Friday, December 30, 2011
I've been watching you people (2011 edition)
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Life with stupid (phone)
For Christmas I got an iPhone (or, more specifically I was promised an iPhone, but I need to go with my dad to the Verizon store to retrieve it).
I asked for one after quickly realizing that there are things like fantasy football scores and Google searches that need to be accessed IMMEDIATELY, especially if you’re out at a bar.
But there are far more ways the iPhone will improve my quality of life.
For one, I get lost a stupid amount and smart phone maps are helpful when my GPS is being a slow-ass B.
I’ve also been juggling a lot of freelance assignments and need to read my email from my phone instead of calling my brother in California (two times zones away) asking him to log in as me or look up an address RIGHT NOW PLEASE, I’M LOST ON THE INTERSTATE!!!
Also, I have no calendar to speak of...which is probably why I missed your party.
My work calendar is on my work computer, see, which I can’t access from my phone and my phone calendar only lets you put in 20 characters per entry.
WTF??
As such, on Feb. 12, I have a “dentist apt. nap. ave. 1 p”
I’m pretty sure life can be much more organized than this.
Also, as a writer, I’m constantly thinking of new things to write about, ideas to pitch, new toolbag material blah blah blah and my phone has no “notepad” of any kind.
And, since ideas slip away like an eel if you don’t write them down, I regularly send text messages with ideas...to my email.
Is that odd? My million dollar ideas (ha) can be found by doing a Yahoo email search of my phone number -- garbled text messages lost among Groupon and Living Social offers.
Speaking of text messages, my inbox gets filled to capacity every two weeks and I have to empty it.
(It’s not my fault I send 200 texts a week!! I’m basically a middle school girl.)
Having to regularly clear out all my text messages has caused me to accidently delete people’s phone numbers and delete important texts.
So now I’m trained to remember that if I get a particularly important or cute text message that I want to keep, I have to “lock” it, or else it will be deleted in the weekly exodus.
I won’t miss this phone at all.
I’ve been hating on it for a while now, especially since I accidently dropped it into a pool of beer and for some reason can’t turn the sound below the “LOUD AS F*CK” option.
And it no longer lets me access speakerphone which means I can't talk to anyone while brushing my teeth anymore.
And, embarrassingly enough, in the two years I’ve had it, I don’t even know how to turn it off.
Seriously!! Holding down the END button doesn’t work!!! (I’m so 90s)
I have to put the thing on “airplane mode” when I’m on an airplane and hope I don’t take the plane down!!!
But all this changes now.
iPHONE here I come!!! 2012!! EFF YEA
Onto a smarter and better me!
Just you wait until I start holding my phone up to a speaker to figure out what song is playing!
Or write down a grocery list that will activate when I walk into a grocery store!!!
I just hope my brother and email don’t get too lonely.
-Jenny
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
TOOLBAG TUESDAY
Girls are good at using Facebook to make ex-boyfriends jealous.
(Everything I need to know I learned from my all-girls Catholic School!!)
Photoshopped zits!! A carefully placed good-looking stranger in the background!!
Tagging your friends at a bar with you to look popular even if your friends weren’t really there!!!
The best, though, is when GUYS use Facebook to make their exes jealous. It’s effing hilarious.
Because guys are so bad at it. And obvious.
Good to know: DON’T MAKE SUDDEN CHANGES TO YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE POST-BREAKUP. It’s…telling.
Case in point: My twin sister Joy’s ex-boyfriend. He NEVER used Facebook EVER. It was almost as if he didn’t have one.
He didn’t update anything, he didn’t upload anything.
He had one picture that was his profile picture and the most recent comment on his wall was from six months earlier, when someone wished him a belated happy birthday.
Yet, when they broke up, his page started blowing up.
It was a miracle!
We all laughed our asses off when THE WEEK AFTER THEY BROKE UP he uploaded a picture from his phone (He knew how to do that??) to his Facebook wall.
It was of plops of cookie dough on a pan.
Caption: “Baking cookies with the cutest girl!!! Thanks Kayla!!!” he wrote.
Ahahahahaha loser, we all said.
Brian, this guy who dated my friend Jill, took it a step further with the toolbag Facebooking.
They dated for about five months, and after another big fight, they decided to take a “break.”
The “break” was good timing because Brian was about to fly home to see his family for Christmas.
They lived in the Mid-West and Brian bitched about how boring the place was and how he did nothing the whole time.
But, that’s not what his Facebook page said.
Jill looked in horror during his vacation home to see girl, after girl, AFTER GIRL writing suggestive things on his Facebook wall.
“Last night was soooo crazy!” one wrote. “You were hilarious!!!”
“OMG Can’t wait to see you tonight!” wrote another.
It was odd because Brian wasn’t exactly a ladies’ man. A quick search saw that the girls had gone to high school with Brian, but he never talked about them before.
Or hung out with them.
Now they were telling him how crazy and fun he was???
Jill was livid. Here she was alone and sad about their “break” and he was running around with his entire graduating class!!
Then Jill saw the worst one:
“I have your clothes!!!” one girl wrote.
OH HELL NAW.
She called up Brian immediately.
“What the hell is going on?” she asked.
“What?” he asked casually. “A bunch of us all went camping together.”
“You went CAMPING with five girls? WITH NO CLOTHES?” she asked. “In the middle of winter?”
She screamed at him and told him it was definitely over now between the two of them, and that’s when Brian broke down and said it was all a lie.
“I’m sorry. I just wanted to make you jealous,” Brian cried. “I never saw any of them. I just messaged a bunch of girls from my high school asking them to write something flirty on my wall.”
“OMG YOU ARE SUCH A DORK!” Jill screamed. “That’s the lamest thing I’ve ever heard!”
Jillian hung up and fumed.
A few hours later she checked his page and saw that he had deleted each of the girls’ comments.
He tried to win her back when he came back to town after the holidays but Jill was over it.
She was clearly dating a 12-year-old girl.
Who ASKS people to do that???
She decided to play his game.
She immediately took her page and publicly made her relationship status “single.”
And then liked it.
And waited for all the boys to comment.
-Jenny
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Everything that could possibly go wrong with mailing holiday cards
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
TOOLBAG TUESDAY
Boys are so destructive.
What, simple yelling and screaming doesn’t do it for them??
They have to do things like rip doors off their hinges and throw things across the room to show that they’re really mad???
It’s especially infuriating when the destruction is done to your own house.
I’ve written before about the JOYS of homeownership, after my twin sister, Joy, and I bought a house in South Carolina together in 2006.
In addition to the housing bubble and rats in the attic, one other thing we’ve unexpectedly had to deal with are dumb boys who wreak havoc on our walls.
HELLO!!! WE CAN’T VERY WELL CALL A LANDLORD!! WE’RE THE DAMN LANDLORDS!!!
James was destructive, and for a very reasonable reason: our roommate didn’t want him to sleep over...in her bed.
GAW.
They had JUST MET at a party at our house and he was there as SOMEONE ELSE’S DATE.
GAW.
But he really liked Emily, our roommate. He kept taking pictures of just her like paparazzi, and wouldn’t leave her alone even though his date was Joy’s co-worker and that was super awkward for everyone.
When his date left the party, alone, James became even more annoying about his love for Emily.
He started talking to everyone else at the party about how awesome Emily was, and we were all like, yea, we know...she’s standing like 20 feet away from us.
As the party was winding down, James was somehow convinced that Emily felt the same way and he asked if he could spend the night.
No, she said.
He asked if he could kiss her.
No, she said.
Tired and annoyed, Emily then yelled at him when it looked as if he was following her into her bedroom.
“NO!” she yelled angrily at him in the hallway. “YOU ARE NOT COMING INTO MY ROOM!!”
“I was just going to the bathroom!” he said. And then he walked into the bathroom.
It wasn’t until after he left a short time later when we saw what happened: James had destroyed our bathroom.
He ripped out our toilet paper holder FROM THE WALL and threw it on the ground, leaving a gaping hole.
He pulled down our shower curtain – TWO gaping holes – and had kicked over our trash can, toilet cleaners, toilet brush holder and everything else he could.
He was MAD, y’all.
Someone passing by the bathroom said later that she heard noises in there, but she was drunk and didn’t pay attention.
We were horrified when we saw it and were stuck having to clean it and fix it, because we couldn’t very well call a landlord and say, “I don’t know...the shower curtain rod just FELL off of the wall! Crazy! When should we expect the carpenter?”
And we didn’t know how to get in touch with James since WE HAD JUST MET HIM, and Joy didn’t want to have another super awkward conversation with her co-worker.
UGH.
So we had to go to Wal-Mart and spend $30 buying all new things and spend a Saturday afternoon re-painting the wall and screwing in a new toilet paper holder and shower curtain.
It was annoyingly ironic. Everyone got screwed except James.
-Jenny
The old country
If I had to categorically say what genre of music I hated the most, I would say country.
The cheesy accents, the superficial lyrics, the sissy man-voice – it immediately hurts my ears and I have no choice but obnoxiously scream, MAKE IT GO AWAY!!! MAKE IT GO AWAY!!! AHHHHH!!!
Even the name Brad Paisley I find annoying.
As such, when I visited Nashville two weeks ago and was told I was going to the Country Music Museum and Hall of Fame, I was like, no way, man...country music is STUPID.
As it turns out, I was stupid. I was incorrectly equating today’s country music with all country music.
Tisk Tisk.
Saying, “I hate country music” or “country music makes me want to vomit” isn’t really fair now.
Because old school country music is nothing like the crap that’s on the radio today!!
Let me prove it: I listened to a Conway Twitty CD on the drive home to New Orleans and didn’t want to vomit once!
It was a miracle!!!
After a two-hour tour of the museum, I now have a newfound respect for the genre, although let’s be honest, the music kind of went to shit in the1970s (uh, pretty much everything on the left side of the third floor).
Still, I was so impressed (especially with the yodeling that accompanied many songs) that I actually took pictures of people’s immortalized faces in the hall of fame.
The thing I found so touching is that country music started from ridiculously humble beginnings – like the poor kid who banged on a bucket with a stick, for example, and he grew up to be Chet Atkins.
Or the gospel choir that JUST WANTED TO SING outside of church and all loaded into a cart and drove into town and came up with the world’s first honky tonk.
Many country stars were very poor and their simple music reflected that. And I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the beginnings of country sound a lot like the blues, which I love.
(I guess back then they had more problems than a BBQ stain on a white T-shirt.) Ha.
I learned about how country music got popular during the depression because people could relate to its downtrodden lyrics and then people started honky tonking at circuses and carnivals and then it got popular on the radio.
(Um, disclaimer, I’m not Wikipedia. Don’t cite any of this in your term papers, kids).
I’ve never been to a music museum before, unless you count the Hard Rock Café, which you shouldn’t, and this one was awesome.
There was a ton of memorabilia like actual blue suede shoes and people’s original guitars (so they say) and Elvis’ gold limousine.
I saw a taped interview with Dolly Parton about her song Jolene, which has long been one of the only exceptions to my “I hate country” attitude.
Dolly said Jolene was the name of a little girl and small fan of hers, the most beautiful little girl Dolly had ever met.
After signing her record, Dolly asked her name and said it was the most beautiful name she’d ever heard. She told her to listen for a song called Jolene in the future.
...and Dolly has never heard from that girl again, even though in interviews she’s been like, “Jolene are you out there??? Call me.”
(You can cite that, kids.)
Even after being enlightened by the history of country music, I’m still not a fan of today’s country, which was put to the test when my twin sister, Joy, put on a song recently.
“MAKE IT GO AWAY!!!” I screamed.
“Listen to this one,” she said. “I’m POSITIVE you’ll like it. It’s called ‘Louisiana woman, Mississippi man.’”
“I know that song!!!” I said all proud. “Conway Twitty yea!”
No.
Carrie fucking Underwood.
MAKE IT GO AWAY.
-Jenny
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
TOOLBAG TUESDAY
I have friends who are dying to get married and I listen to their reasons and all, but I feel like getting married is something you do when you’re all grown up and stop day drinking.
But Jack didn’t know that.
If I had been someone who was overly obsessed with getting married, he would have gotten a slap to the face.
Jack and I were both in the same wedding party and he was already annoying in that he hooked up with a bridesmaid the night before and ignored her the next day at the wedding, making group pictures uncomfortable.
All the groomsmen were being quite annoying that day, scattering around and not taking the professional photos seriously, although they did share their Jameson with us.
After the ceremony and group pictures, I was anxious to get into the reception. My friends who I hadn’t seen in a long time (and my then-boyfriend) were partying and eating oysters and watching an LSU game and I was missing it.
“Can we go inside now??” I asked the fussy wedding planner.
The bride and groom were still taking photos by themselves.
“Where is everyone else??” I asked him.
Each groomsman was confused and irritated they had to walk back outside (YEA, I KNOW THE FEELING) and when I walked back to the line, every groomsman followed...except for Jack.
“WHAT THE F---?” I said, as the wedding planner started hyperventilating and the bride and groom were walking towards the line.
“We can’t walk in unless EVERYONE is here,” she said. “They are announcing each of your names.”
At this point, we had all been waiting for over 20 minutes and I was hungry and I wasn’t about to wait longer because someone can’t follow simple instructions.
I walked back to the reception, found Jack flirting with someone and interrupted the conversation.
“Hey, Jack, everyone is lined up except you, can you come please? Outside the tent?”
Finally we were all in line, ready to go inside.
Yet, what should have been an adorable moment of watching my best friend and her new husband being presented for the first time as a married couple, Jack had to ruin the moment.
“Woah, look at little Miss NAG over here,” he said loudly as we were all about to walk in. “Now I know why YOU’RE not the one getting married.”
ALL THE OTHER GROOMSMAN STARTED LAUGHING and my jaw dropped as a gracious bridesmaid turned around and called him an asshole.
And that’s how I ended up walking into the reception of my best friend’s wedding with a red face feeling super self-conscious even though everyone was clapping and my hair looked awesome.
I should have pointed out that I didn’t see a ring on his finger either, but I was too shocked and embarrassed.
I guess that's what happens when someone THROWS THE FACT THAT YOU’RE NOT MARRIED IN YOUR FACE and then points out that it must be because of your personality.
I then realized that while I DON'T have a deep desire to get married, I’d at least like to be considered marriage material, rather than an annoying nag.
I just wanted to get into the reception! I wailed to my friends as I recapped what Jack said. I wasn’t even being that nagg-y!!! This is all the wedding planner's fault!!!
They repeated what the fellow bridesmaid called him and told me to get over it, but I was still upset.
(My then-boyfriend was too enthralled by the LSU game to console me.)
I mean, who needs to get married, anyway?
I’m not a grown up yet.
Here’s to day drinking.
-Jenny
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
TOOLBAG TUESDAY
I was too busy watching Jerry Springer after school to bother with after-school specials.
But I get it: Lessons for impressionable youngsters about staying in school and sex and drugs and being honest and keeping your nose clean with good-looking actors who were probably in their 20s.
(Too bad I was too enthralled with who’s having an affair with a midget...who’s really their sister.)
Um. Anyway.
Richard, this guy my friend Haley went out with three times, could have been the star of his very own after-school TV special: how to be a cliché toolbag when a girl won’t sleep with you.
I’m pretty sure they covered this exact theme in order to show girls how mean and bratty boys can get when you don’t give it up....so...NEVER. GIVE. IT. UP.
It makes sense, then, that the first night Haley and Richard met, they acted like middle schoolers.
Or are you never too old to make out with someone in the back seat of your roommate’s car on the way home???
Richard and Haley were both in their late 20s and had met at a bar and danced a salsa and seemingly had a connection.
Thinking back, Haley said Richard said all the right things and made her feel like the only person in the world. (Suspicious. Ha)
They ended up at her house and while they sort of hooked up they didn’t DO IT, although Richard was literally begging her, and he was really sexy.
She didn’t want to seem trampy. And, ahem, it was that time of the month.
The next day, after dropping him off at home, Haley got excited about a potential relationship with him.
He was cute, a good dancer and they had talked all night without finding each other annoying.
But then Richard only texted her at 2 a.m. for the rest of the week.
Haley looked at her phone the next morning and frowned. She had been staring at her phone all day, why couldn’t he have texted at 2 p.m.?
The next weekend she invited him to a party hoping they could dance again but he sat there bored and then spent the entire time trying to get Haley to go with him to an empty bedroom.
Do what??? Haley asked. Are you retarded?
A few days later, Richard finally called her during daylight hours.
“Come over for dinner!” he said.
Dinner! So cute!
Haley was as excited as a schoolgirl...in an after-school special.
Yet when she got over to his house, there was no dinner cooking. No delicious smells.
Richard was on the couch drinking a beer, and didn’t even offer her one.
Regardless, they started making out and he told her that he couldn’t stop thinking about their hot-and-heavy hookup from two weeks earlier.
“Like, I haven’t stopped thinking about that for a MINUTE!” he said.
Haley, on the other hand, had been thinking about how well they talked and laughed and danced together.
Typical. Humph.
With still no mention of dinner, Richard suggested they go to his bedroom, but Haley said naw, man.
“Oh, so that’s it?” Richard said, annoyed. “This is all that’s going to happen here?
He was starting to run out of all the perfect things to say.
It was ironic because maybe if Richard had actually made a delicious dinner then he’d have gotten some.
But instead Haley left, feeling OH SO cheap.
Not surprisingly, Richard hasn’t called or texted since that night. Not even a 2 a.m. text.
For the first week, Haley kept checking her empty inbox and feeling depressed.
Maybe he hadn’t been with someone in awhile and he was just overly eager! She cried at dinner, mourning the potential she had for them. Maybe he just thinks I’m THAT irresistible!
“Wait, are you talking about Richard (insert last name)?” asked a friend’s boyfriend, who was at dinner and overhead.
“Yea,” Haley responded slowly. “Why.”
“He was my friend’s roommate. He brings home girls every weekend and brags about it.”
OH.
Well thank God I didn’t sleep with him! she said.
(P.S. when a girl thanks God that she didn’t sleep with you, you’re a toolbag.)
Yet despite that unattractive news about Richard, it was all Haley needed to hear to, uh, change the channel.
No more after-school special!
She deleted his number and never cried over him again.
-Jenny