Syllabus #14

Damn, friends.  We've been through just about a semester of these syllabi and I haven't even dropped a pop quiz on you yet.  I'm really a giver.  You all get a C for effort, maybe a B for attendance, and an A just for showing up to take the final.  I know you were all taking this class to boost your 1.7 GPA, so vaya con dios, estupidos.  This will be the last post for a couple weeks, so use your down time wisely and stay safe out there.

I really had higher expectations for What Color is Your Parachute, but the advice is a little uninspired

Nashville man calls 911 eighteen times to complain that he was assaulted by Brad Pitt.  He must not have any friends, because I would have called everyone in my contact list to brag about it.  I would re-punch myself in the face whenever the bruises started to heal so that for months, whenever people on the street asked me about it, I could say, "Oh, this black eye?  It's from Brad Pitt.  Yes, that Brad Pitt."

I'm putting this link here because I hope it will be something we forget about in a few weeks as the news cycle continues to gyrate out of control like a Tasmanian devil on meth in a Zumba class.  I hope it will not, instead, be something we look back on in a few weeks with longing for a simpler time.

Does anyone remember this Levar Burton joint?  It strikes me as vaguely familiar but I don't know if I ever actually watched the movie in its entirety or caught a few minutes while flipping channels.  Do you have voice activated technology in your life?  I, for one, say Fuck. That. Noise.  I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey and I'm not here to play with HAL or any of his demented little friends.  Alexa is not welcome in my house.  I don't care if you're a real human being named Alexa.  You wanna step across that threshold, you need to legally change your name first because I don't trust you.  I don't know any real life Siris, but you can stay the hell out, too.

Keanu channeling MC Hammer realness and demonstrating how one can, in fact, manage to not touch this.  This being women's bodies in any place that they may not want to be touched.  Smart guy.  He realizes that being accused of sexually inappropriate conduct would not be an excellent adventure, but rather, a bogus journey.

Interesting article about the upside down economics of the struggling Upright Citizens Brigade Theaters.  This quote made me wonder about my own participation in comedy:

Roberts added that paid talent would necessarily take fewer creative risks, though he used an example of such risk unique to UCB, where some legendarily lauded performances have trended to the scatological: “Once they pay you, you get told what to do about it,” he said. “ ’Cause you’re not gonna not sell out that show if I’m paying you, so you’re not gonna piss in a jar—and that stuff can be pretty funny.”  

I have thought about this regarding my own open mic performances.  I've never been paid to do comedy (probably because you usually need to be offering something of value in order to be paid, and there are maybe 5 actual humans who think I'm funny) but if I was paid, would that ultimately be creatively stifling?  Would I play it safe in an effort to please the audience?  As it is now, I kind of do whatever weird shit I want and as long as I think it's funny I'm more or less happy with it.  Laughter from the audience is just an added bonus.  

Speaking of performance spaces:  Coming soon to a toilet near you, the comedy tour exactly zero people asked for.  

Apparently New Jersey is the least patriotic state.  I hate linking to the New York Post, but I promise I don't hang out on that page to give them traffic on purpose - I clicked through a link from The Skimm because they baited me with this nonsense:  "New Jersey - The country's least patriotic state.  To be fair, if you were from NJ, you might be down on the US, too."  

Well, I am from New Jersey, so give me a second to pull my earrings out before I start swinging at you.  What makes me down on the US is seeing the grotesque social and economic inequality in other parts of the country.  Not to say NJ is perfect, but on issues such as transportation infrastructure, schools, paid maternity leave, etc., the so-called armpit of the country is doing a lot better than some of the other places I've lived around our great nation.  Maybe people in other states engage in more volunteering out of sheer necessity because there are fewer social safety nets provided by their state governments - did ya think about that possibility?  Idaho might be especially patriotic by the metrics used in the WalletHub survey, but there are 3rd world countries with better quality roads, and where are you drawing the line between patriotism and jingoism?  Where's the line between being proud to live in a free country and using the flag as a Libertarian invisibility cloak to keep The Man off your back so you can shoot your guns and exploit your natural resources and/or women in peace?

Hell hath no fury like a woman from Jersey scorned.

I Survived My Jesus Year: How I lived to age 34 without incinerating in a dumpster fire

I recently completed another revolution around the sun and turned 34.  This won't strike you as a significant development.  Time works the same way for everyone.  Hooray for me, hooray for you.  We all have birthdays, and except for ages 18 and 21, which come with legal milestones, birthdays that don't end in 5 or 0 don't usually warrant much fanfare.  However, making it past age 33 means that one has outlived perhaps the most famous person in the Western world, Jesus H. Christ himself, which seems like it's worth taking a moment to build up a really sincere slow clap.

I'll wait.

I should offer that I'm not a religious person.  In fact, as you might surmise from the image atop this text, I am an atheist and one of the more gleefully sacrilegious people I know.  Was Jesus even a real guy?  Maybe?  Do I look like I have a time machine in my garage?  Because I don't even have a garage, champ.  But growing up in a culture steeped in Christian mythology means I'm aware of the supposed good deeds of ol' JC (not Chasez, the N'Sync guy.  I mean, he might be a stand-up guy too, but I don't know his life) and also the grisly death by crucifixion.

I may not be willing to wash a prostitute's feet (ew, yuck, feet) and I'm not a friggin' wizard so I can't turn water into wine, but I can avoid being murdered, both literally and figuratively.  I can use good judgement, self control, and the scant amount of wisdom I've accumulated over the last 33 years to avoid situations that will interfere with my safety, health, creativity, or enjoyment, and seek out opportunities to enhance my life in the aforementioned dimensions.

I don't physically feel any older than I did at say, 24, but I do feel like I've learned some life lessons and now have a more mature perspective on a few topics.  For example, I don't relate to people who say their hangovers are way worse in their 30s.  Mine are not the slightest bit worse now than they were when I was 24 or even 18.  My hangovers have always felt like a Craigslist Missed Connection (RIP) between a demonic possession and a skull fracture.

I finally figured out how to deal with a hangover, though, which is to simply use self control to avoid one in the first place.  I stopped drinking for close to 6 months and now have a personal rule that I will not consume more than 2 units of alcohol in a 24 hour span of time because I got tired of puking so hard I would burst little capillaries in my eyelids.  You might think the time I had to barf into a Nalgene in a moving vehicle, and then obviously throw out said Nalgene, would have done the trick, but no.  And that was years after the time I had to vomit into a ShopRite bag in the passenger seat of my mom's car because she made me ride with her to run errands as punishment for coming home shitfaced, and the bag turned out to have a hole in the bottom.  Cute, right?

Physically, I feel like I'm in slightly better shape than I was 10 years ago.  Despite the passage of time, I haven't yet physically declined save for the appearance of a few gray hairs.  I have come to accept that I'm not immortal or invincible, though, so when an activity seems like an un-fun level of dangerous or painful, I reserve the right to say, "Fuck that noise," and hang out on the sidelines.  Mountain Biking?  Nope.  Riding a stupid goddamn electric scooter on a city street?  Hard pass.  Getting any part of my body waxed?  Nah, I'm good.  Getting a tattoo?  Yea, you know what, probably.  But now I know better than to pick a random tattoo shop on the Wildwood boardwalk* and hand over my sketchbook to someone who speaks no English and therefore can't conduct any kind of consultation with me**, and who just happens to have an open schedule with no clients lined up so he can get me under the needle right away***.

I also picked up this pro tip:  If you do find yourself with a terrible tattoo, do your research and find a talented artist who will make it presentable as soon as you can afford to do so!  Don't be like me and let 12 years pass, during which time people will refer to you, behind your back and to your face, as Prison Tat (for obvious and not at all ambiguous reasons).

So we've covered the bases about avoiding death, dismemberment, alcohol poisoning, and Hep C.  But a life worth living isn't merely a cost-benefit analysis between fun and danger.  Rather than just abstaining from poor choices, there are plenty of ways you can enrich your life proactively!  Here is a list of things that I do anywhere from occasionally to daily to make my life more enjoyable:

• Make lists!  A to do list for the day, a list of goals, a Docket of Shit to Do, whatever you need in your life.  (OMG, this is a list!)
• Yoga 
• Studying Spanish
• Reading
• Painting
• Exercising
• Writing 
• Stand up comedy (admittedly not for everyone, and depending on who you ask, maybe not for me either, but screw you guys, it's fun)
• CBD oil - I know that medically/scientifically the jury's still out on whether this is snake oil or has legitimate healing applications, but even if it's a placebo, I do feel more relaxed after drinking hot tea with a couple drops of CBD oil up in there.  Would the ritual of hot tea by itself produce the same outcome?  Maybe!  
• Volunteer or contribute to charitable causes - or both!  I'm not saying I'm a good person, even robber barons used some of their money for laudable causes (see every Carnegie library in existence) but I'm trying to be less of a selfish, entitled garbage person who assumes somebody else will be there to clean up the world's messes, and I'm a sucker for anyone who sends me a bunch of free address labels because you know I don't have my shit together enough to actually purchase my own address labels and you also know I'm too cheap to bother with that because I never live in one place long enough to use them all.  My checks are like 3 addresses out of date and I'm hoping checks become completely obsolete before I either run out of my current book or move again, whichever comes first, so I don't have to keep dealing with this malarkey.  TL:DR:  Help people, share your resources, be nice!

All this self-evident life advice could easily be expanded to 30,000 words and published in the form of a slim but highly lucrative self help book targeted towards the younger end of the millennial demographic.  I'm really doing a mitzvah by giving it away for free, right here, right now.  In summation, be like me in some ways, and don't be like me in most ways.  You are welcome, and stay alive out there.

* Red flag #1
** Red flag #2
*** Red flag #3.  Is every 19-year old that dumb, or just me?

Drinking in moderation, the birthday suit edition

Syllabus #13

I was in Jersey for the past few days, helping my mom paint some rooms in her house and pawing through some childhood relics.  I feel like I really grew as a person.  I mean that only in the literal, physical sense, because I am emotionally stunted.  I ate more pizza, ice cream, and cake in the ~100 hours I spent there than I normally consume in a month.  Also, sorry if you go to any Wawa in the tri-state area and they are out of coffee, because I drank it all.  All of it.

Drank it here

And here

Sisterhood of the traveling caffeine delivery system

I guess I missed a lot of internet while I was away.  Apparently berries are giving us the Hep and OJ joined Twitter and missed a real opportunity by not registering the handle @if_I_tweeted.  He says he has "a little gettin' even to do," which I think means he has to locate and rob the evidence locker where those gloves are being stored because they were his favorite pair.  The late Gloria Vanderbilt's Instagram was/is a national treasure, proving that with enough money, the oldest of (highly elegant, refined) dogs can still learn new tricks.

I finished two books while I was away, probably in part due to all the coffee I drank.  When I wasn't reading or sucking down Wawa's finest, here's some other stuff we did:

We took the Speedline over to Philly to visit the Philadelphia Masonic Temple, which sounds weird because it IS weird.

Wooder

City Hall

The temple

Red upholstery to camouflage the blood of sacrificial goats?

Is there a Wes Anderson movie where Bill Murray is a Mason?

Just an enormous Ben Franklin statue watching you eat

Is this the last card catalog in all of North America?

Free mustache rides

Add caption

Dippy's, of course

It's unclear whether this dog likes me

My friends MADE this beer, and it's fucking delicious

Jersey tomato sammich

It was worth it, I was allowed to work it, I put my thing down, flipped it, and reversed it

Everything Bagel Pizza with smoked salmon (only the crust goes in the oven - the cream cheese and toppings are added post-baking, omg we aren't monsters)

Strawberry shortcake/early birthday celebration

I found this in a blanket chest and I have so so so many questions for 17 year old me.  The fact that this handy packet of condoms, lube, and information about the morning after pill is unused tells you pretty much everything you need to know, which is that I probably picked this up at a booth at Warped Tour because SEX IS HILARIOUS, but why did it end up in a bag full of undeveloped film?  Methinks I'm ok with living out the rest of my life without ever knowing what horrors lurk on that film (let's be real it's probably about 65 exposures of me giving someone the finger or me zooming in on my elbow crease so it looks like an asscrack) so it went right in the trash.  Along with the condoms, because I'm pretty sure using an 18 year old condom is how you end up with an 18 year obligation.

Now I'm back up on my bullshit in Nashville, making headway on my Docket of Shit to Do (TM).  This weekend, I look forward to enjoying a couple volunteer opportunities and possibly also celebrating the anniversary of my birth.  The idea is that the volunteering will make me feel more like a contributing member of society and less like a selfish garbage human, but now that I'm admitting what my motivation is, I'm pretty sure I've disqualified myself for sainthood.

Syllabus #12

Another week, another bunch of non sequiturs.  Hop in, the water's warm.  Just don't dive, it's too shallow and there's no lifeguard on duty.  Also, wait 30 minutes after eating that pizza roll because you don't want to get a cramp.  And if you have active diarrhea* stay in that lounge chair, friend.

*Why is it active, exactly.  As opposed to passive?  I feel like active diarrhea is the kind you would want.  It seems to imply that you are actively moving your bowels.  Passive diarrhea sounds way worse, leaking out without your permission.  Passive diarrhea just leaves a note on the counter asking you if you could maybe please get to the bathroom sometime if it's not too much trouble.  Or maybe that's passive aggressive diarrhea.

Not my leg, not my unicorn

Invitation ambiguity is the real epidemic we have to rout from our culture before we can be whole again.  It's a two-way street, though.  Sure, invitations could stand to be a little more explicit, but let's also talk about how often people cannot be bothered to acknowledge receipt of your invitation, much less commit to an affirmative or negative response!

It's a small dinner party, Karen, I need to know how much food and alcohol to buy!  It's at most a 3-hour time commitment.  I'm not asking you to form a human centipede with me and the rest of our acquaintances so you can spend the rest of eternity sewn to my sphincter digesting my predigested food!  A simple yes or no answer will suffice!  Your silence is much more hurtful and infuriating than you think your decline will be, which is pretty conceited of you.  You're not Oprah for chrissakes.  I only invited you to be polite and because you were my B-list after Oprah graciously RSVP'ed immediately that she and Gail would be busy steaming their vaginas at Gwyneth's that night.  And you know she sent her regrets along with one of those astonishingly expensive bespoke seasonal gift baskets from that month's O List because she has class, unlike you, Karen.

I don't even know a Karen.

I bet Aunt Becky wishes she read this article before she dropped fat stacks on her dumb-dumb kid's college admission.  Going into space with NASA used to be more competitive than getting into Harvard, but now you can buy your way in, fair and square!

I didn't make this, but I wish I did.  Her safe word in the showers is "have mercy" and her prison nickname is Becky With the Good Hair.

"I'm from New Jersey and I'm proud about it.  I love the Garden State."  I don't know why, but I get a twinge of pride whenever the worlds of my ancestral homeland and my hometown du jour collide, and this is no exception.

Good.  Fly 'em high and fly 'em proud.

Here's a hot beauty hack for you - hemorrhoid wipes are soaked in witch hazel, so you can totally use them to remove makeup.  That is, if you don't mind being called an ass-face.

What in the actual fuck?  I don't even know where to start with this one.  Is there a beef, or is this just for funsies?  Why a UFC fight and not a duel, or even a potato sack race?

Are we sure about this one, guys?  All I'm seeing is dorky book-related song parodies.  Not a single bong rip or nip slip to be found.

At the time of this writing, I have had exactly four units of alcohol during the year of our lord two thousand and nineteen.  Two of them were beer, and I would totally drink a good non-alcoholic craft beer if that was an option.  My favorite part about not drinking most of the time is being able to feel judgy towards sloppy drunk people.  If I can enjoy a deliciously pretentious IPA and while keeping my superiority complex intact, that's the next best thing to zero-calorie ice cream (miss me with that styrofoam-tasting Halo Top bullshit, by the way).

Trash Panda Cannabis Infused - The liquid Turducken of illicit substances

What else?  Oh, did you just ask how I'm progressing with my Docket of Shit to Do?  Thank you for asking.  I have done the following additional tasks:

• Signed up for not one but three volunteer projects (food pantry and "condom barista" at PRIDE, if you are curious)
• Performed at not one but three comedy open mics
• Painted a picture:

If you've ever met Ajax, you understand that this is the acrylic paint equivalent of an aura photograph

Dumps Like a Truck

We have to thank the body positivity movement for changing the conversation about beauty standards.  Women of all shapes and sizes are beautiful, and we get to define what beautiful is.  Is your beautiful an oversized vintage mechanic's jumpsuit?  Hot.  I'm here for it.  Is your beautiful a skin-tight pleather miniskirt and sequined bustier?  Get it, girl.

Are you comfortable?  Do you feel good?  That's all that matters, then.  I mean, context matters a little.  Maybe wear a shirt that covers your whole torso at the office.  We all know frigid summer office temps are a patriarchal mandate stemming from men's optimal temperature range and also a vested interest in seeing ladies' nips.   And maybe don't wear that mechanic's jumpsuit to a black-tie wedding, but otherwise, we're free to be you and me.

More than changing the conversation about outward appearances and outer garments, though, is the changing notion of inner beauty.  Or maybe under beauty would be more accurate, because, dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to talk about underwear.  That's right.  Bras and panties.  Does anyone else hate the word panties?  I don't know why but I just realized I hate it almost as much as I hate moist, creamy, crusty,  and bucket.  If you're now picturing a bucket full of moist, creamy, crusty panties, then congratulations on your reading comprehension and synthesis skills.

I am so glad feminists now have this 'you do you' attitude instead of the bra-burning crusades of yore.  I, for one, get a little jeals when I see women walking around without a bra.  I just can't do it.  It's not a modesty thing.  I require support and structure.  The girls hang low, and there's a certain gravitational pull that defies the laws of physics for such small and light objects.  I can't blame all this jealousy on the youth, because I also see women who are clearly older than me rocking gloriously unfettered nips.  I can't blame my situation on breastfeeding, because I've clearly never done that.  I'm just the proud owner of essentially two lemons in a pair of tube socks.

How is it a moment of sweet relief to fling off your bra when you get home at the end of a long work day?  If I take my bra off too fast, I get passive aggressive notes from the downstairs neighbors asking me to please not play bocce indoors.  It's ignorant.  And don't even get me started on stairs.  I take the stairs too fast without a bra on and I have to watch my step; it's like walking behind two slinkies asymmetrically slithering down each step.

Thanks in part to the body pos movement, we now enjoy a proliferation of web-based bra companies marketing an endless array of styles in every possible size.  This is a real and true mercy, and not just because I can finally find bras that kinda sorta fit (start making bras where you can choose a different cup size for lefty and righty and then we'll talk).  I'm relieved I can bra shop from the comfort of my own couch because the last time I went bra shopping in a brick and mortar store, a senile old woman pushed open the door of my Macy's fitting room while I was fully topless to ask me where I got my shoes.

Now let's talk about those undies.  Apparently we have Rihanna to thank for making granny panties socially acceptable again.  And there's that P word creeping up on us.  I thought about censoring it, but when you see the phrase "granny p***ies" you totally read it as "granny pussies" which is objectively way worse.

But I digress.  Thank you, Rihanna, for your bold humanitarian endeavor.  Thank you for liberating us from the societal pressure to avoid visible panty line.

Full disclosure:  I have never worn a thong.  I owned one once, but never wore it out of the house without losing resolve and putting on normal underwear.  How can you people wear a garment that is expressly designed to BE a wedgie?  The aggression will not stand, man.  It's like flossing your ass.  So I am here for the Granny P***y trend.  Yes please now and forever.

Now let's make a hard left turn into uncharted territory that is only tangentially related to the subject of thongs vis a vis butt floss.

Junior year of high school, I had my first real boyfriend and wasn't taking things too seriously as Christmas approached.  I wanted to choose a gift for him that said, "We're having some fun times, but my heart is made of pumice stone (abrasive yet porous) and you haven't yet penetrated the rough and gnarled exterior."  Naturally, I went to the mall and hit up Spencer's for some Butt Floss and rounded things out with a used Zelda game for N64 or whatever.

Fast forward to the night before Christmas Eve and his dad died suddenly of a heart attack.  That was obviously horrible and it is not at all the funny part of the story.  In light of this unexpected tragedy, I was feeling like a real piece of shit about my gift, but I hoped maybe the absurdity of it all would cheer him up.  Christmas Eve, he came over for dinner with my family and we exchanged gifts.  I opened mine first.  I was expecting something on the spectrum of corny to grossly inappropriate.  Anything between a Whitman Sampler or a lacy thong from K-mart wouldn't have been off-brand here.

What did I pull out of the beautifully wrapped box that I suspect his friend's mom wrapped for him?  A thick, burgundy wool scarf.  Fair enough, it was a nice color, it looked warm, I was (and am) always complaining about being cold.  But no, this wasn't just any wool scarf.  HE HAD LEARNED HOW TO KNIT AND SPENT THE LAST THREE MONTHS KNITTING ME THIS FLAWLESS GESTURE OF DEVOTION.  And then he opened his gifts from me.  I'll never know if the tears in his eyes were were about his dad or the very obvious 'fuck you' that my gift selection expressed.

Syllabus #11

We're deep into summer in these parts.  I've carved a comfortable groove right down the middle of the chasm that lies between hedonistic blob and Type-A masochist.  I take a lot of walks, have a few daily routines to keep me honest, eat an embarrassing amount of fruit, read a ton, and listen to podcasts.  That might sound like the montage at the beginning of an Ensure commercial, but I like to think of it as creating a sustainable lifestyle that I can enjoy whether I'm 33 or 93.  I mean, sleeping until noon and getting blackout drunk by the pool is a perfectly achievable lifestyle for a nonagenarian, too, but it's not really my jam right now.

Have you picked out your summer wardrobe yet?  Maybe this will help.  I hate to include a link to the NY Post, but the Daytona Dong Sarong Jeado Swim Brief is important enough to justify it, just this once. 

In other sartorial considerations - to side boob, or not to side boob?  For me, the answer is always and forever a hard no.  With these puppies, it wouldn't be a cute whisper of side-titty, it would be like someone squeezed an overflowing fistful of anemic hued Nickelodeon Gak into the front of the garment and let it ooze out both sides. 

Speaking of Fleabag, I loved this show.  British people!  Fourth-wall breaking!  Only twelve 22-minute episodes!  Can ya handle it?

All my childhood nightmares are about to come true.  As a librarian I can vouch for the continued popularity of the Scary Stories books.  In my previous job, they were in such constant circulation that they never made it back onto the shelf before kids would snatch them from the check-in cart.  As a child living in a house in the woods, which all my friends already deemed scary and haunted, I was utterly incapacitated with fear of the outdoors after reading The Wolf Girl story.  Taking the dog out after dark became a form of psychological torture no less devastating than waterboarding.  I haven't been to the movies in probably 3 years but I am 1000% going to see this the second it's released wait for it to be available on Netflix and maybe watch it 6 months after that.

Sarah Silverman and others are speaking in a short documentary about comedians and mental health. I can't wait to say I'm going to watch this and never follow through.

Swedish library boats:  I love how much Scandinavians in general and Finns in particular value literacy.

“The Scandinavian countries have a long history of [the] welfare state where literacy and learning are considered important,” says Päivi Jokitalo, a Finnish library specialist. “The library systems stress equal access to literature and knowledge for all, regardless of background.”

I'm crying because...I cut myself shaving?  How do we feel about this ad?  Do we take a consequentialist view in which we put cynicism aside and celebrate the beautiful content of the ad and applaud the outcome of inclusion and positive visibility for trans people?  Or do we question the self-serving motives behind this corporate wokeness?  Can we feel both ways about it?  

Sometimes what you want and what you need are exactly the same.

Whenever you learn about the passing of a 96-year old your first thought is probably, well, that makes sense.  But reading about someone who lived such a humble yet outsized existence, doing something she was passionate about until the age of 96 (!), makes you think about maybe starting to get your ass in gear...tomorrow.

I'm still on the yoga every day train (since January 1, 2018...so namaste here until I get my participation trophy, guys).  Why not a little rainbow yoga for Pride month?  

I don't live alone but I still want this giant toilet paper roll in my life.

Summertime and the Livin' is Greasy

I hate the concept of a bucket list when it applies to a finite window of time after which the list-maker plans to continue being alive.  Sure, life itself is finite and that's why we make bucket lists, but I'm referring to seasonal or age-related bucket lists.  You're not literally dying because you turned 30 or because the summer ended, but maybe a piece of your soul dies if you're so focused on that nomenclature.

I'm not knocking the act of making a list of intentions or goals.  I'm a compulsive list maker.  Sometimes my To Do list includes plans to make other lists.  Make all the lists you want.  List it all.  Go full James Joyce and make the Ulysses of lists; plan every minute of your day including notes to self about picking your nose and wiping your ass.  Just don't use the word bucket.  I hate it.  You can take your bucket, fill it with the words moist and crusty, and throw it right in the dumpster and light it on fire.

I submit to you in its stead, the Docket of Shit to Do.  It's much more official and businesslike.  You can make your own corner-office C-suit executive decisions about what to add and what to omit.  You set the deadlines.  And nobody dies at the end.

"That's something that's not really on my docket of shit to do."  -Kenny Powers

As you can see, the docket is a respectable balance between concrete major plans, fun and relatively simple things I intend to do to maximize the hell out of my time on this earth and also not be a completely selfish hedonist, ongoing goals for self actualization and productivity, and chores.

This past weekend, I crossed three whole things off the Fun Intentions section of the docket.  I went to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit early last week, and then turned my summer fun dial up to 11 this weekend when Andy and I went to a cat cafe, got milkshakes from Cookout, AND went to a baseball game.  We did some other off-docket shit that was enjoyable, too, but I'm very proud of my docket-related accomplishments.

Pics or it didn't happen:

Country legends racing around the diamond.  Dolly wore her most supportive sports bra for the occasion.

Let the record state that I didn't just pay money to pet different cats when I could have pet my own for free.  The cat cafe helps animals find homes and promotes awareness of animal rescue causes.  I'll be waiting by the phone for the call from the Nobel committee.

Sweet fancy Moses, it took me 3 days to finish this monster and it was too thick to suck (#thatswhatshesaid) through a straw.  I let it sit in a hot car for 30 minutes before it was melted enough to consume without bursting a capillary in my face.