Sunday, November 16, 2008

Somebody Loves Me

Not too terribly long ago RB (Wicked Witch of the Web) tagged me with an award/meme thing of sorts. Now, I mentioned previously that she either was manipulated by me into thinking I am much more awesome than I actually am (I got another one!), or she is equally as immature as I am and has such tawdry and questionable taste that she actually does like this blog. Whatever the case may be, I am honored that she found me worthy of it and I would like to take this opportunity to say: I am way better than all of you who did not get the award.

Oh snap!

(I hate when people say that)

Before I get into the meme/award part of this I just want to mention Barack and Michelle Obama’s appearance on 60 Minutes the other night. Barack was, as usual, very candid. He was poignant and well spoken; he was humble and spoke with a sense of purpose about hitting the ground running when he takes office and starting to make the change happen. He touched on overturning some of Bush’s executive orders with executive orders of his own. He also mentioned he has been reading and trying to draw wisdom and inspiration from presidents like Lincoln and FDR (think Bush read much of either of those two?). This is an inspiring fellow who we should all still feel proud about electing President.

But what made an even bigger impression on me was the interaction between Barack and Michelle Obama. We've all seen Barack speak many times in the past two years, but I haven't seen a great deal of the two of them sitting together and interacting. They seem like such an amazing couple, such a strong couple. I would love to hang out with the two of them. First of all, she is a brilliant woman who seems as dedicated as her husband to truly affecting a positive change in the world. Everyone knows she is exceptionally intelligent, but in addition to being a strong, astute, smart and opinionated woman, she is also funny as hell. She was giving Barack a hard time and even sort of breaking his balls a little bit for fun. I think she is just great.

And now onto the award (I'm going with award here, it makes me feel like I accomplished something). The way it works is that I mention six blogs I like and six things I like.

I’ll start with the blogs.

1) Everything is Wrong With Me. This is the blog that started it all for me. It’s the first blog I ever read regularly and as far as I’m concerned, this is the funniest website on the whole damn interweb. If you don’t already read this blog, you should start now. I stumbled upon this blog when I trimmed my chest hair. I didn't shave it or anything weird (What? It's too late to not be weird?) I simply trimmed it when the hair from my chest began to tickle my chin. Well that shit itched like crazy for days after the manscaping debacle. I got nervous about what I had done to myself and Googled something like, "Chest hair trimmed, extremely itchy." This blog came up. I laughed so hard reading it that I almost cried.

2) Surviving Myself. A well-written, hilarious blog that is funny, judgmental and pretty blunt. He gets right down to the point: He is more awesomer than you. Good stuff.

3) Your Beard is Good. An anything but normal blog that is both hilarious and down for the cause. If that cause is being funny and/or donating money lately for every comment to help fight Leukemia.

4) Redacted. In just the past month alone this guy has written about math, Jean-Claude Van Damme, sex and bacon-wrapped steak. Plus it makes me laugh. A lot. I even LOL'ed in my pants the other day reading it. Go there. Now.

5) Cajun Boy in the City. A great blog about politics and tons of other random funny shit. As well, it gets updated like 5 times a day, so you can read it several times throughout your work day instead of doing whatever it is you should be doing.

6) A Blog of a Good Time. An absolutely ridiculous blog about all things fun. She is comical, convivial and back-slappingly hilarious. Plus, at least once a week you're guaranteed survival tips and some nonsense. However, she just kind of broke up with us because stupid grad school is taking too much time lately. Her triumphant return to regularly scheduled awesomeness is something we can all look forward to together now.

Honorable mentions go to all the blogs I have listed on my page (that's why they're there), they are all great, but I was only allowed to list 6 here.


Six things I like:

1) Music.

Music is one of my biggest passions in life. As some of you know, I spent many years of my life following Phish around the country and seeing live music almost every night, both Phish and other bands (in between Phish tours). I have since expanded my musical tastes, but nothing makes me feel like good music makes me feel. We all know that feeling that a song can invoke in you. And that feeling can be so dynamic - how hearing a song in a different place or time or context can create something really special inside of you or among you and other people. Music can be the soundtrack to your life, the support you need in tough times, and it can be the often unrecognized addition to a moment that makes that moment or the memory of it that much better.

Playing music is one of the few things that can make your brain shut off. In a good way. It is like meditation in that you become so in the moment, you stop thinking about all the stuff that normally clogs your thoughts. It's a way to really channel the moment and truly experience the moment for the now, for what it is. Another one of those things for me is skiing...

(How's that for a segueway?)

2) Skiing.

I grew up a skier. My uncle has lived in Taos, NM since before I was born and my family and I would spend a few weeks a year skiing there ever since I was born. Taos, by the way, is one of the steepest, most shredtastic mountains in the US. I started skiing there when I was two years old; as soon as I could walk, I could ski. I was a ski racer in Minneapolis when I was growing up, until I was a teenager and got too cool to continue to do so (there is something about wearing a one-piece, spandex GS racing suit when you're 15 that just doesn't scream to the world, "I'm cool and rebellious!").

In college in Portland, Oregon I worked in a ski shop and shredded the gnar at Mt. Hood, where I got my first sponsor. I moved from Portland to a tiny little ski town in Colorado and was an extreme skier/ski bum there for about 4 or 5 years before I got hurt, got fat and moved to NYC for a "real" job after finishing school. I would ski super gnarly terrain daily - steep, tight chutes, trees, and would spend as much time as possible throwing myself off of cliffs. There is something really cool about scaring yourself.

(See how much more you know about me after reading just those last two?)

3) Sleep.

Man do I love to sleep. If I could, I would sleep 16 hours a night and stay in bed until sometime between 10am-2pm everyday. I love that feeling of waking up in the morning (afternoon) and saying, "fuck it" and stretching out, pulling the covers up to my face and then staying in bed.

Conversely, I hate waking up. I am, however, sometimes willing to get up early for something really cool - like a backcountry ski tour, or for fresh powder, or for boobies. But I love to stay in bed and sleep, sleep, sleep. How can I be that tired all the time? I have no idea. Maybe I'm not. I just enjoy sleeping that much. I am actually going to take a nap right now. Well, no, I'm not, but I do love me some sleep.

4) Boobies.

Truth be told, I am a fan of a very nice ass as well, maybe even more so than boobies. I don't discriminate.

5) My friends.

You know how everyone says, "I have the best friends in the world"? Well, they don't. Because I do. My friends would gladly slap me just to see me cry and then laugh at me (what?). Most of my friends are those people I traveled around the country seeing music and partying with. Many of us live here now, in NYC, and we see each other a lot. But even for those of us who don't get to see each other much, when we do get to hang it's like we never missed a beat. We are all very close with one another and we are always there for one another - no matter what. More importantly, they are the funniest, most outlandish, wild, sarcastic, fun and utterly ridiculous motley crew of hooligans ever. They fucking rule.

6) Bacon.

Holy shit. I could eat bacon everyday for the rest of my life. Bacon is the essence of all things good and right in the world. I could add bacon to anything (bacon milkshakes anyone?). I think that bacon-wrapped anything is like adding an orgasm to a state of nirvana. I truly believe that bacon is made from magic. Not magical pigs, magic.

So there you have it - six blogs and six things I like. These lists were actually pretty difficult to put together. I could easily have come up with a less serious list that would have been less mature and more fun to read, but I felt like it was time to let you know a little bit about me (do you feel like you really know me now? I know, it's frightening for me too).

In listing those six blogs, I feel like I left out some really important people/blogs that I read everyday and that I love. So, if you feel like you should be on that list and you're not, well, you're probably right. Sorry. There are just so many great blogs out there that I went with the ones I have been reading for the longest amount of time. I still love you all.

I'm going to go make a bacon milkshake now.

6 comments:

  1. I don't know how I feel about that last bit...bacon. Bleh!! But the rest was very interesting tid bits about you and your life. The fact that your friends would slap you just to see you cry makes me love them.

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  2. Granted, I am vegetarian so I'm not big on bacon either. (Although music, sleep and boobs are of course, awesome.) However, if you truly would eat a bacon milkshake, I hope you know that Whole Foods sells bacon chocolate. I have been a quest to find someone who will eat it....are you him?

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  3. Jossie - thin ice with the whole "I don't like bacon" thing. For real.

    RB - You buying? Hell yes.

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  4. Everything is Wrong with me is one of the first blogs I ever read ...it inspired me to start one of my own.

    ...and, who doesn't like music? :)

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  5. wait, am I hallucinating? were you actually writing about something of a serious nature for a minute?!?
    the truth should always be so candid!
    btw-i stayed to see what the cabbie truly had the audacity to say to a complete stranger. funny, but in NYC those things make me laugh...here in Nashville Cashville my reaction would have been more along the lines of what would happen should a mullet carrier find that their beautician accidentally slipped!
    hope you are well!

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  6. I thought the same thing about that 60 minutes interview- it made me fall even more in love with the Obamas.

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