TUNESDAY: NIKI AND THE DOVE...PLUS, THE ONE TIME I ATE TOOTHPASTE!

Mmmmyeah. I love a good jam. I've been burrito wrapping myself into the blanket of Niki and the Dove's latest album "Instinct" for the past two weeks, and it's real bomb. Liiiiike...REAL BOMB. It's gotten to the point where if someone asks me what kind of music I like (I'm waiting on baited breath for someone to ask but really, who in the fux would axe me dis question?) my newest response will be "Swedish music". I mean you've got Robyn. You've got The Tallest Man on Earth. And now you've got my new squeezes Niki and the Dove.

I could have sworn I posted their song "Tomorrow" a couple months back, but maybe that I that was a Facebook post? Well, regardless, here's the song that made me fall madly for them:

There are so many songs, guys! So many great songs that can only be described as a pseudo mash up of 80s electronic power ballad emotional heart dancing tracks. I can't, but I CAN, so here's another:

 

"Somebody"

 

Ugh, I hated choosing that one song out of all the good options just now! I'm the most indecisive person on planet urff. I'm cereal, for real. It's, like, normal behavior for me to stand in the toothpaste aisle for eight minutes. I figure, teeth are important. They're in your face! The face is key! I need ample time to figure out if it's cavity control, tartar control, added flouride, or whitening power that will make my teeth "shine like the top of the Chrysler building!" I need help. I also need to just close my eyes and grab (thaz what he said).

 

I ate toothpaste once when I was really little. ALRIGHT, I was 5 or 6 years old. I  was in Cedar City, Utah performing The Nutcracker ballet. During the show they would keep (imprison) all of us kids in a small green room where we'd wait for 2+ hours for our four minutes of fame. Listen, I was hungry and surrounded by anorexic adolescent ballerinas, so I popped open my royal purple sparkly Caboodle, and I sucked off (?) some blue gel toothpaste. Trust though, I slammed the door on that idea at first taste. It was reminiscent of that other time I tried ear wax. The ear wax conversation over family dinner went a little something like this:

 

LITTLE ME

"Ew. Asparagus is gross. It tastes like ear wax!"

 

MOM

"How would you know?"

 

LITTLE ME

"I tried it once."



You know, this is all starting to come together. I think the reason I never had to deal with substance abuse later on in life is because I already went through my experimental phase when I was much, much younger. Neat. Don't you love learning new things about yourself? Unleash the past to clarify the present. Shanti shanti, y'all!

I DON'T HAVE ANY SISTERS...NOT EVEN SORORITY ONES

Hello to you. Today I think I'll come at you (like a spider monkey) from the place of a writer...

I've been super inspired lately by my friend Kiley Reid who in the past two weeks has had three separate essays posted on Thought Catalog and Every Writer's Resource. Now, while these accomplishments haven't broken her into renowned J.K. Rowling status, I'd still like to give her five "you go Glen Cocos" up for submitting her penned thoughts and having a complete stranger think they're worthy of public viewing. They are worthy. And you, Kiley Reid, are SO worthy.

Her style is something different and daring and SO relatable to the girls who choose a life without sorority influences. You know who you girls are. You're definitely not the non sororal girls who say, "I just can't handle girls. I get along with guys so much better"...which...GAG ME because you are living a life of delusion. No, I'm talking about the girls who say, "I don't hate the idea of being in a sorority, but the whole rush process of running around in high heels and smiling for a week straight seemed tiring, so I decided to catch up on reruns of America's Next Top Model and eat a whole box of one hundred calorie pack Oreos instead."

PS: My forever favorite moment from ANTM. Tyra's crazy ass antics can't even hold a candle.

 

I remember when I waited in line with my mother for sorority registration at the University of Arizona. I remember my debilitatingly self-conscious self getting more and more uncomfortable as the line grew shorter. My eye line turned slightly downward as I started reading the myriad of words plastered in sparkle letters on all the other girls' neon sweatpants..."CHEER" "JUICY" "MINE" "YOURS" "LOOSE BUTTHOLE" (kidding) and the ever so coveted "PINK". This is actually one of the most vivid memories I have from my two years spent at the UofA probably due to the combination of loud colors and the invasive potency of cotton candy perfume in the air. The same cotton candy perfume I longed to smell of at first waft courtesy of the Swedish exchange student (who also introduced me to the super hawt trend of sparkly white eyeliner) in my middle school gym class became the same scent I turned my back on so assuredly that day. It's college. Time to grow up and grow into a nice floral scent. I leaned over to my mom and whispered, "I can't do this." My mom wasn't too pleased, not because it was her dream for me to wear WAY too many oversize hoodies with my Greek letters so proudly embroidered across the chest, but only because she had just waited in line for twenty minutes. God forbid. She replied, "What? Are you nervous? It'll be fine." "I'm not nervous. I just don't want to do this."

My dad was there to meet us near the exit wearing his crisp new University of Arizona baseball cap and matching trainers donning the Wildcats' fearsome colors of red and navy. "If you don't want to do it, you don't want to do it," he said firmly after I broke the news. As we walked away from the magical cotton candy land of sorority registration to the nearest bar, as dad had gone twenty minutes without a beer, I could tell he was masking with a passive demeanor his actual elation. His daughter would no longer be participating in any of that ritual "bull crap" and fraternity party "horse shit".

Sometimes, yeah, I regret my decision to not go through with pledging a sorority. I surely think my time would have been more enjoyable at an institution such as the UofA being a part of the Greek system, but I hightailed it for New York City after two years anyway. Moral of the story, I'm not against sororities (except for the girls of Gamma Phi Beta...always notably pinched face pretty and always notably dim), but I AM one of the girls who wasn't in one.

Kiley Reid writes for us. Watch her go at http://kileyreid.com.

CAN'T WE ALL JUST FOCUS ON THE SUPERBNESS OF MODERN FAMILY?!

In the midst of a firestorm of Facebook opinions regarding the Vice Presidential debate...which I'll totally watch later...I feel the need (the need for speed) to focus on something a little bit, achem, better. Did everyone watch your "Modern Family" last night? Okay, I still have to watch the second half hour, but I need a breather after the first go 'round. The episode titled "Schooled" was PROBABLY one of the top five MFs of all time. Not only did it have ALL the best jokes, but it also had the heart that consistently makes this show something pretty special.

The combination of these two was cosmically on point last night, what with Phil and Claire Dunphy CRYING after dropping Haley off at school!!! Of course I cried...not like "Friends" finale (which I consider to be my Titanic) crying, but like, end of Born to be Wild soft crying. Oof, when that boy has to release his gorilla friend into the wild, and the gorilla says "I love you" in sign language?! But, where was I? So in turn, I then wept with JOY during the face-off between Cam and Pam (Wendi Mclendon-Covey lesbian cameo, say whaaa?!). You can find that gem of a clip HERE. Preview of the exchange:

PAM

I look forward to your frittata.

CAM

Oh, why? Are you visiting us in 2008?

Gaymazing grace, how sweet that sound!!! And last, but not at all least, we had the introduction of Phil Dunphy's book, Phil's-osophy. I hath no words except WATCH THIS FULL CLIP NOW. Watch the debate later.

WEDNESDAY MORNING...RAIN IS FALLING?

Happy hump day, per usual...consitently my fav day of the week for many pocketed reasons. WHY BORE YOU WITH THE SHETAILS?! Anyway, somber morning here for many other pocketed reasons. WHY BORE YOU WITH THE SHETAILS ONCE AGAIN?!

I ordered an energy drink and some dried apples this morning at Starbucks to which the lady responded, "Would you like anything hot to drink? Or anything...to eat?" I said, "No thanks," but really I was like, "THANK YOU FOR CARING ABOUT ME AND MY WELL BEING ANONYMOUS PERSON." Then I wiped away a single dramatic tear with the back of my fingerless gloved hand and sat down to write to you.

Thank God my Pandora seemed to synch to my mood this morning as well. I don't know what I would have done if fucking, "One Headlight" by the Wallflowers showed up, as sometimes it does. FUCK THAT NOISE, Bob Dylan's son Jakob...YOU HAD SO MUCH POWER GOING INTO THE MUSIC BUSINESS, AND YOU GAVE US THE WALLFLOWERS?! Sorry, I let one of my "pocketed reasons" responsible for my sadness escape me. Here are the actual songs that saved me along with "Izzo" by Jiggamayne, achem Jay-Z.

1.) "Cold War" Janelle Monae...I stomped to Starbucks with this one. Plus, Janelle is one of the newest Covergirls, so this is totes topical.

 



2.) "Everything I Am" Kanye..."Damn, here we go again. People talk shit, but when shit hits the fan,
everything I'm not made me everything I am." Okay, okay, nobody's shit talking about yours truly (IN FRONT OF MY FACE), but the message is still taken and accepted and loved.

 



Savor your hump day...it only cums around once a week. See what I did there? YOU BET.

TODAY IS TUNESDAY

My friend Fiona posted the new Solange Knowles video "Losing You" on her Facebook today:

 

Uh, can we talk about how GORGEOUS this video is? The setting, the movement, the style, the SHOES...THE SHOES, Y'ALL! I don't think the Knowles sisters could ever do wrong by me. I mean, I didn't really understand exactly what Solange had been doing these past few years dressing up in the craziest of getups and showing up at events because she can, but now I get it. Girl still drops it hard on the mic. I'm excited to go fangirl status on Solange...It became fangirl status when at 1:16 she throws it back to the boys of New Kids on the Block with the dance move made legendary in their video for "The Right Stuff." GO PEEP ON THAT.

SLOPPY SUNDAYS- JUDY BLUMERANG!!!

OH MY CHRIST. If THIS isn't the best thing that's happened to the internet since all week or something like that! In some mystical turn of kismetic fortune PATTON OSWALT AND JUDY BLUME HAD A BIBLIOGRAPHY-OFF ON TWITTER TODAY!!! I'm sitting in the middle of the local Intelligentsia looking for ANYONE to cling to in this moment of pure joy! I'm actually speechless and doing the weird thing where you're like looking to your right (no one there), looking to your left (not a soul there either), and then you just lift your hands up, slap 'em straight down on your thighs and take audible breaths outward as to say, "geez", "oh man", and "if only Carol Anne could've been here when I discovered this!" God damnit, I wish I knew a Carolanne because that name seems so appropriate at this time. I'm sure wherever there is a Carolanne out there, she's surely enjoying this random Twitter stumble upon. I don't have a twitter or follow anyone on Twitter, so THANK GOD for Jezebel's discovery. Also, a quick shout out to Jezebel, in general, for reminding me that I am a woman, and I should educate myself accordingly even though feminist rage and thought overload makes me feel, for the most part, squeamish. More on that rubbish at a later time.

But seriously, this dialogue consisting of exclusively Blume references makes my heart swell with delight. I'm not naive to the fact that Oswalt has NO fucking idea what he's even talking about. I can imagine he got SO deep into this twitter dialogue that his guilt led him to quick Wickepedia Judy Blume for a list of novels she's penned. I think this was the exact moment he took Wicki action:

"I'm in a bibliography-off with Judy Blume! Talk about places I never meant to be..."

You guys. YOU GUYS. You have to read this...IMMEDIATELY. I still don't believe in Twitter, but I do believe in magic whether in or out of a young girl's heart.

If you don't understand the "in or out of a young girl's heart" reference please listen to the song below. I like this version as opposed to the original just because there are puppies in this video and totally hawt blonde chix!

SOMETIMES I TRY TO SING...

On Tuesday I heard "A Promise to Keep" from Brandi Carlile's latest album Bear Creek, which I'll have to get to downloading soon. Long story short: I heard it. I liked it. I wanted to sing it. And so that night I picked up my gee-tar and got carried away. Obviously, there are some flub-a-dubs, but I think it adds some essential character. Yes, let's go with that.