LOVE:

My Harry Styles Tickets:

Dear and darling reader. You’ve been on a journey with me for a great many years. You know my loves, my hates, my obsessions, and the things that drive me out of my mind. You probably know me better than I even know myself. That’s odd, I suppose, but oh well. I like sharing and talking about myself because I’m a Leo and I am admittedly vain. So, you know how much I love Harry Styles. You know that he is a constant fashion inspiration and a dreamy icon that I think of all the time. I adore him. Jessica and I have swooned on the regular at One Direction concerts across America. We screamed at his golden boots in San Francisco. We collapsed at his head scarf in Chicago…twice. We reveled in our very nearness to him in Las Vegas. We examined every car that passed us in West Hollywood for over a week. We came absurdly close to lunching at the same restaurants a couple times. We almost did it, reader. We almost befriended Harry Styles. Of course, that’s all a fantasy of mine, but I have no doubt that Harry would enjoy eating a salad with us while we talked about whatever Harry likes to talk about. When One Direction went on hiatus (I’m not ready to admit that they aren’t coming back) I was over the moon when I realized that Harry would inevitably release solo material. Now he has. And reader, it is as fabulous as ever. It’s not because I’m listening through rose colored headphones, either, it’s because they’re honestly the greatest songs ever written and sang by the greatest male performer of our time. I mean, maybe my headphones are a smidgen rose colored. But on to the drama, reader, Harry announced that he was going on a world tour. The details were thrilling. He would be performing in small, intimate venues around the country and around the world. The nearest one to me is in Chicago. There are only 3,600 seats in the Chicago Theatre, but I’m not entirely sure how many tickets. Chicago is the third largest city in America. Harry has millions of fans. The odds were not in my favor. But, I entered the lottery for a code that would unlock the opportunity to maybe be lucky enough to buy a ticket. I mean, these things are basically impossible to get. The possibility wasn’t even in the realm of possibility, but still I dared to dream. I didn’t dare tell Jessica that we were almost assuredly not getting tickets because she would have had a meltdown and gone into a psychotic and depressive episode that she might never emerge from. So, when I was bizarrely lucky enough to get a code the night before, I was extra nervous. So many didn’t get codes. I did, though. Then the morning came. Ten o’clock came. Reader, I have rarely been more afraid. I put in the information, I put in the code, and immediately it said that no tickets were available. Fear gripped me. I was quaking with horror. Jessica might die of shock, and I didn’t want to be the one to kill her. So I manically started refreshing the Ticketmaster app in the hopes that somebody didn’t enter their credit card information fast enough and something would be released. WELL IT WAS. I don’t know how or why or which of the deities I prayed to helped me, but two tickets became available. And they became mine. And now I have them. I have two tickets to the Harry Styles tour. I AM BLESSED. BEYOND BLESSED. YOU DON’T KNOW HOW BLESSED. I could sell those tickets for thousands of dollars, but I’m not going to because I’m a real fan NOT A FAKE FAN. Just wait until I write the post about the experience in September. My life will change. Our lives will all change. I’m already on a new diet so that I’m extra thin for the concert. I can’t wait. The time can’t come fast enough. The album isn’t even out, but I’m already smelling a Grammy. YASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. Don’t hate.

Macron’s Election:

Magnificently, that terrifying Le Pen person didn’t win the French election. I was thunderstruck that this happened because it proved a great number of things to me. First, it demonstrated that my beloved French brethren are as rational as I’ve always claimed them to be. Second, it proved that Nationalism isn’t sweeping the world with as much force as I worryingly believed it was. This, reader, is a great comfort to me. Many moons ago, when the Brexit vote came up in the UK, I was absolutely floored that so many people chose to leave the European Union. I didn’t understand, and I still don’t understand the hateful rhetoric people spout about immigrants. But I’m not going on a rant. And so, when that horrible event happened, I felt just sick to my stomach and knew for the first time that it was possible that Hillary Clinton just might not become president. And that turned out to be horribly true, didn’t it? I was sure that we were all on our ways to war and doom and and boom and gloom. I still worry about that. But, delightfully, France showed that cooler heads still prevail. We may be on our way to doom and boom and gloom, but it’s not at hand. So, Emmanuel Macron was elected the next president of the French Republic. He’s the youngest person since Napoleon to take charge of the country. AND he’s a social-democrat. THANK GOD. Macron wants to work with the European Union! He wants to ban cellphones in the classroom! He wants to make France a world leader in green energy! He wants to make French fluency the main obstacle for obtaining citizenship! You know, he’s not all that great, but he’s not all that bad. He’s a centrist, and that’s just fine. I don’t care so much for him, reader, but he stands for so much that relieves my anxiety. The French people were clearly able to identify a person with dangerous beliefs and make sure they weren’t elected. The American people weren’t able to do so. And that will probably kill me at some point. Isn’t it funny how they thought they elected the lesser of two evils and then the one they gave power immediately started to hurt them? It’s not funny at all. I hope Americans can take a cue from France when the 2020 elections come around. We have to rid ourselves of this scourge when we have the opportunity. I can’t wait to vote for anybody else. Michelle Obama 2020. Please. Oh please.

Under Coat Pet Brush:

My cat Edwin is the largest cat in the world. Well, that’s probably not true. He’s very big, though. He’s also very hairy. He doesn’t shed a great deal, thanks be to all gods, but he sheds plenty. I have several different brushes to take care of his coat, but he does not want anything to do with these. He glares at them and runs away. I do that to several things too, so I understand his behavior. Still, he needed to have a good and solid brushing, so I investigated new types at Walmart. There was one that intrigued me tremendously, mainly because it was the most expensive one. The price made sure that I knew it was quality and superior, so I tossed it into my cart. The brush glided through his fur and took out tremendous quantities of grey and white fur. I was shook looking at the pile that was massing up on the floor. Edwin was also shook when he saw a pile the size of himself next to him. It was alarming. It didn’t pull, but it brought up tons of fur. Edwin started to love it, and seemed ecstatic as I brushed him. We removed so much hair that I was worried he was going to be bald. He didn’t seem concerned at all as he purred and meowed in delight and I continued to brush his tail and his legs. That brush was money incredibly well spent, reader. It was easily worth twice what I paid for it. You all need a brush like this one because it was tremendously well designed. It’s genius. I don’t have enough good words for it. Buy one today, your cats will thank you!

The Intoxication of Summer’s Possibilities:

I promise you that unless I plan a new trip, this is the last time I’m going to mention it. I’m sure you’re all fatigued of my endless whinging and whining. It’s ridiculous, really, to bitch about not going on a trip when I’ve met people who are fully grown adults and have never left the county of their birth. That wasn’t a typo, reader. I didn’t mean country, I meant county. I need travel like I need oxygen like I need water like I need cheese. So, when I promised myself to be more mature and more responsible with my money, I wanted to DIE. It’s driving me insane to think that I wouldn’t see a new city, wouldn’t see a new country, wouldn’t try some awful food in some overpriced restaurant, wouldn’t fumble with a language I have no mastery over, and wouldn’t learn to appreciate a new culture. So, I decided that was a dumb goal, so I’m going somewhere. It’s for my health. I wonder if I can write it off my taxes? Probably not. So, I’m planning a getaway to Mexico. I went ages ago as a child. My parents and Jessica and I crossed to the border town of Nogales for an afternoon and ate goat cheese, felt bad for a stray dog, sat on a donkey, went to Walmart, and then went back to wherever the hell we were staying in Arizona. I have only vague memories. I feel like I should go again as an adult and appreciate all there is to see in that country. I won’t ever do that, of course, but I will go to Mexico City for a week or two and have a right good old time. There will be museums, restaurants, parks, lovely streets, horrible things and beautiful things, more museums, another museum, and then more museums, and then bakeries and shops. AND RUINS. Oh, reader, you know I’m a ho for an archaeological ruin. There’s Teotihuacán and other Aztec sites. I recently listened to a Great Courses lecture series about the ancient people of the Americas, and I found myself utterly charmed by them. Whenever I go to big and beautiful museums, I am absurdly drawn to the relics from these sites. In Washington DC, at the Library of Congress, there is a tiny shelf filled with pottery from the Mayan people, and their way of rendering the human figure was absolutely extraordinary. When I went to the Museum of Natural History in New York City, I was mesmerized by the huge displays of artifacts and reconstructions from the Aztec, Mayan, Incan, and Olmec people. So, I’m just dreaming of all the wonderful things I could do with two weeks in Mexico City. The thought of getting away is almost enough to feel like my old self again. I’m best with an adventure on its way. I don’t care about being a fiscally responsible adult. I care about living.

HATE: 

Overnight Obesity:

Once again the plague of being skinny fat has returned. It never goes away. I’m a fat person at heart, I fear. No matter how thin I become, the inner fatty remains lurking, waiting for any opportunity to emerge. I did well for so long, but for whatever reason — probably stress and Winter and school and work and lack of willingness — I fell out of health. I’m not fat, reader, and I get that, and I know you’re already rolling your eyes and skimming through this. Nobody likes reading garbage like this post, but it’s really gotten to me. I’m not going to rant and rave on this, but I’m trying to more and not put a pound of ricotta cheese on top of everything I eat. So, I’ll probably be fine. But this whole old age metabolism slowing is ridiculous. I was never thin enough except for the one time when I had an eating disorder and that wasn’t cool. So I’m just annoyed. I broke a belt. Sad.