 4 of my friends about this blog.  This is because I am embarrassed to have a blog and I don’t want some of the girls from my high school to come across this thing and be like “OMG you guys!  Did you ever think Allie B was going to be a blogger??  I thought she was going to be a neuroscientist or an Olympian… but now she has a blog! LOL!!!!” and then they would giggle and braid one another’s hair and talk about how lame I am now because obviously having a blog precludes achieving any of my other life goals.  Well guess what you snobby whores?  I am still going to be a neuroscientist and an Olympian and a blogger  ALL AT THE SAME FUCKING TIME.  And I am more popular than you now because I have at least 200 internet friends, so go jump in a lake! 

What was I talking about again?  Oh yeah – I was talking about why I didn’t want to make a Facebook Fan page because there would probably be some girls from my high school who would look at it and then be all “OMG you guys! Did you ever think….”

Fuck.  I lost my train of thought again.

Okay, I don’t know about Facebook, but I will definitely try Twitter once I can figure it out.  And maybe Facebook when I stop caring what snobby whores think of me or once my blog is famous enough that they can’t do anything aside from stare at me in awe.  Then maybe I’ll put my blog on Facebook. 

At any rate, I am starting to feel much better now.  Can you tell?  I am being almost as inappropriate as normal and I haven’t even gotten to the end of my responses to you guys.

This is why I love blogging.

Loys – Was I doubting myself?  I think I probably was, but I am actually feeling pretty good at this point.  I am in the middle of responding to a whole bunch of freaking rad compliments and I have almost totally forgotten that I was ever upset.  You guys are the best pick-me-up anyone could ever ask for.   I am totally coming on here next time I have an ugly day because I know I’ll leave feeling like Cyndi Lauper – who is a pretty woman from the 80’s and probably not the best example to use here, but whatever.  I can feel like whoever I want when I feel good about myself. 

Anonymous – Uh-oh… I thought I was making it better.   Can you remember what it said?  I don’t think I saved it…

Melissa – I am socially retarded as well.  And that’s on top of being afraid to ask people for things. 

And I think the example you gave (which you didn’t think you gave) was the best example you could have possibly given.  And I actually did want to hear it :)

Will you let me know when you start posting on your blog?  Also, if you need help, I am kind of retarded at knowing how to blog but I seem to be accidentally doing the right thing a lot, so maybe I can help?  I know a little bit about HTML and a lot about grammar.  And spelling. 

Juosen – Humor is like Prozac for me.  There is something about making fun of my shortcomings and insecurities that just makes them feel so much less menacing.   

My reasons for joblessness go thusly: after I graduated, I moved to a 3,000 population farming town and I am still in Montana and I competed in a year-round sport in college so I don’t have any recent work experience and most companies frown upon that even if you have a good reason. 

Also, I am still running, trying to qualifying for World’s next year (in cross country) so my training schedule gets in the way of being able to find a job since I also need to be able to train.  I am not about to give up the possibility of a professional running career to flip burgers 8 hours a day!  Basically, I am willing to starve for a little while if it means that I can keep my dreams alive.  Which is a really cheesy thing to say, but kind of also true.  

(I do make a little bit of money running.  I’ve won some prize-money races, but those are hard to come by and sometimes you spend almost as much money getting there as you make when you win.)

I don’t know if I’m comfortable setting up a donation button just yet, but I think I might have a better idea.  I will write post about it shortly.

Sara – I will totally make Mandatory Sex Party shirts and sell them.  How funny would that be?  Everyone would definitely win (especially if they came across someone else with their same number) and that is a money-making strategy that I am comfortable with. 

Reading your comment, I found myself thinking “Holy crap.  Sara can’t ask for water at a restaurant either.  I need to meet her.  But maybe we shouldn’t go out for drinks because we’d both end up really thirsty…”

But if we did, we’d be thirsty together and that would be okay.  At least we wouldn’t be drunk because that might end badly.  I tend to like to go on adventures when I am drunk and who knows where we’d end up and then you’d be like “where are we?? I want to go home!”  And I would feel bad for getting us lost even though I wouldn’t think we were lost because I’d be drunk and I never think I’m lost when I’m drunk. 

I need to go to bed… I am starting to just ramble incoherently.  I am sorry to all of the people toward the end of this list of thank you’s/responses because, while I might sound happier when I am responding to you, I also sound a lot more crazy and off-topic.  The people in the middle really had the best of me.  They got to be the meat and you guys have to be the bread.  I am sorry bread-people.  Please love me anyway.  I still love you – I just can’t express it as well at this point in the night.  Like, I still love Boyfriend even when I’m drunk – I’m just more likely to say “stop tilting the house, Asshole” when I mean to say “I love you” and he isn’t actually tilting the house because he is not nearly that powerful – I am just drunk.   Does that make sense?

Kait – Oh boy, Kait, you are lucky that you are at the end of my responses when I’m feeling all silly and happy again because I totally would have raged at you for saying that – JUST KIDDING!!!!   

I am disgruntled with the sell-outs too.   

I think that pretty much every blogger ever wants more followers, it is just the way that people handle getting followers that makes them sell-outs/not-sell-outs.  Like you said, it would be totally obnoxious for me to promote myself in every post saying “tell all your friends that I’m awesome so I can be rich and famous” – if I was serious.  Because I totally say all of that stuff.  But I’m joking, so it’s okay.  I can say whatever I want if I am being facetious.  For example: “Sure, I love to kill cats by stabbing them in the eye with a fire-poker!” and it is okay because I am joking.   I think. 

So I thought I was done, and I was like “Yes!  I can finally post this and feel really good about it until tomorrow morning at which point I will realize I was drunk off of sleepy and I wasn’t making any sense and I made eight thousand typos and now I have to go live in a yurt in Appalachia because I can’t ever show my face here again and I don’t know why I said 'yes!" about that in the first place…”

But then I checked my comments again and I had three more after Kait.  Why do you people have to be so damn encouraging and thoughtful?  I want to commence posting this string of inane banter with myself that is kind of a thank you letter and also kind of just random words.  

CarrieAnn – you can wear whatever you want in your fantasy about having money to give me in my fantasy.  Let’s dress up like princess-ninjas!  It will be awesome!

Homemaker Man – I had a better idea while brainstorming today.  I will post about it tomorrow and you’ll be like “she probably actually is a princess-ninja because no other creature could think of something like that… something unobtrusive, yet financially gainful and it’s also fun for everybody!!”

Holy. Crap. You. Guys.   What am I saying to you?  If you thought I was a capable writer before, I have surely disproved that idea by now. 

ASSHOLE BOYFRIEND – I’ll look into the obscene Origami.  It sounds kinky.  That was supposed to be a joke, but I guess it really isn’t.  Because Origami isn’t kinky.  It’s more bendy.  Or fold-y.  Is Origami even supposed to be capitalized?  What are words again?  I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore.

Fart. Duck. Y7. BAM!! 

That sentence (if you can call it that) made about as much sense as the entire last third of this post.  I am so sorry that I have disrespected your encouraging words by responding in such an inappropriate manner.  I seriously am feeling a ton better now, though.  You can comfort yourself in that knowledge.  In fact, I feel like I could pretty much conquer the world right now.  Maybe I will and then I can be in charge of money and jobs and whether or not prostitution is legal.

And guess what guys?  Now that I have finally finished this post, I realized that I just wrote my first book!  This!  This is my first book!  Do you think I can get any publishers to bite?   Maybe. 

Priscilla slowly slid her dainty hand into Heinrich’s bulging Khaki’s.  “Ow!” said Heinrich.  I don’t know why.  Maybe Heinrich shouldn’t have slept with that girl with all the piercings.  You are probably thinking that her piercings somehow wounded Heinrich’s delicate package, but no – she had Syphilis.  I hope Syphilis is a disease that makes penises hurt.   Not because I want penises to hurt, but because I want my story to be factual and I am too lazy to google Syphilis right now.  

I will most definitely get some offers now. That was pure poetic genius right there. 

I Am So Broken...

Okay, so I sat down to write a funny post about how I will never be able to make money from this blog because I am so messed up in the head, but it didn't really turn out like I thought it would.  It started out a little funny then actually got a little serious.  But I'm posting it anyway because I am feeling irrational right now.  Here goes....

I think I may have mentioned several times how I don't have a job and I have been getting a lot of feedback from you guys via comments and email saying "DUH, Allie... why don't you make blogging your job and that way you can make money and also keep entertaining all of us."

And yes, that would pretty much be the most awesome thing ever - but here's the problem:  I am paralyzed by confusion, doubt and the complete inability to ask anyone for anything.

For example: Last night, I went out to eat at a cafe where they sell cheap burgers that are probably made out of cat meat but I don't want to think about it.  After I ate my cat-burger, I was really thirsty but my water was gone.  It was late, so the waitress was not busy - in fact, she was sitting there doing nothing about 10 feet from me.  But did I ask her for water?  No.  I got up to go fill my cup from the bathroom sink.  Luckily the waitress saw me getting up and asked me if I needed anything at which point I felt huge relief for not having to drink bathroom water but still had trouble croaking out "could I get more water, please?" because I am psychologically broken.

Being broken like I am, it is very hard for me to ask you guys for anything.  I feel like it is my job to write stuff and just sit here and hope that someday some guy in a zoot suit (he will definitely be wearing a zoot suit because people do that sometimes) will walk up to me and say "I will pay you one million dollars to write your blog even though you are already doing it for free..."

And then I would say "oh, you don't have to do that..." because I am weak and stupid and I can't even accept gifts in my own damn fantasy because I am more worried about being liked by the imaginary man in the zoot suit than I am about being able to afford real heat or a real bed or real food.

I mean, I can ask people to do joke-y stuff for me, like propagate the Mandatory Sex Party thing, but as soon as it comes to asking for something real and serious, like helping to promote me or donating or any of the other possible crap I could potentially ask you guys to do if I was braver and less unsure of myself - I completely shut down and will not do it.  I just start worrying too much about how I don't deserve it and how I look stupid for ever thinking I would be worthy of something like that.

Is that bad?

Probably.

At any rate, I would love nothing more than to do this for a living if I could just get my head around the fact that people actually like reading what I write and I am actually a good blogger and plenty of other bloggers get paid to do what I do for free.

But will I be able to make myself understand that?  Probably not.  I will probably end up sitting in a corner, shaking from self-doubt because I wrote an honest post about how I want to make money from blogging and I think that people will look at it and think "who the hell does she think she is?  She is not nearly good enough to be a professional blogger!   I could write posts about mandatory sex parties in my sleep - even if I was retarded and wearing chinese finger traps on all of my fingers..."  And even though no one actually said that or thought that I will start crying because maybe someone thought that and I believe it is true even though I made it up and I probably should have stayed in therapy long enough to work on some of my self-esteem issues but I didn't.

Yes.  You heard that correctly.  I will become emotionally distraught over an imaginary scenario that has no bearing in reality and I will believe this fabrication over the real world evidence presented by my StatCounter that says at least 1,500 unique people like me every day.  I will pass that off by saying - "oh, most of those people probably got here on accident and then thought I was lame so they left..." and then I will focus on the part in this post where I said "I would love nothing more than to do this for a living if I could just get my head around the fact that people actually like reading what I write and I am actually a good blogger and plenty of other bloggers get paid to do what I do for free" and I will begin to question whether there is any validity to that statement whatsoever because now I am sure that people hate me and think I'm lame and why did I even write that?

And then I will continue to spiral into a self-esteem crisis just like every other time I put myself out there and risk sounding stupid.

This is really how my mind works.

I am sorry this post wasn't funnier.  I had to get it off my chest.

I promise I'll write something funny when I am done being all pessimistic and self-critical.

Thank you for reading and making me feel good about myself every day.  Even if I never make a cent from this blog, I will still love doing it.

What Google Needs is Mandatory Sex Parties

So I just googled "mandatory sex parties."

If you are new here or if you haven't read in awhile, please just skip this post and come back to it later because it will be very confusing for you and you'll probably get the wrong idea about me - like that I'm just some freak who whiles away the day googling for mandatory sex parties.

I'm sure that's what Boyfriend thought.

He was on the computer, doing adult things (no, not like porn - like analyzing the stock market) when I realized that I wanted - nay needed - to google mandatory sex parties.

Me: "Can I see the computer?"

Boyfriend:  "What for?"

Me: "I need to look something up..."

Boyfriend: (Keeps looking at stocks and ignores me because he knows that I'm probably just overly excited about something stupid)

Me:  "Duncan!  I need to look something up.  Now!"

Boyfriend: "What is so important that you absolutely need the computer right now?"

Me:  "Mandatory sex parties."

Boyfriend: "What??"

Me:  "Mandatory sex parties.  I need to look up mandatory sex parties to see if they actually exist."

Boyfriend: "Why on Earth would you need to know if mandatory sex parties exist?"

Me:  "Maybe you'd have an answer to that if you were a better boyfriend and actually read my blog..."

Boyfriend:  "You wrote about mandatory sex parties on your blog?  Maybe it would be best if I didn't read it..."

Me: "Just give me the goddamn computer, Asshole."

Boyfriend:  "Fine.  But I will not be a part of your mandatory sex parties."

Me: (doesn't answer.  Doesn't pause to reflect on the irony of what Boyfriend just said.  Too busy typing "mandatory sex party" into google)

So I googled it.   And this is what I found (you'll probably have to click to make it bigger, but it's worth it):

Apparently I'm the only person on the whole internet to ever use the phrase "mandatory sex party."

I win.

But the world loses because there is no information out there about mandatory sex parties.

We need to fix this.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to seed the internet with the term "mandatory sex party."  Go wild.  Write a post about it,  make a Wikipedia entry on it, submit it to the Urban Dictionary... just get it out there.   The world needs to know more about mandatory sex parties which is something we are going to make up together and we can make it into anything we want.   We have the power to shape the world right now, you guys.   Everyone else will learn about mandatory sex parties from us.

And that has the potential to be awesome - or just really, really weird but probably also awesome.

Be a part of history.  Change the world.  Write about mandatory sex parties.

IMPORTANT UPDATE:  So I just realized that we should probably try to get "mandatory sex party" in Twitter trending topics.  Oh God, please let this happen...

Please Tweet #mandatorysexparty  and also encourage everyone you know to do it.  No one will know what is happening and they'll be all "what the hell is a mandatory sex party?" and then they'll google it and find the stuff that we wrote!  And then google will be all "WTF?" And then we win.   Seriously you guys... please, please, please do this!   The world needs this.

IMPORTANT UPDATE #2:  I just tried to create the basics for a Wikipedia page for "mandatory sex party" but then I realized that it would probably get deleted if we didn't seed the rest of the internet with the term first.  It is what Wikipedia calls a "protologism" or "neologism" and Wikipedia has a big stick  up there butts over what is allowed to be a legitimate new phrase.  We therefore must work on legitimizing the phrase first before we can create a Wikipedia page that is likely to actually stick around so that future generations may learn the wonders of mandatory sex parties.

So write about it, Tweet about it (#mandatorysexparty), post fake research articles about it (heck, even post real research article about it - what you do on your own time is non of my business...) or submit an entry to the Online Dictionary.

IMPORTANT UPDATE #3:  So my friend Noelle just emailed me and asked me how to define mandatory sex parties and this is the best I could come up with:

"Okay, so I think a mandatory sex party is a party where once you walk in the door, you are obligated to have sex.  I would think that these parties often disguise themselves as costume parties or birthday parties or baby showers but THEN as soon as they entice people in the door, they are all "guess what this actually is?  It's a mandatory sex party, bitch!"

And then the raping would commence.  

It's just a rough definition... "

And I am pretty sure that sounds like something the world needs more of.  


IMPORTANT UPDATE #4:  Look what Timoteo made!


You guys, this is seriously awesome.  I'm so glad we're doing this!

Allie Gets Arrested

This is another true story.  I seriously don't know how these things happen to me, but they do.  This is probably partly why I have become a neurotic house-troll who only goes into public when completely necessary - like to go grocery shopping but sometimes not even then (see yesterday).  Anyway, I hope you enjoy my fucking story.   Is is okay to say "fucking" if I put a line through it? That's kind of like censorship... 

My friend Roger, who was probably experiencing some sort of second puberty, wanted to go push big rocks down a hill for no reason.

It sounded like an okay idea to me because I am impulsive and easily entertained, so after we got out of school, Roger and I set off to find some big rocks and a hill.

Roger and I drove up a long dirt road, which I had always assumed was simply a Forest Service road, and parked my mom's car where the road petered out.  We figured that if we just hiked uphill, we were sure to encounter some rocks that we could push back down.

Sure enough, there were rocks on the hill.   We pushed them and watched them roll down, ricocheting off trees and destroying everything in their path.  It was fun -- so fun that we ended up pushing rocks down the hill until nightfall.

It really isn't as fun pushing big rocks down a hill when you can't see them destroying things, so we decided to head back to the car once it was dark out.

On our way down the mountain, we spotted police lights in the distance.

Roger yelled "Five-Oh!!"

I yelled "fuck the police!" like in that NWA song -- because I was cool, not because I actually hated the police.  I had never actually had much of anything to do with the police except for one time when my friends and I were filming my friend Brian pretending to rape a stuffed animal (yes, the same Brian from my drunken boat adventure.)  A police officer stopped and asked us what we were doing.   I said "making a funny video..."

The police officer squinted at me and then said "I know you!"

I said "You do?" And hoped fervently that I didn't look like a serial killer or anything.

He said "Yeah!  I see you at the gym sometimes!  You're a good kid."

I was baffled as to how "going to the gym" translated to "good kid", but I decided that I'd take it.

I stuttered "Oh... oh yeah.  I go to the gym - to work out... I work out at the gym sometimes..."

The officer grabbed my pathetic biceps in his big, meaty paw and shook my arm.  "Keep up the good work, kid," he said.

I awkwardly patted him on the shoulder and said "will do!" in a really, overly excited tone of voice.

He waved and drove off.

He never asked me about why we were filming Brian pretending to rape a stuffed animal.

I guess I just don't look like someone who gets into trouble.

I'm a good kid.

Kind of interesting side story:  This past Fourth of July, I was very, very drunk.  I was stumbling around town with a bottle of Kahlua in a paper bag.  


My friends warned me that it is illegal to have an open container in public, but I assured them that drinking in public was fine as long as you had your alcohol concealed in a paper bag.  I mean, bums do it... 


We got into a heated debate over whether or not the paper bag was sufficient to render my behavior legal and, because I was drunk in a desperate attempt to support my argument, I staggered up to the first police officer I could find, who turned out to be the exact same officer who never asked about the stuffed-animal raping.  At first, he looked excited to see me.  


Still clutching my bagged bottle of Kahlua, I asked him if it was legal to drink in public if the alcohol was concealed in a paper bag.  


It isn't... in case you were wondering.  


The officer said "in fact, I could arrest you right now..."


I made a sound. 


He looked pained and said "well, at least you are being honest... how about you pour out the contents of your bottle there and we'll pretend that this didn't happen..."


I nodded, sat down on the curb, and poured out my drink.  It was probably for the best.  


The police officer laughed at me.  He called his friend over and his friend laughed at me too. 


I just sat there on the curb, wondering how my impeccable argument could possibly have been wrong... 

Anyway, back to the feature story, which was interrupted by a tangent that was interrupted by another tangent... do you even know what I'm talking about anymore?

Okay we left off when Roger and I saw the police lights from the top of the mountain where we had been destroying things and Roger was all "Five - Oh!" and I was all "fuck the police!" because of that one NWA song -- because I was cool, not because I hated the police... remember?

Roger said "I'd hate to be that guy... " referring to whomever was being arrested.   Roger actually said that.  I promise.

The police lights disappeared into the trees and Roger and I continued our descent to the car.

When we started to get close to the car, we could hear someone yelling.  It sounded like my mom.

Yes, it was definitely my mom, but why was she out there yelling at me??  How would she have even gotten there without her car?

Roger and I turned a corner and were instantly blinded by police lights.

My mom was there.  And there was a police officer who, unfortunately, did not have a preconceived notion of me as a "good kid."

Roger and I scrambled down the rest of the trail to see what on Earth was happening down there that would warrant police attention.   Did someone break into my mom's car?  Did we kill someone by pushing a rock down on top of them?  Oh God... we probably killed someone with a rock..."

As soon as we were within range the police officer told us to put our hands up.   I could hear my mom in the background saying "Oh, she won't hurt you..."

The officer read us our Miranda Rights and explained that he had found my mom's wallet in the car and called her to ask if the car was missing and she didn't know what he was talking about so he had her come out to help him find us.  I tried to interrupt him to ask him why we needed to be "found" and why we were being read our Miranda Rights and what was going to happen to us, but he didn't appear to like being interrupted.

When he was done, I politely asked "what did we do?  Was it the rocks?"

He said "what rocks?"

I said "rocks?"

He said "would you mind telling me why you fled the scene?"

I said "what?"

It was beginning to feel like we were playing the game where you have to answer every question with another question.  The officer was winning.

He repeated himself.

I was very, very, very confused.

I think the officer could tell by my face that I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.  He said "so you didn't run up into the hills to escape the law?"

Roger and I both shook our heads.   I said "we were... hiking..." ---which was true, but we were also pushing big, destructive rocks down a mountain and we probably killed someone and I thought it would be best that the police officer didn't know about that part.

The police officer said "did you move that log in the road?"

I had no idea what he was talking about.

When it became clear that no one was getting anywhere with anything, the officer said "Okay, how about you guys get in the car and we'll go talk to the property owner..."

Property owner?  Did he mean the government?  Because last time I checked (which might not have actually happened because I was probably just assuming) we were on Bureau of Land Management land.

Apparently he didn't mean the government.

I gave the car keys to my mom and then Roger and I climbed into the back of the police car and waved goodbye through the window.  I am sure it was a sight my mom will not soon forget.

I asked the police officer if he would turn on his lights.

He said no.

We drove back down what I had previously assumed to be a Forest Service road and it would have been a lot cooler if the flashing lights were on but they weren't.

We finally arrived in front of a cute little farm house that would have seemed quaint and inviting under any other circumstances.  Well, maybe not any other circumstance - like probably not if we were there because we thought we were going to a costume party but it actually turned out to be a mandatory sex party.  Do people have mandatory sex parties?

Anyway, we were greeted in the driveway by a very angry man wearing a flannel shirt and overalls.  He looked like a farmer, so I am going to call him "the farmer" because I didn't exactly catch his name.  I think he was really tall, but maybe he just seemed like that because he was so angry and intimidating.

The farmer looked at the police officer and said "are these the kids that have been starting fires and leaving their broken beer bottles all over my property?"

I was beginning to grasp that we were not wanted for rock-pushing and that there was probably some third-party involved.

The police officer asked us if we had been partying on the man's property.  Roger and I shook our heads.

The farmer asked if we had moved his log.

We said that we hadn't.  

I'll spare you the details of the next 10 minutes because this post is going to be long enough as it is and I don't remember much of the exact conversation because I was distracted by the fact that I was being arrested, but I seem to remember crying a lot and yelling "why won't you believe me???" and the farmer definitely didn't believe me and he kept saying "officer, I want to see these kids in jail" with a completely unnecessary emphasis on the word "jail" and I started crying even more because fucking JAIL, you guys...   

The police officer finally stepped in and told Roger and I that he wanted to talk to us in the car.

When we got in the car, the officer looked at us for a long time and it was awkwardly silent except for my random bursts of post-crying hyperventilation.  Finally the officer said "okay, I believe you guys, but I'm not the one you need to convince.  If the property owner decides to press charges, there is nothing I can do..."  Then he looked at me very pointedly and said "how about you let me handle this, though... okay?"

I nodded and used the seatbelt to wipe the snot off of my face.  I probably shouldn't have done that, but I'm sure worse things have happened in the back of police cars.

The police officer locked us in the car and went back inside to try to convince the farmer not to send Roger and I to jail.

We waited...

...And waited...

...And waited.

We played the alphabet game, but only got as far as "C" because we were way out in the country and it was dark and we were locked in a police car.

Then we waited some more.

Finally, just as we were starting to wonder whether there actually was a mandatory sex party going on in there and maybe the police officer had been forced to participate, we saw the door open.

We could see the silhouettes of the officer and the farmer standing in the doorway and they seemed to be still discussing our fates.  We tried to guess what they were saying based on their body language.  I started crying again because jail is really fucking jail-y and I didn't want to go there.

The police officer eventually made his way back to the car and unlocked the doors.  He stooped over and leaned in to talk to us.

"He really wanted to press charges..." he said.  "But then I told him that there was no possible way that someone with your physique..." he pointed at me "could have moved that log.  So he agreed to let you go with a warning.  I'm still going to have to get your information though..."

I was so happy I didn't even care that he had insulted my tiny Tyrannosaurus Rex arms.  I didn't even care that I had absolutely no fucking clue why or how anyone moved this mythical "log" I kept hearing about and what, if anything, the log had to do with us being in trouble.  All that mattered is that I was obviously too weak to move the log and somehow that meant that I wasn't guilty of something.  That was all I needed to know.

Roger and I had to spend another hour or so filling out forms, but we were eventually allowed to go home and go to bed.

My mom was still awake when I got home because she is one of those moms that can't sleep when they know that their daughter is being arrested.

When I walked in the door, she said "what were you guys doing up there, anyway?"

Me: "pushing big rocks down the mountain."

My Mom: "What?"

Me:  "Um, you know - pushing big rocks down the mountain... No?  Like... big rocks... on mountains... and we push them...? And they fall down...?"

My Mom:  "Oh..."

(Long pause)

My Mom:  "Why?"

Me:  "I don't know, Mom.  I hadn't really thought about it.  I guess I just like destroying things..."

My Mom: "That's nice, Sweetie."

Me:  "I'm going to bed now because I have to get up for school in three hours..."

My Mom: "Oh, okay.  Sweet dreams, Pumpkin!  I love you!"

Sometimes I feel like there was a point in my life where I had done so many worrisome things that my mom had no choice but to become all Zen about it.  You always hear about parents causing psychological damage to their children, but I think that the situation was kind of reversed in my case.

I felt the worst for Roger's parents, though.  They were asleep when he got home and found out about our adventure in the Police Blotters the next morning before Roger even got out of bed.  I'm sure that the breakfast table conversation wasn't awkward at all...


Edit (because I know you are going to ask):  I never did find out what exactly we were being arrested for.  I know that it involved some broken bottles and possibly a fire and it definitely involved a log, but I am unclear as to how that all adds together.  I think that there was probably a log over the road at some point that got moved by teenage hooligans who later drank beer and made a fire.  Or it possibly could have been a mandatory sex party.   Actually, it was definitely a mandatory sex party.

Apparently I Look Like an Aging Mustachioed Man... And I Shouldn't Ever Go on The Internet Again

So I was playing around on the internet (I'll explain later... maybe in a third blog entry for today?) and I came upon a site that uses state-of-the-art technology to match your face to the celebrity you most resemble.  It made me realize how amazing it is that we don't have a cure for cancer yet and also that I must have an invisible mustache.

Anyway, I uploaded a photo and excitedly wondered what celebrity it would tell me I looked like.  Maybe it would tell me that I look like Kate Moss, or Suzanne Sommers or Heidi Klum...

This was my first result:

 

Okay... I thought.   At least the computer thinks I'm hot!  Well... at least it thinks I am 70% hot.   I decided that I'd check out who else the computer thought I looked like.  

So I hit next.....

... and I got this result.  I immediately hit next again because I thought "this has to be some kind of mistake...

...but no.  There was not a mistake.  I really must actually look like a man.  Still, I thought I'd give it one more shot...

I was discouraged by this result, but decided that maybe next time...

Nope.  But at least I didn't have a mustache in this one...

This is about where I started needing a hug.  

What am I going to do with my life??

I AM THE CHAMPION!!!

I win things every day.

Does that mean I'm awesome?

Probably.

But it also means that I am really good at coming up with totally arbitrary challenges for myself to win.   That's right:  I make up contests in my head just so that I can win them and feel good about myself.

For example:

If I guess what time it is and I am even reasonably close to the actual time - I win.

If I am pumping gas and I get the price to equal X amount of dollars and zero cents - I win.  Even if I have to pump some gas on the ground to do it.

If I can hold my breath for a whole minute - I win.

If I meet someone and I try to guess their name before they tell me what it is and it turns out that their name starts with the same letter as the name I guessed - I win.  Then, if I space out because I am thinking about how much I won and I suddenly realize that I have no idea what the other person is talking about and that they just finished a sentence and their voice kind of went up at the end which means that they asked me a question and now they expect me to answer and I say "yes" because I figure that is a pretty common answer and the person doesn't notice that I wasn't listening because "yes" was the answer they were looking for - I win.

If I can find a matching pair of socks - I win.  I win double if I can do it in under a minute.

If I am on a date with Boyfriend and I finish my hamburger before he finishes his - I win.  

If I am reading a Pottery Barn catalog and I find the most expensive item - I win.

Along those same lines:  If I am in the grocery store and I happen upon the wine aisle and I find the most expensive wine - I win.   I win again if I can find the cheapest wine.  If I can find a wine for under $3, I get drunk and then I win again.

If I am eating potato chips and I find a chip that is folded over on itself - I win.  If I find two folded chips in a row, I win and I also get good luck for nine whole years.

If I look at a clock and it happens to be exactly something o'clock and zero seconds- I win.

If I type twenty words in a row without hitting backspace - I win.

If I pick up a deck of cards and yell "clubs!" and then draw a card and it isn't a club - I don't win, but I will yell "clubs!" again and keep picking cards until I pick the right suit and then I win.

If I am walking on a sidewalk and I manage not to step on even a single crack - I win.  And my mother's back remains unbroken, so she wins too.  And when my mom wins, I win, so that means I win double!   Heyyyo!

If I buy something and it costs an even dollar-amount - I win... even if I don't actually have that dollar amount.  You should definitely get store credit for checking out with an even dollar-amount...

If I close my eyes and throw a wadded up piece of paper at Boyfriend and I hit him - I win.  If I hit him in the face, I win double.  If he gets all pissed off and says "stop it,"  I win because I guessed he was going to say that ahead of time and I was right.

If I wake up in the morning and I really have to pee and when I pee, I pee for longer than I have ever peed before (at least on record) - I win.  I may be the only person in the world who keeps records of how long they can pee, but look at it this way:  you don't get to win as much as me, do you?  I bet that puts it in perspective...

If I spell Fahrenheit correctly without needing to use Spellcheck - I win.

If I spill cereal on the floor and I guess a number that is even somewhat close to the actual number of cereal pieces on my floor - I win.  And I don't have to pick up the cereal because I won.  Duh.   You'd think that this would be a simple concept to grasp, but Boyfriend struggles with it.  He asks "wait...you won what?"  And I say "I guessed the right number of cereals on the floor!"  And he says "and that means that you don't have to pick them up...?"  And I say "exactly!"  And then he starts lecturing me about the "real world" and blah, blah, blah...

Even today, I went for a run with Boyfriend, and I ended up winning.  We ran on a long, straight stretch of road before turning off onto a different road.  Just before we turned off on the other road, I heard a car coming up behind us and I realized that it was the first car we'd seen on that particular stretch of road.  I immediately thought "I can't let it pass me because if I make it to the end of this road without getting passed by a single car, I win!"

I started sprinting so that I could beat the car to the end of the road.

Boyfriend looked at me weird and then the driver of the car looked at me strangely too, but none of that mattered because I won!

This all may seem silly until you consider that I get to be a champion on a daily - sometime hourly - basis.  In fact, I probably won more stuff than anyone else today, so I win again!

Winning is easy when you put your mind to it!  Sometimes I think I should become an inspirational speaker and try to enrich the lives of others with my winning ways.

And then I realize that if everyone else was winning as much as me, I may be in jeopardy of losing at winning the most.  Then I give up on helping people and simply devote the rest of my life to winning as many pointless contests as possible... until I realize that I can actually win at losing the most, at which point I will cease to be even the least bit productive because I will finally have an excuse for being lazy.

Banana.

Guess what that was?

If you guessed a contest in which I challenged myself to integrate the word "banana" into the end of a blog post, you are right!  You win!  And I win because I said banana.

P.S.  I also win because I wrote two posts in a row with titles written in caps and I didn't even know it.

P.P.S.  It is 12:00 exactly so I win again.

P.P.P.S.  I win for writing a post-post-post-script.

Edit:  I was just informed that my behavior may actually be a sign of uncontrolled OCD.  Does that mean I lose?

The Worst Post I Have Ever Written... But You Should Still Read it Because it is Kind of a Milestone Because it is the Worst Post I Have Ever Written

It's Saturday evening and I know that no one is going to be reading this right now, but I am going to write a post anyway.

Because I have nothing better to do.  Because I am really fucking important and when I say stuff it should be considered news even if it isn't.  Because I have nothing to say but I still feel the need to say things.  Because I care.

So anyway... I might be dying.  I know I've said that before - probably lots of times - but this time it is totally possible.   And it isn't from Ebola.  I still might have Ebola, but I guess I'll never know because I am dying from something new now.

Remember how I live in Montana?  Well, Montana is really, really fucking cold right now (and yes, using the F-word was totally necessary there because you wouldn't understand how cold it is if I just said "really, really cold").  It was eight degrees last night.  Eight.  Degrees.  Fahrenheit.  (In slightly less amazing news, I know how to spell Fahrenheit all by myself.  Who needs spell check when you can spell Fahrenheit all by yourself?  Answer:  No one.)   That's -13 degrees Celsius to my international readers.   Yeah, my blog has readers in other countries.  It's no big deal...

Anyway, I just got back from a run.  I snuck onto a private golf course and ran around in the snow.

Did I mention that it snowed here too?  Because it did.  It snowed like 5 inches.

Do you ever wake up and look outside and your yard is covered in a perfect blanket of completely untouched snow and then you get an immediate, unconquerable urge to go out and destroy that perfection as soon as possible?  And because of the urgency you feel, you don't even have time to put on pants and then you are running around in your yard kicking the snow and your neighbors are sitting in their house eating breakfast and suddenly they don't feel like eating breakfast anymore because they are so embarrassed that the rest of the neighborhood can see your shorts that are kind of actually underwear but also kind of shorts that you wear in public sometimes because they are definitely more shorts than underwear but not everyone else feels that way?

Well, that's how I feel about snow.

And I wasn't satisfied with just destroying the snow in my yard.  I was for a little bit, but I came inside and then I started thinking about how much snow there was in other places and that that snow was probably still perfect and undisturbed and it was just sitting there on the ground feeling all high and mighty and I just had to go knock it out of its fucking high tower.  I had to find something bigger and better than my yard -- hence the golf course.

I had a lot of fun running up and down the fairways and destroying the snow - especially because I wasn't supposed to be there.  Every step was like a mini - revolution!  Basically, it was like being Che Guevara - who is the only revolutionary I can think of right now and whose name I also know how to spell.  And that's a good thing because spell check doesn't know who Che Guevara is.   But it wasn't just like being Che Guevara.  It was like being Che Guevara and also destroying snow.  It was awesome!

Anyway, it was really cold and windy, and I was out destroying snow for a very long time, so by the time I got back to my car, I was numb almost everywhere.  But I decided that I needed potato chips more than I needed to be warm, so I went to the grocery store before going home but there was a really long line and I was like "seriously?" And the grocery store was serious because the line didn't move any faster.

So I finally got my chips and then I went home and by the time I got in the door, I was shivering so violently that I couldn't even eat my chips.  And I realized it was probably because I was still all wet from destroying snow, so I took off my clothes but then I couldn't find my goddamn sweatpants because Boyfriend took them upstairs instead of leaving them in the middle of the floor where I was keeping them and I didn't want to go upstairs because I was too cold, so I got all mad at Boyfriend for moving my sweatpants and he was like "you shouldn't have left them in the middle of the floor!"

And I was like "you will never understand me!" and I tried to run away dramatically but it just looked funny because I wasn't wearing pants.

Then I got all pouty and tried to convince Boyfriend that is was his fault that I was cold so that he'd feel guilty and go upstairs and get my sweatpants for me, but he just ignored me, so I went over to the corner where there was a pile of my dirty clothes and I put on a sweatshirt and a skirt and wrapped myself in a blanket like a burrito.

And now I am sitting on my couch writing a completely pointless post so that you guys can feel sorry for me.  It is probably a subconscious attempt at seeking out the understanding that I couldn't get from Boyfriend earlier.   But seriously... how is it that he does not understand yet that I keep things in the middle of the floor?  If I don't keep my stuff in the middle of the floor, I might need to go upstairs to find it and that would just be ridiculous!

I'm sorry if this post was the worst thing that I have ever written, but you shouldn't judge me because I tried really hard and I didn't have to write a post for you since you probably aren't going to read it anyway.   You probably aren't even at your computer.  In fact, you are probably out doing fun things while I am sitting here wrapped up like a burrito writing a meaningless, rambling post that no one will read and it will just sit at the top of my page with no comments and I will start worrying that first-time visitors to my blog will see this post first and think "wow, this blog is lame! And it doesn't even get any comments!  Ptooo!" (That was the sound of them spitting on my blog.)  And then I will feel bad and die faster because I will be unhappy and being unhappy makes you stressed and being stressed makes you die faster.

Plus, I typed most of this post with only one finger because my hands are still kind of numb and that is just pathetic and you should feel sorry for me.  I also think I might be hypothermic.  That's why I am going to die.  I probably should have mentioned that earlier in the post.   Oh well.

Edit:  I just read this to Boyfriend and he looked kind of upset and he didn't even laugh.  So I asked him why he didn't laugh and he said that it was because I lied.  He says that he didn't actually ignore me when I pouted about not having sweatpants and that he actually asked me if I wanted him to go upstairs and get my sweatpants for me.  I don't know if I believe him because if I believed him I'd have to be really upset with myself for wasting so much of my valuable pouting energy trying to get Boyfriend to do something that he already volunteered to do but I didn't hear him.

Edit: I just read that last edit to Boyfriend to see if he would be satisfied with my portrayal of his actions and then he told me that when he asked if he could go get my sweatpants for me, I actually responded to him.  With words.  With English words that I don't remember saying.  And that is not all!  Boyfriend says that when I responded to his question that I don't remember hearing or responding to, I actually told him that I *didn't* want him to go upstairs and get my sweatpants.  And now I am stuck wondering whether Boyfriend is lying or I am crazy and neither option is a good option and I am upset.

Allie Rides the Greyhound, Gets Molested, Makes a Black Friend, Breaks Up a Fight and Rescues Some Castaways

I hesitated to post this story because I fear that it will cause my readers to question the factualness of my accounts.  Once again, I promise that I am not making this up.   I have taken no liberties with the truth.  All of it really happened.  I lived through it and by-God, I am going to tell you about it.  


I also balked at the abundant but completely necessary use of several curse words and the slander of three separate religious figures.  I am sorry, but there is just no other way to tell the story. Strap the hell in and let's go.

I arrived at the bus station early in the morning.

At the age of seventeen, I was making my first ever autonomous voyage into the unknown.  I was being recruited by a collegiate track program, so I had to ride the bus to their campus to be wined and dined and lied to about funding and the general awesomeness of their competition schedule.  I was really excited about the trip and feeling pretty special for being recruited.  It was almost like being a celebrity.

I shouldered my way through the masses of fitfully smoking lower-tier individuals to the check-in counter.

The man at the check in was overly jovial - almost like his life depended on being as friendly and lighthearted as possible.

"First time bus rider??" He trilled.

"Uh, yeah.  How can you tell?"  I asked.

"I've never seen you before."  He said with a face-splitting grin.

Apparently the check-in guy was familiar with all bus passengers.

If he had never seen you, you obviously hadn't ridden the bus before.

The bus finally pulled into the station.  I said goodbye to my mother, who was weeping with sentimentality and walked to the back of the bus.  I crammed my bags all around me, creating a physical barrier to any would-be seat partners.  I put on my headphones so I could pretend not to hear the people asking if they could sit down.   I pretended to sleep to make it even more complicated and awkward for any person who wanted to sit by me.  My method worked and I got to sit all by myself.   I thought I had just ensured my safety and peace of mind for the remainder of the bus ride and congratulated myself for being such a savvy bus passenger right out of the gates.

I probably shouldn't have actually fallen asleep because I woke up to find some guy's hand sneaking up my athletic shorts.   I was understandably confused and startled.  The guy winked at me (which must have been difficult with his eyelid piercing) and said "Watch out Sweetie - there are men on this bus..."

I wanted to tell him that there are men everywhere else too - and most of them aren't going around sticking their filthy hands up the athletic shorts of strange women, but I felt that being blatantly inflammatory would hurt my chances of surviving the rest of the trip.  I looked around for someone to protect me from the molester across the aisle.  It was at that point that I realized I was on a bus full of people who probably didn't give a shit if I was actively being molested.   Even the bus driver looked like he was pro-molester.

I wanted to call my mom, but I didn't have a cell phone and I didn't want to talk to anyone else to ask them if they had a cell phone.  I curled up into a ball and ate some crackers.

The pregnant teenage deviant who was sitting behind me must have heard me crinkling the cracker wrapper because she said "Are those crackers?"

I said "Yes?"

She said "Oh good, I have really bad morning sickness.  Can I have a couple?"

I gave her some crackers.

A minute or so later, she asked me if her boyfriend could also have some crackers.  I looked behind me to see her giant hulk of a black boyfriend.  I was a cracker with crackers, sitting in front of a brother on a bus that just left Coeur d' Alene, Idaho - the home of the Arian Nations Headquarters.   I had no choice but to give him the rest of my crackers to convince him that I wasn't like that.   I later discovered that I had made a key alliance in doing so.

The bus made a stop at a casino/gas station and I got off to use the bathroom inside because the pregnant girl had vomited up my crackers all over the bus bathroom.

The women's restroom was located at the end of a long, winding hallway with a few branching nooks.   The bus molester was waiting for me in one of the nooks.  I don't know what he was planning on doing to me, but I was extremely relieved when my new black friend showed up behind me and boomed "N-word, what the fuck do you think you're doing?"  The molester looked frightened.   He scurried away, muttering something about being lost and not knowing where the men's room was.   My big, friendly savior slapped me five and told me to watch out for bad people because I wouldn't always be lucky enough to have someone following me around and protecting me.  I loved him so very much at that moment.  I just wanted to cry and hug him and give him as many crackers as his heart could desire.

I settled for standing there like a retarded deer on a freeway.  I'm sure he understood how thankful I was.

The rest of the bus ride was fairly uneventful.  I slept like a baby with my self-appointed guardian angel watching my back.

Things only got really fucked up on the return trip.

I was a little less excited to be boarding the bus a second time.   The anxiety of the previous bus ride had only been exacerbated by my recruiting visit.  I spent two nights in a creepy dark room all by myself and two days being whisked from place to place by people who were trying so hard to impress me it hurt to watch them.  I felt less like a celebrity and more like a gun-brandishing hijacker.  It was as if my recruiters thought I would lose it and go on a killing spree if one tiny little thing went wrong.  I was given anything that I even looked at with interest and also some things I didn't.  I had always wanted that to happen, but once it was happening, I have admit that it made me feel quite uncomfortable and a lot guilty.

At the bus station, the recruiter bid me goodbye and gave me a sweatshirt with the University's logo on it - in case I forgot that they wanted me.

I chose a seat near the front so that the bus driver had the option of stepping in should I be molested again.  I executed the whole bags-on-the-seat-wearing-headphones-and-pretending-to-be-asleep routine successfully.

Two hours into the bus ride, things were still going well.  I could hear a loud young man telling stories at the back of the bus.   He had captured the attention of about six people and he was not about to let it go.   He was obviously going for shock value.

If you are the one person who said they would stop reading my blog if I used the F-word, please stop reading here.  Seriously.  You will not be happy with me...  

He said things like "Fuck, so then I fucking fucked her in the fucking anus and busted my fucking load all over her fucking cunt" and "women are just fucking cunts that need to be fucked, ya know?"  It was all very de rigueur on a bus, I suppose.

Apparently this discourse offended the scruffy, overweight man in the seat in front of me who had previously been peacefully drinking milk out of a half-gallon carton and catching the dribbles with his impressively biblical beard.

He stood up, making it obvious that milk was not the only thing he had been drinking and managed to slur "you shut the fuck up back there you little fucker!"

I appreciated his attempt to defend the honor of nameless women everywhere, but the scrappy storyteller at the back of the bus did not.

"What if I don't?  What are you going to do about it Jesus?" he said.

"I'll pound your face in!" said Jesus-beard.

"Come back here, old man. and show me what you got!" The weaver of lewd tales provoked the bearded savior of female dignity.

It was on.

The bus came screeching to a halt.

The bus driver told the two men that he would not tolerate fighting on his bus.  He requested that they kill one another directly outside the bus instead.  

Now would be a good time for me to explain something about myself at this stage in my life.  I was going through an awkward phase that can only be described as a misguided attempt to feel righteous and good.  I had decided that I was against violence of any kind and that I should proselytize my message to the rest of the world.  I am also very optimistic about things - like my chances of surviving intervening in a battle to the death between someone who fucking fucks assholes and a milk-guzzling Jesus impersonator.

The Asshole Fucker exited the bus first and began gesticulating wildly in a display I imagine was meant to intimidate his opponent.  But our corpulent hero was not about to concede his noble argument.  He strode as quickly and as straightly as he could (which was not very quickly or very straight) toward his enemy.

Thinking quickly (or failing to think quickly, if you want to look at it that way) I stepped between the circling duelers, planting my dainty little hands directly on their chests.  I yelled "you don't need to fight!"

They begged to differ.

The Asshole Fucker said "Babe, you're cute and everything but this is something that needs to be settled between two men."

That seemed to upset the obviously pro-feminist bearded crusader.

He took a swing at the Asshole Fucker but missed and looked sad when I flinched and squealed.  He obviously didn't mean to scare me with his brutishness.

Did I mention I was really into the whole pacifism thing?   I persisted in my protest.  I think I yelled something about "why can't we all just get along?!"  It was beautiful.  My ex-hippie mother would have been proud if she had not been so angry at me for jeopardizing the survival of "her sweet baby girl" (me.)

To my utter shock and glee, the men stopped fighting.  Probably because the bus driver got into the bus and started to drive off, but I still felt at least partially responsible for ending the conflict.

I felt like I had changed the world.  I was like the fucking Buddha, man.  Or Ghandi.   I felt that I should be featured on Oprah or something.   I was so stoked on myself.

At the next stop, I got out to peruse the gift store.  I was still feeling all high and mighty, and felt that I needed some sweet sunglasses to complement my newfound attitude.  The line to the cash register was really long, but I really needed to look like a badass, so I waited.

Just as I was exiting the gift shop with my purchase, I spotted the bus pulling out of the parking lot.

I sprinted to catch it and managed to get close enough to bang on the doors.

The bus driver slowed down the bus.   He didn't open the doors.

Instead, he pointed at his watch and shook his head disapprovingly.

The bus started to move again.

I ran alongside it and frantically pounded my pathetic little fists against the doors.

The bus stopped again.

After what seemed like an eternity, the bus driver opened the doors and chided me for making him late.   He made certain that I understood we were on a strict schedule where every second counts.

As he pulled onto the freeway on-ramp, I noticed that the other bus passengers were upset.

One woman said that her husband was still using the restroom.

There was also a child left behind.

And somebody's grandmother.

The bus driver was unsympathetic.  He told the people that their loved ones should have paid more respect to the pressure he was under to get them to their destination on time.  He failed to understand the irony of his argument.

Emboldened by my new shades and still feeling like I was a major agent of positive change for the world, I approached the bus driver.   I explained to him that his job was to make sure people got from point A to point B and that at least three people were stranded at point A-and-a-half because of him.  I told him that I understood the need to be punctual, but that all the punctuality in the world wouldn't make up for abandoning someone's grandmother at a seedy rest-stop.

Just as I was about ready to give up my crusade to save the castaways, the bus driver had a change of heart.  In an even more dramatic display of irony, he turned the bus around after he had been driving for thirty minutes to go pick up the people he left behind out of being in a hurry.  He wasted an hour trying to save a few minutes.  And he made everyone super pissed off.  The grandma was shaking with rage when she was rescued.  The child was crying and probably traumatized for life.

We arrived in Coeur d' Alene much later than scheduled.  My anxiously waiting mother was worried sick.

And that was before she found out that her daughter had been molested, saved from almost certain raping by a good-hearted, cracker-loving civilian, almost destroyed in an epic battle and very nearly stranded at a seedy rest area with nothing but a pair of sunglasses and a rapidly fading sense of self-righteousness.

More Epic Adventure Stories:

• Allie Gets Drunk, Gets Stranded on a Boat, Sleeps Behind a Meth Lab and Burns Down an Island 
  
• Nightmare on Third Street: a Tale of Constipation, Masturbation, Heroin and a Suit of Armor 
  
• I Finally Got to Call the Poison Control Center! 
  
• I am Destroyer  
  

Letters: Volume 4

Dear Stairs;

I hope I never fall down you.

Have a good day!

-Allie


Dear Cheese Grater:

Have you ever thought about self improvement?  I mean, you have a successful career and everything, but I think everyone can agree that you haven't reached your potential yet.  Haven't you ever wanted to be the absolute best you can be? No?

Okay.

-Allie

Dear Orange Juice;

Thanks for being awesome.  No other juice could ever compare to you.   Not even strawberry - kiwi.

-Allie

Dear Readers;

You realize I am writing letters to inanimate objects, right?

Well, did you realize that I just wrote a letter to juice?  Juice isn't even an object.  It's... juice.

But you're still reading, huh?

Just checking.

-Allie 


Dear squirrels;

Why won't you let me catch you??  Can't you see that I really need to touch your delightfully furry little bodies?   You are so cute and I just want to pet you.  I won't keep you.  At least not for long.   

DEAR CAPS LOCK;

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU??  DO YOU HAVE A BREAD CRUMB IN YOU?  I PROBABLY SHOULDN'T EAT WHILE TYPING.   I AM SORRY I MADE A MISTAKE AND RUINED YOU, BUT IF YOU COULD PLEASE JUST GIVE ME ONE MORE CHANCE, I PROMISE THAT I WILL NEVER DRIP BURRITO GREASE ON YOU EVER AGAI -   

- WAIT, WHAT?  

NO, I'M NOT YELLING AT YOU.  IT ONLY LOOKS LIKE THAT BECAUSE YOU ARE BROKEN. 

NO, NO, NO - I'M NOT BLAMING YOU.  IT'S... JUST... I COULD REALLY COMMUNICATE A LOT MORE EFFECTIVELY IF IT DIDN'T LOOK LIKE I WAS YELLING, THAT'S ALL.   IT IS HARD TO EXPRESS SYMPATHY WHILE YELLING.  IT IS ALSO HARD TO EXPRESS SINCERITY.  PLEASE JUST BELIEVE ME WHEN I SAY THAT I AM NOT ACTUALLY YELLING AND I AM SORRY THAT YOU ARE BROKEN AND I REALLY WOULD LIKE TO HELP YOU BECAUSE WE BOTH WIN WHEN YOU ARE WORKING PROPERLY. 

IF YOU COULD PLEASE JUST FORGIVE ME AND JUST LET THINGS GO BACK TO THE WAY THEY USED TO BE, THAT WOULD BE GREAT.  

THANKS

-ALLIE

Nightmare on Third Street: A Tale of Constipation, Masturbation, Heroin and A Suit of Armor

I wanted to live alone.

It was the only option after a string of emotionally traumatizing roommates.   I thought that if I found myself a nice little studio apartment, I could finally be done with the crazy.

(If you bet five dollars on me being wrong about that last statement, you would be five dollars richer right now.  Too bad you didn't.  Live and learn, I guess.)

I started my apartment hunt with high hopes.  In the back of my head, I think I was imagining that I would end up in some New York penthouse with shiny wood floors and floor-to-ceiling windows.  Which was just unreasonable because I had roughly $500 a month to spend on food, rent, emergency room trips, and beer.  And I was living in Montana.

With every passing day, I sunk deeper and deeper into despair.  It had become clear that I was never going to find an apartment that a) was within my price range, b) didn't have vagrants already squatting in the living room* and c) was actually an apartment and not a room in the house of some grizzled old man, advertised "cheap rent for the right young female roommate."

Just when I was about to give up hope and move in with the first reasonably sane person I could find, I came across the shittiest apartment complex ever.

"This might be the one..." I thought.

The building, which had once been a hotel,  was built some time in the mid to late 1800's and had obviously been renovated into an apartment complex in the 70's, judging by the funky wall-to-wall carpet.

I walked up the decaying staircase to the landlord's office.   The landlord was not there, but on the door was a notepad which read "if you are interested in renting with us, please leave your name and phone number and we'll get back to you."

I did as instructed and roughly a week later, I got a call from the landlord.  He said he hadn't been in to his office in awhile and that he was sorry for calling me back so late.  I asked him how much it would be to rent from him.  He said (and I quote) "well, if you don't mind having a room with no bathroom it's only $260 a month."  I asked about utilities.  He said those were included in the rent.  I suddenly didn't feel like bathrooms were that important.  I must have forgotten that I am terribly shit shy and avoid using public restrooms at all costs.  Did I mention I was desperate?

There was one room available.  I snatched that sucker up like it was a flaming baby (you would have to act quickly if a baby was on fire, right?)

It was such a relief to finally have a place to live where no one could bother me!  I was so relieved that I turned a blind eye to the sections of rubber tubing I found in my closet (people use those for non-drug-related activities, right?).  I was so relieved that I dismissed my horror upon inspecting the "shared restrooms."   I mean, it's totally normal for 30 people to be forced to share two toilets, right? It would be just like living in the dorms!  Except, instead of sharing my shower and toilet with hygienic, female students, I would be sharing them with a mixed bag of ex-convicts and drug addicts.  It couldn't be that big of a difference...

I remember my first night at my new place very clearly.

I lay awake on my bare mattress, trembling and crying and wishing that the drunk people in the alley outside my window would shut the hell up so I could forget I was alive for just a little while.

I finally fell asleep at around 3:00 AM because the bar/casino across the alleyway from me closed.  It took a little while for the yelling drunks to disperse in a flurry of screeching tires, but they didn't hang around too long after their source of drunkenness was cut off.

I woke up at 5:00 AM to a the sound of the loudest garbage truck in the history of history.  Apparently there was a dumpster right outside my window that must have been filled at an alarming rate given how often I was to be disturbed by the sound of said garbage truck.   It came almost every weekday morning, between the hours of 5:00 and 6:30 AM.  Sometimes more than once.  I quickly learned to resent the garbage man, even though he was just doing his job.

After the garbage truck came for the third time that morning, I decided to just get up.

My mornings usually consist of a very specific order of events: coffee, bathroom, breakfast then everything else.  I succeeded in accomplishing the coffee part, but as I was walking down the hall to attend to the bathroom part, I was intercepted by one of my new neighbors.  A portly, unshaven man in his forties, John introduced himself and immediately began regaling me with war stories.  I could tell he was high - on what, I didn't know.  Yet.

Just as John was showing me the bullet wound on his face that earned him a lifetime disability stipend and a future of reckless drug abuse, I realized I wasn't going to get to use the bathroom.  I had missed my window of opportunity and I would have to spend the rest of the day constipated and angry.

Apparently John and I bonded during that conversation because, from that point onward, he was unbelievably excited to see me every time our paths crossed - which was often because we were sharing a bathroom.

One day after school, I was ten steps away from being locked safely in my room when I heard "Dude!  You have to come check out my sweet suit of armor!"

I turned around slowly to see John beaming like a new mother.  He was almost wagging, he was so excited.

Partly out of crippling niceness and also because of morbid curiosity, I followed John to his room.   Sure enough, there was a full suit of armor standing in his living room.

John said "I got it on Ebay."

I said "cool."

John said "do you want to see what it does?"

I said "yes" even though I didn't mean it at all.  I actually wanted to go sit in my room and binge drink, but I spent the next half hour watching John demonstrate how to use a suit of armor.

Just when I thought he was wrapping up, John asked me a question that I never thought I would be asked ever in my life.  He said "do you want some heroin tea?"

In an instant, I understood so much yet I was filled with questions.  I halfway thought about drinking liquid heroin just to escape that moment.  However, I politely declined and muttered something about needing to go do homework.   John let me leave only 25 minutes later.

Back in my room, I sat down to do some studying.

I usually studied until eleven or so and then got ready for bed.  I have always been a quiet neighbor, so I was surprised when the man who lived below me started banging on his ceiling and yelling at me to stop making so much noise.

I continued to not make noise.

He continued to yell at me for the noise I wasn't making.

I was already in bed when I was startled by banging and yelling at my door.  Of course, it was the man who lived below me and he wanted me to stop moving furniture around because he was trying to sleep.  I hadn't been moving furniture but I doubted very much that I could convince the angry man at my door of that fact.  I huddled in the corner with a blanket, trying to cry as quietly as possible so as not to upset the man further.

I have since come to the conclusion that he may have become enraged over me scooting my chair out from my desk.  It is the only logical explanation.  Then again, there may have been no logical explanation.  Sometimes people are just crazy.

As sensitive as this man was about other people making noise, he sure didn't give a damn how many people overheard him masturbating.  Bad porn, throaty moaning and sickening squishing sounds made me wish my floor was just a tad thicker.  I didn't realize until later how good I actually had it.

The ancient building in which I lived was heated by radiators.  Broken ones.  Sometime in mid-November, my landlord finally got around to turning on the heat in the building (there were no individual thermostats - either everybody had heat or nobody had heat).   That night, I was awoken by what sounded like someone beating a metal pipe with a hammer, six inches from my head.   This alarming sound continued for a few minutes before winding down to a hiss.   The next four months of my life were filled with alternating hissing and clanging.  There was rarely a moment of silence.  At least I couldn't hear the masturbating anymore - even though I would have gladly listened to it over the new noise.

I quickly found that there was nothing I could cram into my ears that would completely drown out the radiator.  Earplugs, two pillows and a whirring fan only succeeded in dampening the wretched sound.

As the winter wore on, the thickly carpeted halls of my apartment complex became a temporary home for several vagrants.  One of them lived in a nook right outside my door.  He was a friendly fellow with a dolphin tattooed on his face.   Every morning he told me that I looked beautiful as I was leaving for school.  One day he told me that I had an innocent and beautiful soul.   I was actually a little disappointed when my landlord got around to shooing him off the premises.

When the daytime temperature dipped below zero degrees fahrenheit, I finally had to shut my windows.  I had kept them at least partly open for as long as I could because I was terrified of succumbing to carbon monoxide poisoning.  And it was a good thing too.  If I had not, I may have died in an explosion.  Or at least that's what I'm told.

I noticed the smell early in the morning.  I recognized it as natural gas, so I called the gas company.  I'd had a gas leak earlier in the year and a nice man with a magic beeping wand came over to fix it for me.  Naturally, that is exactly what I expected to happen again.

The woman who answered my call sounded alarmed when I told her I had a gas leak.  She told me that she would send someone right over and that I should go wait in my car.  I groggily pulled on a sweatshirt and trundled out to my freezing vehicle to wait for the man with the beepy wand.

The man with the beepy wand never showed up.  Instead, I watched in horror as two fire trucks came screeching to a halt in front of my building.  I cowered in my car for a couple minutes before one of the firemen found me.

He said "Do you live here?"

"Is this about the gas leak?" I asked.

He yelled some numbers and code-words into his walkie-talkie and ran off before answering my question.  I reluctantly followed him inside.

There were firemen everywhere.   It was barely after 6:00 AM, so people noticed.  The firemen were tromping around in their huge boots and yelling at each other urgently.

I sheepishly directed them to my apartment.

When I opened the door and they could finally see what they had been called to protect me against, they looked at me like I was nuts.

One of them said "this is the apartment that is going to explode into flames at any second?"

I said "um... yes?" I suspected that the woman who took my call had overreacted just a titch.

The fireman shook his head and began inspecting my room with three of his fireman friends while the other firemen made sure the hallway was secure.

I stood in the middle of the room and watched them poke fruitlessly through my things.

"I think it might be the stove..." I finally ventured.

All four of them clomped over to the stove to have a look.   One of them noticed the pilot light and just kept saying "I can see a burning glow..." over and over.  He seemed desperate to find fire somewhere.

I asked the firemen if they would mind of I called the guy with the beepy thing.  They looked a little offended, but agreed to let me do it.

They stood there and protected me until the guy with the beepy thing arrived.  The one fireman was still enthralled with the pilot light.  "I can see it glowing orange faintly..." he was very poetic in his observations.

When the beepy-thing-guy finally got there, he shooed the firemen away and used his beepy wand to locate the source of the totally non-threatening gas leak, which did indeed turn out to be from the stove.

He put a tiny piece of electrical tape around the gas hose leading to my stove and told me to have a good day.  The beepy-thing-guy always made everything better.  That's why the lady who answered my call should have called him instead of freaking out and getting the whole fire department all excited about nothing.

I had created quite the stir.  Both John and the janitor offered to help me if my apartment ever actually did catch on fire. (Of course, if my apartment was on fire, their apartments would also be on fire soon.   Their blinding need to help me must have overshadowed their critical thinking skills momentarily).

John said "Dude, if you ever, like, need anything - just come and hang out in my room, okay?"

I said "Okay" even though no amount of being on fire could cause me to actually mean it.



Coming Soon:  A detailed account of the events leading up to my intense desire to live alone.

*One of the apartments I checked out came with a homeless man!  He had trashed the interior with cigarette butts, old pizza boxes and beer cans and was just as happy as could be.  The property management could have saved me the trouble of checking out a key if they'd just told me to ask the squatter how to get in.   

Edit:  I guess I should clarify that I no longer live on Third Street.  I lived there for a dismal year and a half in the heart of my college career.  Regretfully, I cannot do a housing swap or start a fund on eBay to get me out of my shithole.  I sincerely wish I had thought of those options while I was still living there, but my brain wasn't working properly due to lack of sleep and chronic inhalation of natural gas fumes.  However, if I ever find myself in a similar situation, I will now know what to do!