The Perfect Movie Drinking Game

I have a deep love of drinking games. Really, what’s not to love? Drinking is great, games are fun, and combining those things results in hilarity. My family shares my appreciation, and as such many family events (including weddings) have been known to spontaneously erupt into Kings or 9-or-Not-9 parties. Even better though are movie drinking games. Those are my favorite by far.

In fact, I think movie drinking games are highly underappreciated. Disagree? Well, here are just a few reasons for why they’re the best kind of drinking game:

• They’re simple. You normally have a few rules and someone reminding the room when to drink. Games with far more complicated rule sets (like Kings) can be intimidating to drinking game newbies.
• They make up for crappy movies. Not everyone has the same movie taste. You may love The Departed but I hate cop movies and am overly fond of funny horror such as Cursed. It’s much easier to sit through a movie that you find otherwise uninteresting if there are drinking consequences on the table.
• They don’t require a lot of people. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve played The Lord of the Rings drinking game with a bunch of friends and that was a blast, but at the end of the day you can get away with only two people playing. Hell, if you’re comfortable with drinking solo, you can play drinking game movies by yourself (although I still say if you’re live-tweeting Sharknado with your friend and brilliant writer Erin at the time, it doesn’t count as being by yourself)

A good drinking game can make a movie. A bad movie drinking game doesn’t ruin it exactly, but they’re annoying nonetheless. While movie drinking games seem simple, I have come to the opinion that there is an art to crafting the perfect movie drinking game (MDG as we will call it from here on out). Since I’m generally a nice person I thought I would share my revelations with you, dear readers, so you can better suss out the best MDGs on your own.

It really all boils down to four principles. The ideal MDG is simple, virgin, consistent, and understood. That seems pretty easy, right? You’d be surprised. To further illustrate each principle, I will describe a MDG that failed at it. Bonus, I’ll even include links to the specific movie drinking game I played!

Simple – Speed Racer

I actually really, really liked this drinking game. We played it on a Thanksgiving morning and everyone had a blast. Of course, that’s because we modified it. The game actually has 13, yes, ***13*** rules. That’s far too many to keep track of! Especially once you’ve been drinking!

And actually, I think if you played with all 13 rules you might die. There is a ridiculous amount of drinking. The reason we enjoyed it so much was because we split the rules. So each person only had 3 individual rules they had to follow, and we all drank for the 13^th. A game doesn’t need to be limited to 3 rules, but I think anything with more than 7 is too much. 13 is excessive beyond all reason.

Virgin – The Room

Again, I had fun playing this one, but that’s because with The Room I didn’t really care about spoilers. Oh FYI, there’s about to be spoilers.

An ideal MDG should be okay for a virgin audience - not actual virgins, but people who haven’t watched the movie before. I had two large problems with this game. A lot of the rules state specific character names, such as “whenever Lisa and Claudette have a heart-to-heart.” Claudette is Lisa’s mother, but I don’t think she’s ever actually introduced with her name. At least not at first. To be fair, they might have said it later and I was too drunk to notice. The only reason I knew to drink was because my boyfriend had watched it already.

The other problem is that one of the rules is to take two shots when Johnny dies. Oh okay, we all now know that Johnny dies. Oops.

Consistent & Understood – American Pie 2

Occasionally you have rules that are tied to a certain scene, and that’s fine when they call it out. What doesn’t work is to have a rule that only shows up maybe 3 times in the entire movie, and you’re left trying to figure out if you missed instances, were playing it wrong, or if it was a stupid rule.

With the American Pie 2 game they either made a stupid rule, or didn’t explain it well. The rule is to take a drink when someone “mentions Tantra.” They literally only say Tantra 3 times in the entire movie. There are scenes that show things related to Finch’s Tantra obsession, but they don’t actually say it. Were you supposed to drink when anything related to Tantra happens? Because the rule says mention. Either they done messed up or it’s the worst rule ever. 3 drinks throughout an entire movie? Please, what is this a drinking game for your mom or something (note I said your mom, because my mom can crush any kind of drinking game)?

For the record, I fully support creating your own MDGs as well. I do it frequently. If you find yourself in a place where you need to make up your own rules, keep the simple, virgin, consistent, and understood requirements in mind and you are sure to succeed*! Success being measured by having fun and getting drunk, obviously. And while it goes without saying, you may want to make responsible decisions both on your drink of choice, and the number of movie drinking games you play in a row. Take it from someone who tried to do Jurassic Park right after The Room. Poor life decision right there. 

Have the perfect movie drinking game that meets all this criteria? Share it in the comments!

To Count or Not To Count

You can normally break weight-loss down into a pretty damn simple equation. To lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you take in. Seems easy enough, right?

Well, yes and no.

It can be incredibly hard to accurately track your caloric intake versus outtake. Yay for apps and #science and all that, but human beings are not robots that always have a standardized caloric burn rate set at the factory. There are averages, and they can be generally calculated by your height & weight, but those are still estimations. Think about those friends you know that can eat WTFever they want and still are skinny as a rail. Unless they have a stomach worm (ew) they probably have a higher metabolism, meaning they are naturally burning calories faster than you. Lucky bitches.

Before we start yelling at all the skinny people though, the point is actually that not only does caloric burn vary by person; it also varies for the same individual over the course of their life. Basically, it’s inconsistent.

Even if you can narrow down your daily caloric burn to a fairly accurate estimate, there are still external factors. What food you eat can rev or slow your metabolism. You can also burn additional calories through exercise or really any sort of activity that gets your heart rate up.

But let’s pretend that you figure that shit out pretty well too, and you start counting calories to make sure you’re falling under that caloric burn each day. You can eat whatever you want, right? A calorie is a calorie is a calorie.

If your only goal is to lose weight this actually isn’t false logic. That’s why people can do ridiculous things like only eat Chipotle for a year or go on the Twinkie diet and not gain all the weight in the world. I really think it should go without saying that this doesn’t mean it’s actually doing your body good. Most apps that offer caloric tracking also show you the macro calculations, so that you can make sure your calories aren’t all falling under the FAT portion of the chart. Different diets suggest different combinations of fat, protein, and carbs, but it’s pretty easy to edit your goals to stick to the diet you’re following.

So having said all that, assuming you have the knowledge and approach your caloric tracking the right way, I should be in favor of it. And hell, if it works for you, woot! Congrats! You do the thing!

But I don’t think it works for me.

What’s weird about this is again, if your only goal is weight-loss, I have to say tracking my food works in the sense that I LOSE WEIGHT LIKE A SONNABITCH! I first noticed then when I added food tracking to my jazzercise routine, and the pounds FLEW off. It was miraculous! It was justification! I looked great!

I felt awful. My perfectionist crazy went, well, crazy.

Here’s why I find calorie tracking problematic:

•  It’s a fun sucker. There is nothing better at killing the joy in life than to realize that your favorite macaroni and cheese is LITERALLY MORE CALORIES THAN YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO EAT IN A DAY. #TearsForYears
• It’s hard to be accurate, which makes it frustrating. Especially when you’re eating out. While restaurants are generally getting better at including calorie counts, you need to read the fine print. They rarely include the calories for additional parts of the meal. If you prefer to eat at local restaurants, good luck! And figuring out the calorie count for home-made meals is enough to ruin* the fun of cooking (I assume, I don’t actually find it fun in the first place so it’s really a shitty situation all around). In desperation you may turn to pre-prepared meals that gleefully announce their calories and nutrients on the package.  Your heart dies a little each day from the excess sodium. 
• It’s addictive. If you like lists (which clearly I do), tracking things, or are a little competitive, please do me a favor and don’t start counting calories. Staying under that daily goal becomes the new purpose of your life. Every time someone offers you food, all you think about is what it’s going to do to your count. In a few weeks of tracking I got to the point where the app I was using would give me alerts for eating too FEW calories in a day (oops).  

It’s all well and good to want to lose weight, and I think the best way to do so is an effective lifestyle change, but you should still be having a LIFE. Eat the delicious goodies occasionally. Have some wine. Enjoy your friend’s birthday without being *that* person asking to switch restaurants so you can get a certain salad with lean protein.

If you can do that while counting calories, as I said, more power to you! For me though, it’s a little too all-consuming. Really, this post is mainly a reminder to myself of why it would be a bad idea to bust out my app again and knock off those 10 pounds I want gone for the summer. General healthy eating and exercise when possible is the way to go!

Probably. I mean at the end of the day I’m not a nutritionist, just a gal that really likes to read fitness articles and post diet memes. 

24 Symptoms of a Fitbit Addict

I realized something. I have well and truly become addicted to my Fitbit. I was walking to the breakroom and hit the button to see how many steps I already had, when I saw the alert. The Fitbit was DEAD. There would be no tracking of steps that day. There would be no heart rate monitoring.

I went into a full out tizzy.

Now thankfully it happened that one of my coworkers had their charger on them. I immediately sat at my desk, stopped all movement, and plugged in my Fitbit. Then I thought about it. I couldn’t tell you the last time I didn’t wear my Fitbit other than the 30 minutes each morning when I take it off to shower (yes I am aware that I take long showers) and charge it. The only reason it was dead was because I am in the midst of moving and kept forgetting the charger at the wrong apartment.

Yet I don’t have many of the typical signs of Fitbit addiction. You see, I have given up on my step goal. Most Fitbit addicts plan their life around hitting that 10,000 step high each day. While I fell into this category when I first got my Fitbit, the past two years of struggle with my freaking busted knee of death and pain have completely changed my perspective. Somehow though, I’m still addicted. How do I know? Here are some signs of Fitbit addiction that have nothing to do with a step count:

1. You recognize other Fitbitters by their gear.
2. They recognize you too, because you never take your Fitbit off. Step count > fancy parties.
3. You can both do this, because even if they don’t have the same Fitbit as you, you have eyed up the other options on the website so many times that you can recognize any Fitbit model at a glance.
4. This is why you are also prone to long conversations with other Fitbitters about why you each choose your specific model and the pros/cons of each.
5. You actually open every email you get from Fitbit. Every. Single. One.
6. Because you NEED to know what new models and/or features are coming out.
7. Even if you’re not planning to buy a new Fitbit anytime soon, because remember, YOU ALREADY OWN ONE.
8. Actually at some point, you may have owned more than one Fitbit when you made the life-altering decision to switch models.
9. You’ve also have tracked your water intake.
10. You’ve tracked food too.
11. You have even logged exercises when Fitbit doesn’t recognize them. Cleaning DOES count because it’s an option.
12. You have planned your life around when you take your Fitbit off to charge it.
13. You do this to make sure the Fitbit NEVER DIES.
14. Because you know that if your steps/sleep/stairs weren’t getting registered, there would be no point to the day.
15. Which is why if you ever forget to put your Fitbit back on after charging, the whole day is ruined.
    
16. EVEN IF this was during a lazy day when you weren’t getting in a lot of activity. It doesn’t matter. You still want to know. Because charts.
17. You have used said charts as evidence that you didn’t sleep well and people should give you more caffeine/stop sucking at life.
18. If you have heart rate monitoring, you have used said charts as evidence that people are STRESSING YOU THE F*CK OUT.
19. Which speaking of f*ck, you have totally checked your charts to see if sex registers on them.
    
20. And if you have heart rate monitoring, you have looked to see if particularly noteworthy experiences have higher peaks. Giggity.
21. At least once you’ve shared a milestone on social media. To be clear, one of the badges Fitbit awards, not a sex-related-tracking milestone.
22. You get unduly excited when friends then get their own Fitbits.
23. You then proceed to judge them based on their weekly step count.
24. You also identify which friends you refuse to do challenges with, because those bitches would always win. 

1.      

A Neek Holiday Letter, Because

Dear friends, family, and random strangers,

What up, yo! As some of you (mainly the family) will recall, back in the day I used to send an annual Christmas letter. This was mainly because my mother forced me to, but it was totes popular regardless. No for realz. People loved that shiz.

Anywho, I started getting holiday cards this year and after a second of thinking “that’s so adorable why don’t I send them!” remembered that I only get stamps roughly once a decade and so jealously guard them for a slow, purposeful use over time. Also I don’t collect addresses. Also I’d have to write in cards, and my handwriting is atrocious and requires me to really concentrate since there’s no autocorrect. So I realized the next best thing was to create a “virtual” holiday card! Except not really a card, but more of a letter. This is basically an attempt for me to brag on what happened this year. Prepare yourself, because it’s super exciting.

Early on in the year, one of the posts from this blog went viral-ish. This was due to absolutely no effort on my behalf, which is the best kind of accomplishment. I celebrated for days. DAYS! People got a little sick of hearing about it. I have no regrets.

In May I visited my brother and went to the best laser tag place ever. I managed to scar my elbow and actually was the top performer for my team in MORE THAN ONE ROUND (I emphasize this, so you know it wasn’t a fluke).

This came at the cost of my knee pestering me for a few days, but overall the knee struggle has been not as real this year. I am knocking on so much wood right now. You have no idea. Of course all of my major bad knee days have been during vacation (visiting my brother, hitting Universal Studios, going wild in Vegas). Figures.

Speaking of vacation, this year I had what I have deemed the most traumatic experience of my life. I also got LASIK. More on the LASIK momentarily. What was my traumatic experience, you ask? THE FREAKING HARRY POTTER RIDE AT UNIVERSAL STUDIOS!! I screamed, I cried, I almost vomited. Never again.

In comparison, LASIK was crazy easy. Actually it just happened last week so don’t hold me to that if I accidentally blind myself during the continuing healing process. Sure, you can smell the laser burning out your eye and that’s mildly disturbing, but on the other hand now I CAN SEE. #worth

Other things you may have missed this year?

• I received the FUN award at my company this summer, along with some others last week I’m not quite as proud of (Most Likely To Need Rudolph’s Guidance Home After The Party and Most Likely To Bring Their Own Mistletoe).
• I completed NaNoWriMo again! If you have no idea what that means we clearly aren’t really friends, and you should read my friend Erin’sblog for some background.
• I created an Instagram account finally, which is mainly used for nail art. Baby, I was born to nail art. No really, this is like a secret skill I didn’t know I have. Yay for developing new skills!

Was there anything here you didn’t know about yet? Anything peak your interest for further blog writing? Let me know in the comments.

And may your holidays be bright and not filled with Star Wars spoilers! 

Clueless - 20 Years, 20 Questions

You may not have realized it yet, but as of today the movie Clueless turns 20 years old. Hello! It’s time to talk about the magic that is Clueless in honor of this epic day.

I don’t remember when I first saw Clueless, but I have watched it many, many times since. It has taught me important things about life such as:

·      There’s nothing wrong with being a control freak (“I felt impotent and out of control. Which I really, really hate. I had to find sanctuary in a place where I could gather my thoughts and regain my strength...”)

·      Pretty much anything in life is negotiable (“Well, some teachers are trying to low-ball me, Daddy. And I know how you say, "Never accept a first offer", so I figure these grades are just a jumping off point to start negotiations.”)

·      It’s okay to wait to sleep with a guy (“You see how picky I am about my shoes and they only go on my feet.”)

Yet as much as I adore this movie, I still have several questions that have never been answered. To celebrate the 20-year anniversary I thought I’d share these questions with you, my darling readers, because maybe someone out there actually has the answers!

Questions I still have about Clueless:

·      What the hell is the dress code for this school? In one of the first scenes there is a girl wearing a full suit to school. A suit! Who does that? Never mind the ridiculous amount of skin everyone shows. Not only tiny skirts, but bare midriffs. This makes me sad that I can’t wear a tiny plaid skirt to work with over the knee stockings and have it be acceptable. Unfair!

·      How did Cher not realize that Elton wanted to jump her bones? No, really. He’s touching her all the time. He kisses her multiple times. I admit, when he asks for Tai’s picture that could throw her off a little but the overall evidence points towards him liking Cher. Now having just said that, I feel ridiculously hypocritical since I’m oblivious myself, but damnit Cher! You’re supposed to know things!

·      What the hell is the dinner protocol at Cher’s house? I cannot follow how it works. Is dinner at a set time? Why do Cher and Josh snack right before dinner? Does one person just realize dinner is ready and then yell at the others? Maybe I’m just confused because dinner in my house could be anytime between the hours of 5 to 11 at night, so having some sort of scheduled dinner seems odd.

·      How bad are these cheerleaders that they accidentally flash people while practicing? Oh what, you never noticed that? Why are they not wearing some sort of cheer shorts? Did Bring It On lie to me that this was a thing?

·      How does Lucy fit in Cher’s clothes? Cher tells Josh that she donates expensive outfits to Lucy, the maid. Lucy is short and squat. Cher is not. Assuming the clothes don’t fit, what does Lucy do with them? Sell them? Give them to somebody?

·      What the hell time of year does this movie start? It can’t be at the end of the semester, because Christian is supposed to spend one semester at each school, and he doesn’t show up until mid-movie. I assumed the grades were for the first quarter, but if you look at the report card when Cher gets her grades updated, the report period it says it’s for is the entire first semester. Yet when Cher and her dad discuss it they say it’s for the same semester and start talking about midterms and what not. WHAT IS HAPPENING? WHY ISN’T CHRISTIAN AT SCHOOL YET?!

·      How did Cher and Dionne end up with food at lunch, without going through line with Tai? Why did Tai have to get their pop? Also is Tai drinking both diet coke and milk? At the same lunch? Aw god that has to be a gross combination.

·      Why does Elton put the picture of Tai in his locker? I understand that this is from Emma, and in Emma he takes a picture that she painted. In Clueless all Cher did was point the camera and take a picture. That doesn’t require skill. I don’t understand. Is this only to create the confusion that maybe Elton does like Tai?

·      Why does Cher let Tai sit in the wrong seat at dinner? If your father always sits there, and you know he scares people, why set up your friend to piss him off immediately? It seems rude.

·      Who shaves their head in the middle of a party? No seriously, who in the middle of a party, at a stranger’s house, uses their razor and shaves their head?

·      Again, WHAT THE HELL TIME OF YEAR IS THIS?! If we assume they are in the second semester based on the report card and discussions above, why are they talking about taking yearbook photos?!? Isn’t that a beginning of the year thing?

·      So when Cher gets her phone stolen, she calls Josh. Why doesn’t she call Dionne? She says it’s because she doesn’t know the number of the party. Ok, that is probably true, but doesn’t she know Dionne’s cell? She knows the number for Josh’s dorm room and he’s had that phone number a half year at most. It’s not like Dionne doesn’t have her cell phone on her. Please, these girls even have their cells at gym class. I’m pretty sure she subconsciously just wanted a reason to call Josh.

·      “If I’m too good for him, how come I’m not with him?” Yes, this is a question they ask in the movie, but nobody ever answers it, and I’m pretty sure we have all continued to ask this at some point in our own lives.

·      How awkward is it that Cher tries to seduce Christian in her debate class, when Elton sits right behind her, and she just turned him down? I know Elton’s a jerk, but I do feel slightly bad for him. He’s stuck sitting behind her and watching her get flowers, and candy, and wear super revealing outfits… poor guy. Did this really never occur to Cher? Is she just ignoring Elton?

·      Why exactly did Tai come to the party when Cher’s out with Christian? Why didn’t Dionne? It seems rude to invite Tai when going with Christian on what Cher thinks is a date. Is that why Tai is in such an odd party outfit? Did Cher make her wear that so she’d could be there on the date but also be a non-threat? And if she notices that Tai is feeling left out, why not have her come over and dance with her and Christian?

·      Also, if this party is Josh’s friends, why are Elton and Amber there? Who the hell invited them? How would they know about the party? They are the only other people from Cher’s school that are there. I assume this is just so the movie can make Tai feel bad about life.

·      What time is Josh’s mom calling the house looking for him? It’s after the party and it seems late at night. She really calls up her ex’s house at like midnight or later to talk to her son? I mean maybe if it was an emergency, but this seems like a casual call. Also, is Josh the only person in this movie that doesn’t have a cell phone? No wait, he does, we saw it earlier.

·      Why does Josh for even a second think that Cher somehow passed the driver’s test? He’s been in the car with her. He knows how she drives. Maybe he thought she’d talk them into it, which is kind of scary.

·      How does Tai know to come to the ASL thing? It doesn’t seem like her and Cher were talking at this point. We haven’t seen her in any scenes since she was “way harsh.” We know she wasn’t talking to Travis anymore. Is she psychic? Did Dionne tell her?

·      How did I never notice before that the wedding at the end is held at Cher’s house? Also, who invites your teacher to have their wedding at your house? That seems incredibly weird, but I guess that’s par for the course for Cher. I wondered why she was a bridesmaid. I mean, in theory they don’t know she hooked them up. It’s probably because they’re using her house. It all makes sense now!

Despite the many questions, Clueless is still one of my go-to movies. I don’t know how one can watch it without feeling better about fashion and life. It also is now a fabulous movie for the “drink whenever something is outdated” game. Happy 20^th, Clueless!

37 Signs You May Love Books A Little Too Much

1. You have books stacked in front of books and are still running out of room on your shelves.

2. You are also running out of room on your counter.

3. And your table.

4. You are slightly in love with a fictional character.

5. You have cried over the death of a fictional character.

6. Pretty much all of your #friendshipgoals come from fictional characters.

7.  For that matter, most of your #relationshipgoals do too.

8. You have been known to lose track of time in a bookstore.

9. And in a library.

10.  And in bed when a good book is involved, which has probably resulted in more lost sleep than your entire sexual history so far.

11. You’ve ignored a call once or twice (or more) in order to finish reading the paragraph you’re on.

12. Two hours later, you realize you still haven’t checked nor returned the call because you kept reading.

13. Sometimes, you don’t even hear the call in the first place because you’re just so into the book.

14.  Several of your books have food stains from reading while you eat, because you can’t bear to stop.

15. They also have water stains, from reading in the bathtub.

16. One or two may also have lipstick stains because…. well that one is a long story.

17. You have ended friendships with people who refuse to return borrowed books.

18. You have ended relationships with people that say reading is “a waste of time when you could be out there, living life.”

19. When visiting friends, you have been known to become so intrigued with books you find at their house that you have to borrow them.

20. That’s the best-case scenario. You have also been known to visit a friend, find an interesting book at their house, and start reading then and there.

21. Three hours later you realize it’s three hours later and you’ve been completely ignoring your friend.

22. They may have even gone to sleep at this point. You don’t know until you start searching for them.

23. Amazingly enough they are actually okay with this, because you’ve done it before and they’re awesome enough to be understanding of your book problem.

24. Almost everyone you know has gotten you a book for a present at some point.

25. Or a gift card for a bookstore.

26. All of your good friends know there is at least one book (if not more) that they should never, ever mention unless they want to hear you rant about it for hours.

27. Actually, several of your coworkers know that too.

28.  In fact, so do some of the random people that you see every day on your commute.

29. Your ideal vacation is going to the beach, because then people are cool with you spending most of the day reading.

30. You love rainy days for the same reason.

31. Also winter… basically anything that can be an excuse to stay in with your books.

32. If you didn’t need to get food and more books, you might never leave the house.

33. You legitimately like books clubs.

34. For the book discussion, not for the food and wine.

35. You love jokes about how much people love books.

36. You also started a blog mainly to convince people that reading should be a sport.  

37. And to give you an online forum for all of your book rants.

The Truth About Short Hair

Bye hair!

Some of you may remember that last year I had an internal and then external debate over whether or not to cut my hair short.  In the end I decided to risk it (YOLO!) and go short.

Of course prior to making that decision I did tons of research. I read quite a few blogs and articles about things to know and what the experience would be like. Since I’ve now had short hair for almost a year, and consider myself a fount of knowledge for life in general, I decided the nice thing to do would share my personal revelations on the experience.

Brace yourselves.

Short hair!

I was leaning towards a pro/con list, but have decided on a different approach. We shall go through various life events, compare the long hair to short hair experience, and pick the winner for that category.

Let’s start with the obvious one…

MAINTENANCE

Long Hair Experience – for me, long hair was super easy. I could wash it at night, braid it for bed, and go a few days (assuming I didn’t jazzercise) before I had to wash it again. Bad hair days could be hidden with a ponytail or a twist. I could skip haircuts with no drawbacks except maybe some split ends, which I sometimes fixed myself.

Short Hair Experience - I find maintaining my short hair much more effort. I can skip a haircut but it’s going to do interesting things. If I run out of product I’m screwed. If I buy the wrong product I’m screwed sideways. If I don’t wash it, or at least get it wet every day, I look like an unkempt boy.

WINNER: I think it’s pretty obvious that LHE is the winner here.

COLOR

Short Hair Experience – I almost dyed of shock (dyed… get it?? HAHAHA) when I could get away with one box of hair dye. I don’t have to pay extra at the salon anymore. It doesn’t take hours to wash the dye out. It’s glorious!! Hell, I should dye my hair more. What am I doing this weekend…

Long Hair Experience – egad I don’t even want to get into it! Years of my life are gone trying to get dye through my ridiculously thick hair. YEARS. AND MONEY. SO MUCH MONEY.

Winner: SHE, for realz.

REACTIONS

Long Hair Experience – people loved my hair long. To a somewhat unsettling level. They also seemed to feel like they had a weird right to touch my hair. Strangers would come up and stroke it. True story. It’s weird.

Short Hair Experience – some people love my hair short, but there are also very emphatic others that can’t stop saying “I liked your hair long better.” In fact, people seem to feel like they have a weird right to remark on my hair choice now that it’s short. It’s not uncommon for strangers to helpfully suggest “but you’d be so much prettier if your hair was long,” or “guys would like you better with long hair.” They don’t touch it though, so that’s nice.

Winner: I’m going to call this one a tie.

EXERCISE

Long Hair Experience – fuck the world if you forget a hair tie before working out. Seriously, it’s the worst.

Short Hair Experience – there are some layers near my face that get in my eyes and are obnoxious, but otherwise it’s ridiculously easy to work out and to wash my hair afterwards.

Winner: SHE is the obvious leader here.

DANCING

Short Hair Experience – it is kind of nice to not have a bunch of heavy, sweaty hair on my neck.

Long Hair Experience – however, there’s nothing quite like tossing your hair every which way. I actually miss my long hair the most when I’m dancing.

Winner: LHE, oddly enough.

BED

Long Hair Experience – I actually slept with my hair in a braid at night, because otherwise I woke up tangled in my own hair. While this is a little annoying, on the other hand there is something incredibly sensual about getting ready for bed with long hair. That moment when you take off your clothes and your hair brushes your bare back… amazing.

Short Hair Experience – um, there’s really not much to say. I go to bed. I wake up. My hair is disheveled and not as adorable but it’s not a life ruiner. In fact, it’s quite nice overall.

Winner: SHE, but there are definitely things about the LHE I miss a bit.

“BED” (otherwise known as SEX)

Long Hair Experience – I just said that the mere act of sleeping tangled my hair. Now imagine sex. Imagine trying to unravel those knots the next day (because who goes “time out! I need to do something about my hair!” I mean I have, but it definitely dampens the mood). No really, imagine it. Imagine every time you lean over and there’s a cloud of hair in your face. Imagine trying to cuddle and it getting stuck to another sweaty body. Are you horrified yet?

Short Hair Experience – much, MUCH better than long hair, to say the least.

Winner: Seriously like it could be anything other than SHE.

So if we count them up… long hair has two wins, short hair has four, and we have one tie. This probably explains why I’ve been in no hurry to grow my hair back.

A word to the wise though. If you are talking to me, or really to any person that recently cut their hair short, do not, for the love of anything you hold holy, DO NOT ask me if I’m “ever going to grow my hair long hair again??” I consider this the world’s stupidest question. Assuming I don’t actually die at 30, I have many, many years of life ahead of me. How can I even possibly know what I’ll want to do with my hair five years from now? Ten years from now? Fifteen? You see where I’m going with this, so save us both the trouble and don’t ask stupid questions.

It’s All About Finding the Right Stripper

In the course of events over lunch, I was talking about movies and said something like “a lot of my favorite movies have strippers in them.” This statement stayed in my head during the day. The more I thought about it, the more I realized it was true. I’m not entirely sure what that means. Does this say something about me as a person? Let’s pretend it doesn’t.

But I thought it would only be fair to share with you some of these fabulous movies. I was going to rank them but had a really tough time doing so. They’re all good for various reasons. Then as I thought about it, I realized that’s the best part! Even looking at just my 4 favorite stripper movies, you have a movie to cover EVERY POSSIBLE MOTIVE FOR WATCHING A MOVIE!!

Okay, that’s an exaggeration, clearly, as some of you have all sorts of different motives and moods than me, but there’s still a nice range available. Again, that’s counting only my favorite stripper movies. I’m not even including more famous and obvious ones like Showgirls, Flashdance, or The Full Monty. So here follows a few sample moods for watching a movie, and the appropriate stripper movie for that moment.

Mood 1: “Seriously I need to non-stop laugh.” -> We’re The Millers

This movie is more mainstream than some of the others so you probably heard of it before, maybe even watched it before. And why not, it’s fantastic! The cast includes Jennifer Aniston, Jason Sudeikis, Emma Roberts, and Nick Offerman just to name a few.

The stripper in this movie is Jennifer Aniston. The fact that I actively dislike Jennifer Aniston and still love this movies speaks to both its comedy, and how well she does feisty stripper Rose.

Best scene: the full first kiss scene, without a doubt.

Mood 2: “I really just want to watch people pulverize the crap out of each other in a completely unrealistic fashion.”   -> Bitch Slap

You probably wouldn’t recognize any of the main cast, but this move (a steal from the $5 bin) includes cameos from Kevin Sorbo, Lucy Lawless, and Renee O’Connor. It also would work for the “let’s watch a lot of hot women show off their body and have everyone be a lesbian” viewing crowd, if such a crowd exists.

The stripper for this one is named Trixie, and played by Julia Voth. By the end of the movie she is my favorite character there!

Best scene: hmm, it’s a toss between the very end, and the church confession scene.

Mood 3: “Right now I need a romance movie that doesn’t make me hate everyone with its unrealistic perfection and ridiculous glamorized kissing and sex scenes.” -> My Awkward Sexual Adventure

If you haven’t seen this before it’s currently on Netflix. I randomly discovered it a few weeks ago. None of the actors were particularly noteworthy to me except that Emily Hampshire was in another Netflix find from the fall: The Returned.

Julia may be my favorite stripper so far in life. It’s a very close tie with our final stripper. Emily Hampshire is so different from the only other role I’ve seen her in that I have to commend the performance. Okay yes, that’s a really narrow data set to make a judgment on, but screw you. It’s amazing. And awkward. And amazing. This movie also prompted a very long conversation around corsets (which we all know I love).

Best scene: The fruit. I think it’s cantaloupe? I don’t really know fruit. I know what is both amusing and kinda sexy though. *cue growl and claw swipe motion*

Mood 4: “Please warm the cockles of my heart. Also have strippers. And Hugh Jackman.” -> Butter

 I saved the best for last! I love this movie. I love this movie in ways you cannot even imagine. A ridiculous number of stars are in it, but clearly Hugh Jackman is the one that matters. It’s heartwarming, and funny, and raunchy, and ridiculous all at the same time. Why am I not watching this right now!? What am I doing with my life!?? Ooo, now I know what I’m doing tomorrow…

Olivia Wilde plays stripper Brooke, as I said above potentially my favorite stripper ever. Every time she opens her mouth she says something that makes me cackle. My personal favorite, “So you want a cookie ‘cause you’re going to get pregnant? I get pregnant, like, once a month!!”

Best scene: wow, I am having an incredibly hard time picking one! I keep second-guessing myself because IT’S ALL SO GOOD.  Okay, okay, twist my arm, and I’d probably say… when the contestants all explain their sculptures. Oh the LOLz. 

So those are my favorite stripper movies! Definitely share if you have other favorites, or if you also agree with these picks!

Idiot Cook Struggles

For 2015 I did not come up with any rules or resolutions or anything like that, but I have been using the new year as a time to start fresh with cooking more at home and less eating out. Since my family has also started our weight loss competition again, I’m trying to pair that with more low calorie recipes. It helps that I found the best website ever. Everything I’ve made so far has been delicious, and I already lost a bunch of the extra weight and slight pudge put on over the holidays.

I promise this is not a post where I’m going to crow about how skinny and fabulous I am while you’re not. Actually, this is a post where I’m going to share some of my secret life struggles that will probably make you feel better about yourself as a person.

I’m nice like that.

Here’s the conflict in this happy little story: I am not good at cooking. I do not like cooking. I never really properly learned the basics of cooking.

My mother is an amazing cook. My brother is an amazing cook. A cook to me is someone who can throw random ass ingredients together and wind up with something tasty. In order to cook almost anything I need a recipe to follow, and even then I wind up with difficulties.

Now all my attempts this year have turned out pretty well, but it’s been quite a challenge. So in an effort to prove that ANYBODY can cook (with a recipe, don’t even talk to me about culinary geniuses like my friend Jenn that whip up random food at the drop of a hat. They’re ruining the curve), I decided to list some of my issues the past two week that normal cooks take for granted. Let’s call them the Idiot Cook Struggles.

Idiot Cook Struggle #1 – Where the hell do I find that??

I was immensely proud of myself because instead of wandering the grocery store and grabbing what looked good (and probably fattening), I made an exact list of what was needed for each recipe and then planned the time to go shopping. I felt empowered, I felt invigorated.

Then I got to the store.

At least half of the ingredients I needed I have never purchased before in my life. I spent at least 20 minutes lost in the produce department, trying to find things like chives and debating whether the red pepper was supposed to be in that weird shape, or if that meant it was bad.

It didn’t get any better when I left produce. I walked up and down aisle after aisle with no understanding of where one would find breadcrumbs (I felt like it should be with the bread. It was not). I am morally opposed to asking people for help, so despite the fact that I walked into the store knowing exactly what I was going to buy, it took me almost 2 hours. 2 HOURS

Idiot Cook Struggle #2 – What’s in a name?

I wrote down EXACTLY what the recipes said for each ingredient, thinking that would make it easier.

Wrong again.

Apparently many items of food go by multiple names. And one is just supposed to know that. Eventually I started making assumptions. Most likely “baby bellas” are the same as “sliced baby portabella mushrooms.” That seems logical. Whether or not skim milk and fat free milk were the same thing did throw me for a temporary loop. And let’s not even talk about things like chickpeas which can randomly be called garbanzo beans on various cans.

This happens with the proportions of a recipe too. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out whether a “stalk of celery” meant an actual stalk, or the whole thing of celery. Google wasn’t helpful either as I found examples leaning both ways, and the overall decision was “use your judgment of what makes sense for the recipe.”

Damnit people, if I knew what made sense I wouldn’t be following a recipe!

Idiot Cook Struggle #3 – Chop, Chop

One of the main reasons I hate cooking is that I royally suck at chopping things. I refuse to chop when anyone is watching because you can literally hear the intake of breath as they become convinced I’m about to lose one of my fingers.

Which I still have all 10, thank you very much.

I find chopping instructions to be nonsensical. What is this “diced” versus “minced” you speak of, and how do I accomplish that? When you say “small slice” what is that small in comparison to? If the recipe calls for “cubes” are somewhat rectangular shapes okay?

Then to my astonishment, as I was looking through the knife section (all my knives are dull, and I’m not even sure how one goes about sharpening them or if I have the necessary tools for that) I saw a set that marked one knife for veggies, one for fruit, and one for tomatoes. Are you really supposed to be using different knives for different types of chopping?? I have one knife I use to chop, some paring knives I use if it’s dirty, a bread knife, and some big cleaver-ish type knife I generally ignore but my friend Jenn has used. Actually I think I have a few other knives but I ignore them too as I don’t understand their purpose.

So it’s possible I’m doing it even more wrong than I thought.

But despite these struggles I impressed myself this weekend with some AMAZING chicken pot pie soup, and broccoli mac & cheese. Last weekend I was pretty happy with petite turkey meatloaf and a loaded cauliflower mash thingy. Next weekend? Who knows.

What’s the moral of the story? Any idiot can (kinda) learn to cook (things based on a recipe) and have it turn out pretty good (but probably totally different from when a real chef makes it, and that’s okay).