OMG!

Say you’re walking through the checkout lane at your local grocer, and you glance at the twenty or so magazines and their glossy, bright covers sitting dauntingly next to the register, pleading with you to pick it up…. Silently willing you to spend $5.00 on crap you could look up online for free. Today, I had one of those experiences…. On the cover on one of those weekly magazines, splashed across "Kristen Stewart Pregnant with Robert Pattinson’s Baby?!?" "Rob Dumps Kristen!!!" Then, the media frenzy continues. A friend texts me, "OMG! Kristen Stewart is pregnant!!!" Then, I log onto face book and there is a video of a parody of the whole situation by a fantastic young man, Kaleb something or other. I find the media hysteria over the private lives of stars completely ridiculous. While I find Robert Pattinson quite dashing, and if he wants to be involved in gossip worthy behavior with me, dude HIT ME UP. But, if you turn the situation around and stuck one of these editors or writers into these situations, they would not be happy. Would You? The whole loss of privacy just because you were in a film that made about 70.55 million dollars, or sang a song, you are now a product, a commodity of the public. Left to be taunted and judged by people who sit in front of the T.V. watching E! Daily 10. Didn’t these fools listen when their mothers said that if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say it all. I think this applies to all people, not just those you pick and choose. Another funny little tidbit I learned from this magazine, Lindsay Lohan is BESIDE herself, the girls lost it.. Because Russell Brand (you know, the d-bag that hosted the MTV Awards a bit back and in the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall) turned her down. Lilo, as the mag has deemed her, has "lost it with sex addict Russell Brand turning her down." Have you looked at Russell Brand? Now look at "Lilo". Magazines should think about things when they put these fake couples together. Now, if these magazines were giving me important information like, Channing Tatum seeking 20 year old girl with my characterstics and habits, then hell yes. I'd buy that. But, when it's merely crap I don't want to know, and don't even want to think about, stick it in the magazine aisle, so I can spend that last $5 on some gum or chapstick.

Marshmallow

Since writing my blog about my obsession with Facebook, I started to think about the other things that, not only myself, but those around me are obsessed with. I started with my sister. My sister is a smart young thing (16 years old) and she's a bit of an enigma to me. We are different in so many ways.. We really don't look that much alike. She got more of my mother's features while I was blesssed with the nappy hair and the big lips of my father. She's smart, funny, fun to be around.. But, I couldn't really pinpoint what she really, really loved. She isn't obsessed with Twilight or the Jonas Brothers.. DOn't get me wrong, we have long talks about whether Robert Pattinson is really that pretty or if it is just some creation of media hype (we agree he is, indeed GORGEOUS), and many a time we have drove my mother crazy blasting the Jonai from one of our rooms and singing like lunatics. She loves to read, but isn't obsessed with H.P. or any certiain series. She does really like these weird mystery books were often a killing game is involved or books with a mythological creature involved in some love scheme (I just read a book of hers called Aphrodite's Kiss.. about superheroes). She is not obsessed with Myspace (and she does not have a facebook, I asked and she laughed in my face). She really likes music, she used to play the viola. But nothing that was soo consuming.. nothing that compared to HSN for my mom, or facebook for me. I couldn't really think of anything definitive. Then, I remembered a funny incident where she sat there and ate a whole bag of jumbo marshmallows. A HUGE bag. She killed them in a matter of a television show! I was amazed. My sister loves marshmallows. Little ones, the multicolored ones, the jumbo ones... Better yet Peeps (basically marshmallows dipped in flavored colored sugar). She has the same reaction my mom does for HSN.. She gets shaky, very excited and a little obnoxious, impossible to be around. So my mother has HSN, I have facebook and my sister has fallen to the little devil the marshmallow.

Luckless in Lacey and Pissed Off

I just finished my 13th (that's right unlucky number 13) job application.. As I groan and moan about it, my friends say "Oh, it's just the economy" but if the company lists on their website that they have job openenings in your area and then you fill it out the application.. You expect to get a call back, especially with my four years of job experience. It's not like I'm applying to upscale places.. I've been applying to Cutter's Point and Safeway for Pete's sake. I could almost take it, almost.. Just put it up to sheer bad luck, to really put my unemployment status on the shoulder of the economy. But, deep down I know that the fault can not only lay within a messed up economy. I used to have a job, a decent paying, fun, well fit job. I worked at a Childcare center in my town and then I made the HUGE mistake of dating the boss's son.. I left for school, my job neatly intact for when I came back. Well, the boss's son and I didn't last and being the complete wiz at being unprofesional and playing favorites and showing complete and total lack of respect for what I was going through (and still am), I am now out of a job. Now, at first this was not that bad. My mom works for the same company, and while you have been employed through the company, you can work at any center. Well, I was going to work for my mom.. But the plot thickens. My old boss treated her son with such special treatment and basically put him on a pedastol above all the other employees, that of course, they complained. So now, no person can work for their parent (their mother basically in the female dominated field which has now become even more female dominated since licensing decided that it was not the "best judgment" of the employers to hire males, but that's another story) because of the little mess that my old boss and her son created. Well, of course the "son" doesn't feel the backdraft of any of this as he quit to join the military. But I find it completely ridiculous that no matter what anyone does, it can be ruined by another person and their sweet nepotism, elitism, and just plain old petty attitudes. I talked to someone who works at the same place I use to, and she said I could sue and probably get my job back. But, why would I? It would just be catty glances down the hallway and complete disrespect for me and my feelings. I've decided that you just do not mix business with any form of social attitude. It creates barriers all over the workplace and instead of the friendly, warm and welcoming place that job use to be, now,makes me sick to my stomach to think of having to take directions from that woman.

I am an avid user of MSN messenger. I only have a few people on my contact list, I really only talk to people that I really want to (unlike Facebook where anyone of my "friends" can contact me). There are three people I talk to on a daily basis, one whom I have never actually met face to face (yet!!), but through one of my best friends. He is the one who gave me the idea for this particular topic. Scroll through one of your instant message conversations, and look at how many times you or your conversational partner use the phrases "haha" or "LOL". In the twenty minute most recent conversation that I had, collectively we used one of those phrases 14 times. Now, we weren't exchanging witty banter at a wicked fast pace or anything. We were making small talk, and we didn't have too much to talk about... There were lags for five minutes at a time were we didn't say anythjing to each other. Dane Cook was thrown in there a bit I believe. I have nothing against the use of these little sayings, as you do need some way of showing that your partner is actually quite funny. I really just fine it amusing that we throw these phrases out like it's nothing. Or even better, when something is not even that funny someone throws it out there. When you say something like "my mom's making roast beef sandwiches for lunch today" and your friend replies "LOL" (actualy conversation), the next response is, my top acronym, WTF? I don't know anyone who actually laughs like "haha" or responds to a funny blonde joke with "I am laughing out loud". Of course there are other shortened means of professing your emotions... WTF.. OMG... OMFG... ROFL... LMAO the list goes on and on. I use these little phrases often in my im's and my text messaging. But, when I talk to my mom and say "WTF? man" she gets a little peeved. She goes on and on about how I should show respect (and this is not about the F part of the word) and could at least give her the decency to expand my words and blah blah blah.... Is it a bad thing that I love to express my emotions in four letters or less? I think it's just my love for speed and efficiency that really calls for my love of this little words.. I mean OMG? Who wants to speak in long useless words?

Facebook Status: Obsessed

Last night, after reading my blog about my crazy mother, my friend texted me and asked me what my strange obsession was. At first, I didn’t know what to say exactly. Unlike my mother, I am not transfixed by HSN or QVC. I don’t smoke.. I’m not addicted to shopping, alcohol, or even South Park or Family Guy. Then, today I was riding around in the car with my mother and my sister, and I whipped out my cell phone to get on the internet to change my facebook status and check up on the world for the umpteeth time since I woke up that afternoon . It seems like just a simple mode of communication with my friends now at 310 and counting, some who are gallivanting halfway around the world. But, when I can’t go more than half of a day without checking it, to see if someone has commented on my photos, posted new pictures, or liked my status; it‘s a bit apparent that I may have a problem. Facebook has become the new Myspace, becoming even more life consuming than its predecessor with bumper stickers and an endless number of applications that you can choose from. I have become so obsessed with it, especially now that me and most of my "college" friends are separated by states and long drives, that I will sit there (much like my mother with her HSN) transfixed for hours. I will sit there and look through 27 pages of flair, adding the latest Zac Efron, Twilight or motivational phrase. Then, I might just pop over to someone else’s profile to check out what they have going on. Then there is the new fad of my Top 5 whatever… Or "Which Disney Princess Are You?" quizzes. I can’t deny the endless number of minutes I have spent on Facebook taking these quizzes. Or filling out the Top 5 People I Want to Punch in the Face (Oprah, Spencer Pratt, George W. Bush, Carson Daly and Vanessa Hudgens if you were wondering). I am even logged in right now, looking at pictures, talking to people I haven’t seen in like a week. Facebook status: Obsessed.

My mother's plague

Everyone has that vice. That one thing that always gets them. It may be as simple as having to stare at the stars as they walk drunkenly home one night… It might be the alcohol itself. It could be any other material item that has any addictive capacity in society.. My mother is plagued by one of these wicked little devils. Something that when she sees it, it turns her into a small child and she sits there transfixed for hours at end. She becomes enthralled in this entity, this ridiculous product of modern Western society. My mother is a smart woman, quite possibly one of the smartest I know… I am just as transfixed in her obsession as she is into the obsession itself. I remember the first time I noticed this strange, strange obsession. We were sitting at my Aunt’s house, and my Aunt made a comment about her most recent purchase from the Home Shopping Network. My mother’s face lit up, she got all shaky and excited. And my cousin, my sister and I all looked at each other with the same strained look of a child with a mother possessed by the HSN demon. Now, to most it seems harmless enough, right? Well, when your mother sits there for 45 minutes staring intently at the television while you sit there bored out of your mind listening to ridiculous women with gaudy jewelry on and wayyyy to much makeup; you begin to understand the hypnosis capabilities that lie within flex play and a machine that cuts shapes out of paper. Tonight for example, we were having a nice evening with some Dane Cook. Then, commercial time came, and in my mother’s fashion, she turned the channel to pass the time. Then, she went to that deviant channel in the middle teens, and there was a touch screen computer. The look on my mother’s face was not one that I had ever seen before.. I would call it nothing short of pure, unadulterated computer lust. She sat there, so into what this man from whatever random computer company that came up with this unnecessary atrocity, and she completely forgot about me.. The dog… my sister… we all became a blur.. And Dane was for sure left in the dust. I wonder how my mother becomes so excited. How she can sit there and listen to people talk about jewelry.. JEWELRY.. For over 20 minutes. HSN, QVC, and all those other phone in money suckers on the television are the bane of my existence. Is there rehab for an addiction to HSN?