Grinding My Gears

Maybe January is just wearing on me, but everyone is getting on my nerves lately. And by everyone, I mean just the people I come in contact with (pretty much only my reflection). Since the worst month ever is almost over, I thought I would vent with these examples of how terrible society is now.

On Twitter there was a promoted hash tag to tweet your name with no vowels. Simple enough. I don’t know why people would randomly want to tweet their name with no vowels, but whatever. It’s the simple things, really. On Twitter, you can click the hash tag and it will take you to the responses of other accounts who typed the hash tag in their tweet. Here are some examples:

How is this real? I’m pretty sure none of them are joking because no one would openly admit to not knowing what vowels are. How is this even possible? I didn’t realize that there are people in the world who just think letters are letters and that’s it. No vowels or consonants. Just letters.

My next example happened in real life. I know, how weird that I would be out of the house bed. I was at the post office and a lady of about 60 years old came in, gray hair and everything. She starts speaking loudly to the person behind the counter about how she’s been listening to a lot of new wave music. “I really like David BAowie.” She pronounced the “Bow” part of his name the way that someone takes a bow, not like a bow that you put in your hair. The wrong way. It was awful. I couldn’t stop starring/being offended. If you don’t know how a person’s name is pronounced, don’t say it. It’s so simple. Or, I don’t know, look it up online? She’s clearly a savvy old lady, listening to new wave music which I don’t even think David Bowie technically fits under, but whatevs. Plus, why would you just assume that the woman at the post office cares about your life at all?

Nothing about this moment was hunky dory.

Another weird moment happened to me in my safe haven, Sephora. I got a suh-weet gift card from my mom for Christmas and I wanted to buy a little trinket. After searching around the store and not finding Yves Saint Laurent, I asked one of the employees if they carried their products. She said not at the moment, but they’ll get them in March. “Oh, that’s not too bad.” I said. To which she responded, “I know, thank God.” Yes, we should definitely thank God for that. Not for our health or safety or that you’re employed, but let’s thank him for the introduction of YSL products into this Sephora location. Okay. Yes.

I know it’s just a phrase, but it really irked me for some reason. And trust me, I’m not saying that I’m the sharpest tool in the shed by any means. I haven’t known the meaning of certain words before and mispronounced them as well. It happens to everyone. But if it’s something so simple, then shouldn’t it just be common knowledge by this point?

Tomorrow is February. Almost out of the winter months…

Carol

I don’t like science. Never have, never will. I didn’t care how much the sun weighed or how dense a cylinder of water was. I laughed when my Earth Science teacher said that we had to find the cleavage in our rocks. I also had the biggest carbon footprint of all time and couldn’t care less.

Often times I would look around the room, staring at pictures of our solar system or the periodic table. After a couple of years in high school, a reoccurring poster would appear on the walls of my science rooms. It looked like this:

I need to talk about this poster. Let’s start with Carol. Carol is the worst name ever. Apparently she never wore her safety goggles. I don’t blame Carol here. If her class had safety “goggles”, that’s pretty embarrassing. We only had to wear these clear glasses. If ours had a strap at the back, I sure as hell wouldn’t have worn them either. She was probably just trying to be cool and make up for the fact that her name was Carol.

It’s obvious that her teacher didn’t care about her. If he/she cared, they wouldn’t have made it an option to wear the goggles. Another question: why is Carol’s teacher using such dangerous chemicals in the presence of young students? There are sooo many experiments that you could do, but you choose the one that could blind someone? Good work.

It’s obvious that Carol made a mistake. She burned her eyes and probably didn’t run to flush them out with that cool spurty sink that all the class rooms had. Or she could’ve used the shower in the back of the room that I’ve always been tempted to use.

So now Carol doesn’t need safety goggles? Just because she’s blind, she doesn’t need to keep her eyes safe anymore? What kind of logic is that? Or do they mean that she already has protective goggles because she has to wear those sweet sunglasses? Either way, it’s weird. At least she gets to walk with a pimp cane now and she never has to look at how badly she dresses. A win/win really.

EPCOT Escapades

My family went to Orlando, Florida a lot when I was growing up. We also went a lot after I had grown up. My favorite part of the Disney experience was always EPCOT. It was a world showcase right in my own country, what more could I ask for? There was food from around the world, makeup and clothes from different countries, and of course, foreign hotties.

One of my first experiences with an EPCOT employee was when I was maybe 15. I wasn’t exactly a catch at this point in my life. I remember entering the Canadian pavilion and wanting to get some popcorn. In EPCOT they will assure you that popcorn was created in Canada. This bit of info seems wrong. Even my Canadian husband has pointed out that Canadians couldn’t have been the first people to heat up kernels. There’s no way.

At the popcorn stand was a super cute guy named Sean. He was blonde and tall and just my 15-year old type. He looked like Barbie’s Ken. After that, I looked at him from afar and pretty much stalked him for the rest of the trip. Exhilarating.

A couple years down the line I was wandering through the Morocco pavilion when a Moroccan guy, not much older than myself ran up to me. He told me that I was beautiful and wanted to see me again. His name was Amine (pronounced ah-meen) and we became instant lovers. And by lovers I mean that we held hands and walked around a theme park together.

One night we decided to watch the fireworks. I could feel my phone vibrating in my purse but I didn’t want to interrupt this romantic moment we were having. I was basically Jasmine and he was my Aladdin. When I was leaving the park, I called my mom only to find out that she thought I was kidnapped. My brother had been out looking for me and even asked Amine’s manager where he was and when he had last seen him. My mom is basically Liam Neeson.

When is she gonna learn that no one will ever want to take me?

You would’ve thought I’d learned my lesson to answer my phone but I didn’t. Years later a similar scenario happened. I wonder what my life would’ve been like if I grew up in a decade without cell phones. I guess people would’ve just assumed I was dead after every date.

My last and most exciting EPCOT lover was from the UK. On this trip I was with my friend Janna and we had been walking around for a while when we ran into my mom. She told us there was a really cute guy in one of the shops in the English pavilion for Janna. My first thought was, “What about me?!” So we met this guy and talked to him and he invited us to go to a club with him—yes, Disney has clubs. There, we met up with him and his friend Christopher.

Of course Christopher wasn’t as cute as Janna’s guy (I forget his name) but he was funny and I wasn’t picky. We ended up dancing and making out until midnight. I knew I had to be back at midnight because I was basically Cinderella. After that trip I realized that it’s less work to just admire guys from afar at EPCOT.

Especially the guys in the Norwegian pavilion.

Thursday Thoughts

Whenever I mention that I want to run a 10k and people start laughing:

If I have to be somewhere at 9am:

When the ladies at makeup counter tell me I have nice skin:

Me, at Starbucks:

If a commenter feels the need to negatively critique what I’ve written:

When people realized that I deactivated my Facebook account only to return within 2 weeks:

Anytime I start to have a light discussion with someone:

When I log onto Facebook and realize why I tried to leave:

When people tell me that hockey season has started back up:

If we’re out late and I want to go home:

When my husband asks why I always talk about my death:

Up and Coming

It’s rare that I post about the  goings-on in my life. Mostly because there’s nothing going on to report about. But this week, I have a couple of bits and bobs to talk about so I figured I would throw them all into one messy post. I know it’s not Freshly Pressed worthy, but we can’t be perfect every day.

The first order of business is that Rarasuar asked me to guest post on her blog! I was super excited but I was also super scared because I’m not creative and I never know what to write about. She gave me some cool prompts to choose from so when you have time you should wander over there and see which one I picked!

The second order of business is that BreezyK at The Camel Life sent me a sweet Christmas present in the mail! I only got it last week because the mail takes forevs. A while ago she held a drawing for her followers to win special mix tapes that she made. I entered assuming that I wouldn’t win because I never win anything and my name was pulled out of a hat! Or maybe a bowl…I don’t remember. The CD is amazing and it’s filled with a lot of songs that I hadn’t heard before and some familiar tunes. I was so excited to have a little piece of Breezy’s heart with me to listen to whenever I want. That sounds so creepy, but really, she described the mix as a piece of her heart. Thanks Bree!

Hopefully this mix wasn’t supposed to be secret because I’m showing it to the world.

I feel like I need to start my own fan club or something. Is it allowed for people to be the president of their own fan club? I mean, I would totally do it.

Third order of business is that I’ve started to get slightly crafty. Don’t worry, I’m not using hot glue guns or crocheting rugs, but I have started to dabble in painting and jewelry. I bought an over-sized serving tray a while ago to sit on my ottoman because we don’t have a coffee table. We still don’t really use the tray or ottoman as a coffee table, but  the tray looks much better now that it’s painted. I made the mistake of not taking a BEFORE picture, but here’s what it looked like AFTER:

The paint color I used was Swimming by Sherwin Williams. I love paint names.

The jewelry making has proved to be a harder feat than I expected. My friend invited me to a jewelry making get together and I had no idea what to do. I just figured I would craft some friendship bracelets for myself or something. My friend told me that she looks for inspiration on Pinterest and then tries to copy a design that she likes. I thought that was a smart idea so I perused through my jewelry board and realized that everything I like is impossible to make except for this:

I’m in the process of making my own variation. They didn’t have those pretty turquoise beads at Michael’s so I just bought blue ones. Let me tell you, stringing beads is no easy thing. I’ll probably lose my eyesight because of this stupid necklace.

And lastly, I’m going to start doing posts called Lily’s Literature where I give a short review on the last three books that I’ve read. The first one I did was called Good Reads because I talked about the website. I’ll probably change the title on that one to Lily’s Literature because it has a certain ring to it, don’tcha think? Anyway, these posts will probably take a while for me to complete because I’m a slow reader. Just be patient, young grasshoppers.

Pinterest Terminology

If you’re not familiar with Pinterest, congratulations, you have a life! If you’re a little too familiar with Pinterest, congratulations, you’re a female. Before I became a Pinner, I didn’t realize how many proper terms I was missing out on. Terms for patterns and colors and even food. Pinterest has taught me a lot, and since I’m a generous and amazing person, I’m going to share my new vocabulary with you. (You might wanna grab a barf bag.)

• Chevron. Formerly known as “zig zag”, chevron is simply a type of design. This pattern has all of a sudden become super popular in clothes, furniture and on basically anything that you can put your mark on. I pondered for a long time about how the word came to be. Like, why couldn’t we just call the pattern zig zag? And then I passed a Chevron and realized that it must be a proper term if a gas station is named after it.
• Ombré. This is definitely a made up word. Ombré is simply a description of one color fading into another color. Commonly used to describe hair color, Pinners have found many ways to overuse their made up term. If there is one word that makes me hate everyone, it’s probably ombré because you can’t avoid sounding like a douche when you say it.
• Emerald, charcoal, and ox blood. Don’t get me wrong, I like to paint with all the colors of the wind just as much as the next girl, but let’s be real. They’re just colors. Can’t we just refer to them as “dark green, dark gray, and dark red”? Like, how hard is that? I guarantee that people will immediately know what you’re talking about and you won’t sound like a pompous ass. How do people even know what ox blood looks like? I feel like I should report the next Pinner who uses the term “ox blood” to PETA or something. Also, I just made a new rule that you can’t say the word emerald unless you actually own an emerald.
• Druzy. Druse or druzy is a coating of fine crystals on a rock surface. I literally just copied that sentence from Wikipedia. Ahh college déjà vu! Why am I using so many French accents in this post? Anyway, druzy jewelry has become very popular and I hate myself for knowing what this term means.
• Chambray. Chambray technically refers to a type of lightweight fabric originating from Chambray, France. If you look closely though, it resembles the look of worn-out denim. I kept seeing denim shirts on Pinterest labeled as “chambray” and I was like “Wtf is chambray?” Why can’t it just be labeled as “shirt”?
• Maxi dresses/skirts. I was aware of this term before my pinning days, but I am constantly reminded of it. Maxi dresses are basically long, billowy dresses that go down to the floor. They make women have the appearance of looking really long and lean. The skirts give the same illusion. I still don’t understand why we can’t just call them “long skirts”.
• Tablescape. This is definitely my least favorite word that I’ve come across on Pinterest. I unfortunately had the pleasure of hearing it before my pinning days on The Food Network. Sandra Lee from Semi-Homemade used to refer to her place settings and centerpieces as “tablescapes” and nothing has made me cringe more. You know what my tablescape looks like? A plate and a fork. The epitome of class.

Well, I feel sick now. Those are all the terms I have for you today. Join me next time if you want to debate on which is better: “Upcycling” or shooting yourself in the foot.

Teeth Whitening

The one thing about being Freshly Pressed that worries me is that everyone is probably expecting some amazing pieces to come out of this blog. I can assure you, there won’t be. I can also assure you that I’ll be mentioning that I was Freshly Pressed in every piece that I write from here on out.

I don’t actually want to write about teeth whitening per se, but I would love to analyze this commercial about Crest 3D White 2 Hour Express Strips:

Okay let’s start with the opening. This brunette’s friends tell her that she’s going to Vegas with them in two hours. They don’t even ask her what she’s doing or if she’s busy or anything. They just assume that her world revolves around them. Which is clearly the case because she ends up going. Couldn’t they have planned their trip a little in advance? They probably don’t have a hotel or anything which is super chaotic. And one of her friends is at the mall and the other is casually reading a magazine. Shouldn’t they be packing?! And can’t they have a conversation instead of small doses of words–“Road trip” “Vegas!” Vegas?” Maybe they have tourettes but they only shout out really fun things to do.

The most disturbing part of this whole commercial is that the main gal immediately thinks about her teeth. Not about what to pack or if she has anything to do the next day, but if she has enough time to whiten her teeth. Her teeth are already 5 shades whiter than most people’s so maybe she has a teeth whitening addiction.

One would assume that in the two hours before she left she whitened her teeth so why would she bring the white strips in her bag and pass them to her friend during their road trip? Like, what was the conversation leading up to that point? “Here I think you need these. Your teeth are only 2D.”

Then, the gang gets to Vegas and the lead brunette bumps into this guy who just starts up a conversation. Why would he ask where they’re headed? Why does he even care? Did he come to Vegas all alone? Who does that? And then when she responds she doesn’t even look at him! She literally walks away from him as she responds. I thought she wanted to show off her smile!

And shouldn’t they all have wind blown hair after driving for hours in a convertible? So many flaws.

Getting Freshly Pressed (or spending every minute refreshing your email)

I’ve been warned that getting Freshly Pressed is no picnic. It’s an honor, of course, but it’s also a lot of work. I mean, if you want to do it the right way. For every comment I get, I feel the need to respond. I wouldn’t want people to think that I didn’t read their thoughts that they took the time to write. And I love them! I felt like a celebrity with fan mail. A celebrity that sits in bed eating fistfuls of Honey Nut Cheerios. I also made sure to go check out everyone’s blog who followed or subscribed to mine and left them a little message. I’m pretty sure that’s a rule written in Emily Post’s Etiquette somewhere. Unfortunately I started to realize that I couldn’t think of that many different things to say to people. So I started saying “Have a nice day!” Since when do I care if people have a nice day? If I said that to you, I’m so sorry.

I feel kind of guilty being Freshly Pressed though. Why were my dumb words on the front of WordPress when I know so many other amazing and talented writers who get snubbed? Maybe it was luck. Or maybe it was because I acted super depressed towards the Freshly Pressed Twitter account.

They probably wanted to get me off their back. Which makes sense. My mom can attest to the fact that I’m great at annoying people until I get what I want.

Anyway I just wanted to thank everyone for stopping by and reading my thoughts and laughing with me. There are so many awesome blogs on WordPress, there’s just not enough time in the day to visit them all!

Have a nice day!

Status Updates

Why do I have to live in a world where people update their statuses daily? Or even hourly? It’s so depressing. I’m not saying that I’ve never updated a status or told the internet my plans for the day, but at least I can recognize that it’s stupid.

With Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. humans have become more narcissistic than ever. It’s just a big jumble of comments and likes and ratings and favorites and reblogs and retweets and words that shouldn’t even exist but they do. For some reason, we as people, feel that others would be interested in the trivial moments of our lives. I could literally care less what you ate for breakfast or what you bought at Target. Why do people feel the need to tell their “friends” that their dog is sick or it’s their dad’s birthday? LIKE, WHO CARES?!?!

That doesn’t even look like a thumb.

The first thing I see when I log into Facebook is a little bar that says, “How are you feeling, Lily?” It’s like a little prompt to help me make a status. I’m pretty sure I can figure out how to type words and form a complete sentence. It’s almost offensive.

Tweeting is probably the worst. Where some people just treat it as a status update, others like myself treat it as comedy hour. And some people (everyone besides me) just aren’t funny. And it’s painful! But again, why do we feel the need to share our jokes and funny thoughts with people? Can’t we just share them with our friends and leave it at that?

Instagram is like a status update paired with pictures. It’s hard for me to describe how much I don’t care about the funny face your dog made or the vacation you went on with your BFFs. Why do want other people to see these moments? Are these people just constantly at the ready with their phone cameras out, waiting for something interesting to happen? Shouldn’t these people be, I don’t know, at work?

Status updates have become a part of life. They’re normal. It’s only when you take a step back and analyze what everyone is doing, that it feels unhealthy and fake. What are we trying to prove? That we live normal lives? That we have stories that are worth commenting on? That we can make people jealous with our travel photos? What is it? Why do we want to share every moment of our lives with everyone we know?

When I was younger, people would warn kid’s my age, not to put any personal information on the internet. It’s slightly different now.

Even You Can Be Nominated for an Academy Award!

I’ve determined that every Best Actor and Actress has something in common. They pick roles that will shock people. They pick roles that are challenging. They pick roles that will make people love them because, deep down, they hate themselves so much. The least we can do is award them with some kind of trophy for all their hard work on top of their enormous salaries. We’re just the little people, after all.

If you want to go through all of the mess of going on auditions and getting discovered, go right ahead. That’s the hard stuff. If you want to find a role that will win you an Oscar, then you’ve come to the right place. Here are some tricks of the trade I’ve picked up from being an avid movie watcher:

Make yourself fugly. No one wants to be on the big screen and look awful, right? Well, if you do, The Academy will most likely consider you “brave” and nominate you for one thing or another. For example, look at Anne Hathaway’s choice this year. She could’ve opted for a different role, but she chose the shave-your-head-snot-dripping-crying role. I can’t get over her bravery.

Ew ew ew.

Others that have won or been nominated for awards by making themselves gross are: John Hurt (The Elephant Man), Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler), Charlize Theron (Monster), Gabourey Sidibe (Precious).

Side note: I realize that Mr. Rourke and Ms. Sidibe already looked like that before their roles, but still. They’re on the list.

Go insane. Crazy characters are always fun to watch. There’s nothing better than a good old fashioned break-down. I believe that in order to play someone who goes off the deep end, you’ve had to have experience of it yourself. Just keep that in mind.

Examples of expert crazies: Vivien Leigh (A Streetcar Named Desire), Bette Davis (Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?), Ellen Burstyn (Requiem for a Dream), Natalie Portman (Black Swan).

Hey all girls! Whadda know?!

The old switcheroo. To show The Academy what an amazing skill set you have, try portraying the other sex. This should prove difficult even for the best of them. If you go through with it though, you’ll no doubt be awarded for your talent. I mean, even Gwyneth Paltrow won for dressing up as a guy in Shakespeare in Love. Is that really Oscar quality? No. But she dressed up as a boy so it’s fine.

So convincing.

Other examples of people that can play the opposite gender well are: Hillary Swank (Boys Don’t Cry), Dustin Hoffman (Tootsie), Jaye Davidson (The Crying Game).

Mental disability fall-back. This type of role is tried and true. It’s basically a guarantee that you will win an award for playing someone “special”. It’s also a guarantee that someone is going to comment on this post and tell me that I’m being offensive. I’m just being brave, okay?!

Examples of people that were itching for an Oscar: Billy Bob Thornton (Sling Blade), Dustin Hoffman (Rain Man), Tom Hanks (Forrest Gump), Sean Penn (I Am Sam).

Oh look, all men. This type of role seems to come easy to them.

Holocaust roles. Everyone knows how disturbing the Holocaust was, yet for some reason we like to keep reliving it by watching movies about it. For those of us who didn’t get a chance to actually be there, it’s a great way to see what really happened, right?

Examples of these challenging and brave roles: Roberto Benigni (Life is Beautiful) Liam Neeson (Schindler’s List), Adrien Brody (The Pianist).

If all else fails, try to morph into Daniel Day Lewis.