The Oompa Loompa Bridesmaidzilla

I think back on my life and all I've been through, and realize it's not normal. Everyone has their hardships, and I'm hardly saying my life compares to the tragedy that a lot of people are feeling and experiencing. I wouldn't trade a moment of what I've been through for anything, because it's all been a learning process. If I could have anything be different, I would only want for my grandfather to still be here with me. There's nothing I've done or have had happen that I regret so much that I'd want to take it all back.

There is never going to be an easy path to take in life. Even for those people with everything handed to them on a silver platter, you don't know their life. Maybe they seem like they have it all, but friend them, and you'll often find out they don't. There's always those few lucky little jerks who truly do just have the best darn luck, but I guess that's not really their fault, so I won't go on a random rant blaming them and plotting to steal all their luck. I'm sure that would not only be impossible, but lose me some karma points.

There are days where you will find the right thing to do is far from the easiest, but please don't cave. You're worth more than that. There will be paths that tempt you to cave along the way, especially in this day and age with all the social networking and what not. It makes for too easy access to things. But don't be pulled in, because it's not worth it. Regret is the worst roommate you can live with. They just sit around, nagging you all the time, bringing you down, and they don't cook their own food or clean up the bathroom when they inevitably miss. Losers.

What I'm trying to say is to just stay strong. There will always be that song on the radio that will make you cry, regardless of your mood. There will always be those days that remind you of something or someone that is responsible for your scars. There will always be an always, and that's when it's okay to pair it with a never. Never turn your back on yourself and know that part of living is feeling everything, so let yourself feel it. It's okay to have walls, hell, I'm the queen of them, but that doesn't mean you have to keep them from doing what is best for you, as long as you do it in a responsible way. You are amazing, so just be amazing you. Being anybody else just isn't worth it.

And now that I've gotten the heartfelt, advice giving part of this blog out of the way, I don't want to bring down the room too much. I feel like sometimes I give speeches, and that's not my intention. Therefore, I shall grace you with things I've learned and weird shit that has happened, and I felt it necessary to post on Twitter. It's like my little reminder log of crap I want to talk about on my blog. I will do a post of just pictures later, because boy do I love my Twitter pictures. For those of you who follow me on Twitter, all those weird posts will now be explained. I'm sorry in advance.

Also, I've been a bit absent because I am busy as all heck writing that novel and working on some stories for my amazing online readers. My head, it's going to explode. I'm sure this blog will reflect that with my schizo thoughts from Twitter, which is an accomplishment, considering I am not schizo. But without further ado...

* For those of you who watch Ghost Adventures, am I the only one who thinks they need a female to go with them? They are afraid of the weirdest stuff. If a woman were there, the men would be running down the hall, while the woman stood there, confused and befuddled about why three large men are running from some little banging noise in the dark. They're grown men. Shouldn't they know all about banging noises in the dark? I mean, I love the show and all, but as someone who deals with the paranormal on a daily basis, I think I'm qualified to laugh a little, right?

* For years we've joked that Gary Busey must have some kind of head injury to act that messed up. Turns out he really does. Who knew? Now I feel like a jerk. An unintentionally and slightly snarky correct jerk, but a jerk anyway.

* Show of hands, how many of you saw Bringing Ashley Home? Oh, wait, it's the internet, I can't see your hands. Put them down. I know my readers and you all put your hands up. Aww, that's why I love you all. Anyway, wasn't it an amazing movie? Such a heartbreaking true story, yeah? Plus, why is it that AJ Cook is so classy and amazing in everything she does? She can come back to Criminal Minds anytime now. Stupid people who decided not to renew her contract, I do not like you. Why you no let AJ stay?

On the same note, check out Outpost For Hope, which was started by the real Libba Phillips when her sister Ashley went missing.

* Team Chelsea! What am I talking about, you ask? Dancing With the Stars, of course. Most people don't know Chelsea Kane, but being the twenty-five-year-old sixteen-year-old that I am, I've adored her for years as Chelsea Staub on the Disney Channel. I'm all kinds of rooting for her talented little self. How about you guys? Any favorites? Or am I really the only one in my age group that watches it? Because that seems to be the consensus. I'm okay with being that lame.

* On the same note, I love Kirstie Alley and sadly expected her to not be all that great, but she is awesome and rocking it! You go, girl!

* I have a rockin' bridesmaid story for y'all. A few weeks back, I went with my friend and two of her other friends to help her pick out a bridesmaid dress for a wedding. This is kind of one of those stories within a story, because the bride initially told her she could get any shorter styled dress she wanted as long as it was in the color Guava. Then the bride reneged and told her she had to get this certain dress that was expensive and looked like the eighties threw up on it and didn't fit anyone correctly. With a little bit of back and forth, the bride went back to her original thought. Enter us dress shopping.

Somehow it came about that the bride decided at the last minute that she wanted the same monstrosity of a dress again for all the girls. My friend, being the good little seasoned bridesmaid that she is and trying to beat out Catherine Heigl for the new girl of 27 Dresses, she decided she could make this work. Then she put the dress on. You guys, there are no words to describe how horrendous this dress was on. It was truly one of those that looked one hundred times more putrid on the person than on the hanger, and how many times does that happen, really? Not only was it obvious that the dress was made extremely on the cheap and poorly, having little plastic sparkles on it instead of beads, but I'm not sure who they made it to fit. It was an unusual length, the waist cut off right at the va-jay-jay, which is just disgustingly strange, had no boob support, but dipped really low in the back so there was no way you could wear a bra. And it just fit funny. Even with alterations, there wasn't a lot they could do to correct it because it was put together so poorly. And they wanted over a hundred bucks for this piece of junk...well over.

We took a picture of her in the dress and sent it to the bride and everyone else we could think of, including our moms. Everyone was hysterical over how bad this thing was; that's right, it wasn't even a dress, just a thing. The bride, however, thought it looked fine. To prove that it looked awful on everyone, we had three people of drastically different sizes with us that day, and one girl who was the same size as the bridesmaid. The two of us that were different sizes also went and put on the dress. We looked like a swarm of clown-like Oompa Loompas, and please just tell me how hard that is to accomplish, because trust me honey, Oompa Loompa is not an easy thing to be. The bride still insisted they were fine. We insisted we invent a Bridesmaidzilla, but my friend handled it with poise and grace, even though we were fuming enough for eight people, because now we were in the dresses to prove a point. Apparently the point ended up being that the bride was blind.

This brought on possibly the strangest and most gobsmacked two hours one could have imagined. It started in phone calls to the bride, then to the bride's stepmother, and then in the bride calling the stepmother and hanging up on both her and my friend. It ended in my friend no longer being in the wedding by choice. She was given the ultimatum, buy the dress or get out. The dresses were so bad and the bride so badly behaved over several things that had nothing to do with the dress, that so many weeks later she's still sure she made the right decision.

* I decided that if I continue to be as tired as I've been since my crappy medication messed me up, that I will have no other choice than to declare that the retirement home is trying to recruit me. I'm just not ready to go there yet.

* I came home the night after the bridesmaid dress debacle, being recruited to the old folk's home and found that Aunt Bev was here. She and my mom were filling out papers for a mobile medical check that they were going to go to. My mom filled out her end of the paperwork and handed it to Aunt Bev, who was going to send it in. Aunt Bev proceeds to read the following.

"Birth date: December 1, 2011. You're not even alive yet!"

And I wonder where I get my absentmindedness from.

* I was in the doctors office for the hoard of ear problems I've been having lately. There was this cute little seventy something lady who was there with someone that I'm guessing was her daughter. I'm guessing this because the lady was literally an encyclopedia of Hugh Jackman knowledge, and I don't know who else would stick around for that. She was all kinds of awesome, though. She knew all the movies he did, and not only that, but the reasons why, too. She even knew why he was unable to attend the Oscars and everything else. Can we say stalker cougar?

* I've threatened to sing the weather campfire songs several times in the past few weeks. Yep, that's how our weather rolls, and that's how I roll to try to get it back. It's useless to fight with weather, though, because it's ultimately run by Mother Nature, and since she and Father Time broke up, she's been a bit cranky.

* If we never make it as the "Storm of the Day" on The Weather Channel again, it will be too damn soon. I can not repeat that enough.

* Late and random, but RIP Elizabeth Taylor. The first movie I ever saw her in was National Velvet, and she sustained her career for all of those years. She will always be a true legend.

* I've learned over time that watching Ghost Adventures immediately makes me hungry for chocolate. I don't know why this is. My friend, Non-Bridesmaidzilla, decided that eating chocolate during that show was a direct reference to the hot guys on that show. I adore the guys on that show, but I don't think Non-Bridesmaidzilla and myself are watching the same show. I just like chocolate.

* The line that made my month: "Dude, you can not sit here alone in a car. You'll be picked up for mopery with the intent to creep." I love you, Psych.

* People of Wal-mart, I repeat, People of Wal-mart, the aisles are not driving lanes. You can go around me, as opposed to riding me so close that you should have to buy me dinner and mumbling about how I need to walk faster when we're the only ones in the aisle. Go around me. There's plenty of room. I'm not the stupid one here.

* Our cat thinks she's a dog and goes out into the dog pen with our dogs, and then scratches at the door when she wants in. I wonder if there's therapy for cats having an identity crisis.

* I was trying to help my mom figure out what comes across properly and doesn't in texts so that she doesn't accidentally send something inappropriate to one of her clients in all of her technology ineptness. She then texted me, "up yours." Needless to say, I don't think she understood the lesson.

* If you know where Alivia Christine Kail is, please call the police. All the information about her and how to do it is here. Seriously, even if you just think you see her, call. She's not Waldo and this isn't really funny. People are missing her and no one knows where she could have gone. Help if you can.

* I sent this video to way too many people to make it kind. But seriously, the funniest thing in the world to me is people falling. I do it all the time, so I think it's fair that I laugh at others when they do, and I welcome them to laugh at me. This video not only has people falling, but large men falling, sometimes by their own stupidity, which is even funnier. One guy (eh hem, Zak), even falls while reading bad poetry he wrote himself for a ghost, because he was not paying attention. No, I can't make this shit up. Why do you ask?

And I should probably clarify that falling is only funny if no one is hurt. If someone is hurt, I refrain from the laughter.

* Just monkeying around. @(*.*)@ Yep, I went there.

* Why did no one tell me about a glorious little show called Hellcats? You all know I'm basically sixteen at heart, and I feel like I dropped the ball on this one. I expected it to be some show about cheerleaders with no substance. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against cheerleaders. I was a flyer myself once, but it just seems like shows never understand how hard cheerleaders work, and the shows about them end up being kind of ditzy. This one has serious heart, and now that I'm finally caught up, I'm so sad I don't have more episodes to watch and have to wait for the new ones. It's a hard knock life. I kid about that last part, of course.

* I posted that I had to get out of a vaporizer to break up a cold I had, and that I was pretty sure that was one of those problems white people have. Folks, my black friend confirmed that my suspicions are correct. He would have just boiled water in a pan and stood over it. I love my friend.

* People who work for our state are all kinds of special. I was talking to a very nice woman on the phone and explicitly asked her if she needed paperwork from December. She told me no. Sure enough, a week later I got a snarky worded little letter in the mail about how we had talked about this, and I didn't alert her that I had paperwork from December, but I needed to send it. Somewhere, someone crossed a few wires in her brain, but at least she's not eating too many bitch cookies like the Social Security lady. She was a joy.

* Sometimes typing late at night is not a good idea. While working on my novel, I ended up with a very inappropriate typo that I was tempted not to fix. Instead of saying, "She didn't want to give away his horror and his pain," I typed, "She didn't want to give away his horror and his pants." I would hope she wouldn't be giving away someone's pants. Darn you, dirty story character. You weren't meant to be written that way.

* Gay guys are a girl's best friend. You can't deny it.

* I love my grandfather. I will always love my grandfather to the day I die and beyond. But he was a huge golf fan, and I just can't see the point in watching golf, other than if I need assistance falling asleep. I do, however, wonder what would happen if a small animal jumped out and scared the heebies out of a golfer. I'd watch that.

* While going through some of the area that I hadn't been since the tornado hit, we found a billboard that had been knocked over in the storm. It was advertising a business that could help you if you had an accident. That sign needs to call that business. Even nature knows and appreciates irony.

* I'm so confused about something. I adore Panic! at the Disco. It's also fitting with Brendon's personality that the exclamation mark came back. Brendon has consistently been one of the stronger male singers in a world of Justin Biebers, so color me shocked when I realized that all this time that he had been singing songs Ryan Ross wrote, he was amazing. Now that he's writing his own songs, he can't sing them live to save his life. How does that happen? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying he's bad, but compared to how I'm used to him sounding with clean and strong vocals, it's a little jarring.

But, you guys, what is up with his hair? I get that he's losing it. I do, but this is like some newfangled old man comb over. He keeps the sides and back short, and the front long to comb over where his hair in thinning. I realize he has a tough family life, but can't someone volunteer to be his mother in this case?

* Predictive Google and myself have a long history of inefficiency. I'll just leave it at that.

* Mom: "It rains a lot in the Amazon."
Me: "That's probably because it's a rain forest."

* Answer me something. Do people really buy brand new wardrobes every season and throw out their old ones? Because that just sounds preposterous to me.

* Joe Mantegna was on The Talk the other day to discuss autism in children, since his daughter, Mia, is autistic. While he was on there, a man whose one child, a son, was also autistic was there. At the end of the show, Holly Robinson Peete wanted to give a gift to the man and his children, so she had them come out. His autistic son came and sat to his one side, his non autistic child next to Joe. She proceeded to pet Joe's arm. I love that little girl. She was maybe ten.

* Explain to me spending six hours a day on couponing. I get trying to save money, and I, too, am a fan of the coupon, but six hours a day? These women claim they have too much to do to work so they need the coupons to save money, but essentially clipping coupons for six hours a day is working. People are crazy, yeah?

* Men, afraid of shit that wouldn't faze a woman since the beginning of time. Where are my ladies at?

* The other day I realized that I've never, ever hurt myself doing anything dangerous. When I hurt myself it's doing something like walking, sitting, or opening an envelope. We're talking serious hurt, too. But I could probably sky dive, my parachute wouldn't deploy, and I'd hit the ground gently on my feet, defying all laws of gravity. That's just the kind of humor my life has.

* I've mentioned before that I detest the character of Ashley Seaver on Criminal Minds, but Rachel Nichols is easily the most adorable person ever. Seriously, follow her on Twitter. It's weird how I can hate a character so much and only know her for that character, but still find her delightful.

* Breakout Kings has grown on me and I look forward to watching it. Although I was upset that Philly got only one episode, I quickly decided that Erica was the highlight of the show. Her beating up Lloyd nearly immediately upon her entrance was a win. Plus, she just epitomizes the fact that men are scared of shit that wouldn't faze a woman. Team Erica!

* For some reason, I was watching Divorce Court today. Let's never bring this up again. The only reason I am is because the one guy who was on there was clearly the funniest guy in the world. He said, and I quote verbatim, "Every single day she act like me being short is something new." If his wife doesn't want him, I'll take him. I don't think I want to actually date him or anything, but I could use the laughs.

* If you ever buy one of those treadmills with iFit custom workouts wondering what kind of a workout it could really give you and laughing cheerily about how you're going to fly right through those workouts, immediately return it before assembling. I decided to try out one of their workouts for myself today. I did the full planned course in fifteen minutes, but I was sweating and beginning to think the machine was trying to kill me. It controls your speed and your incline, and I totally didn't realize you could get that kind of a workout from a treadmill. I mean, Non Bridesmaidzilla and myself walk three miles when we walk in the summer, no problem, no sweat, and there's not even any tears, but I almost surrendered to a treadmill on a seven tenths of a mile trail. That's illegal somewhere, right?