"chasing pavements"

by adele.


fabulous.

big families have their perks. vacations are not one of them - or they can be, but this only happens once in a blue moon. vacation prep? probably where i have heard and learned some of the most profane words in the english language. driving up the turnpike behind an 11 passenger van that was somehow so incapable of holding everything necessary for a weeklong vacation that a trailer requiring its own license plate was attached to it? mortifying. spending a week in a house with almost 30 other people ranging in age from 2 to 48 made my life more stressful, not less. and being told to consume fruits and vegetables approximately 10 times a day as though i were in kindergarten and incapable of making basic decisions about my meals just about sent me over the edge.

in other words, the 2008 sweeney pocono trip was a smashing success. truly.

my xanga expertise is listed as "food consumption."

f.y.i.

the following is a list of the items currently banned in carry-on luggage by the transportation security administration:

box cutters, ice axes/ice picks, knives, meat cleavers, razor-type blades, sabers, swords, baseball bats, bows and arrows, cricket bats, golf clubs, hockey sticks, lacrosse sticks, pool cues, ski poles, spear guns, ammunition, bb guns, compressed air guns, firearms, flare guns, flares, gun lighters, gun powder, parts of guns and firearms, pellet guns, realistic replicas of firearms, starter pistols, axes and hatchets, cattle prods, crowbars, hammers, drills and drill bits, saws, tools larger than 7 inches, billy clubs, black jacks, brass knuckles, kubatons, mace/pepper spray, martial arts weapons, night sticks, nunchakus, stun guns/shocking devices, throwing stars, blasting caps, dynamite, fireworks, flares, hand grenades, plastic explosives, realistic replicas of explosives, aerosol, fuels, gasoline, gas torches, lighter fluid, torch lighters, strike-anywhere matches, flammable paints, turpentine and paint thinner, realistic replicas of incendiaries, chlorine for pools and spas, fire extinguishers and other compressed gas cylinders, liquid bleach, spillable batteries, spray paint, tear gas, beverages in containers larger than 3 oz., gel-type candles, gel shoe inserts, flammable liquid/gel/aerosol paint, and finally, snow globes and similar decorations.

it goes without saying that i'm pretty disappointed that i have to leave my brass knuckles and meat cleaver behind.

"In three words, I can sum up everything that I've learned about life: It goes on."

-Robert Frost

excellent morning-after reasons against drinking excessively

1. walks of shame.
2. driving should really not be attempted - especially turning (if you value your life).
3. operating simple machines causes general hysteria and ends in failure.
4. just because you can down a ton of booze the night before doesn't mean that your digestive system is equipped to handle it the next morning (or all day, even).
5. when the HELL did you write all of those text messages, and what language are they written in?
6. difficulty performing basic human functions (i.e. - standing up, walking, speaking coherently).
7. continuing a trend of poor life decisions from the night before (for example, passing out on your sleeping bag and pillow while waiting for your train and/or drinking a wild cherry flavored capri sun after having a gross amount of strawberry margaritas 6 hours earlier).

instant pleasure

i dont want somebody to love me, just give me sex whenever i want it.

-rufus wainwright.


i just ate an entire carton of ice cream.

why don't we have...

...a facebook "enemies" category? there's friends, mutual friends, people you might know, top friends, etc. facebook should let us acknowledge people that we despise - whether you wear your hatred on your sleeve or bottle it up to the point of spontaneous combustion. it's a little passive aggressive - but if we can be "friends" with people we've never even met before, then i think we should also have the right to recognize our sworn enemies via social networking.

(brilliant.)

legitimate threats to inner peace and tranquility

1. dirty bathrooms.
2. never knowing whether the hand towel in said bathroom is actually clean; or, if the towel one uses to dry one's face has been used by someone else, or sat germinating on the floor before being hung back up.
3. sisters who snore.
4. working in retail.
5. employment in general.
6. mentally unstable mothers.
7. the general stupidity and/or hypocrisy of friends, acquaintances, or even complete strangers.
8. menstruating.

food for thought:

the technical difficulty in operating various kinds of boxes. shoe boxes, pizza boxes, donut boxes, the wierd flaps on boxes for various kitchen appliances...all are designed to make you feel intellectually inferior to cardboard in various geometric forms. think about it - you think closing up the box after checking your shoe size (or getting a slice of pizza, or grabbing a donut, or making sure all the parts are in the box for your vegetable steamer) and the flaps just WILL NOT operate correctly. no matter how many times you pull the lid down, you can't figure out why it doesn't work out. after several minutes of agonizing over this, you give up, leave the box halfway open, and feel like an utter failure because you couldn't figure out the mechanics of a box.

WARNING

you too could be in danger of becoming a monkey spanking wanker. signs and symptoms include but are not limited too:

1) straightening your bangs every morning/ having an obsession with crest whitening strips
2) overusage of the term BAMF
3)confiscating someone elses 8 sided wooden enclosure of peace and turning into your ultra cool hangout
4) too obsessed with the idea of having memories to actually create them
5)utter disillusionment with reality

i scream, you scream, we should all scream...

...for the 80s.

Big hair, big bands, big music...I mean, really - what wasn't awesome about the 80s? We can mock the mullet and scorn the shoulder pads, but don't forget to give that decade some love. Miley Cyrus and her alter ego, Hannah Montana, may have taken over the world with achy-breaky Billy Ray sitting in the corner yee-hawing; but, I live and breathe for the 80s (and the Boss).

Volume One of Mare's Essential 80s:


Heart, "Alone"


Madonna, "Borderline"


Joan Jett, "Bad Reputation"


scene from The Goonies


scene from The Breakfast Club

something we learned the hard way

Despite your best efforts and a bottle of SPF 45, severe sunburn can and will still happen. Oi vey.

the man who propositioned me today en route to the library (scooter included)

abeba the african violet

bruce > billy #1

The Piano Man is in no way better than the Boss - and anyone operating under this delusion needs a lifestyle modification immediately, or just a better taste in music*. If you're making judgments on Bruce because the only song you've heard is 'Born in the USA', then you're seriously misinformed on his style (although 'Born in the USA' is catchy, just not after it comes on the B101 rotation approximately 10 times a day). Start educating yourself:

'Darkness on the Edge of Town' (live, Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ Sept. 1978)



*the fact that I listen to and enjoy his music is irrelevant to this blog post.

chiggers

Who knew that chigger was an actual word, and that it's the name of a bug? Yeah, me neither - until I was warned against them on the way to Kentucky. Apparently they thrive in areas with alot of wood, which includes the wood house we were staying in, and the wooden bunk beds we were sleeping in, and the wood we were working with all week. Go figure.


According to Wikipedia, a chigger

"is also called scrub mite, red mite and several other names, and they are found throughout temperate and tropical zones; the name chigger originated as a corruption of chigoe, but the harvest mite is what is most commonly called a chigger in North America. Chiggers do not burrow into the skin and do not suck blood. They attach to the host, inject digestive enzymes into the bite wound, and then suck up the digested tissue. Warm, rainy days make these parasitic and predatory mites reproduce into large populations. Once the ground temperature is regularly above 60°F, the harvest mite lays eggs, and “chigger season” is underway. This season typically begins in April and ends in the early autumn/first “frost.” Chiggers do not like sunlight or humidity. During the wet season, chiggers are usually found in tall grass and other vegetation. During dry seasons, chiggers are most found underneath brush and shady areas."

Now I'm home and covered in bug bites on every conceivable part of my body and I really have no idea if it's from 'skeeters, spiders, or from an attack in the night by a chigger. Can you imagine explaining that to someone? "Oh, yeah - you see that massive raised area on my leg right there? It's chiggers." Really? Really?

quotables.

Said the father to the daughter on her constant presence on the interweb:

"I don't understand how you can just sit there doing that. It's like a foreign culture to me."

to the woman in line at kohl's this afternoon:

Next time, please read the fine print on your Kohl's Charge Scratch Off Event coupon. I know this may be difficult for you to understand, but the Kohl's Charge coupons are in fact only to be used on a Kohl's Charge purchase. Freaky, right? Handing me a coupon that I total in to your purchase - almost 400 dollars worth of clothing that you and your son probably didn't need - and then telling me that you don't have your charge on you, and then the system pretty much telling me that your account does not exist, indicates that you do not in fact HAVE a Kohl's Charge account. This in turn led you to tell me - somewhat abashedly, although not nearly enough to satisfy me - that you were planning on paying with a different card WHICH YOU ARE UNABLE TO RECIEVE THE AFOREMENTIONED KOHL'S CHARGE DISCOUNT ON. Yes, I did have to void out your entire 400 dollar purchase and re-enter every item on your receipt. And no matter how many times you stand there and say under your breath that 15 percent isn't a big deal, it's my job and paycheck that you are asking me to put on the line because you didn't use your common sense. So the old couple behind you that you kept apologizing to (who, you may want to know, actually had both a coupon and a Kohl's card) got an extra 10 percent coupon because you decided to make my life difficult today.

road trips are fantastic.

After spending a week in Appalachia, my only important insights now involve the prolonged car rides both to and from the great state of Kentucky. Two large vans holding a total of 20 people, filled to capacity with luggage, college students, a plethora of onion bagels, and coffee. It wasn't so bad at first. Sure, we woke up before the crack of dawn, but I slept for the first few hours and we made a few rest stops. The more coffee I drank, the harder it was to sleep. And let's be serious. Folding yourself up as though you're some sort of freakish acrobat who can fit themselves into a box in order to sleep comfortably in the inadequate space of the car seat that you have is really not all that comfortable - especially for 11 hours, not counting the numerous potty breaks and emergency pullovers due to disappearing contacts, nausea, and missed turns. All this is happening while I am curled up in the furthest seat from the doors in the very last row next to the window. Instead of air conditioning, the rear air blasted heat through the vents; I had to sit and wait for the occasional Arctic gust from the front seat. I tried to read for about an hour on the ride there, before the twisting and turning throughout the Appalachians made me decide that I didn't want the contents of my stomach decorating the upholstery of the car. After dropping people off at Hagerstown on the way home, a massive bag of dirty laundry belonging to a kid who didn't shower all week sat on the top of all the luggage right behind my head. We drove into Philadelphia in the midst of a 100 degree heat wave during the first week of June.

To make a long story short....three cheers for road trips!

extremely useful information:

for anyone looking to make their fingernails look like a laser show, walgreens has just picked up a new collection of fluorescent nail polish.

the greyhound ticketing station in willow grove is located on fitzwatertown road pretty much right across the street from thunderbird lanes. youll probably still miss it because its about the size of four port-a-pottys put together. there are in fact signs stuck at either "entrance", but theyre actually only those posters people stick in front of their lawns during election time.

theres a meth lab on lindbergh drive in palmyra, pa...its the old pottery shop or basket weaving factory...something like that.

iced coffee is 99 cents at yum yum all summer. also, if you come in around 9 o clock on a friday night youll get to meet a real nice guy who will buy four cup cakes. hes a leo..."a pussy cat towards the ladies and a tiger towards the men."

lets begin by saying that james taylor is celestial. from his receding hair line all the way down his khacki pants to his shiny brown dockers, he rocked the mann center tonight. he may be 60 years old, but lets face it, he is smoking hot...definately got a scream out of me singin and feelin steamroller up there. and really now, theres nothing that puts a smile in your soul like one of james taylor softer songs. falling asleep at night, i used to grab my walkman and play sweet baby james on repeat. and how many of us can say they havn't gone away to carolina at least one time with mr taylor? bottom line james has got something for everyone and it shows, ive never been part of a more diverse crowd in my life. there were the middle aged moms swooning, old couples, families, college buddies, hippie wannabes, stoners, drunks, infants, the hunch back of notre dame, jazz catz, whatever we love you james....deep greens and blues are the colors we choose, too.

let's picnic.

Memorial Day 2008 was celebrated in style - on some rocks in the middle of Pennypack Creek, alongside Blair Mill Elementary School. Menu highlights were homemade fruit salad and Wawa sandwiches. Mare discovered a shaving razor in her purse when she reached in for her phone and accidentally had a chunk of skin sliced off her finger. After eating, she swung on the swings to the point of extreme nausea, all the while battling the runny nose, sneezing, and itchy eyes of spring allergies.

In other words, it was a really fantastic time.