I’m not a particularly good gift giver.

A couple of years ago, I noticed that my family was merely FEIGNING delight at the gifts I was thoughtfully bestowing upon them at Christmas. Now, maybe it’s because I shopped on Christmas Eve at 11PM at Walgreens and bought my brother, Uncle Aunt Becky, who is ten years my senior and a raging yuppie this gem:

(he’s not a mother)

and my father a pair of these:

(he doesn’t have pierced ears)

And everyone else cans of mixed nuts (2 for $6!) or discounted boxes of birthday cards OR sympathy cards that had been beaten up so badly that I had to tape the sides shut so their contents didn’t spill out onto the floor. I mean, EVERYONE likes cards and nuts…right?

Apparently notsomuch.

So. I started ASKING people what they wanted for Christmas rather than trying to guess the night before at a crappy pharmacy chain while strung out on too many cups of coffee. It’s a lot MORE boring and LESS (motherfucking) jolly that way.

If you’ve read my blog or my The Twitter stream you know that I’m a little, uh, well obsessive about my habits.

I’m compulsive, okay? It’s charming, really, if you like people who will stay up all night for weeks on end learning about something new because they have no other choice. It’s like an itch in my brain that I have to scratch because I simply can’t ignore it. It’s always there, tapping at the side of my skull until I give in and just DO IT.

I’d make an excellent alcoholic, if only I actually liked to drink. Alas, I do not.

Instead, my habits range from the boring to the exceptionally boring. I write. I blog. I am the site master of a couple of sites. I plan to start another one.

I also grow orchids. In Chicago. In the dead of winter.

My Orchids Bring All The Boys To The Yard

That’s my kitchen table, by the by. Most of those orchids were bought as tiny wee babies and lovingly grown by Your Aunt Becky to the monsters that they are. They’re also blooming out of season right now which makes me BEYOND happy in the pants but that is neither here nor there.

On my mother’s birthday in September, I happened to be in Lowe’s Hardware store buying something or another to combat the black spot on my roses when I happened to walk by their orchid table. Normally, Lowe’s orchids suck. Their grower is terrible. I know this because I am obsessive and have nursed orchids I’ve bought from there back to health.

But this was a NEW grower. And it was my mother’s birthday. And she is singularly the WORST person to buy for. She has everything and wants nothing. She hates crap.

So I was all, I SHOULD BUY HER AN ORCHID, BWAHAHAHAHA, SHE’LL NEVER WANT THAT BUT IT’S BETTER THAN THE FUCK-NOTHING I HAVE FOR HER.

And I did.

And she loves it.

So for Christmas, I was all, “Okay Mom, what the fuck do you want, because you suck to buy for and I don’t even want to GUESS what you want.”

And she was all, “I want another motherfucking orchid, yo.”

Except maybe we didn’t use those words. Except maybe we did. You never know in my family.

On Sunday, I was all, “Hey Dana, Imma get my Mom an orchid at Lowe’s. It’s gonna be wicked. Wanna go?”

She was all, “SURE.”

So we went. Because when you need an orchid, you need an orchid.

First things first, we saw this gem and I HAD to buy it.

Epic Motherfucking Wreath

The ugliest wreath on the planet.

Then we headed to the orchids. I didn’t immediately see anything besides poinsettias (UGH) in the plant area, which made me a little nervous. My heart rate quickened as I frantically combed the shelves. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

Until I saw the, “these are the plants we don’t care about and are selling for a dollar” area. THAT’S where they were hiding the orchids.

Dana took a look at them and said, “Uh, Becky, those look dead.”

For Whom Does The Orchid Bloom? It Blooms For Thee.

I responded, “Um, they’re not dead. Just not blooming.” Which does not a Christmas gift make. Luckily, they’re just fine with me. I bought four. For a dollar. That’s BEYOND a deal. I went home and Mr. Burns-like cackled over my deal.

I’m still sadly out a Christmas gift for my mother. Maybe I can just frame one of my epic soul portraits for her in a couple of weeks.

BETTER YET, I could get one made for her. I bet she’d LOVE it. Or disown me.

Whatever.

—————-

Let’s do another blog carnival, yo because that was fun as hell (I’m going to neglect my baking to read it all later). I put another link widget below. Or you can answer in the comments if you want. Or not at all.

Are you a good gift-giver – holidays or not? OR MAYBE: what’s the worst gift you’ve ever gotten?

Life lessons are all around us.

Why, just look at this advent calendar that I bought for my 3-year old son, Alex. When I saw it, I got in front of the mirror (doesn’t everyone talk to themselves in front of the mirror?) and said, “Aunt Becky, you must teach this boy how to properly become a thug. Since the whole “Becky From The Block” thing didn’t work, maybe it’s time to let someone else take over. LIKE THIS ADVENT CALENDAR.”

Mostly, I want him to make millions of dollars so that I can have a Scrooge McDuck-like vault so that I can swim around in coins and colorful gemstones. It’s a goal of mine to have this vault in my house and clearly this whole “writing” thing isn’t going to work out for me so I have to exploit what I have.

MY KIDS.

Ben is too straight and narrow, so Alex it is.

I’m starting slowly. He’s only three, but still, it’s never too early to start him on a life of crime.

Why, just look at those fancy coins featured front and center on the advent calendar box! Who WOULDN’T want to own fancy, shiny, beautiful coins? And screw working for it! Let’s ROB BANKS! It’s an invaluable lesson.

But wait. Um.

Dude is on a BIKE. Who robs banks on a BIKE? That seems a little…dumb. Come ON, Robber. Get it TOGETHER.

Also, you’ve taught my son another valuable lesson: ALWAYS wear a disguise while robbing a bank. Those Wanted Posters are EVERYWHERE. If you look like your Wanted Poster and rob banks on bikes, you’ll get caught.

My son and I went over this in excruciating detail. Why? We can learn from the mistakes of others.

The Robber in action. Also: the Playmobil figure.

You’ve taught him well, Playmobil. Thank you. When he is a world famous bank robber, I hope that he can look back on this Advent Calendar as the pivotal moment in his life.

I will just look back at it as an excellent investment as I do the backstroke in my vault of coins.

Never shy, I swam up to the semi-circle of pregnant ladies in my prenatal water aerobics class noting that while they were all a good deal older than me, they all looked reasonably friendly, and introduced myself. “Hi,” I said cheerfully. “My name is Becky, and I’m 6 months pregnant with my first son, Ben!” I don’t know if they spied my lack of wedding ring or were put off by my age, but not a single one responded to me. I might as well have spoken in tongues or have burped the alphabet.

While my situation wasn’t perhaps ideal, I wasn’t sorry and I wasn’t about to apologize to anyone for it. But just as soon as I joined the semicircle, I quickly found myself wedged out of it, treading water just outside of the group. It was the playground all over again. Looking back on it, I told myself that I must have imagined it.

Three years later, my new husband and I walked into a roomful of parents at back-to-school night for Ben’s new preschool and took our seats, smiling happily. We’d not had a lot of other chances to interact with large groups of other parents before this, and while we were nervous, we were both very excited. Oddly, as we sat there among them, we noticed that we were receiving a number of unfriendly stares.

Trying to shrug it off, we listened to the director of the Montessori school lecture us, before we broke off into our volunteer groups to discuss what we were going to do for class projects. My husband and I split up and I headed over to my group.
Happily, I introduced myself and tried to make small talk with the other members of the group. Slowly, I realized that as I stood there nodding and smiling with a big stupid grin on my face, no one was actually talking to me, and I was being edged out of the group.

The circle closed with me clearly on the outside and I stood there for a second, still nodding like a fool. I tried to edge my way back into the group to no avail, but eventually, I gave up. Thankfully, I wasn’t in a swimming suit this time but I wondered why no one wanted to be my friend.

Confounding matters was my son, who was autistic, which made playdates with the few friends that we had tricky. The snide comments about the things he’d eat, or the meltdowns he’d have or the way he’d behave broke my heart. Yes, he was in therapy and no, he wasn’t like their children, and while I tried to pretend it didn’t matter, it was hard and it was lonely for a long time.

So really, it’s no surprise that when I drop my son off at school, I’m always waiting for the crowd of pitchfork-wielding parents to emerge from the playground to yell “get back in the car, Infidel! You don’t belong here.” Much as I’ve shed the insecurities of feeling like I’m a stranger in a strange land, I have a terrible time feeling like I’m an impostor of a parent when I’m around other parents.

Three children later, I realize that it’s clearly time to get my act together. I cannot allow the past events dictate the way that I live my life as a mother because I’m not an insecure person and I’m not an insecure mother.

I’m putting on my battle armor and getting myself out there so that I can meet other parents in the flesh. Time for me to join The Mommy Club. I’ve done an amazing job doing it through my blog, so I know that I’m not that defective, but I’m just not quite sure where to meet other parents without looking like a freak. I can’t exactly size up a potential New Best Friend by staring at her for the whole hour at story hour without scaring her off and perhaps landing me a fancy restraining order.

Couldn’t really blame her there.

I wonder if it’s this hard for other parents to make friends. I don’t have leprosy or gaping pustules dripping from my face, and while I certainly do have faults, they’re not the sort that one would notice off the bat. But it’s time for me to face my fears and deal with them.

I’m sure I’ll be excluded from plenty more parental circles and that’s okay because I’ve learned to make sure that anyone who ever wants to join my group of friends is included. No matter what.

But, I guess I’ll make anyone with leprosy wear a mask.

I was watching some Law and Order: These Kids Have It Worse Than You, So Man The Fuck Up, Aunt Becky when the holiday commercial with the Hershey’s Kisses came on. I’m sure you know it. It’s been on since I was a kid and I haven’t been a kid in a long time.

You have to know the one I’m talking about: the red and green and silver kisses play, We Wish You A Merry Christmas. It’s really sweet and festive and it always makes me happy in the pants and not because I’m all that fond of chocolate. Because while I do have a vagina, I’m not someone who orgasms at the thought of chocolate. Dexter, however…but alas, I digress.

But I sat and watched the commercial and realized how UN-happy the holidays were making me this year. I’m the last person under twelve who loves the holidays and I was sitting there on the couch moping about Christmas. The happiest time of the motherfucking year.

I couldn’t even tell you why I was moping. Certainly I had no REAL reasons to be feeling acutely sorry for myself. Of course there are things that have gone wrong for me in the past couple of weeks, but there are more things that have gone right.

So I did what I always do: I promptly bitch-slapped myself. It was time to trim my fucking tree, deck the halls and be merry and bright. If I had to use toothpicks and elaborate putty makeup to do it, I was going to slap a smile on my face and fake it ’til I made it.

I love the holidays. It’s time to start acting like it.

So here’s what I’m going to do.

FIRST, I’m going to give you a video of my daughter. Laughing. I captured the Elusive Frat Boy Amelia cracking her own ass up. It’ll make you laugh. In under two minutes, she’ll make you laugh. (ignore the crap on her face. We weren’t planning to shoot a video)

She’s my clone. I swear, I was doing the same thing a couple of weeks ago.

NOW, I’m going to add a Mr. Linky at the bottom where YOU can add a link to your own post about something that made you laugh or smile. You don’t have a post like that? WRITE IT. In fact? Why not write a new one? Write about something that makes you happy. If you don’t have a blog? Leave a comment. Write it on Band Back Together or Mushroom Printing. They’re both user-submitted blogs.

Whatever.

Let’s FLING GLITTER and be MERRY! Tomorrow, we’ll continue our blog carnival. Why? WHY NOT.

Don’t make me send Amelia over to fart on you. She totally will, you know.

P.S. All of my shirts (including the Shut Your Whore Mouth Shirts and everything else on the site) are 20% off with the code holiday2010.

Dear Pranksters,

I find it odd to admit to you that I have friends, especially friendships that have lasted for more than a couple of months, but alas, it is true. Two years ago, I met Mrs. Soup. I only know it’s been two years because we have daughters the same age. Avi Soup is Amelia’s age. They’re also twins.

I can only tell them apart because her kid has more teeth than mine.

Kathy is also my age (30)(okay, she’s like 28 or some shit, I don’t know, WHATEVER, but she’s not like 90).

This is Kathy:

Now you know she’s not like 90 or something because LOOKIT HER and the FAT BABY who is not mine but looks a hell of a lot like it.

Also in that picture is her husband, Ryan.

Ryan is 27.

Ryan had a stroke on November 30. I know. I KNOW.

In the middle of the night, she woke up and he was in the throes of a stroke. No prior warning, no other health issues, no nothing. Just…BAM.

Everyone’s worst fucking nightmare.

I saw it happen on Twitter and promptly freaked the shit out because HI, THAT’S MY FRIEND AND THAT’S HER HUSBAND AND I KNOW WHAT GOES ON WITH THEM BECAUSE I TALK ON IM TO HER CONSTANTLY. But, of course, it wasn’t about me.

Ryan, her husband, is okay. He’s out of the ICU (last I heard, which was a couple of days ago) and moved to a rehab facility to help with his recovery. Kathy is back at work part-time and has moved back in with her parents to make ends meet.

Her blog has more information on it.

Occasionally, instead of talking about my ass, I can use my blog to do things like ask for prayers. Because Kathy? Kathy is the kind of person who has prayed for me. Without asking, she’ll pray for me and it always makes me feel fucking better. Because that’s the kind of fucking friend Kathy is. Also: she doesn’t say the f-word much, which makes me laugh, because occasionally I can coax it out of her, which makes it better. And I love her for it.

It’s my turn.

Pranksters, can you pray for my friend Kathy and her husband and her Mimi-lookalike-daughter-Avi? I know that she’d love it if you did. Just send her some love and some prayers and some light. Please?

I’ll bribe you with a Mimi video or something if you do.

Okay, so this is Kathy and her blog and you should visit her and least send her some love. RT her blog, FB it, Stumble it, whatever it is you kids do these days. I don’t know of anyone who could use some prayers and love more than her. She’s a beautiful person and her soul is golden and if you tell her I said that I’ll punch you in the taco.

(one of my friends has an etsy shop and all of her proceeds are going to benefit Kathy and Ryan Campbell. That’s fucking* awesome)

Love you madly,

Aunt Motherfucking Becky

*I threw in all the f-bombs for you, Kathy. xo

Every year, right around March, I’m all, “IMMA MAKE AWESOME CHRISTMAS CARDS NEXT YEAR!” I get these really grand ideas like, exploding firecracker Christmas Cards and Christmas Cards that sing “Rock Me Amadeus” and maybe just cards that feature my family dressed up in totally weird outfits. Either way, my ideas are FULL of the awesome.

Then I forget about it.

Or, I don’t really forget about it, I just don’t remember that it takes some level of PLANNING to execute holiday cards and I’m not known for my fine attention to details. Like, for instance, I never own stamps. Because, OBVIOUSLY, stamps are bullshit.

So I haven’t sent Christmas cards in like 7 years. But every year I’m all THIS IS GONNA BE MY YEAR. JUST LIKE THE KIDS ON AMERICAN IDOL.

(it never is)

This year, I was considering sending Valentine’s Day cards. It’s kind of awesomely different and really, wouldn’t you like to see MY smiling mug on YOUR Day To Shell Out Lots Of Money To Take Your Loved One Out For A Cheesy Overpriced Dinner?

(don’t answer that) (really, I don’t think my ego can take it)

Then, I found the most perfectest solution. Better than a Valentine’s Day Card, I’m going to commission one of these. With a friend that you all know, too. If you’re lucky, you’ll get one.

From the amazing, awe-inspiring Celestial Soul Portraits.

I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am. I’m going to frame it and put it in EVERY ROOM OF MY HOUSE. And over my bed. And in my car. And on the side of my car. I might even buy a van and have it spray-painted on there.

I’m weeping with possibilities.

There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.

-Leonard Cohen “Anthem”

I used to believe that the universe was a random place. Everything that happened to us was simply, well, random. If I ran into you at the store, it was only a coincidence, not something that was “supposed” to happen or part of a preordained master plan with the two of us merely bit players on a much broader stage.

I don’t think I believe that any more.

Certainly, I believe there are many random parts of life. I don’t believe in some gigantic playbook that dictates when and how I will go about my day:

Tuesday, January 24, Becky Sherrick Harks will have Cheerios for breakfast at 9:45 AM and she will remark that they smell like pee. Delicious pee!

but I simply do not believe that what happens to us – the connections we make, the experiences we have – I cannot believe that they are entirely random. Maybe I’ve had too many weird, fucked-up experiences in my life. Maybe my brain is trying to find patterns where there are none. Maybe I’m just grasping at something to make it all more meaningful, I don’t know. Frankly, my Pranksters, I don’t really care.

This is the way I started 2010:

I approach 2010 full of renewed hope for the future, because no matter how full of the darkness I feel, I can feel the light on my face and I know it’s all around me. Soon it will be within me.

I am hopeful.

I have hope.

Happy New Year.

Days after I wrote this, I randomly found the famous tattoo artist through a referral on The Twitter who started my phoenix tattoo. She’d had a cancellation in her booked-months-out schedule and could fit me in right away.

Phoenix Tattoo Outline

Months later, when I went back for more work on my phoenix tattoo, I’d find out that she had just been diagnosed with an encephalocele. Like my daughter. I do not need to tell you that the odds of this are cataclysmically tiny that I’d find another with precisely what Amelia was born with.

Starting with that phoenix tattoo, I vowed that this would be the year that I Brought Aunt Becky Back and I have.

The process, however, has been excruciating. It’s incredibly difficult to take a look at the life you’ve deliberately crafted for yourself and realize how fucking miserable you are. It’s brutal to have to mourn everything you’ve swept under the rug when you were all EYE OF THE MOTHERFUCKING TIGER, AUNT BECKY. Especially when you feel you have no ally with whom to share it with. After all, there are people with no legs in the world. How can you possibly hate your life WHEN THERE ARE PEOPLE WITH NO LEGS?

There were days when all I could do was curl up on the couch and weep. My heart broke over and over again. The darkness obliterated the light and it was all I could do to make it from sun-up to sundown again. It wasn’t the kind of darkness that a pill can help. It’s the kind of darkness that you simply must slog through.

Eventually, though, there were entire hours that the darkness would just…leave.

Those hours melted into days and soon, the darkness only tinged the periphery. The rest of my world was bathed in the most wonderful rich, vibrant colors.

It was like I had begun to wake up after a long sleep. I felt like myself again for the first time in a very, very long time.

When I saw that Leonard Cohen was playing in Vegas, my jaw dropped ungracefully open. Kismet.

Sometimes, when I was adrift in the darkness, it was his words that kept me going. Whether or not you care for his music, his words are beautiful. And words – all words – are more true a love than anything I’ve ever known. Letters strung together into words elegantly arranged into sentences that flow into paragraphs can make my heart soar; make me weep, and give me hope. Words can cut into the darkness.

I found myself alone in the theater, watching rapt as Leonard Cohen sang and the tears inelegantly rolled down my cheeks. I’m certain that had anyone noticed, I’d have been locked away at the hospital for such a vulgar display of emotion, but I simply didn’t care.

Listening to him in that dark auditorium was like neatly wrapping up the year in cheesy wrapping paper, like vindicating my sorrow and sadness and allowing me to finally release it. It felt like the end of an era. It felt like a new beginning.

I’ll never escape the darkness entirely, I know that. It’s part of who I am and it’s what drives me. You cannot go through hell without bringing a little darkness back.

But in that light, in those un-random connections, I will find redemption.

I will find me.

Phoenix Tattoo

After the way Vegas had been built up as a “weird place,” I’d half-way expected to be greeted in the airport by a midget Freddy Mercury impersonator juggling several quail. When all I saw were a handful of cowboys, I was slightly disappointed.

EYE OF THE MOTHERFUCKING TIGER, AUNT BECKY, I said to myself as I hobbled to meet my friends. So WHAT if you haven’t seen a two-headed woman? So WHAT if the TSA ignored you even though you tried to dress like a hooker in the vain attempt at trying to get some action before you went to Vegas? SO WHAT?

At least, I cried, you have your KITTY SHITTER picture!

(Sky Mall, you never, ever disappoint. Let’s get married and have really bizarre babies.)

All I Want For Christmas is a Kitty Shitter

Indeed, that is what comforted me as I checked into my hotel only to find perfectly ordinary desk clerks. No one busted into an impassioned Elvis song. No one tried to barter with me for my room. No hookers tried to accompany me TO my room (except, of course, the hookers I was staying with – Mandi and Jana.) It was all very…normal.

Jana even brought me this all the way from Georgia (I’ve often bemoaned that I have never eaten one):

Chick-Fil-A, YO.

I might have wept. A lot.

It was time, then, to meet for lunch in the hotel. Which meant we had a bazillion options; all of them good. Apparently Vegas is an eatin’ town. I was hoping feverishly that this might be the time to see something weird. Tiny go-go dancers? A guy in a sequined bikini?

Nope.

Just the rodeo.

RANDOM.

This IS My First Rodeo.

I was also straight-up exhausted. It turns out that having major abdominal surgery 5 weeks before a Vegas trip is pretty EYE OF THE MOTHERFUCKING TIGER. But I tried to muster up some enthusiasm. Plenty of sleep when I was passed out from reenacting Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (or dead). RIGHT?

Right.

It didn’t work. I have a slew of pictures where I look like I’m about to weep. I look like someone just kicked my dead dog’s grave.

Eye of the Tiger Doesn't Always Work

No one did. Even AngiePangie.

It was time to start drinking. Before I did the lamest thing that anyone ever did in Vegas, well, EVER.

Aunt Becky + Mama Spohr

While the rest of my group went to a male strip club with the express purpose of having testicles placed on their face, I went out by myself. On a Friday night. To a concert.

A Leonard COHEN concert.

Don’t know who Leonard Cohen is? He’s a hippie singer/songwriter/poet who is probably best known for singing Hallelujah. But since my parents are depressing old hippies, I’ve been listening to his music since I was in utero. I’ve been anxious to see him perform for years. Even if it made me suicidal.

When I saw he was in Vegas, I realized that it was now or motherfucking never.

It was now.

*cue guitar solo*

Leonard Cohen

When he sang “Anthem,” it was exactly what I needed to hear.

Even if there were no dancing bears.

My longest running television husband has been Anthony Bourdain. Marriage is way easy when you’re sitting on the other side of a television screen, staring lovingly at the man you love as he surreptitiously drops the word “pube” on television as you dreamily imagine a fake relationship wherein you two take the world by foul-mouthed storm.

It’s pretty much a win.

And it’s evident that a good writer will be able to captivate his (or her) audience no matter what he (or she) writes about because I sat in the airport this weekend reading Medium Raw, his newest book.

Normally, I’d rather gnaw on my own toenails than read about cooking. I’m so not a cook. Lengthy discussions of complicated and pretentious ingredients makes me want to skewer my own eyeballs out and saute them in a nice truffle sauce. I’d rather do just about anything than watch a show about cooking. Food porn makes me nauseous.

Yet he’s a food writer. And I willingly both bought his book and read it. Proof that if you can write, you can write about anything.

The book, of course, is fantastic. If you like his sort of style, that is. I breezed through the food porn parts because frankly, reading about eating chicken ass doesn’t interest me, but overall, Medium Raw is precisely the sort of book you’d expect from Anthony Bourdain.

What I didn’t expect was this: bloggers are mentioned frequently. Food bloggers, but still. BLOGGERS.

I’ve been a blogger for so long that dust comes out of my fingers when I type and still, when I’m asked, “What do you do?” if I am not giving the flip answer (“I am a life coach”), I don’t really know how to answer that. Certainly my blog is a labor of love. Blogging IS a labor of love. Why else would we pour our lives out onto a blank WordPress Screen in the vain hopes that someone else somewhere else might read it and say, “Hey, I like this girl,” or “Hey, I hate this girl, let’s send her a fart in a jar?” It’s certainly not the glamor of it all.

Half the time I say, “I’m a blogger,” people look at me like I’ve sprouted a second head. “A BLOBBER?” They cry, as though I’ve just taken a poo on their car. Then I revert back to my second answer, “I’m a nurse.” Invariably, they know a nurse and want to know my specialty. When I reply, “I’m retired, it wasn’t for me,” they’re even more deeply offended by my answer. (aside: what the fuck?)

It goes to show that you simply cannot win.

It’s not as though I’m ashamed of what I do – far from it – it’s just that there are so many people out there who simply don’t get it. Not yet. They will.

Seeing one of my favorite bad-boy idols talking about the power of bloggers – even over that of print media – really struck a chord with me. I’ve never joined in those circle-jerk “we are BLOGGERS; we are so influential!!” conferences because, frankly, they remind me too much of the same sorts of pitches I’d get from any of the companies I’ve worked for: Our company is great, here’s a t-shirt for you wear to promote your company!!! TEAM PRIDE!!!!

I suppose I’d never really thought about the influence of blogs. Blogging is so self-important* and I never really wanted to be all *blank-eyes* “We’re CHANGING the WOOOOOORLD!” That’s a little too Drink The Kool-Aid for me.

But really, we are.

I don’t mean that the press-release-passed-off-as blogs are going to do much of anything. No one reads those anyway. I don’t care what rosy picture my hotel’s “blog” paints. I want the nitty-gritty. I want the dirt. I want to know who was murdered in my room. I want to know where the fucking ghosts are.

And bloggers, at least, the ones you want to read, they’ll tell you that. Why? We have nothing to lose. I’m way more likely to listen to a trusted blogger than anyone, well, else.

So thanks, Mr. Bourdain, for reminding me to be proud of what I am.

I’m a blobber, dammit.

*says the person who has been blogging regularly for 6-7 years.

I was somewhere over Chicago when the drugs began to take hold.

Subterranean Homesick Blues squealed through my earphones and for a split second the airplane was submerged into complete darkness. I opened my mouth to shriek; to warn everyone that we’d reached the abyss and just as my vocal chords let out a squeak, warm color returned. My seatmate turned to me; he clearly hadn’t seen the black, and as I moved to explain that we’d hit the edge; there was no going back, when I realized that he’d see it all soon enough.

We were going to Las motherfucking Vegas.

I couldn’t explain myself properly at this altitude. Instead, I grinned a fake toothy smile, hoping it passed for the real deal, mumbled something about vodka and turned up the volume on my iPod, my eyes darting to the bag on the floor. It was filled with a dazzling array of uppers, downers, grass, cocaine, mescaline and some ether thrown in for good measure. The ether, for sure, was the hardest to procure. I wondered if I could get away with using some mid-flight.

As the plane touched down in McCaren Airport, my seatmate began to weep openly, which scared me. I don’t handle emotions and I knew the tears meant that he too was entering the abyss.

Welcome to Vegas, motherfuckers.

Email me if you’re going to be there so that we may swap phone numbers. Because we need to HANG OUT. Have no fear, I am no longer sunburned. In fact, I am pasty white. “Blinded By The Light,” white. BUTT ASS white. So you need not fear my redness. Only that I may make you act as my attorney. Which, DUH.