Season One, Episode Twenty-Nine: Chasing Charming

I loved Disney movies as a child.

I loved to sing along with the songs, and I adored the princesses, especially Jasmine and Belle. As a gap-toothed, messy haired eight year old, I loved that Jasmine decided she’d run away before marrying someone she didn’t want to (I just found the idea of marriage ridiculous since you know, all boys were gross and had cooties) and I loved that Belle would rather help her kooky dad with his inventions and read books all day instead of being interested in that jerk Gaston (because, yet again, all boys were gross and had cooties). I will admit, that even at eight, I was fascinated with the idea of a happily ever after, where all your dreams came true and all the wrongs were made right by true love’s first kiss. I had no idea how unrealistic that was.

Belle is my all-time favorite Disney princess. She was the only one who didn't care that girls who could read weren't considered cool. And she was the only girl in her town who didn't fawn over that bastard Gaston.

I had a fairly good idea that life didn’t actually work out like it did in The Little Mermaid or Aladdin. There was no magical Genie, full of jokes and goodhearted cheer, who would make all my wildest fantasies come true. I wasn’t going to rub a lamp and become a princess or marry Jonathan Taylor Thomas. It didn’t work like that. I also wasn’t going to be attacked by a crazy lady who was half octopus. I was pretty grateful for that But still, I loved the idea of finding my own Prince Charming, this amazing and beautiful and perfect guy who was going to sweep me off my feet and we’d get married and have a happily ever after of our own. I figured that I’d find him eventually, and when I did, it was going to be the greatest thing ever. I’d have the big stupid house with the white picket fence and the two kids (one girl, one boy) and the dream car and the obligatory golden retriever and life would just be friggin’ grand.

...Because in 1996, JTT was part of every girl's happy ending.

Yeah…life doesn’t work like that. And if it does, Lord have I kissed enough frogs to warrant me my freaking happy ending. My son’s father was a class act who was separated from his wife and swore he was going to get divorced, and I was stupid enough at 18 to believe him. He wound up leaving me to go back to her twice, the final time being after she had a kid exactly ten months after my son was born. There have been guys who turned out to be crazy morons who may or may not have beat their past girlfriends. There have been guys who couldn’t kiss their way out of a well-lit paper bag with the exit clearly marked. There were guys who were even worse in bed. There were guys who strung me along, guys who just wanted to be friends with benefits, and guys who turned out to be racially confused drug dealers. I’m only 26, and I have to admit that I’m tired. I feel like I deserve a happily ever after.

Frogs may be cute, but they are NOT good kissers.

And I kind of wish that Disney had put more effort into the realism of the “happily ever after”. Why not show what happened to Belle and the Prince after they got married? All we saw was them dancing at the end of the film. Why not show what would happen once they got comfortable and Belle realized that the Prince wasn’t going to be all sweet and romantic like he was when they first fell in love? Why not show Jasmine getting frustrated because Aladdin wouldn’t take that damn monkey outside to poop? Why not show Ariel laying in bed, wishing that Eric would get the hint that she wanted to have sex instead of him watching Pawn Stars again and falling asleep before midnight? I wish they had showed us girls that it’s not easy, that the idea of a happy ending takes work and patience and a healthy dose of rationality. Maybe then people wouldn’t give up on a relationship the first time you have a huge fight. Maybe then we wouldn’t rush into marriage and rush into divorce even more quickly than we rushed into the wedding. Maybe we wouldn’t be so preoccupied with the end game of our relationship…maybe then we’d focus on the now. I’m learning that the now is the best part of being in love with someone. When you focus on the end game all it does is stress you out and cause you to feel like crap.

My boyfriend is here on business; that’s how we met. I knew from the beginning that he was going home after he was all done here in Cleveland–home being roughly five and a half hours away. It’s not crazy far, but I’ve never been in a long-distance relationship before, and honestly, the Internet really hasn’t been much of a help in telling me all the fabulous ways for us to stay together (But really, is the Internet ever really helpful? Really.). I’ve had people tell me it’s not going to work, while others have said that it most certainly will, if you are willing to put the time and effort into it–I’m more than willing to try, but Jesus Christ, I wish that there was something that I could have referenced as a child that I could draw upon now to make me feel better once he leaves in June. Seriously, Disney, you need to come up with a modern princess who I can relate to. Right now, the only princess I’ve got is Emma from Once Upon A Time, and she doesn’t even know she’s a princess, damn it!

Pfft. Try telling her that there's such a thing as a happily ever after. Emma'd believe that as much as she'd believe she's really a fairy tale princess. And then she'd probably kick your ass.

All I know is that I can’t be the only one who is tired of chasing after a guy who doesn’t really exist. Perhaps I’ll stumble upon Charming when the time is right. Maybe I already have

Tags: Aladdin, Belle, Disney, Disney Princess, happily ever after, humor, Jasmine, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, kissing frogs, love, Once Upon A Time, Prince Charming, random, relationships

Season One, Episode Twenty-Eight: Of Hangovers and Poetry

Blehhh.

Nothing ruins a perfectly sunny day off like a friggin’ hangover.  I slept it off til almost 12:30 this afternoon, and while the headache has finally left my cranial premises, I still am dealing with this annoying twinge of nausea.  And I have wasted said day off in the confines of a itty bitty hotel room.  Yesterday I went on quite the jaunt around Downtown Cleveland, walking around in the chilly April sunshine and taking pictures and composing random poetry on my iPhone.  I don’t have too much to talk about today, so I’ll share my impromptu poem I came up with yesterday.

 

This hotel room

Makes me feel claustrophobic

–it’s far too narrow–

Cramped and brown

It makes me vaguely apprehensive

The angle of the windows chokes out the sunlight

But if you crane your head

–just so–

You can catch a glimpse of the lake,

A tiny sliver of sparkling gray-blue beauty.

I’d rather be outside

In the windy chill

At least the sunshine is warm

When it shines down on you.

 

This park bench is prime real estate

The wood feels cold under my jeans

And the far too big windshirt that I surreptitiously stole from my boyfriend

The wind blows in off the lake

–and honestly, anyone who thinks that Chicago is the windiest city has never been to Cleveland in the spring–

Which shimmers like a murky blue jewel

In the late April sun

I sit on this bench, under the pretense of reading

–I’ve got a Salinger novel in my lap–

But really, I just couldn’t take the claustrophobic brown crampedness

Of that goddamn hotel room.

 

So I sit here, fingers chilled

The wind ruffling the loose hairs that lay against my neck

The air a vague combination of exhaust and manure and springtime

And I think

Because that’s what you do when you’re alone on a bench in a park

You sit and you think

And I watch the people and the cars

Hurrying past, off to live another day in their mediocre adventures

The wind comes up again and I think I’ve decided

That perhaps I should move my contemplation to a less windy location.

–”April 24, 2012 5:33 pm”

Tags: Downtown Cleveland, Hangovers, Hotel, humor, poetry, random, writing

Season One, Episode Twenty-Seven: Naughty Bloggers and Quite Possibly the Shortest and Most Random Post to Date

I have been a naughty blogger.

It’s been what, like almost a month and a half since I last posted?  For shame!

In my defense, however, things in the life of Lashawn have been pretty hectic, and in a good way   I’ve been training for the casino opening, and I have to say that although my roulette skills need some serious tweaking, I could probably deal a successful hand of blackjack in my sleep.  We open in like 26 days or some shit…super excited, but hella nervous.  It kind of feels like how I used to feel before going on stage and singing–butterflies in my stomach, heart pounding, a general feeling of excitement…all under the nagging urge to vomit.  Fantastic.  I’m sure I’ll do fine once I get my girlish nerves out of the way, which should hopefully be the first few hands at the blackjack table, or the first few hours I’ve dealt roulette…because god forbid I have another tear-filled breakdown at the wheel again like I did during training on Sunday.  We will just be optimistic and hope for the best.

I’ve also been spending time with my gentleman lover (hahaha that sounds so awkward and horrible, yet awesome at the same time–makes me think of Anchorman).  We have done pretty much a whole bunch of nothing, which sounds boring but is actually pretty splendid.  We did go on some fancy schmancy art walk through Tremont the other night, but neither of us was really impressed with it, which leads me to believe that 1.) we are neither cool nor hip, 2.) we don’t know crap about art (although it really seemed like the theme of the evening revolved around taking random photos and either framing them or screenprinting them onto a large canvas, and then selling them for like $250 a pop), and 3.) it must be an acquired skill that neither one of us possess.  We ate dinner at a restaurant that was virtually non-Lashawn friendly (meaning it was super trendy and had super gross food on the menu), but the appetizer and the bread was yum, so it wasn’t entirely a crap dinner for me.  I also got chocolates from my favorite little chocolate shop (Lilly Tremont) and cupcakes (A Cookie and a Cupcake), so the night wasn’t exactly a culinary bust.

I shall post more frequently, I feel kind of like a deadbeat parent…which shall never happen again.  I am going to post a delightful picture for you from our hipster date.  I think I could frame it and sell it for like $50, hahaha.

I have this theory that everything looks incredibly artsy if you shoot it from an angle and use black and white "film". Ansel Adams knew what he was doing when he took all those photos back in the day.

Tags: Art, Casino, Cleveland, comedy, dates, hipsters, humor, off-tangent stuff, random, Tremont

Season One, Episode Twenty-Six: Saving the Invisible Children

“Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”

This is what a seven year old should be doing, not being trained how to kill people.

This is my son, Nicholas. He just turned seven last month. He loves tornadoes, Ramen noodles, and cats. He plays softball and is learning how to read. He’s never known anything except being surrounded by the people he loves.

This is because he lives in America. He will never really understand how lucky he is to be an American–I am twenty-six and am still discovering on a daily basis how lucky I am to have been born in the United States. I don’t think that most of us realize, even among the rising gas prices and political games and the unstable economy, just how incredibly lucky we actually are to live in Ohio or Indiana or Colorado or Alabama or Washington or any other of the fifty states that comprise our nation. In our country, children can be free to be children, they can be free to play out on the streets and go to school and learn without the fear of being taken from their homes and taught how to kill against their will. If Nicky had been born in Central Africa, his life would be very very different.

At what seems to us the very young and innocent age of seven is seen as the perfect age to be taught to shoot a sub-machine gun and mutilate people in the eyes of crazed warlords. In Uganda my son could be yanked from his bed in the dead of night and be forced to kill me and my family or be killed himself. He would be taken from his school, his friends, everything just to become another faceless, nameless child soldier, nothing but empty collateral to “armies” such as the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda or the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council in Sierra Leone. My son would be pumped full of drugs and be promised crazy, unattainable things in return for carrying a gun that would be roughly half his size and kill innocent people. If he thought of leaving, he would be tortured or mutilated or murdered in front of his fellow “soldiers”. All at the age of seven. It disgusts me.

I watched a video earlier this evening from a nonprofit group that I have been supporting since at least 2007, Invisible Children. The nonprofit uses film to raise awareness of the abductions and abuse of children in Central Africa, namely the children recruited to serve in Joseph Kony‘s LRA. Their main goal is to capture Kony, hold him accountable for his crimes, and end the LRA. The video, “Kony 2012″, asks us to bring Kony to the forefront of our international media and asks us to use social networking, among other tactics, to help lead to the capture, arrest, and conviction of Joseph Kony. I found myself choking up several times during the thirty minute video, especially when they focused on Jacob, a Ugandan boy who had witnessed his brother killed by Kony’s regime, and Gavin, the filmmaker’s young son, who couldn’t understand why someone would have children kill.

Here is the video. It’s gone viral since its release on March 5, garnering over 44 million views on YouTube and roughly 14 million views on Vimeo:

KONY 2012 from INVISIBLE CHILDREN on Vimeo.

Joseph Kony was indicted for war crimes in 2005 by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands. His regime has been accused of abducting and forcing over 66,000 children to fight for the LRA since 1986. Invisible Children has called for people to come together and spread the video online and to donate to the cause. I am impressed at the speed of how the video and the message about Joseph Kony has spread. #kony2012 is one of the top trending topics on Twitter, and I have seen the video numerous times on my Facebook news feed. I hope that the actions of the people help to find Kony and bring him to justice. No child should feel like Jacob has, that maybe it would be better to be dead than to live in a world with the constant threat of evil men like Joseph Kony.

I believe that every child should get to live a childhood like my son. Every child should be able to lay their head down on their pillow at night and know that they are safe. No child deserves to become invisible.

Tags: child soldiers, Invisible Children, Joseph Kony, Kony 2012, Lord's Resistance Army, opinion, politics, society, Uganda, World Wide Web

Season One, Episode Twenty-Five: One Day I Will Get Slapped By Julia Child’s Ghost

I am a picky eater.

I always have been, I most likely always will.  My list of things I won’t eat probably outnumbers the list of things that I do eat by a landslide.  I’ll share a general consensus of the things that I don’t eat with you just so that you can get a ballpark estimate of the way things are for me at mealtime.

• Fish, shrimp, shark (I suppose that could be fish, but I just think it deserves its own spot on the list of things I don’t eat), mussels, oysters, clams, lobster, crab, sea urchins, porpoise (you never know)…pretty much anything that swims and/or dwells in saltwater or freshwater ecosystems.  I can’t do it, it’s gross.  And it smells.  And I really loved The Little Mermaid and I don’t want to chance eating Sebastian or Flounder or one of Ariel’s cousins or whatever.  Judge away, but you all remember what happened to that crazy French chef who tried to turn Sebastian into Ariel and Eric’s lunch.  Just sayin’.
  

  Pfft. Les Poissons indeed.

• Steak, shredded beef, cubed beef, anything that is essentially NOT ground beef.  Not really sure how or why this quirk came into being, but I’ve tried steak and thought it was gross.  It was too chewy.  Perhaps I need to try a slab of cow that has been cooked medium well or better and slathered in cheese and bacon–the steak I had was medium rare or some shit, and was NOT delicious.  Maybe I was too busy thinking about how reddish pink the piece I was chewing was, or maybe I’m just not fancy or cultured enough.  I don’t know.
• Poultry.  That includes chicken, duck, quail, grouse (whatever the hell that is), pheasant, Cornish hen, and turkey.  Pretty much anything with wings that lays eggs.  I do, however, eat eggs.  But only scrambled and with cheese.  No negotiations.  I do remember that I used to eat Chicken McNuggets as a tot, that I adored them with sweet and sour sauce.  I remember why I stopped eating them too–I was at a McDonald’s down on Euclid Avenue waaaay back when I was 4 or 5, maybe I was a little older, I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I took a bite of that crispy morsel of chicken dipped in that golden sauce and into a bone.  I bit into a big hunk of chicken bone.  I freaked out in a quiet fashion and spat it out into my McNugget box (I was very classeh).  I remember telling my mom that I was full of chicken and just wanted my fries.  But I never ever ate chicken again after that day.
• Pork.  Well…I eat bacon, sausage, and bologna.  And chorizo.  Anything else…no dice, as Charles Bronson would say.
• Most vegetables.  I will eat ketchup, potatoes, etcetera, etcetera…I’ve started this new thing where I blend up veggies and mix them with meat or whatever so that I get the nutritional benefits without actually having to see the vegetables on my plate.  This goes back to an intense dinnertime showdown between five year old Me and my dad and a plate of cold and slimy Popeye spinach.
  

  Yuck. Twenty-one years later it still grosses me out.

• Most fruit.  I’m trying, though.  I think if I can’t see it in its original form, I’m good.

I have reason to believe that I have an irrational fear of trying new foods or trying the foods listed above.  I seriously freak out.  I’ve smacked a fork away once or twice when faced with the seemingly inevitable prospect of trying pork ear or steamed kale or whatever.  I like to think that I look like a lioness backed into a corner.

What?!?!?! You want me to try the Grilled Palm and Garlic Heart Puttanesca? Noooooo!!!! Rawrrrrr...

So, as I said, I’m picky.  Insanely picky.  My boyfriend, however, is not.  He loves food, especially fish and veggies and fruit and weird grains that I’ve never heard of.  We go to fancy restaurants and I think he gets embarrassed because I have to critically analyze the menu for something that I will remotely try.  I unapologetically eat like a five year old.  I love pasta, so usually they have something pastalicious on the menu and I just tweak it to my culinary whim.  I’m sure I sound like Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally when I order.  I like going out with him to eat, but honestly I would just like to go to some seedy little Mexican restaurant that makes great tacos or a fabulous quirky place that makes amazing grilled cheese that rocks my world.  I like simple comfort food.  I may eat like a five year old, but it works for me.  I like eating mac and cheese and burgers and pancakes and waffles and cookies and grilled cheese…And I do try new things, I just have to adjust them.

I’m sure it drives him crazy, I’m sure it drives everyone who has eaten with me crazy.  I just like to think its another one of those quirks that makes me me.  And I’m sure I’ll broaden my horizons more as I get older; I already have expanded my culinary horizons by leaps and bounds since I was five.  I just need to do it on my terms.

Maybe one day I’ll just go ahead and try the Duck Meatball Soup.

Tags: Charles Bronson, Chicken McNugget, comedy, food, French cuisine, humor, Julia Child, Little Mermaid, McDonald, Meg Ryan, quirks

Season One, Episode Twenty-Four: Chubby Babies Wielding Arrows and Slutty Streetwalking Mailmen

I hate painting my nails.  I always inevitably wind up smudging a nail somehow.  Usually it’s when I think my nails are dry and then I figure it’s safe to go pee and I smear them trying to carefully take my pants off.

Hi.

Well, anyway, I am sitting here contemplating an idea for a story that keeps tickling my synapses and researching ghost towns and drowned towns and thinking about how deliciously melancholy the idea of an entire town under water is.  I’m also thinking about fairy tales and possible names for my main character and how bright my nail polish is (China Glaze lacquer in Pink Voltage.  It’s very very neon pink.) and how much I liked the pilot episode of Smash that I just watched on Hulu.  The mind of a writer is a fantastic thing.  We multitask.

These are obviously not my nails because they are not smudged. No, these are phantom nails I found via Google.

It’s Valentine’s Day.  Yay.  This will actually be the first V-Day that I will not be at work or watching sitcoms over a bowl of Ben and Jerry’s.  I’m excited.  I’m not exactly sure what proper Valentine’s Day etiquette is, but I guarantee you that I will screw it up somehow.  I’m not exactly a particularly classeh ladeh.  Part of me keeps reminding me that there’s a new episode of New Girl on tonight and that I have chocolate gelato in the freezer.  To that schlumpy sweatpant-clad part of me, I say nay.  I will go get overdressed and put on an acceptable amount of makeup and venture out into bitter cold and snow to have a good time.  I’ll be like a hooker mailman (I just giggled at the mental image), but instead of mail I will be delivering…joy.  Yes.

Hmm. They look as though they were delivered some joy by a fat cheeked baby wielding arrows or a hooker mailman.

In other news, my unemployment was rejected on supposedly justifiable grounds, and I am not really wanting to fight the decision, although I have been advised by everyone and their mom to fight it until I get it.  I don’t really feel like fighting with my old boss.  That is a battle not worth fighting because I’ll just wind up getting pissed and I don’t need the stress.  I had four years of that shit and I actually like not having to deal with her anymore.  I might reapply, but if the state ruled that the firing was allowable, I highly doubt that I will receive any compensation.  Just saying.  I don’t feel like wasting time over $165 a week.  Hell, if I have to I’ll apply at Target or something to tide myself over until I find out what is going to happen with the casino.  I applied for state benefits, so I’m just waiting on a response from them.  I highly doubt that I will get rejected when my gross weekly income is nada.

I just thought I’d drop on in and write a quick post because I have been neglectful of a lot of stuff as of late.  This whole days blending together thing is really becoming an issue.  I’m mixing up my days of the week and sleeping a lot.  I think I need to find a routine hobby so that I don’t turn into a crazy person.  Maybe I’ll join the gym so that I have to actually leave the house on a regular basis.

Tags: Ben & Jerry's, comedy, Ghost town, humor, New Girl, randomnosity, unemployed, Valentine, Valentine Day, writing

Listen to this playlist: Awkward Guilty Pleasure Playlist