you only get one shot.

people always tell you: "don't smoke cigarettes or crack. they will cause addiction and the latter will likely lead to homelessness/whitney houston-like insanity." but nobody ever says to you (except that sometimes they do), "don't drink pepsi one. it will cause addiction and the most persistent migraines known to man." well, i am giving this piece of advice to you and myself in writing because i need constant reminders. i was totally in recovery, not depending on the sweet chemical taste or the caffeine fix, and then i had some stressful times, and i fell back into the three a day habit, and for a few days now, i have had a headache that ibuprofen simply will not remedy. but the most fucked up part is that i am still drinking pepsi one. this must end... tonight.

tomorrow evening i'm going to germany. this is where i spent the majority of my childhood, and i haven't seen it since i turned twelve, so i guess i am excited. but i am also slightly apprehensive. i fear my german will not be as fluent as it was when it was my primary language, and everyone will ridicule me for it. because germans are assholes. i'm pretty sure that's where i get it from... my heritage. i also am not looking forward to a nine-hour plane ride. but it won't be with american airlines, so i think i can expect some snacks and movies and things that make planes more enjoyable.

i hope the two weeks go by quickly. mostly because i am all about time passing swiftly for the next few months. i hope i have a nice time. i intend to drink publicly at every opportunity, so this should help.

PS i am going to be in the atlanta airport. please, forces of the universe, let me see someone more famous than beth ditto.

this is not what i asked for.

when i was making my way back to the south, i had a two hour layover in portland. i was pretty fucking despondent upon landing because i had to get up several hours prior to the crack of dawn but primarily because of a handsome young lad unfortunately located in spokane. upon landing, i discovered my next flight was delayed for an hour, which could have potentially fucked my other connection to get to atlanta, which was now scheduled to depart about 10 minutes after my delayed flight landed. so, i was forced to sit in the terminal, miserable, tired and anxious, for about three hours.

as time passed, the gate area filled up, and this group of loud, dirty, douchey-looking hipsters sat in the row across from me. because they were not using library voices, i could overhear their conversations with ease. they talked about guitars and basketball and how they hoped their luggage was now going to make it onto the plane since they were late, but the flight was delayed. and how much it would suck to have to wear these boots in miami, their final destination, for a week if it didn't. and what to tell your doctor to get certain prescription medications, like ambien and xanax. i also watched them play on the walking escalator things you find in airports. the entire duration of my waiting period i kept thinking, "you people are obnoxious," and, "the chubby girl looks oddly familiar." then i got on the plane, seated far away from any of these people, and continued to soak in my misery.

today i was doing my daily celebrity gossip browsing and saw the following:

that is beth ditto. she is the singer in a group called the gossip, who i have read about on lots of occasions but never actually listened to. i'm pretty sure the only reason i am at all familiar with them is because beth ditto usually does things like this:





i for some reason thought that the gossip were british. but i think that's just because people actually care about them in england. so, when i saw that orange-haired girl this morning, i immediately thought, "she looks just like that person whose obnoxiousness kept me distracted from my depression at the pdx airport," and moved on. but i kept thinking about it today, so i did a little bit of investigating to find out that a) beth ditto is from arkansas, not england. b) she was voted the coolest person in rock by nme magazine c) the gossip is based in portland, oregon and d) they performed at some art thing in miami at the beginning of december.

underwhelming conclusion: i finally saw (someone who is considered) a celebrity (by some people) up close in an airport and didn't even realize it or give a shit.

obviously, i have been robbed. why wasn't it a famous rapper in atlanta, like i have been politely requesting for the last two and a half years? or kim kardashian? or just someone i would have instantly recognized and wanted to take a picture with, huh? this would have without a doubt made me feel better at the time. now i am left feeling empty and cheated because that was probably my only "get to see a celebrity at an airport" card, and i accidentally used it up on this bitch. it's not even a cool fucking story.

fuck my life.

it's like i don't even know who i am anymore.

throughout the rise in popularity of leggings and tights i have firmly preached one truth and that is that they are not pants. if you wouldn't wear whatever is covering your upper half without the leggings because it would leave your buttock-area inappropriately exposed, then you should not be wearing it without pants. real, certified pants with pockets. this was my personal standard, and i felt that everyone else on the planet should abide by it as well because i know best. mary-kate olsen could evoke something more positive than a "girl, please," from me when she temporarily quit pants for black tights.

but a few days ago, i broke my rule. i left the house in a plaid shirt that covered my ass in its entirety, yet could not be considered socially acceptable for non-prostitutes without the tights i paired with it. i was walking a thin line, i realize. since this, i have been ardently defending myself to myself and others, even when they have not reproached me. it was strangely liberating, not wearing pants. and comfortable. and i want to do it again. but i feel like this would make me a sell-out. at least i am not wearing uggs (yet).

another issue i am currently dealing with is that i am growing to tolerate, maybe even kind of like katy perry. "i kissed a girl" was catchy, but too obnoxious to like. i don't know if i hated it because a) it trivialized homosexuality, b) every drunk girl has kissed one of her own and probably didn't mind it, so why write a song about this fact of life and pretend to be bold, katy perry? or c) because every time it came on the radio when i was in the presence of my mother, i feared she would ask, "have you ever kissed a girl, stephanie?," and i would not be able to lie convincingly enough in my response. now that it's not being forced into my ears eight times daily, it doesn't seem so awful. and should i happen to be in the presence of the current katy perry single, "hot n cold" (ugh.) i will totally bop along to that shit. it cannot be helped.

i also frequently feel the urge to be doing domestic things, such as baking or crafty activties. and instead of working on my final projects, the due dates to which are approaching rapidly, i am simply pretending they do not exist.

forever young.

i am super into baby pictures. any baby pictures, really. this should not really come as a surprise because i am interested in baby anythings. like these mindblowingly adorable orange kittens i saw today up for adoption. when i am a responsible adult who is not afraid of commitment, the first thing i will do is get a kitten to call my own and name it something really witty/badass/original. but i digress. i really want to talk about these old pictures i found recently. i know my parents care for me, and i suppose you could say i have turned out alright, but i do question some of their parenting decisions.

here i am, about a year old, drinking beer:
this type of behavior helps to explain why i look a tiny bit shitfaced in so many photographs of my toddler times. like these:



this next picture seems normal to the untrained eye. i still have the frames to those glasses i'm wearing and still plan on filling them with my prescription. but let me draw your attention to my sweater.
it's sort of hard to tell in this version. but it appears to read "ethnic heart romance." i'm pretty sure it was purchased in germany, yet this is no excuse because a)my mother should have spoken enough english to know better and b)my american father definitely knew better. also, who decided to put that text on a child's sweater in the first place. or anyone's sweater, really?

the most troubling photographic discovery i found was one of me on fasching, which is sort of like mardi gras, when i was seven years old. i remember that my costume was "punk rocker" but it looks a little more like "baby prostitute." does it not?

i have flown with a lot of different airlines. i have had negative experiences with most of them, but sometimes the airline itself cannot be blamed when the weather is really at fault. even though i realize this, i am generally convinced all airlines are out to fuck me.

most recently i flew with american airlines, who i would not recommend. i don't really know anything about them, but they seem a little low budget. this would not be an issue at all if that's what i had expected. but the price i paid for the ticket did not lead me to believe this was the motel 6 of the air travel world. usually on long flights they try to meet your entertainment needs by showing an in-flight movie or once i was on a plane that had tv screens in the backs of all the seats and you could watch three hours of project runway on bravo and just enjoy your life, despite being on an airplane. they also usually give you some peanuts or crackers or pretzels for free. american airlines does not provide any of these services. and their planes are fucking tiny and uncomfortable.

they also make you pay to check your baggage, which i understood when it was making up for profits lost while gas was $6859 barrel, but now that it's significantly lower, they could probably get rid of this fee. i'm even more sure they could get rid of this fee because my flight to spokane was operated by american airlines all the way up to my last transfer in portland, when it swtiched to horizon, so i had to pay twenty bucks or something to check my bag. my flight back to the ATL started out with the 50-minute horizon flight to portland (on which they serve free snacks! by the way), and then turned into american airlines. when i checked my luggage in spokane, with horizon, nobody prompted me to give them my money. confused, i said to the horizon employee, "i don't have to pay for this?" to which he replied, "no." even though american airlines was going to be carrying my shit for about five times they amount of time horizon was. fuck american airlines, i say.

anyway, this is irreverent and funny, yet not lacking in message:

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die