I don’t want to step on anyone’s beliefs… but here we go:

I wonder if the B side is full of evil messages.

So, the other day I went to see a psychic.  I told all my friends I was going as a joke, but really I was super, for-real curious to know the future.  Having undergone some huge life changes this past year, I’m simply exhausted from shedding my old life and am ready to embark on a new adventure.  Having too many equal-weighted next-step options,  I can’t decide which path to choose. I thought about making one of those Pros and Cons lists, but that seems like too much evaluating. I thought about drawing options out of a hat, but I would be ashamed to tell people that’s how I chose my next career. 

So I decided to do pay a complete stranger $20 to tell me what is up.

So, I called up this lady whose name was given to me by an acquaintance, who told me she predicted his divorce.  Seeming like good enough credentials, I booked my appointment and drove to the psychic’s home.

When I go to see a psychic, I want her to fit the profile.  I want for her to be dressed in velvet robes and have crazy light-socket hair and jars full of frog parts. I want the doorbell to ring in a funeral march and gargoyles in the front yard and to see stacks of books bound in animal skin. I want her to drive a hearse or at least ride a weird bicycle that might possibly fly.

Maybe I’m just describing witches…

Were she a true psychic, she may have cleaned up a little better, predicting that I am a highly judgmental individual with complete disdain for people who leave their dishes out all over the counter (…like I do).  The house was a little musty, slightly stinky… just normally gross, not riddled with crystals or chicken claws or other evidences of mysticisms and voodoos.  Disappointing.  The psychic herself resembled more of a hobbit than the expected photo-worthy gypsy, and in my five-inch heels I towered over her.  To put the spectacle into perspective, if we were cast in the movie Twins, I would be like Arnold Schwartzeneger and she would have been Danny Devito.  Strange sort of mismatch.

So, the psychic lead me into this little side room sparsely furnished with a table, chairs, a jar of mints, a cassette player, and –BINGO!- a crystal ball.  I had to suffocate my inner desire to die from laughing, even though it was everything I had hoped for.  Please please please look into it, I pleaded silently as she reached for a set of tarot cards.

She asked me to shuffle the cards to put my “energy” into them, and while I did she prayed to God.  This was unexpected, as I would have thought she would have done some chanting or humming or arm-flailing… something befittingly weird. But, as it was, she said a prayer and asked for God not to show her Death.

That was a yikes moment.

As I continued my card shuffling, the psychic reached into a basket and pulled out a brand new cassette tape. I knew that the antiquated was about to happen: she was going to use the cassette player to record, on cassette, my session. My first thought was:  Great, now I can’t talk because I HATE the sound of my own voice, followed by: How the fuck am I going to replay this??!!  I don’t have a cassette player.  I live in This Modern Day, lady, with the rest of the cool, cool world.  She explained: “The cassette is 30 minutes long, and when it clicks off that’s how I know the session is over.”  Or use a clock, but everyone has their preferences.

So, as usual, I went with the flow and got on with it.

I handed her the deck of cards and she flipped them over, erupting  in delight. “Oh these are good, very good, lots of good things coming your way…”  My eyes widened and I all but began panting, sitting there like an eager puppy awaiting a treat. “You have three paths before you, I see,” she continued, “Do you have your passport?”

Why yes I do, and, surprisingly I had it with me as I recently got a DUI and am using it as identification. I pulled it out of my purse, like a complete gaywad, to prove it. Sometimes, even in the minutest ways, I’m just too eager to please.

“Good,” she says, “I see you travelling to, hmmm, errrr, whhmmm….. um Europe!! Yes, Europe, somewhere near London. You will go with two people and there you will find what you want to do for the rest of your life. But this will happen at 38.”

Ok. I wasn’t sure why I needed my passport ready for something that will happen in 10 years.

“Also, you will travel to South America and hmmm… ohhh….the third one I’m not seeing, but it will come, just wait….”

So she moves on to the unprovoked subject of Love. “You will meet a man around next June –no- by next May and your romance will be very quick…”  

Knowing my own history, I could have told her that. I hate mankind and generally don’t want it around for long. This past year I have experienced a series of especially unimaginably bad men after dabbling in the psychologically disordered crapshoot of Match.com.  I joined because I was lonely for a little while, and loneliness is quite a veil for logic.

“… and you will be planning your wedding within a month of knowing each other.”

Whoa, Nelly. Within a month?  I may be spontaneous and emotionally driven, but I’ve watched enough television to know that it takes longer than a month to find out if someone has a history of wife-murdering or made their money through dummy corporation insurance scams.  I mean, I’m reckless to an extent, but I’m not going to hitch my wagon to a man that might fake his own death to avoid prosecution.

“Brad- Bradley. That is a good name for you. His name will be either Bradley or Brad, or Bradley or Brad will introduce you to him… John…. Joe or Joey….oh, Don- Donnie… He will have a friend named Don or Donnie and Donnie will be the signal that you will recognize….”

Now she was just going through all the New Kids on The Block. I fully expected for her to follow with, “You will know because he will have the right stuff. Babay.”

But she didn’t. 

The rest of the session was filled with the type of ass-kissing and affectionate praise one would get from a proud mother. And, while it seems outlandish that in 8 months  I will marry a rich man who, she claimed, is “wonderful and unlike any other I’ve ever met”, travel the world, and find the job of my dreams, that affection, the positivity of this woman… that was comforting. Who doesn’t want to be told for 30 straight minutes that their life is getting ready to be awesome? Her unabashed excitement for me, as a complete stranger who just wanted a push in any direction, that made me leave with a smile.  And that, for my time, is worth $20.

I even have the cassette tape to prove it.

Oh yes, Oh yes, Oh yes.

YAY!!

I’m so excited I’m so excited I’m so EXCITED!!!! 

So, thanks to the suggestion of my friend Sbataf, I now have a brand new blog here at wordpress. Although I still don’t know shit about interneting, this site at least displays better. Countless hours have been wasted cursing in my empty house, trying to produce a place where I can write badly. And here I am!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Being great!!!!!!! At writing badly!!!!!

Jut kidding, kinda 😉

Give Me [Your] Head

(Originally posted 8/22/2011 at seeallisonplay.weebly.com)

Gimmicky and amateurish, but it was the best I could produce in 5 minutes. I'm tired and unwilling to try for better. Not very zombie of me.)

I really like zombie shit, which may surprise a lot of people because I don’t exactly go around making a spectacle of it. They can get a little weird to me, people who heavily identify with the undead, but as it is, I definitely think that zombies are the clear kind-of-alive winners. Sure they don’t have their own series of wildly popular books and movies a la Twilight, but zombies will have their day in the sun (which vampires never will because sunlight will kill them. Take that, vampires).

Vampires are cool, Bram Stoker’s and Interview With, but it only ever really seems that vampires want to drink your blood AND to have sex with you. This seems unfair to me, because not only will a vampire drain you of life, he will also leave you emotionally upset when he makes spooky love to you and never calls afterward.

Both cold- AND cruel-hearted.

I used to think wizards were best, but wizards are really phoning it in these days. It took wizards an entire decade to defeat Voldemort, which seems lengthy in terms of magic, especially since magic seems to not be undergoing any research and progress. Harry and Voldemort ought to give up their predictable battle of Good vs. Evil and focus on what people REALLY want from magic: winning lottery numbers and someone hot to regularly nail them willfully. Between the two best wizards of the wizarding world, I have faith that they can figure out those spells.

Zombies don’t bother with any of the fancy stuff: they don’t want your blood, they don’t want to emotionlessly bang you, and they could give a fuck less about magic. Zombies don’t want anything from you besides your participation; they just want you to be a member of their club. And that club requires you to be only sort of living, emotionless and bored, stomping around with a stiff cadence.

I behave like this almost every day.

I would like to think that, were I to die, my soul would get into a custody battle with my lifeless body and exert unnecessary violence on other living beings. This is where ghosts fail, because ghosts go ahead and all the way die, keeping their rage but abandoning their corpses, making objects very difficult to lift and strike. Zombies don’t give up when their bodies throw in the towel. No. They take them back over and then even try to take over the world. And I find that admirable. Zombies motto is: We’re dominating, and we’ve already half died trying.

My friend (whom I would normally name but since this is public I will call him) T2 and I have decided that we are going to start watching the show The Walking Dead on AMC, and I happen to be super stoked about this. Being enthusiastic about a paranormal show is one thing, but having a partner in it really validates that you aren’t a complete gay wad. T2 is even going to lend me some book, a legit, written-as-serious book about how to survive a zombie apocalypse.

And. I. Could. Not. Be. Happier.

While the idea of this book tickles me to no end, I must question the logistics behind how one would survive this fictional force. If something doesn’t ever happen in real life, like Irish holidays without booze or the plots of all romantic comedies, anyone can say it goes however. Like, I could say that shaving my head and ingesting Nyquil with heroin will ward off a zombie attack, when in real life that would simply put me closer to Britney Spears. So I don’t know. I have no idea how to stave off a zombie apocalypse. But I hope I have fun learning.

I just hope it doesn’t turn out like the time I read that book about Marie Antoinette and for two weeks afterwards I tried to teach myself French…which I would unskillfully display while drinking. That, among others, was not my best look. Good book though.

Jerk It Out.

(Originally posted 8/17/2011)

The route to my (ghetto) gym takes me up and around such that for a little ways I am driving towards the back of the building. This has never struck me as neither dis- or interesting, but today as I was driving up, I witnessed these two guys dressed in workout clothes, pushing, at full speed, what seemed to be a low, flat cart. As my car neared, they stopped, each wiping his own forehead with a towel which had been hanging around his own respective neck.And I was like: Dude. You guys. There is a perfectly good gym out front.

But whatever.

My gym is totally ghetto, so maybe I should understand. My gym is so ghetto they have a Shake Weight, and people go there to use it. This saddens me, not only for them, but also for us shameless members who, though we could afford it, refuse to go to a better gym. My gym is so cheap that soon enough they’ll be paying ME to go there; I’ll walk in and they’ll hand me three dollars. It’s almost there, but, as it is, at least I am a member of any haven allowing me to workout alongside the rest of these fat hamsters.

Attempting to workout in the evening is akin being a single hydrogen atom in a gallon of solution. People hog the equipment, and not even for good use. I’ve seen my share of old people strolling at the lowest possible treadmill pace and I want to scream, “GET A SIDEWALK ,YOU FLAT ASS!!”

But I’m sure that would be frowned upon.

So to avoid this muscle-building mayhem, I go to my gym (when I muster the guilt-ridden motivation) during the day.

When I work out with free-weights, I have a series of arm-working exercises that I know are legit, but can’t really label. I’m sure they have a name, as even the most menial thing in cosmetics does, and it’s probably like “Upward Bound Shell-Outsicles” or something else with all details masked by fanciness. But I do not know that name. I mean, I know what curls are: elbow flexing or a great hairstyle, depending on the context. But that’s about as far as it goes.

Which is really going to hurt me, as my boss (today coincidentally) asked me to take a Personal Training Certification Exam. Me, Passing? Fingers doubtfully crossed.

So, today I’m at my gym and I’m doing these arm things with free weights and this guy comes over and he’s all like: “Those are really hard to do, huh, man I know…. Here try it this way, it‘s easier.” And he proceeds to show me a completely different exercise than the one I was doing.

Look, Unwitting Gym Enthusiasts, just because you can lift UP a certain amount of weight does not, in fact, mean that all exercises for the arms produce the same results. I may not be able to name each stupid exercise, but where I do have the arm up (pun intended) is that I can, by name and action, isolate muscles and effectively work them. That’s what my job is, and not that my job is nobel-laureate worthy, but at least I know something about something. And this happens to be the only thing I kinda know:

If you change the joint moving and the plane of movement, you change the set of muscles acting and the way the body leverages the weight against gravity. This changes the workout. You can’t just lift shit up for awhile and get on about being Mr. Universe. It doesn’t work that way.

But, whatever. Maybe it was because I appeared to need help, as I am trying a new loading technique I sort of read about and only kind of understand. Maybe it was because I look like an idiot or because I go to a cheap gym or because I am a girl and inherently hopeless.

Whichever the case, he was wrong and I was fine, and it was all I could do to not only politely correct him but then smack him in the face with the backhand of Knowledge. Instead, I just said: “Oh, that looks WAY easier,” set my weights down, and walked away… appearing to give up.

I was finished anyway, and I only like to be a show-off when it counts, like when I’m actually competing at something or when your girlfriend is around. Being Better simply doesn’t have the same worth without one of the two.

* I’m getting ready to go on my Redneck date! Wish me luck, gators!!

(See, I used to be super fit. Maybe the wieght of carrying aroung enough unaccomplished goals will whipe me back into this awesome shape. It looks like I peed my pants in this picture.)

(I love this little dude in high-top PINK chucks. This kind of be-yourself-at-all-costs looney makes my day. Photo courtesy of my sister.)

Monster Guck.

(Originally posted 8/16/2011)

So, I’ve been writing nightly for the past FIVE weeks, and have just totally come to find out that my new file is LOST. All my precious, un-publish-worthy work… down le drain (that’s French for “the drain”). My stuff was brilliant, too, life changing even.

Actually, it was pretty moan-and-groanful.

I was dating this guy I knew better than to, and then my whole game got sidetracked on that, and then one day it just totally ended. Not even in the good “yeah-this-was-fun-but-we-both-get-that-it’s-exhausted” way, it was more in the “what-the-fuck-just-happened-are-you-kidding-me-oh-I-get-it-you-have-other-shit-going-on” kinda way. The kind of way that makes my stomach feel like sludge, gross and sticky and like I‘m stuck in it.

So, since my break-up, I have been revoltingly pensive, woe-is-me-ful, and deeply boohoosive.

None of which are the elements that drive progress. I’ve just been routinely sucking.

When I grieve, my behavior becomes akin to complete trailer trash. One can find me chain-smoking cigarettes on the porch, avoiding showering and other routine hygienic acts, wearing my unwashed Jim Beam t-shirt for days upon days (it is SO soft), eating peanut butter and jelly crackers as a meal, wishing to drown my sorrows in whiskey and Natty Ice. Remove some of my teeth and throw a couple of illegitimate kids in my yard, and I will fit the part exactly. Shame, Guilt, Questioning… I guess that’s what Life uses to knock you down a couple of class steps when you make a bad decision.

Anyways, I guess I could use the next few paragraphs to lay out, in some little comedic musings, what went bad and all the sillies that happened post-breakup. But I don’t care. I care so little that even starting to think about it gives me a not-caring migraine.

So what I WILL talk about is the fact that I am swearing off men but do have a date tomorrow night. Yes, with this guy  –>  (this arrow may not actually be pointing to the picture… I have no idea how this will format.)

That’s right. I am stepping outside my upper-middle-class box and going on a date with a self-proclaimed “redneck”. Not just any redneck, mind you, one who owns a monster truck, a lake trailer, a mini-jeep, two boats, and his own business. Which all happens to be AWESOME.

A guy I know, who is a lil’ rough around the edges, suggested he set me up with this particular friend of his. I am not sure if this matchmaker actually knows anything about me, as I am a birth-righted East Ender with gel-polished nails and eight Diane von Furstenburg dresses. But as it is, he claims this friend, all-be-us so seemingly different, is a certified Nice Guy.

Nice Guys, the genuine breed, are rare animals not often spotted in the civilized world unless on the leashes of better women. I have been told that they exist, however, and have seen a couple for myself. I don’t know what the mechanism is for catching one. Luck and timing, perhaps, or having a huge set of boobs… none of which I have much experience in.

But maybe this could be fun. Maybe this could be what I need now, something I would otherwise dismiss as “beneath me” when really it might be right on par with who I truly am. Maybe this could be the thing that shines reality over the inane dream that I will marry a rich senator who also happens to be Luke Perry with silver hair. Maybe this will snap me back into the understanding of what I really am: Regular, just like anyone else.

Or maybe, just maybe, this is what the Universe thinks I want when I don’t change my Jim Beam shirt for a week.

Sike.

(Originally posted 8/8/2011 at seeallisonplay.weebly.com)

I’m too exhausted- from figuring out what little I appear to have accomplished here- to write. Trust me, I have no doubt that creating a blog is WAY easier than I just made it. But I guess doing SOMETHING is better than doing NOTHING… or getting smashed with some douche who just wants to bang me, or crying myself into a self-pitying sleep. Which were my other options for the evening.So here I go: having a place to put shit and re-hash shit and aggrandize myself and outwardly display my crazy.Using this blog will probably ensure that I will never have another boyfriend, repectable job, or a future in politics.

But do I care?
No.

Do you care?
Even less.

We’ll see where we get to. But for now, I’m gonna go spoon-feed myself peanut butter in bed.