Okay. Going to post about Miley Cyrus, kind of. Well, about that whole genre, in particular. I can't help myself, and since no one's really asked for my opinion, I figure I should force it upon everyone who reads this, as you've kind of asked for it by navigating to the wasteland of my brains. Here goes.

Everyone's all pissy about Miley acting like a hoochie on-stage, and I get it, it provides a terrible example for young girls, but I actually think it's a good thing. Why? Because it was so over-the-top offensive that you can use it as an example. If I had a child (boy or girl, it doesn't matter), I would probably say something along the lines of, "Look, Jemima (Yeah...boy or girl, my kid's being named Jemima...don't hate, it's my favorite name)! See how that woman is trying to make herself more valuable by degrading herself in a public forum?" At this point, I would hope my kid already knows where I stand on this kind of crap, and he'd be like, "Okay. Whatever. Why did you name me Jemima, you crazy old lady?" I would then proceed to explain that it wasn't the fact that Miley was being sexual, as that is sort of a person's prerogative and some people prefer to be more public with their nookie, but the fact that Miley was acting like an idiot, which is unforgivable. And that whole thing, including the song, was just tacky, although I think that about a lot of music nowadays.

These are the scenarios being played out in my head.

Anyway, did we expect art or entertainment at the VMAs? They are two very different things, and it is evident that art is valued very little in our country, and entertainment is top priority. This is why people like Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber get contracts and world-class musicians have to work three jobs just to avoid being homeless. That's the way the free market works, and I, for one, think that's kind of how it goes and you have to take the good with the bad. I hope our children see the ridiculousness and choose to support real music and art rather than the crap that is on TV.

Seriously, though. Why can we not get past the point where women gain value in society by showing off their tatas? I mean, if a woman wants to show off her tatas, that's cool and it's her business, if she's an adult, but why don't men have to do that to be valuable? I mean, yeah, I guess a lot of guys wear pants all saggy so I do get to see a fair amount of butt crack, but that does not, in any way, increase their value to me. Unless they're fixing my toilet or something like that. THAT is like gold, right there. 

I just wish that some day, the woman would do the singing and a man would be gyrating around in a tube top and Daisy Dukes. That would entertain me. Oh, oh, oh...and by the way, the show was the VMAs. I knew I wasn't going to like it, so I didn't watch. Maybe if we all didn't watch, that kind of crap would go away. Or not. Depending upon popular opinion. I'm down with that. If you think it might bug you, DON'T WATCH. 

And, yes, I did watch me some Murder, She Wrote while having a popsicle and crocheting a blanket. I like to spend my evenings old lady style. And I was not wearing a beige vinyl get-up. I was wearing a hot pink one. My beige one was at the cleaner's.

I have a great picture to end with, though. It's of one of my favorite celebrities, who totally does prance around in a tank top and short shorts ALL THE TIME except in this picture...he was classin' it up for the TV...and I love him.

Failure is inevitable. Of course. However, I seem to be making it some sort of an art form, and that is not my favorite.

Sigh.

Lately, I seem to be having a very low success rate with my endeavors. I'm not quite sure why, but it really sucks. I'm not really okay with defeat, and this is not just one or two times. It's everything. Kind of lame.

I had a rehearsal last night where I wanted to hide my head because I was embarrassed about sucking so bad. The hard part is that it's not from lack of work. If it was, it would be easier to take.

Everybody talks about how hard life is for the C students. I'm here to tell you, it's just as hard for some of the A students. Number one: Some of us have poopy social skills, due to extreme shyness and introversion, so that doesn't work too well. Number two: Some of us are too goal-oriented and we put way too much of our self-worth into the things we do, so when we fail, it's very personal. Number three: Knowing that you failed, not because you didn't put enough work or time into it, but because you're just not good enough, is not easy for anyone.

It sucks.

Ah, well. Try again tomorrow, I suppose. Or, I guess, today. I wish I could be more resilient and have a positive attitude, but I kind of fail at that, too.

Should've been a cheerleader. My number one skill is my ability to be perky, so, yeah. Oh, no, wait. That's not perky. Perky makes me puke. I forgot. At least I have my sarcasm to keep me warm.

I'm starting a class today, and I'm pretty excited about it. Ever since I was sick in elementary school and missed the unit where we were supposed to get to work with clay, I've been dying to take a pottery class.

I'm going to get my sculpture on, yo.

Seeing as how I don't even have to worry about the grade or anything, this may actually be fun. I'll be the person over on the side, with my tongue sticking out, trying to make an inch-tall sculpture of Peter Griffin while simultaneously burning the crap out of my head. On accident. I will try not to set my hair on fire, but you never know.

Stranger things have happened.

I think we'll probably make smaller objects, but I would love to sculpt a life-size statue of a flamingo for my front yard. We just need that little touch of class to make our yard really stand out.

As long as I can avoid serious injury, I think it'll be a really good experience. Or I'll be horrible at it and cry all the way home. 

You never know.

Life should be more like a cereal commercial. You know, where everyone laughs a lot and then they go for a bike ride while talking to an animated character about nutrients.

It might be a little creepy at first, but I think we'd all get used to it, especially since we'd all be eating so many vitamins and minerals and getting our daily allowances of fiber.

Fiber can change your life.

I think cereal commercials are the way to go, if I had to pick a kind of commercial, because the only other ones I like are the car insurance ones with Flo in them. I think she may be my long-lost twin.

Not because we look alike. We (the Flo character, I mean, not the lady who plays Flo) are identical spaz twins. she does all the things I would do if I was less self-conscious and more comfortable in my surroundings.

However, I wouldn't want life to be like those commercials, because the people in those commercials look at Flo like she's crazy and I think they suck. They would probably look at me like that, too, if they could see my sweet karaoke skills.

She's just being herself, you guys. Come on. It's fun. Don't you ever daydream about stuff while selling car insurance? Sure you do.

Anyway, cereal commercials are definitely much more fun and non-judgmental. I would be down with that.


This cereal commercial, however, I would not be down with:  

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/3c03c1ff03/ba-boom-cereal

Just, no clowns. Ever. That is all.

Well, we're getting to the time of year when the air seems to have a bit of coolness to it, so you know Fall is around the corner. The temps here are still in the 80s, so it won't happen anytime soon, but I'm still pretty excited, as I kind of hate the summertime.

Its hot, and I look really bad in shorts. And anything with short sleeves. Basically, I need to wear a parka at all times, but the air conditioning in my office doesn't really get cool enough for that.

In honor of the end of it, I want to share a few things that I don't hate about summer (yes, there are things I don't hate...I know, it's shocking):

1. Monsoon season is awesome when we actually get it. I realize that this is New Mexico, and it's supposed to be deserty, but when we have a few weeks straight of rain and the air smells awesome all of the time and all of the dry, dead things turn green, it's super cool.

2. I'm a sucker for little kids roller-skating around our cul-de-sac. It's just adorable, especially when they're all tiny and wearing these ginormous helmets. I think my lack of helmet-wearing as a child explains a lot about my personality...

3. Linen pants. They're supposed to be wrinkly. Good times.

4. Camping is pretty cool, and it's only warm enough from May to October, so that's kind of summery, right?

5. Back to school time. I love that. Get back in there, you little ingrates. Learn some stuff, and then get jobs. Hahahahaha.

Oh, and there's one more thing, which is my absolutely favorite part: Geraniums. They remind me of my Grandma's greenhouse and even though they smell kind of funny, I still love them. 

See? I don't have a bad attitude about everything. I really don't. Just most things.

Today is my sister's birthday, which is cool. Today is also one of those days where everything I put on makes me look like a cross between Nell Carter and the Chief (if you don't know that I'm referring to Gimme a Break, you need to educate yourself...that show is genius). So, yeah, like this:

Her + him. Well, mostly like him, but with a little sass and also my hair is pretty curly, what with all the rain we've been having. And I don't have a receding hairline.

But can you imagine?

Actually, I would probably be okay with looking like this Nell because in this picture she hadn't really gotten large and in charge yet; however, her afro hadn't blossomed into its full magnificence yet, either.

Oh well. I will never be sassy enough to achieve full Nell-ness.

Anyhow, every outfit I have makes me look like the Chief in a dress. At least, today. I guess I will have to attempt to up my sassiness so that the scales will tilt more towards the Nell side. Watch out, co-workers and various customers. I'm going to be full of homespun wisdom and I will break into song at the slightest provocation.

And, by the end of the day, we'll all have learned a valuable lesson.

This past weekend was a big one for me and my husband. We went camping in our camper (which has somehow gotten the name Barbie Camper, which is not as cool as Atreyu, but whatever). I figured I should probably write down our adventures, because...well...holy crap. It was pretty fierce.

We got off to a rocky start, because, although the county said it would be done paving our street (good timing, no?) by 4 p.m., I got home at 4 and they weren't even close. I had to park my car in a very kind neighbor's driveway and hop through people's yards to get to my house. Two hours later, they were looking like they were about finished, so we prepared to close up the house and be on our way. The problem was, we couldn't find the car keys. 45 minutes later, keys found, we were actually on our way. At almost 7 p.m. Nice.

We arrived at our destination just before ten p.m. and pulled into the campground, which had been nearly deserted when we stayed there previously, and even the campground website said this campground was rarely even busy. Guess who couldn't find any open sites? Yep, that's right. It was packed.

Keep in mind that we plan EVERYTHING. Major freak-out moment was happening. We decided to just keep driving, since we knew there must be more campgrounds further up the road.

After a ten minute drive, we saw another campground and decided to give it a shot. Seeing as how it was pitch black with no street lights, and the thunder was starting, we were kind of in a hurry. We pulled in and, after going around a loop, went for the first spot, right by the entrance. We figured it was better than nothing and we could always go to another campground if this one was horrible by daylight.

We set up in record time, with a minimum of loud cursing, and just as we finished, the rain started. It was fine, though, as we were both exhausted and went right to sleep.

In the morning, we realized that the highway was facing our campsite, and we would be getting all of the road noise. Ugh. However, we discovered that the campground was actually very nice and very foresty, so we were pretty happy. We used the campfire waffle maker I bought my husband for his birthday, and it was INCREDIBLE. Seriously. I just put the wet ingredients in one jar, the dry ones in another, added an egg and shook it all up. Best camping breakfast of all time. We also used a percolator for the first time, and, although I'd heard it makes craptastic coffee, it was actually kind of amazing. Don't believe me about the waffles? Check this out:

Yeeeeaaaaahhhhh!

Anyhow, while we were sitting there, enjoying our lovely breakfast, the campground manager guy came by (seriously, this guy was the New Mexican version of Milton from Office Space...I wanted give him a stapler) and told us that two other sites had opened up this morning and we should go take a look. We thanked him (but really thought it would be too much trouble to move, as we are basically lazy in the morning), and went to take a look.

Um....heck yes. We moved.

Our new site was much further from the road and had a lot more privacy. As we set up, we realized we'd have to level the camper, and as my husband went about doing so, he had to go inside for something and, of course, one of the wheels slipped and the camper began rolling down the hill.

Seriously. I almost wet my pants.

I don't know how, but I pushed it and kept it from moving any further, and my husband jumped out and got it blocked.

I think that may have been one of the scariest situations ever. I had a whole mental story that involved him being inside and the whole thing rolling over me and crushing me and then bursting into flames as it rolled into a ditch. Maybe a little dramatic, but that's how I am. Deal.

Anyway, we got set up and were happy we'd switched. It was lovely. There were chipmunks that were a little too friendly, bluejays that responded to baby talk (I am totally that girl) and a deer that was just walking through people's campsites, which was pretty cool. We got some nice relaxey time in and then went into town and walked around and looked at stuff and had a hamburger (don't judge....it was delicious).

That night, we got to rain-test our camper. It was the kind of torrential downpour that we don't get in the desert. I fell asleep, but my husband was awake half the night, worrying about waking up to an inch of water on the floor. Fortunately, the camper had no leaks except one teeny little drippy place by a seam, and we survived. The poop tent, however (yeah, we have a port-a-potty...I get scared using an outhouse in the dark because SOMEBODY told me a story about the Texas Chainsaw Massacre...), was completely flooded, but we had an extra roll of toilet paper, so that was good.

One more day of nice camping stuff, including my husband learning how to kick my butt at gin, and roasting marshmallows over the camp-stove, because with my allergies we can't do a campfire, and then it was time to go home.

Sad times.

All in all, it was a great trip and I'm glad we got the rain-testing of the camper over and done with, because it was a bit scary. I'm also glad to discover that I, too, can stop a camper with my Hulk strength.

Yay for camping!