Church Camp

The other night I watched a documentary called "Jesus Camp" about an insanely intense Christian summer camp where children are taught they can pray in tongues, should protest abortion and many other very conservative values. As I watched this, slightly horrified, I reminisced back to when I went to summer church camp. Specifically the last year I went to church camp. Let me tell you a story.....

The year was... I don't remember but I think I was about 13. For the sake of this not sounded completely terribly, let's say I was definitely 13 maybe almost 14. I was also very mature for my age, both mentally (I was told) and physically. So keep that in mind.

13 years old and getting ready to head off to camp. Due to travel plans, my father who usually did the dropping off at camp, was unable to take me this year so my very wonderful aunt graciously drove me the 3 or 4 hours to visit my uncle near where the camp was. Also due to scheduling, my father had called ahead and gotten the OK from the person in charge (I'm assuming Jesus) that I could be dropped off the day before camp started. All the older teen counselors were there getting the place ready so I would be supervised for the 12 extra hours. So I get dropped off, they introduce me to the 4 or so counselors there and I tag along with them as they are getting things ready for all the campers who would be arriving the next day. One of the counselors is this very cute, blonde, tan guy who I followed around like a puppy, all day. What can I say, I did and always will love them menfolk. I flirted heavily with this poor guy, at least I tried. I helped pull crap out of the barn, we got all sweaty, he took his shirt off, we all went swimming (there was a lot of splashing and grabbing) and the regular adolescence teasing and flirting.

The next day, my fellow campers arrived. We were all in our early teens, and there was between 8-10 of us. 4 or 5 girls, 4 or 5 guys. Thanks to the luck of the draw and also the fact my I was semi well endowed at this stage and my swimsuit was slightly too small, making it a smidgen too low cut for what would be considered appropriate church camp attire, I quickly became the popular girl in our little group. Not with the girls, of course, but those boys sure were friendly. One boy specifically, was very friendly, you could almost say he was my "camp boyfriend". We would always sit next to each other and hold hands. Aww. So between the hot counselor and the bf, I was having the best week of my life. Like I have said before, I never got much attention of guys back home but due to the lack of other females and the oppressive nature that is church camp, I was the shiiiit.

Being the bad girl I was, I would make it my mission to sneak into the boy's cabin. For whatever reason, our "cabins" were actually treehouses or built on stilts up in the air or something. So to sneak over I would have to scale down the ladder out of our cabin, run over to the boys tree, climb the ladder and jump in the cabin while the counselors were off doing whatever. Usually using the bathroom or rounding up the rest of the campers, trying to herd us into our cabins. I usually made it up and got kicked out right away because I am not tricky at all. Except once. Like I had done the previous nights, I snuck over and this time instead of standing in the middle of the cabin or sitting on the floor, I ran and jumped into the cot of the my camp bf. The counselor came up, it was dark, "didn't notice" (hard to believe) and we thought it was hilarious. Then it hit me....no literally. Then IT hit me. Right in the back. It took me a second to realize what it was but suddenly I knew. It was a erect penis. It was incredibly awkward yet strangely confidence boosting, at the time I didn't know even a slight breeze could cause a teenage boy to stand at full attention. I promptly stood up, apologized to the counselor, turned and gave a head nod to the boys in the cabin and said good night. Thinking back, I'm sure I wiggled my little teenage ass right in there to "get comfortable". It's still my signature move to this day.

So that is the story of my last year at church camp and first boner to the back. I was touched by more then the Holy Spirit that summer. You're welcome.

Dear Diary

Some days I wake up and it's like my brain has been reset, I completely forget how to function. I don't know how to dress myself, I'm screwing up at work, I forget how to communicate with my face hole. The struggle is real. I have been stressed out lately so I'm assuming some of it has to do with that but I think some of it probably has to do with the fact that I'm just getting older and I just forget. My memory is terrible, I attribute some of it to the Internet, my brain is so used to a bombardment of information that some of those other memories just get pushed aside. I seriously can entertain myself by reading my old posts because I don't remember writing many of them and so they all seem new and super funny to me. My brain is too full, if that's a thing. When I went to visit my Grandma (she's super smart), she told me she keeps a journal when she travels and writes down everything she did, so I thought I would start that as well. Except I was so busy every day that I only very briefly summarized our activities and now I'm kicking myself for not taking the time to do it. Since it's not just vacations I'm having trouble remembering, I was thinking I could just keep a journal everyday. A big endeavor for someone who can't manage posting on their blog once a month. But if you are going to keep a journal to remind yourself of all the things you want to remember, all the feels and such, you would have to be brutally honest and straight forward when you wrote in it. If you truly wanted to be reminded, which I would, there would be some very personal things written in there. Now this leads to several issues, here are just a couple examples of why this could end horribly.

1. I die a terrible and untimely death, family comes across my journal and read in resulting in an incredibly awkward memorial service and funeral. If they even decided I deserved one at all.

2. Husband comes across it and decides for some reason mah bidness is his bidness, reads it and I get served divorce papers. Soon find out I am not an actual responsible adult, I just look like it sometimes, and end up living in my mom's backyard with 23 cats, 19 bunnies, a couple of squirrels and a raccoon because I think I'm Snow White or a majestic animal whisperer.

3. Something happens to one of my many acquaintances, my journal is confiscated and I spend the next 25 to life years in prison because I'd easily be found guilty by a jury of my peers. "I didn't mean I would actually stab them.. I was framed!"

4. Lose journal, stranger finds it, reads it, is fully disturbed and turns it into the police. The government spend lots of time an effort trying to decipher what the hell it says until they decide "f*ck it just throw the bitch in a padded room". OR maybe I stumble upon some secret government conspiracy, write down what I know, they find out and have me....silenced. I feel this is the most likely scenario. Because I'm like super good at detective-ing and shit.

So I probably won't be keeping a journal anytime soon.
Byyyyeeee.

Fake Fancy Pants and Real Designer Bags

What is this strange place...oh yeah. It's my blog I have completely forgotten about. Why hello! Does anyone still read this?
I recently returned from a week long trip to California, the state of the Gods. It is the most wonderful place on Earth. I thought Florida was my favorite but California is really a top notch state, I highly recommend going there. Anyways for any of this post to make sense I need to start with this sentence: I am not a fancy bitch.

As I drove to work the other day, in my shiny white, new-ish SUV (The Limited) wearing a white blazer with rolled up sleeves (because Miami Vice, duh) with my new overly large Coach bag in the passenger seat next to me, the faint remnants of grade A cocaine on my nose, I thought to myself the words spoken by the great Canadian, Degrassi Alum Drake "You Fancy, huh?"

No Drake, actually I am not fancy. It's true my vehicle is pretty badass but it's just a Ford. My dressy blazer was on clearance because they used it on a mannequin and it had pinholes in the back. The Coach bag was on deep clearance from an factory outlet in California. The cocaine, actually powdered sugar because I'm a fat kid. I literally ate a handful M&M's for dinner once this week. Moral of the story, it's doesn't take much to look fancy. I couldn't help but wonder while I was driving what the hell I was doing, this isn't me. I'm not one of those people who finds solace in brand names. I'm the girl who wore a hoodie to high school, every. single. day. I'm the girl who didn't know how to use a makeup brush until age 23, I'm the loud, trash mouth girl who randomly isn't wearing pants for some reason.

So what exactly am I trying to do? Simply get approval, approval from people I don't know, approval from people who 10 years ago I couldn't give a shit less about what they think of me. But for some reason this is important to me now. And I don't like it. I feel like a fraud, I feel like I'm trying to prove I'm better than other people, like I want people to be envious of what I have. Maybe I am, I don't really know anymore. It's so easy to get caught up in what you should be that eventually the real you starts to fade away. It's hard, so much of our lives are influenced by our surroundings but what if that is all we are? Just a modge podge of other people's expectations?  A frappuccino of things we hear and see everyday.

Jesus, that went way deeper and in a totally different direction than I thought it was going to go. I'm just going to stop there before I get any more emo. Moral of the story is: Be yourself, it's actually a lot harder than it seems. Find something that reminds you of who you truly are and never let it go.

Bye kittens.

Stupid Things I Do.....

Believe or not I am NOT perfect...shocker, I know. I always seem so pulled together. This is what my sarcastic font looks like. I've said it before and I'll say it again, public shaming is where it's at. That being said here is a list of stupid things I do or have done lately.....

1. On my lunch break the other day I thought it would be an awesome idea to wipe off all my makeup and yield a razor blade to my face in hopes to better my skin. Not only was it on my lunch break but it was in the last 20 minutes of my lunch break. My face looked like I had been ravaged by a tiny velociraptor. So then I had to pile on makeup and then I broke out. Vicious cycle.

2. Just realizing my Facebook profile wasn't set to completely private. Yes apparently sometimes when I posted stuff it was displayed for the public to see. Including a couple things I probably shouldn't have posted in the first place. So that was super freaking awesome, not. Stupid Facebook trying to show off my goodies.

3. Going out and actin' a damn fool. This one I can at least give myself a little credit, I don't go out and start fights or talk shit to people. I'm never really mean or anything. But I do love to dance and once in a while, perform karaoke. I enjoy the spotlight by nature, I'm loud and proud, to the dismay of many hipsters, prudes and those types of people that actually care about what they look like by 12:30am out at the bar. So yes I get the occasional sneer or glare and yes it makes me want to slash their car tires and YES it hurts my feelings. But you can't stop a buffalo from roaming and that's what I am, a loud, dancing, karaoke performing buffalo. And as it is sung in Same Love by Macklemore.. I can't change, even if I tried. So suck it betches.

Since re-reading the above #3, I figure that doesn't really count as something stupid. Being yourself is nothing to be ashamed of but this is:
3. I always forget to turn my phone ringer off before work. Nothing like talked to your boss as "Straight Outta Mordor" starts playing from inside your purse. Especially when it gets gradually louder and you try raising the volume of your voice to try to cover up the lyrics "Pour more of that maiden bangin' potion".

4. I own black clothes. And I wear black clothes - a lot, which wouldn't be an issue except that I live with 3 dogs and a rabbit. Just getting out of the house in the morning wearing black pants is like navigating a minefield. A minefield with little dog bullets trying to rub up against you. We should seriously consider buying stock in lint rollers.

5. I'm late for work sometimes. But it's rarely for a good reason. It's usually because even though I am on time, I always find something I NEED to do before I leave for work. Like stare into my freezer or say my last goodbyes to my animals in case something were to happen to me or see what my hair would look like in a bob or to rip off the spanx cami I thought I could deal with wearing all day but realized after 23 minutes that there is NO way I could stand wearing it for 8 hours and expect my organs to function properly. All very important things. Or not. I guess we'll never know.

So those are 5 out of the 1753 stupid things I do each day.

Until next time my lovelies!

One time we ate a hobo's green beans...

When I was in about 7th-8th grade, my friends and I used to tear around our neighborhood like real O.G.s (that's Original Gangster for those of you unfamiliar with Ice-T). We were not your typical tween girls. Though we did spend a chunk of our time sitting on our friend's front steps, checking out the older neighborhood boys who paused at the 4-way stop in front of her house and also nonchalantly riding our sweet bikes in front of their residences 200-300 times a day, the rest of the time we did a lot of thrill seeking, adventurous type stuff.

We didn't live too far from several parks, two of which were connected by a creek. Being completely unsupervised and extremely confident of our swimming skills, we would wait until after a heavy rain, go down to the creek and prepare for excitement. The creek would become a raging, larger version of itself, we would start at the park furthest away from our houses, grab a section of log that was loose, ride the rapids down to the next park and swim in our good ol' swimming hole for awhile before we would trudge back home, filthy, stinky and almost always slightly damaged from the rocks. That creek was so rocky and full of woodsy debris, that if you tried to use some kind of inflatable it would be immediately punctured and torn to shreds, hence the brilliant idea of using a log as a canoe. When there was no floatin' log, or if the log became to heavy, we would opt to travel via body board, aka just floating on your back the best you could. you had to be really careful when you came up to the really rocky sections and either walk it or arch your back up as far as possible to keep from being smashed to hell. Also, PROTECT THE HEAD.

Anyways during our sweet rafting trips we would come across some very unexplored terrains. Because no one else was stupid brilliant enough to float down a polluted crick. There was a beaver dam, a couple deep spots good for dunking or jumping into off of cliffs and then there was the giant metal tubes that supported the busy road above one section of the creek. Or maybe it as just one, I don't remember, I'll have to walk down and look this spring. Anyways this is the title of this blog comes into play, one time while we were exploring the big metal cave we came across the remnants of a fire pit and some slabs in the position of a seat. Though there were clearly signs someone had claimed this spot we quickly stuck our flag in the gravel and commandeered it as our new territory. It was a nice little set up, we had our different rooms, made furniture out of logs and rock slab, we were basically the G-damn Flintstones. We spent a lot of time and energy pimping our metal tube out so imagine our surprise when we returned one day to see someone had hunkered down and had used our awesome fort as a residence. Sure looking back on it now, I feel bad for whoever took shelter in our pimped out pad, but at the time we were pretty pissed. I mean HOW DARE THEY violate our sweet clubhouse (that we had stolen from the first owner) with their homelessness. Bastards. You might be wondering how we knew someone had used our clubhouse, well just like poor Goldilocks, we happened upon them, all cozy with their backpack..............and that's the story of the first time we killed someone. JUST KIDDING. For the love of God don't call the police.

What really happened was we noticed someone had burned a log in the fire pit and they also had left a can of green beans. Being the inconsiderate asshole daredevils we are, we immediately began daring each other to eat the green beans...which we opened caveman style, by banging the can open with a sharp rock. I just want to stop here and remind you, we were like 12 or 13 at this time. Full survivor mode, if there is EVER a zombie apocalypse, we are totally going to be Doomsday Rulers.  Anyways, we bang the can open and after daring each other to eat the green beans, we all do it together. And they tasted like victory.

So that's the story of us being asshole kids, ruining some homeless persons makeshift shelter and stealing their food. Sorry buddy.

Until next time kittens!

The Way, Way Back

*Disclaimer* As a foolhardy attempt to clean up my act I have decided to go back through my blog and try to post some of the many drafts I have started writing and never finished. The best way to break a bad habit of procrastination is to kick it in the crouch and make it your bitch. Also *Grandma I am sorry I swear so much in my blogs but I can only work on one character flaw at a time.." So Procrastination, prepare to die. As you will see, the timeline is going to be very off. Such as, in this post I talk about my four year old niece, Ellie is now 6. #timewarp. I'll even change the font color of the old post so you don't break your brain.


I had an interesting conversation with my niece Ellie, age 4, while driving her to gymnastics class. I was telling her that while she was in class, she should try to really focus when she was practicing. Not to get too excited when it was her turn to do the different moves because you could get hurt or more importantly, mess up. Yes, I am one of those overly involved freaks you see on TLC shows and yes I do plan on living vicariously through my niece. So I am explaining to her what it means to focus, we practice focusing on my finger, practice focusing on the car ahead of us, we are just a couple-a focusing fools, I tell ya. So we are focusing on this van ahead of us at the stoplight, looking at all the details on it, the color, the license plate, the make and model, doing great when all of a sudden Ellie looks at me with squinty eyes and slowly tells me "I've never ridden in a tractor before."
I look back at her, dumbfounded because I was so focused on the van ahead of us and ask her "What?" and she replies "A tractor. I've never ridden in one. OH LOOK! A PLANE!"
So I added "teaching a 4 year old how to focus" to the list of Impossible Tasks, right under "clean entire house" and right above "get father's approval" *collective AWWWWWWWWW* haha just kidding (no I'm not). But teaching a 4 year old to focus is a tough job, actually the whole parenting thing in general seems like a pretty impossible thing to do.
Either it's because I don't have a little child of my own, or maybe because I really do feel like I need my father's approval, (it's that one) that when it comes to little kids, it takes a lot to impress me. I don't know if that makes sense, just bear with me, ok so what I mean is I am just sometimes too critical, of little kids, I'm a kid critic. It sounds like I'm a huge jerk but I'm not..well maybe a little. Like I really enjoy watching and helping Ellie do her gymnastics, I've very proud of how well she does. But I am also very strict with her and unless she does something really well or close to, I don't think she needs any praise. As I type this I am trying to think of other examples and I am starting to realize that it's only her. I am only that way with little Ellie. All the other little kids in my family, my friends' kids, nope I'm not hyper-critical of any of them, everything they do is cool. It's poor Ellie who gets the brunt of the madness. 

 Looking back I realize I was a dick to Ellie and I'm happy to say I have changed since then. Mostly because she isn't in gymnastics anymore, but also because I realized that even if she isn't the next gold medal gymnast she is still amazing. The way her brain works, the things she says, her ability to kick ass playing Subway Surfer or that Minion game on her mom's phone. The fact that she loves Albert Einstein, she is obsessed with Morgan Freeman, even named her baby doll after him and refuses to swear even when I try really hard to trick her into it, because she "is too little to say bad words". Best of all, she loves me for no reason. If I lost my job, my house and smelled like cat urine, she would still love me. After all bullying I put her through and I am still her Auntie Rachel. Which is why I am convinced she is the best person in the world. Period.

 

It's Adventure Time! Not the show.

Most of you already saw my Facebook post but for anyone who didn't I announced some big news. No, not a baby, not everything is about babies. I have the opportunity, thanks to an understanding husband, to go to Chicago in August and take part in a week long immersion training course at The Second City. I am super, super excited for this adventure and I can't wait to experience something I've only ever dreamed of doing. I know I'm not going to suddenly be chosen to join the cast of SNL or something like that, I'm not THAT unrealistic. But clearly I will probably be offered my own sitcom. Ever since I figured out how to make people laugh, I have imagined being a part of something bigger than myself. More than that I want to prove to everyone that you CAN DO IT. If you want something, GO GET IT. I work at a library, I never saw myself working at a library but I do. And I work. I come into work every day and I work. I work so we can have a house, I work so we can have a car, I work so we can pay our bills. My husband does the same thing, every day. We have worked HARD the last 8 years. We have gotten raises and promotions because of our hard work. And now finally, FINALLY I have the chance to do something I have always wanted to do because I have the money and resources to do it. This was not the path I thought would take me to this point but that's life. Sometimes things don't end up like you thought they would, this isn't a bad thing, some of the best things in life are the unexpected surprises. In 7th grade, I never thought I'd have a boyfriend but guess what I did get a boyfriend and I married the hell out of him. I was told I would live in a cardboard box, well guess what, I only use cardboard boxes to build forts INSIDE MY HOUSE, cause I have a house. I drive a Limited, we call it the unlimited, because when you get in it you are transported to a magical land where anything can happen.  You can't let fear keep you back in life. I am terrified to go to Chicago on my own, I'm scared that I'll walk into class on the first day and I won't be any good. What if I'm terrible, what if everyone hates me, what if I'm not prepared? What if I get abducted? (most likely scenario of all because I'm hilarious and everyone loves me) Seriously though, as scared shitless as I am, I am forcing myself to push through it and go. Because this could be my only chance to experience something like this...and I can't let my fear of what could happen totally screw it up.

In closing, follow your dream, don't let fear delegate what you can or can't do in life and fill your life with as much cool shit as you can. Because someday you will die and they will not let a corpse skydive, I've asked.

Love Always,
 Trashmouth