About a week ago I had the opportunity to hear an amazing local band out at Jantzen Beach. Heavy Metal Machine was playing and my friends and I felt like we were long overdue for a much discussed but never done ladies night out.
We're all about the same age so any band covering Poison, Guns N Roses and Journey would totally be our thang. So we all got dressed up in our bestest mom sweaters and high-waist jeans with our cleanest practical shoes and drove out to JB to dance our asses off.
I elected to be the sober driver, mostly because I don't really like to drink anymore, too many calories and well I'm 40 now so it feels like a natural time to say "I'm too old to drink anymore" (and also because a couple of months ago when we hosted game night with our friends I had lots of beverages and spent all of Saturday with "the flu", according to my children, and well, I'm still not over it!)
Three moms, one long week and an 80's metal band playing at a hotel/convention center was literally a haven for blog material.
You know since we're moms, we left on time to be sure we got there early, but then the bar wasn't open, so we went to the "other" bar/restaurant to get our drank on. I had A GLASS of wine, that took me a very long time to drink. The ladies had a beer each while we eagerly awaited the opportunity to pay a $10 cover to get in.
TOTALLY WORTH THE $10 COVER CHARGE!!! I would gladly pay $20 to hear the band, and the people watching? Fricken' PRICELESS.
Here's a quick rundown on the evenings bounty:
1. BUST A MOVE: Middle aged white people who have only had a glass or two of beer to drink cannot dance. (my company aside, who seriously have some SWEET MOVES) most everyone else on the dance floor at the beginning needed some lemon drop shots to loosen up a bit. It was like watching ducks bob up and down on a pond. Then again, the drunker you are, your dance moves don't necessarily improve. You just think they do.
2. FEELING VULNERABLE: As I mentioned, the hotel also hosts conferences, and early on before the dance floor got really crowded, as I was soberly (but giving it a good effort) shaking my ass with my besties, I looked behind me and noticed a line of dudes, likely all married, holding their drinks and simply enjoying the show. At this point I realized A) I'm sober; B) I gotta write this shizzle down for my drinking buddies; and C) the blog is writing itself.
3. DANCE LIKE NO ONE IS WATCHING: One of my favorite peeps of the night was this guy who was wearing a tie dyed peace sign shirt, you could tell he was really feeling the music, if you know what I mean. I LOVE free form dance. Really, I do. I am not sure if he was drinking, but I almost wanted a lil' of what he was having. He CLEARLY felt ALL RIGHT. I'm not even sure he noticed everyone else out there.
4. DANCE LIKE SOMEONE IS WATCHING, YOU FREAK: Then there was this guy who was like AIR HUMPING the band while they were playing. Seriously. No schmidt. AIR. HUMPING. With the whole put-your-fists-out-front-then-pull-in-together-and-force-your-hips-forward and REPEAT air humping. Then, his "date" showed up, and I kept thinking GET A ROOM. And then they did.
5. I AM 50 HEAR ME ROAR: As expected there were a few Cougars in the room, but sad to say the average age at the bar that night was probably 40. Happy hunting, ladies. In all, it was refreshing because it wasn't like a hook up kinds of night, so us lil' old ladies with our crochet purses didn't feel all out of sorts.
6. BARBIES: There was a group I called the plastics. Have you ever seen that woman that's had so much plastic surgery she looks like a cat? Yeah, I think she was there that night. I was so afraid to go near her, I thought her nose might fall off. And her friends all had work done too, one lady had some seriously nice lady junk, I was almost a little jealous. They were so funny to watch too, I was watching them over my buddy's shoulder and she was like "the show is on stage" and I said "oh, no really, the show is right behind you!" And it was. Until....
7. HAPPY ST. PATTY'S INDEED: The luck of the "Irish" clearly doesn't translate into avoiding a wardrobe malfunction, however you also would need to wear clothes that aren't 4 sizes to small and screaming for relief. I'm thinking stripper barbie got the night off and forgot to change into something less whore-ific. Let me attempt to describe from the bottom up: thigh high Pretty Woman-ish streetwalker boots, short and tight black skirt that covered most of her generous ass, and topping off the ensemble was a bright emerald green corset (again 4 sizes too small) with gigantic boobs flopping out and over them. And seriously, flopping out and over. And over and over and over. I watched her scoop those puppies back in every three minutes. It. Was. GROSS.
The whole entire night was really, really fun. Periodically I would run to the table and type up my notes for the blog. I would down a big glass of water (after they charged me $2 for a soda water & lime)! For shizzle! After the glass of wine was $8! Beer was $5, I need to re-visit the whole beer drinking thing. After college it's been tough to gag one down, too much of a good thing and all. But seriously $8? For WINE?! I wouldn't spend that on an entire bottle for shit's sake.
After all the water I had to pee really bad, and dancing (gravity) only made it worse. I made the mistake of asking the bouncer for directions to the loo, and he gave me PERFECT directions, except for they were directly to the men's room. Which makes since because he's a dude, and that's where he goes! Glad I noticed the sign before I barged in.
I visited the ladies room many times, and the last time I was in there, well, a little something something was a-going on in the handicapped stall. Oh my. And that's all I'm going to say about that. Felt kinda bad for interrupting. Not sure what to even say... so I said nothing, and was as quiet as possible ('cause I wanted to hear what I could hear of course) and left as quickly as I could.
I was pretty tired that night at the end, us moms, we shut that mo-fo down! We bitches be cool! So as I'm looking at my notes there are a few things I don't really remember, and sadly, I really wish I did:
Drunk sweaty guy doing the mosh pit
Near threesomes
White dudes and air guitar
Nike running tights
It's a mystery....but maybe when I go back, and I WILL GO BACK, to the scene of the crime I'll remember the rest. Or, as luck would have it I hope, I'll just have more material.
Signing off,
Maude, the menopausal dancing MACHINE
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Friday, March 15, 2013
Sweet blast from the past
At our house we're crossing off another rite of passage in growing up a girl: Kaylee got her very first diary today. I felt a heavy sigh as she ripped open the box with such gleeful anticipation. My heart sank, just a little bit, because now in her life, apparently there's a need to keep things secret.
My sweet boy, upon watching the spectacle began to cry. He's a pretty empathetic little dude so I assumed he was also mourning the loss of a small piece of Kaylee's little girl wonder. I pulled him on my lap, cradled him gently and asked what was wrong. His response? He was so worried about the things that a big sister would write in her diary about a little brother.
I giggled and explained that I almost never wrote anything in my diary about my brother. No, there were far too many other exciting and juicy details to write about besides my stinky, mean dork of an older brother.
To prove my point I ran upstairs and found said diary. My heart sank a bit, as the key that opens it was not anywhere to be found in my sock drawer. This I find most amusing because, really, WTF would I need to lock my childhood diary for? Geesh, I'm 40, married with two kids and there's nothing my hubs doesn't know about me. Or does he?
Fortunately for me time has not been kind to my locked diary and I was able to open it up far too easily. I think my brother greased the skids all those years I KNOW he was SECRETLY reading my diary. Surely it gave him all the ammo he could use to needlessly shame me in front of my friends (and his as it turns out).
Much like computers, diary technology has progressed far beyond what I could have envisioned as a young girl. My sad little broken golden key, long since missing, is no match for the VOICE RECOGNITION PASSWORD JOURNAL that my daughter now owns. This means that her voice and ONLY HER VOICE can access the diary. Oy.
But back to my diary. For me, it was like opening up a book to a past long forgotten (purposefully and also because of all the brain cells I killed in college with copious amounts of alcohol). I started to read some entries and found myself LAUGHING OUT LOUD at the crap I used to deem worthy of paper. I sincerely hope that my writing abilities have progressed far beyond what I found on those pages.
And because I found it all too funny I felt the need to share a couple entries with you. And I know I'm totally poking fun at a defenseless, insecure 8-10 year old child, be she was me and it's my God-given right to make fun of myself. So here you go:
3/13/1985: Dear Diary, Today I went to 93 Zoo FM and took a tour of it. I still haven't talked to Dwayne but I don't care. I'm going to Skatetown tomorrow. I hope Dwayne goes. REALLY HOPE! (this was double underlined btw). Well I better go. 'Bye.
3/14/1985: Dear Diary, Hi! I'm going skateing (that's how I spelled it!) in a few minutes! I can't wait! I hope Dwayne goes. Sort of. He's not cute anymore. Well I'd better go. Bye. Hello! Dwayne went but he didn't skate. He spent his money on video games. I'll leave you with this: Let's go surfin now, everybody's learning how, come on the safari with ME! Bye!
This is the kind of schizophrenic schmidt I found in that little pink diary of mine. First of all, Skatetown was a total meat market when I was a kid. You went hoping to see boys from your school and meet new boys from other schools.
You would certainly not feel any sort of worth unless someone asked you to skate, just like if no dude gave you the time of day at the Bistro. If you didn't get asked to skate on a doubles skate at all through the whole night, life was over, you were a total loser and very unpopular.
Skatetown was the singles bar of my adolescence. The only difference is that I was slightly shorter. All my memories of those days are a bit fuzzy (like bar hopping in my 20's) and the night was only a success if I got some digits.
The only other difference I can think of is that I didn't almost get arrested for passing out on a park bench in front of Skatetown, but I did almost in front of the Blues Bouquet, but that's another story for another time. Mom, you might want to skip that blog post....
If I could talk to little Amy from 1985 I would ask her what on earth could have happened to Dwayne in 24 hours that he was suddenly no longer cute? I can't for the life of me imagine, unless he got a bad haircut, had all his teeth punched out, or came to school covered in pimples. I've got nothing. And my diary is FILLED with so and so is cute, then so and so is so NOT cute.
I also could barely keep track of who was "going out" with who. As my Dad would say, it was a bit of a soap opera, lovingly titled "The Dumb and the Senseless" if you want to know the truth.
And I TOTALLY forgot that Randy Harless was my first boyfriend ever. He asked me to go with him, and I went with him for awhile, though I don't recall actually going anywhere, so I'm not sure how it all turned out.
Allegedly he was popular, which I find hard to believe because based on my entries I wasn't popular and no popular boys liked me as anything more than "friends". The story of my life. I actually though my first real boyfriend was someone entirely different, so I am super glad I found my diary to set the record straight.
I also found it humorous that even as a fifth grade girl I found it super annoying that a boy would choose to play video games than do something as exciting as skating. I mean really people. Video games?
And yet, as I type this, my husband and children are playing a video game of sorts on the iPad (a ghastly game called Plants versus Zombies) and I am still equally irritated over the choice of a video game.
In closing, I will be digging into this little gem of a find and posting more stuff to mock. Seriously people, it's a freaking GOLD MINE in there. If you find your diary and can bust it open, I certainly hope you find as much to laugh about, as I have in mine. At the end of the day, if we can't laugh at ourselves....then we haven't found our old diary.
And WTF is up with the "let's go surfin' now" thing anyway?
My sweet boy, upon watching the spectacle began to cry. He's a pretty empathetic little dude so I assumed he was also mourning the loss of a small piece of Kaylee's little girl wonder. I pulled him on my lap, cradled him gently and asked what was wrong. His response? He was so worried about the things that a big sister would write in her diary about a little brother.
I giggled and explained that I almost never wrote anything in my diary about my brother. No, there were far too many other exciting and juicy details to write about besides my stinky, mean dork of an older brother.
To prove my point I ran upstairs and found said diary. My heart sank a bit, as the key that opens it was not anywhere to be found in my sock drawer. This I find most amusing because, really, WTF would I need to lock my childhood diary for? Geesh, I'm 40, married with two kids and there's nothing my hubs doesn't know about me. Or does he?
Fortunately for me time has not been kind to my locked diary and I was able to open it up far too easily. I think my brother greased the skids all those years I KNOW he was SECRETLY reading my diary. Surely it gave him all the ammo he could use to needlessly shame me in front of my friends (and his as it turns out).
Much like computers, diary technology has progressed far beyond what I could have envisioned as a young girl. My sad little broken golden key, long since missing, is no match for the VOICE RECOGNITION PASSWORD JOURNAL that my daughter now owns. This means that her voice and ONLY HER VOICE can access the diary. Oy.
But back to my diary. For me, it was like opening up a book to a past long forgotten (purposefully and also because of all the brain cells I killed in college with copious amounts of alcohol). I started to read some entries and found myself LAUGHING OUT LOUD at the crap I used to deem worthy of paper. I sincerely hope that my writing abilities have progressed far beyond what I found on those pages.
And because I found it all too funny I felt the need to share a couple entries with you. And I know I'm totally poking fun at a defenseless, insecure 8-10 year old child, be she was me and it's my God-given right to make fun of myself. So here you go:
3/13/1985: Dear Diary, Today I went to 93 Zoo FM and took a tour of it. I still haven't talked to Dwayne but I don't care. I'm going to Skatetown tomorrow. I hope Dwayne goes. REALLY HOPE! (this was double underlined btw). Well I better go. 'Bye.
3/14/1985: Dear Diary, Hi! I'm going skateing (that's how I spelled it!) in a few minutes! I can't wait! I hope Dwayne goes. Sort of. He's not cute anymore. Well I'd better go. Bye. Hello! Dwayne went but he didn't skate. He spent his money on video games. I'll leave you with this: Let's go surfin now, everybody's learning how, come on the safari with ME! Bye!
This is the kind of schizophrenic schmidt I found in that little pink diary of mine. First of all, Skatetown was a total meat market when I was a kid. You went hoping to see boys from your school and meet new boys from other schools.
You would certainly not feel any sort of worth unless someone asked you to skate, just like if no dude gave you the time of day at the Bistro. If you didn't get asked to skate on a doubles skate at all through the whole night, life was over, you were a total loser and very unpopular.
Skatetown was the singles bar of my adolescence. The only difference is that I was slightly shorter. All my memories of those days are a bit fuzzy (like bar hopping in my 20's) and the night was only a success if I got some digits.
The only other difference I can think of is that I didn't almost get arrested for passing out on a park bench in front of Skatetown, but I did almost in front of the Blues Bouquet, but that's another story for another time. Mom, you might want to skip that blog post....
If I could talk to little Amy from 1985 I would ask her what on earth could have happened to Dwayne in 24 hours that he was suddenly no longer cute? I can't for the life of me imagine, unless he got a bad haircut, had all his teeth punched out, or came to school covered in pimples. I've got nothing. And my diary is FILLED with so and so is cute, then so and so is so NOT cute.
I also could barely keep track of who was "going out" with who. As my Dad would say, it was a bit of a soap opera, lovingly titled "The Dumb and the Senseless" if you want to know the truth.
And I TOTALLY forgot that Randy Harless was my first boyfriend ever. He asked me to go with him, and I went with him for awhile, though I don't recall actually going anywhere, so I'm not sure how it all turned out.
Allegedly he was popular, which I find hard to believe because based on my entries I wasn't popular and no popular boys liked me as anything more than "friends". The story of my life. I actually though my first real boyfriend was someone entirely different, so I am super glad I found my diary to set the record straight.
I also found it humorous that even as a fifth grade girl I found it super annoying that a boy would choose to play video games than do something as exciting as skating. I mean really people. Video games?
And yet, as I type this, my husband and children are playing a video game of sorts on the iPad (a ghastly game called Plants versus Zombies) and I am still equally irritated over the choice of a video game.
In closing, I will be digging into this little gem of a find and posting more stuff to mock. Seriously people, it's a freaking GOLD MINE in there. If you find your diary and can bust it open, I certainly hope you find as much to laugh about, as I have in mine. At the end of the day, if we can't laugh at ourselves....then we haven't found our old diary.
And WTF is up with the "let's go surfin' now" thing anyway?
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