Throwback: Road Trip to Chicago or How I Almost Killed My Boyfriend.

I am getting ready for another road trip to Chicago to visit my manfriend's family. Since I am currently unable to focus on anything besides packing,and planning ways to kill him at hour 12 when he starts cry/singing the song "Tiny Dancer", I thought I'd leave you guys with a throwback blog about this same situation. Enjoy.


There is something relationship-affirming about taking a road trip with someone. Maybe it's because you have no way out.

Here I am, nearly 500 miles away from home passing through some hick-ass town that has no cell reception, and more than likely no indoor plumbing, and I have to hope that he will not kick me out of the car after listening to me reenact my Twitter feed for the last 3 hours.

That's trust.

I don't talk about my significant other on here very often (primarily because I'm not entirely sure I won't be trading him up for a newer model soon), but his entire family lives in Chicago, which means we take the 18-hour trip at least once a year.

Every year after the labor-like excursion we swear we'll fly. We'll take a train. We'll fucking teleport. Anything other than spending a full day in our car, which is the automobile equivalent of a studio apartment with a bathtub in the kitchen. But our overall poverty makes us forget, and every year we pack ourselves and our 80-pound English bulldog into out two-door sardine can and get on the road.

The first few hours aren't bad. We laugh. We sing. We talk. We catch up in a way that two full-time jabs prohibit. But something happens along the way--about hour six. There is a shift. A change of energy--that takes two seemingly reasonable adults, who like each other and turns them into maniacs. It's like a mother-fucking Real World reunion. We are carnivorous. It's Hunger Games set in a Toyota  Yaris.

HIM: Change the music. If I have to listen to Adele start her period one more time, I'm going to kill myself.

ME: (turns up music) Don't worry, I will kill you myself if you ever FUCKING TALK ABOUT ADELE LIKE THAT AGAIN!!!

It's at this time when my hatred for him as at an all time high, I have to trust.

I have to trust that if I get out to pee/catch herpes from a truck-stop restroom, that he will not sell me to the first truck driver he encounters for a souvenir keychain. I have to trust that he will not run us into the side of a mountain just so I will stop asking him about his high-school girlfriends. I have to trust that he will not turn into Chris Brown after listening to me sing the Wicked Soundtrack through the entire state of Kentucky.

You all know I like to give horrible relationship advice, but here is the best advice I will ever give anyone questioning their relationship. Take a road trip. If both parties come back alive, then it's solid.

We made it to Chicago, by the way. But next year, we're teleporting.

Hillary's Vagina is Under Fire and Other News You Might Have Missed.

Sometimes you can't keep up with all the hard-hitting news, so I decided to compile a few of this week's most compelling stories.

Pete Santilli, some bullshit online radio host, said earlier this week that he wanted to shoot Hillary Clinton in the vagina. Santilli said,  "I want to shoot [Clinton] right in the vagina and I don't want her to die right away; I want her to feel pain." 

Little does Santilli know, that's actually just a day of light masturbation for Hillary.

Reports are circulating that Beyonce and Jay-Z are expecting their second child. While it hasn't been confirmed yet, Kanye West has already announced that Beyonce is the best pregnant lady of all time.

Sorry, Kim. He's gonna let you finish, though.

Kai, the hitchiking, hatchet-weilding internet sensation, is the suspect in the murder of a New Jersey attorney. The homeless 24-year-old was arrested Thursday, but suggested on his Facebook page days before that he was sexually assaulted by the attorney.

Well there's nothing funny about sexual assault or murder so let's remember a simpler time...

Shame. He seemed like such a stable guy.

Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Apologizes for Releasing His Face on the Public.

People are still pretty heated about what Abercrombie & Fitch CEO, Quasimoto, said about overweight, unattractive and generally "uncool" people.

And then even more people got pissed when they found out about this video of a guy giving Abercrombie & Fitch clothes to homeless people.

And while I understand that both of the aforementioned topics could invoke some anger, I think people are missing the bigger problem.

This fucking dude is trying to tell people that they're not attractive enough to were his clothes.

This douchecanoe is trying to live out some middle school fantasy of being popular, because he looks like a melting candle.

This guy shouldn't make anyone feel anything, except thankful that your face doesn't look like that. And that no one on the internet will make memes of you like this.

Or this.

Yeah, fuck him. I'm going to go get a cookie and shop at Old Navy.

As Long as Angelina Jolie Doesn't Remove Her Lips, I Don't Care.

My blog is slowly but surely becoming the place where I defend celebrities. This was not my intention, but some things are just not okay. I recently went to bat for Kim Kardashian and her pregnant armpits--you can read that HERE. But today I feel the need to defend a chick who gets to bang Brad Pitt on the regular. Yes, it is bizarre.

Unless you have been living under a rock, you've probably heard that Angelina Jolie had a preventative double mastectomy, after finding out that she was a carrier for the BRCA mutation, which exponentially increases a carrier's likelihood of developing breast and/or ovarian cancers.

In layman's terms, she got her lady lumps removed, after finding out that there's a damn good chance they were going to give her cancer.

So why does it matter? Well, it probably shouldn't. But ever since Jolie's Op-Ed piece in the New York Times was published Tuesday, many people have been quick to form opinions about her decision.

"She's being ridiculous", "Have a little faith", "Anything to get some attention", were all comments I've read on varying social media sites. By the way, all of the above-mentioned commenters are women. Let's all mull that over for a moment, shall we.

So once again, why does it matter? A famous woman removed her breasts in hopes that she wouldn't suffer the same fate as her mother, who died at 56, after fighting the disease for a decade. She then wrote about her decision in hopes to use her platform to shed light on the subject. The End.

She did not say that every woman has to run out and get genetic testing or remove her breasts if the results come back positive. Her piece was not a form of legislation that would be written into law forcing universal mastectomies. She wrote her story. A story that many women share.

My best friend was 22 when she was tested for the BRCA mutation. As a girl, she watched her mother battle, and ultimately overcome, breast cancer. Her mom was barely in her 30s. A few years later, she lost her aunt to the same disease. She felt as if she already knew her fate.

My friend carried that fear with her for years, but when she became a mother, she decided to be proactive. She refused to have her daughter watch her fight cancer. If the test came back positive for the faulty gene, she was going to have her breasts removed. No questions.

They are not what make me a woman, she said. I would rather not have breasts, than live every day waiting to get cancer. I want to live.

The test came back negative.

But what if it hadn't, what if she had the same story as Angelina Jolie. Would it be okay for people to tell her she was being ridiculous? Or that she didn't have enough faith?

It wouldn't have been okay to me. Or to her children. Or any of the people who would have held her hand while she fought a disease that didn't know that we needed her to live.

So what makes it alright to criticize what another woman does to her body? What she does with breasts that have betrayed her.

It may not be everyone's decision, but it was Angelina Jolie's. And at one time, it was my friend's.

And I can't say if faced with the same situation, it wouldn't be mine.

That's not a lack of faith. It's faith in your choices.

It's faith that you are still whole, even with missing pieces.

My Mom Might be a Witch and Other Mother's Day Revelations.

My mother is a magical woman.

I'm not being nice. I think she might actually be into some form of witchcraft. Low-level stuff, I assume, probably like hour one of The Craft.  

My mom's obsession with the supernatural began with Charmed. Yes, the Shannon Doherty show about the three bewitched sisters who fought off other-worldly creatures in midriff-bearing tops. They were powerful. And my mom was impressed.

"I just wish Piper and Leo would get their shit together," she would say with a sigh.

"Who?"

"Piper and Leo!"

"Who the hell are you talking about, Mom?"

"Piper and Leo! From Charmed!"

Yep, she was on a first name basis with three TV witches and expected me to participate in her insanity. 

These conversations happened all the time. She likened herself to the fourth sister, emotionally supporting them from the other side of the TV.

"I know her," she would yell when she saw one the actresses in something other than Charmed.

When Shannon Doherty was killed off the show, she was heartbroken that network executives didn't come knocking on our door offering her the replacement role. And it might have even been a possibility, had she not been watching the show on TNT ten years after it originally aired.

Yep, she was on a first name basis with three TV witches who stopped being culturally relevant during the Clinton years.

She eventually moved on from Charmed when she caught herself quoting an entire episode. It lost its mystery. And she was losing touch with reality.

Next on the playlist was Ghost Whisperer. Then Roswell. Then Supernatural. Basically any creepy show that was mildly popular 5-10 years ago that aired on basic cable was her jam. 

Now, I don't know why my sweet, loving mother is so consumed by the paranormal. But I can only assume, she's a witch.

Or on her way to being one. Witchcraft 101, if you will.

The real question is: Will she be a good witch or a bad witch?!

And if she's a bad witch, how long will it be before she drops a house on me after I've talked about her being obsessed with horrible television and witchcraft, on the internet, on Mother's Day?!

I love you, Mom. And for Mother's Day, I really hope Piper and Leo can get their shit together.

A long-ago Mother's Day, before
the dark magic took hold.

My Life as a Barista: A Photo Album

Sometimes at work people order things like this.

Or this.

And I'm like.

But they don't care. I'm sure I've played more part in people getting

 Type 2 Diabetes than every ridiculous Pinterest dessert ever made.

Speaking of Pinterest. There is no mother fucking Starbucks Secret Menu. I'm not

 saying I work for Starbucks (ignore above cups), but if I did I'd be ready

 to castrate the next person who came in asking for a

 "Bleeding Zebra" or "a one-eyed Asian."

Okay, so not everyone is bad. But for every ray of sunshine, there is some dude

 missing at least 4 teeth expressing his discontent for the word "macchiato." He

 will then proceed to explain that he's "not a homosexual and therefore

 cannot use the word espresso." True Story.

This usually leaves me feeling like this.

Or this.

But then I remember it could be worse. I could be doing this. 

Or this.

Eww. Thank God, I'm not doing that.

Plus, sometimes my fellow baristas leave little surprises. Like Bon Jovi's head

 popping out from my drive-thru camera.

And it's like he's reminding me that I'm halfway there. Whoooaa, living on a prayer. So who am I to argue with Bon Jovi and his glorious hair? And that

 makes me feel better about being a barista.

Well, kinda.