Synch.

Today in my teenage angst, I'm going to talk about an issue that maybe nobody cares about. But it relates to a larger issue that whether or not we care on the surface, we're all affected by. Let's say it out loud so we can acknowledge it happens and get over ourselves.

"Performing artists sometimes lip-synch."

Slated to sing the National Anthem at the Presidential Inauguration on Monday, January 21st, Beyonce and Jay-Z arrived looking like the phenoms that they are. Anyone that followed the election and was also on Tumblr (and also follows Beyonce, on Tumblr) knows that She, Shawn and the Pres and basically besties. Pictures of their visits to the Office are frequent and well known. Her support of Barack's campaign was clear, carrying us with her even into the ballot box. So it was no surprise when it was she that was chosen to sing those immortal words. In case you didn't see it, this is that performance.

Let's take a step back and think about how hard that would have been. Very few of us, if given the choice, would choose with all our current skills and abilities would choose to stand in front of a billion people and sing the national anthem. But that's okay, Beyonce will do it. And in all reality, we should want Beyonce to do it. If you've ever seen performances of her live, be it at the Grammy's, the Superbowl, you'll know that she is amazing. She is a show(wo)man. And she (usually) sings live.

Going into this Inaugural performance, as protocol dictates, a track of the performance was made ahead of time. Minutes before her performance, she opted to use that track. Minutes before her performance, try to imagine the nerves. Imagine the second guessing of your ability and experience. Imagine, being Beyonce; here. This might have been one of the most important performances of her life, and while Kelly Clarkson, in the same position, chose not to use the track, Beyonce proved she's only human.

This next video caught both audio tracks. You can hear her singing along to the pre-recorded track and proving to those, questioning their IV devotion, that pre-recorded or not, she's still got it and she is still flawless.

I think we put a lot of unnecessary pressure on performing artists to "keep it real." Write your own songs! Sing live! Play your own instruments! At the same time though, we expect them to look amazing and put on an incredible show. That includes dancing, crazy costume changes and probably pyrotechnics (which are so effing bad for your vocal cords). It's too much! We can't do this to them anymore. If we want Justin Beiber to dance hardcore hip-hop then we can't expect him to sing live. No one can do that and sing live. If we want Beyonce to welcome the President into his second term with the National Anthem, then we have to give her room for some nerves and self-doubt. We already know she's amazing. Why would we let this change that? 

Give it up guys. They're not gods. They're people; who are really good at what we're ultimately asking for. And when you think about what that is, we're clearly asking for far too much.

Awesome. (sometimes I can't remember if I've already used words as post titles. But I'm pretty sure no one cares or remembers.)

Today in my teenage angst, I worked the evening shift at the library. It was really cold outside so it was a slow night; and by slow I mean one person talked to me at the reference desk. One.

On my break, I went into my boss's office, at the candy off her desk and watched half an episode of Community with the lights off.

My job is awesome.

Also, this is going to be me someday. Probably some day very soon.

We are women. We have bangs.

Today in my teenage angst, people are forever saying "it's the little things." And while I really hate the cliche nature of that phrase, I would argue that the reason that I'm able to enjoy my life so much is that I spend a lot of time laughing at the little things. Anything can strike me as funny because anything can remind me of something else that happened that really made me laugh; anything can remind me of something someone said that was so ridiculous I choked on my spit; anything can remind me that my life is not so overwhelming that I need to be sour; but rather exactly the opposite.

I don't think I've ever fangirl'd as hard as I have over Buffy. I've never become so attached to a show and simultaneously judged it the worst thing I had ever witnessed. Coming in at a close second (fangirl wise), is Michelle Obama.

Five years ago, if I had asked you who is the most powerful black woman in the world, what would have been your response? Oprah. Obviously. Today, I stand before you and admit that when it was announced that it would be Oprah interviewing Lance Armstrong re: all the drugs, I thought to myself, oh yeah, Oprah.

I forgot about Oprah.

But give me a break. There's a new girl in town. Michelle Obama has taken on her role as first lady like no other. She is so poised. She is so strong. She as every ounce of faith in her blessed, blessed Husband. And what is almost the most amazing (though not surprising) is that her kids (blessed, blessed kids) really seem to like her. Because obviously they love her, but liking your mom when you're 11 or 12 or 15, is sometimes kind of hard.

A couple weeks ago, I got bangs. They are perfect and exactly what I had imagined. I had wanted them for a long long time and while I had worked hard to get rid of my bangs, wanting to identify with the Jessas of the world with their long, flowing, come-what-may hair, I'm really kind of built for bangs. Knowing then, my deep admiration for Michelle Obama, you can imagine that my response to the news of her bangs was a ridiculous explosion of ecstasy and glee. I immediately reblogged whatever post I had seen about it, exclaiming, "She got bangs! I have bangs too!" And then spent twenty minutes taking selfies of my own bangs so I could write this blog post.

Because it's like this. I adore Michelle Obama. I think she's kind of the Princess Diana of my generation. She is so strong, she holds herself in the public eye so well, and . . . oh I already did this part. And while I'm no Michelle O, she inspires me to be better, and to be more. And amid these heartfelt and thorough aspirations, it's the little things like this that make me think, maybe that's not so far off.

And so I say, "Welcome, Michelle, to the world of bangs. It's a pleasure to have you here. Do you need a friend? Allow me to show you around."

Single doesn't suck.

Today in my teenage angst, I'm going to write a book. I'm going to write a book and it's title will be "The Single Girl's Guide to Not Sucking." Because I think we need this.

I've been pretty single for a while now and I will not lie to you; I love it. I love being single. I love being free from the complications of a relationship. I love having to factor no one else into my plans. Plans which mostly consist of being as lazy as possible, i.e. watching as much television as possible. I love that my anxiety doesn't spike daily from having to go on fruitless casual dates. And I love that while I'm loving being single, I still get to watch all of my non-single friends go through relationships, make mistakes, get engaged, be happy and essentially do the work for me, all the while developing a philosophy of romanticism and relationship that I would probably be too blind to develop within one.

I have had relationships. Really short lived ones. They were good and necessary, but ultimately ended badly. And they've always ended because they were founded on something unhealthy, like my anxiety disorder. That's not a joke. Over the span of five months, I dated two guys who both (honorably . . . kind of) wanted to save me from myself. I always laugh when I think about it because I must have looked like the subject of a song penned by Chris Carrabba. Sigh.

I started watching Girls on Thursday night and finished the first season within 48 hours. I just really love Hannah Horvath. I don't see as much of myself in Hannah as I do in Marnie, but I love Hannah the most. Though Shoshanna is so hilarious. Every scene she's in I just want to hug her. The point of this is that people love Girls because it's so real. It's so honest and Lena Dunham's clear approach is so effective. The problem with Girls, and what makes it so awesome, is that it doesn't encourage forward movement. Yes, Lena Dunham gives the viewer the room to be an early-twenties-something and not know where she's going. That is amazing. But what I want, at the start of every episode, is for Hannah to wake up and say, "This shit stops now. I will be treated well, and I will treat well." And maybe she will. I'm crazy with anticipation for tonight's premiere. Which I'll watch tomorrow, online, because you actually pays for HBO?

I really don't want this to come off as a love yourself before you love anyone else type of post. That makes me want to gag. But there's a lot of truth in the statement, so I'll word it in a different way. If you hate being single, ask yourself why? If you don't have an answer but still find yourself hating it, you have got to find that answer.

Even calling it "single" implies something that feels related to a missing appendage. Like if a person had a single arm they might be unbalanced for a while. But I like to think of it in terms of singles tennis. Doubles tennis is way more complicated and gets way less press than singles. And it's most likely that the stars of singles tennis will win the doubles tournaments. You can't play doubles tennis until you can play singles.

The single girl's guide to not sucking, is to 1) stop watching effing Romantic Comedies. Those are full of either really satisfied single women who get what they didn't know they wanted, or really sad high strung single girls who get what they didn't know they could have. That is stupid. And that is untrue. And it only leads to the disappointment that our lives didn't go this way.

2) stop looking for qualities in guys. Stop asking, is he really what I want??? If you knew what you wanted, you probably wouldn't have to ask that question. Once you can figure out what you want, every other useless opportunity probably won't seem as appealing. And if you can't figure out what you want, you're likely better off seeking that out alone.

3) stop obsessing. This is another Hollywood at fault thing. We've started to think that if we try hard enough, we will get what we want. Which is okay in a career-type situation, but romantically it's just not as wise. How many characters have you watched who have been obsessed with a guy for like seven years and then magically he turned around and looked at her differently and she finally got what she wanted? I've seen a billion varieties of that character and I see a problem.Why would we invest so much time and energy into something that has only a small percent chance of happening? If you read yesterday's post, allow me to connect this to that. That family spent close to a year, arduously preparing and changing the course of their lives for something that ultimately did not come to be. Let's again imagine how confusing and devastating that must have been! What I'm trying to say is, live your life. It's yours to live. Don't stray from it in order to try and live in some one else's.

Okay. This is really long. But when I think about how happy I am, and how often people ask me if I "have anyone in my life," I get to thinking about how I wish we had a better understanding of why being single is hard, and the reasons for that. So here it is. Take what you will, grain of salt and all that. I just know my own experience, and it's been really awesome. I just want yours to be awesome too.

The End of the World.

Today in my teenage angst, I really do know that this is really old news. But let's recall the whole end of the world 'scare' in December. My favorite part was that it happened twice. Someone was looking at it upside-down or something and so they initially thought it would be on the twelfth but it turned out that it was meant to be the twenty-first. This is the kind of thing that makes me proclaim, people, as a whole, are stupid.

Image via beefjack.com

I didn't pay much attention to it - aside from the endless articles about it's falsifiability - because the Christmas presents I had purchased for my friends were realllly awesome and I didn't want to waste time thinking that I wouldn't get to give them to my people.

So the day came and it went and I didn't once  think about the people that had truly believed that their lives after that day, would cease to be.

I watch a lot of TV. So I have an easy enough time imagining (even if unrealistically) what the whole end of days, apocalypse thing would look like; The Walking Dead is what most commonly comes to mind. (Man the first few episodes of that show were gross. Or maybe I just got used to it.) But when it comes right down to it, I don't anticipate ever having to experience an environment like The Walking Dead. I just don't see it happening. There are, however, as much as I'd like to think there are not, people who truly believe that the end of the world will happen in their lifetime.

I was talking to my friend last night and she got to telling me about how she has an aunt and uncle who had, for several months, put great effort into preparing for the end of the world. They had intended, pre-end of days, to sell their farm and move into the nearest town. They took their farm off the market, and started to stock-pile food. They stored enough food for ten people to live for one year. She told me that her aunt had spent most of 2012 making massive grocery trips and then canning, drying and dehydrating that so as to make it last as long as possible. She told me that they had tried to convince her mom to join them, but first to secure enough gas that she would be able to make the six hour drive without stopping. She told me that they didn't necessarily believe that the end of the world was stemming from the end of the Mayan Calendrical cycle, but from a planet whose orbit is so large that it only circles the earth once in a very, very long while. Within that orbit, this planet would circle so close to the earth that the north and south poles would be caused to switch, quickly over the span of a week.

This is what they were preparing for.

In response to why no one else had heard of this planet, or why there had been no governmental warning, they replied that the government would obviously not want people to know this was come because it would incur mass panic. I'm not sure how or why this family found out when everyone else was meant not to know, but they must have felt extremely lucky.

I think this is amazing. And I want you to imagine investing a year of your life preparing for something that you believed with every fiber in your body, mind and soul, would happen. And then it didn't.

I asked my friend what she thought would they would do now that their lives were going to continue and she said that she didn't know.

I don't know what I would do either. I think I would need to re-examine the places I was getting my information. But I also think that if you're willing to accept disputable sources, you're probably willing to justify your way through their lacking credibility.

Celeb.

Today in my teenage angst, I feel like one of Jennifer Lawrence's friends from before she was famous. I like to think that she's the coolest and so, most likely did not reject her friends when she got her first (because now she's had two) Academy nomination. If you didn't read Suzy's posts from yesterday and today please hop right over there and read them before you read this. But you have all obviously read Suzy's posts because you all started following me long after you followed her. Sigh. Anyway.

Suzy and Jian Ghomeshi are becoming friends.Yeah, I'm calling it. When he comes in February and she and I go to meet him, he's going to be like, OOhh, you're that girl. And then he'll realize that her awkward wit and well crafted writing translates into a (literally) unbelievably cool individual that everyone should be so lucky to hang out with. And he's Jian Ghomeshi, so if he says its going to happen, its going to happen. And I'm saying, he's going to say it's going to happen. And then she'll explode with fame.

In contrast to this, I got a phone call at the library this morning from a man seeking recommendations on some works by Fredrick Nietzsche and Karl Marx. This was exciting because I'm a philosophy nerd. Really. I love it so much. So I was all, start with this primer and look at this collection and he was all like, how great to talk to someone who knows and cares about all of this. And I was like, yeah man; totally. But then, he turned the conversation into an explanation of his life story and consequential current circumstances (that I'm obviously to nice to display here). He then asked if he could call back sometime and talk with me about philosophy. Because you know, he doesn't have anyone else to talk to. Sigh.

I made something up about how reading is actually the best way to learn because it's based in history and history is life. But I don't actually believe that. The best way to learn is through dialogue based on text. But I didn't really want to tell him that. Later I talked to my supervisor about it and she looked at me, furrowed her brow and said, "yeah, no." This isn't an uncommon happening for me. It might be that I seem to surround myself with mid-lifers (the nicest way of saying 50-somethings), but for a reason I cannot discern, strangers love me.   And so while I am participating in uncomfortable conversations like this one, Suzy is earning her rocking self a free ticket to Jian's book tour.

Is this fair? Well, no; bu I don't really care. I got a good story out of my little situation, and I certainly don't see the problem inspreading Suzy's tale around a little. That's one of the perks of having famous friends. You're continually primed with amazing stories to tell.

Moral.

Today in my teenage angst, the moral of the story is that if you're going to buy cheap glasses online, buy two pairs. Because you can afford it and when you misplace one pair and after 25 minutes of thorough house searching cannot find them, you can don the other pair and be on your way.

Beth and I got storm-stayed in Regina last night. That statement should be revised to say that Beth and I got car-accident-stayed in Regina last night. There was a major and fatal car accident on the highway that generally gets us home and they closed it in order to clear all the debris. A good move, I know. But it left us in a strange (and a little annoying) position. We have, obviously, lovely friends in the city, so it wasn't a big deal. We had somewhere to sleep. We went out for dinner and got really hyper as we generally do when left alone together, and ended up sleeping together on the same hide-a-bed, just like when we were eight. That makes it sound like we were both eight. I was eight. She was ten. But still.

Becky's house is really fabulous. She likes old things a lot. And a lot of the amazing stuff she has was found in the recesses of their basement storage. It makes me wish my parents hadn't moved around so much so my mom wouldn't have gotten rid of so much of her stuff. Beck's mom was kind of a tree hugger though, so I don't think the same kinds of gems would have been as readily available. Anyway, being surrounded by things of such an age, and having to share a pullout bed with my sister in an uncomfortably hot atmosphere wishing I was in my own bed, threw me back to a time that I had long since forgotten.

I slept really horribly because I dreamt so much and because I was scared of sleeping with my sister lest I crowd her in the bed and invade her space. I don't remember any of my dreams but by the time we got home at around 10am, I was a little delirious. I drank a lot of coffee, ate some carbs to placate my fatigue, and watched some Community. Then, as I started to get ready for work, I did so with a lot of effort. You know when you do something you do all the time, but for some reason, this time, it's extra hard? As I started to leave, I realized I wasn't wearing my glasses. I looked and looked for them. I checked the freezer and the fridge and several closets. They were no where. Finally, I grabbed my second pair, thinking maybe I had forgotten my usual pair at Becky's.

Eight hours later, as I was getting ready for bed, I picked up the hoodie that I had worn the day before, I found my glasses in the pocket. Why would I ever put my glasses in the pocket of my hoodie? And considering this sweater was on my bed, under some other clothes and blankets, I feel pretty lucky they didn't break. But sometimes, you just get into that space that requires ridiculous actions like that, and what are you going to do?

Goals and Things 2013: Part 2.

Today in my teenage angst, I make up for yesterday and spell out my plans for the new year proper. I love saying Proper, like the city proper, but I don't really know what it means.

Okay. I did a post a few days ago re: my reading plans for the year and I've already knocked one off that list. So go me. Okay, so for some resolutions.

• Change my sheets every two weeks. This was a resolution last year and I did pretty darn well. I just realized it's not that hard to keep up with that. So I'll continue. 
• Clean my bathroom every two weeks. I tried to do this once a week last year and failed. But I'm the only that used my bathroom and it just doesn't super need to be cleaned once a week. So every two it is. 
• To not gossip about people from work at work. There's a lot of toxicity in my work place and I've graduated to a place of distance from the center of that toxicity, so I plan on mega removing myself, also, from participation in that toxicity. 
• Hang out, as much as possible, with Paisley and her mother. YAY!

Goals!

• 3.5 both semesters. It's my thing to shoot for, even if I don't make it. But I really think I might get close this semester. 
• Run in the QCM. I haven't decided if I'm going to do the Halfer again or run as a part of a relay team. But it'll happen. So.
• Hang out with Paisley as much as possible.
• I'd really like to learn to spar, so if the Y has a class on that, I will be joining. Is that likely to happen, happen? I don't know, but I'll put it down. 
• I really want to gain as much health as possible. I obviously have crazy plans to go to the gym, and that's all well and good, but last year, I ate a craaazzzzyyy amount of doritos. So that could stand to change. And what's the goal? HEALTH! 
• Watch more movies, and less TV. That's prob not going to happen, but because the library has all these amazing movies now, I'm going to watch them. I'll watch them all!

I just can't really thing of any more, so that's where it'll end for now. I'll add stuff as I figure it out later on. I love you all! I hope you're planning crazy things too.