Have You Heard??

Oh hey, hi! Yes it's true, it's me - Amanda - the other half of the 'pair' in Pair-Ranting. The one who has been wildly and inexcusably absent as of late and who has made Mike's secret dreams of having the blog all to himself poor Mike carry the weight of the blog all on his own.

I'm sorry!

There are many factors behind my lack of sharing fun stories with you; but the only one you need to know about, really, is that first and foremost I've been hella busy.

When I say 'busy', yes, I mean the usual going to school, working, taking the kids on adventures and all of that other time-consuming bullshit that gets in the way of writing quality material for this blog.

However, one big thing that has been taking a lot of my free time is, uh, PRODUCING MY OWN GODDAM MORTIFIED SHOW!! That's right - I finally convinced the Powers That Be to let me give it a whirl, under the helpful tutelage of my SF/Oakland producer, Scott. "Come onnnn," I nagged and nagged, "Sonoma County is desperate for quality entertainment!" I'm pretty sure they thought it was going to be a cute little experiment and were just humoring me by consenting to let me try one little show in my backwoods small town.

Amazing hand-drawn flyer by Josh Staples
of The New Trust and The Velvet Teen fame. Yep.

Alas! The show is tonight and this mofo has long-since sold out! There's a waiting list! Ticketless would-be attendees are posting on the Facebook event page begging for tickets! I'm getting emails every day asking "Is it really sold out?! Please god can you help us??" People are asking how many hours before the show they should show up (read: camp out) in order to get one of the very limited door tickets! You'd think we were about to release a Pliny or something!

Seriously, I haven't seen this much ticket desperation since my days following the Grateful Dead. If I see people wandering around with one finger in the air, calling "can I get a miracle?!" my whole year will have been made. Plus the Press Democrat wrote an article that just came out this morning so needless to say people are finally taking me seriously and my phone, email and Facebook are, you know, exploding. It's...totally awesome.

So listen: I could go on and on about why I've been mysteriously quiet. But I won't, because as you can see I'm super busy and I've gotta go knock the socks off of Santa Rosa.

Onward!

P.S. Have you watched Mortified Nation - the hit documentary about Mortified - yet? You should, it's on Netflix.

P.P.S. Did you know there's now a Mortified Podcast on Radiotopia? There is! You should subscribe to it!

A Visit from my First Boyfriend

The other day I was at work, minding my own business, when I got a text. It was from my first boyfriend, we'll call him "Scott" because that's what I called him in this post from last October. (Not to be confused with any other Scott who has appeared in this blog in the past. Completely different Scott).

I should say here that aside from a comment or two on facebook over the years, I have not seen or been in any real contact with this person since I was 18. But to receive a text saying "hey this is Scott, I might be in San Fran later today, wanna hang out?" didn't strike me as that odd. Between school and camp and various jobs I've held over the years, I get texts or emails like this from time to time. Usually with a little more notice, but hey, I can roll with any variety of punches.

I was super busy at work that day so I didn't put too much thought into his visit aside from making some very basic arrangements. I was stressed and so as the night wore on, his texts about flight cancellations and emergency landings and lack of available flights just sort of went in one eye and out the other. I thought we'd have to put our catch-up visit on hold until the next time he had some crazy layover in the city.

But the next day he was in my car, in Santa Rosa, and we were heading to the Russian River Brewing Company. Apparently he's some sort of important beer nerd, so he was pretty excited about this. Like, palms getting sweaty and eyes growing wide and a little bit crazy the closer we got kind of excited. I told him that Paulie and I had a Beatification from RRBC that he could have. His reaction was the same as when I agreed to have sex with him the first time - "Oh...my...god. Are you serious?!" (side note: I tried the beer. I'm incredibly unqualified to do this, but here is my review anyway: Meh.)

As we made our way to the brewery, I asked when he was flying out. He didn't really have an answer for this. Instead he indicated that maybe he'd just "take a bus back," or "rent a car"...when his "money came through." I laughed and said "oh god, is this going to be one of those situations where you show up and just...never leave? Ha ha ha!" He just chuckled and said "heh heh....heh, no....." and looked off into the distance.

For all of my talk about growing up with men and having some sort of insight into the male psyche, sometimes I'm a little slow. It took me several hours and a few subtle clues to figure out that Scott was, perhaps, going through one of those midlife crises during which men look up old girlfriends. Apparently lots of people do it. In fact Paulie did it. So, okay. No big deal. I figured I could dodge whatever intentions he had fairly gracefully. I mean, we were a couple ages ago! It's not like me rejecting him now would break his-- oh, shit. I forgot. I broke that poor young man's heart.

I'd sort of blocked out that detail until we were two beers in and somehow got on the subject of, well, old stuff. He reminded me of the entire winter I thought I had scabies (ahhh, memories). I asked him to refresh my memory on how in the world my mother had ever let us go on a date when I was a mere 14 years old (by using incompetent brothers as chaperones). He said he'd recently found an old picture of me in "that black dress" I wore all the time - the one with shoulder pads that made me look like a skinny football player. Or a short Anthony Kiedis in drag. When I wondered at how he managed to still have such old photos, he said "well, you know, I mean come on - you were my first love...first heartbreak.... Gotta keep those pictures! Heh..." (looks off into distance). As I do in all situations in which I feel awkward (aka - most), I laughed too loudly. Then said "welp, time to head over to MY BOYFRIEND'S HOUSE for dinner!"

How do I get myself in to these situations?! Mike says it's because I'm terribly, terribly naive.

I braced myself for the inevitable question - whatever that would be. I wasn't sure what to expect. But as time went on, it didn't come. Huh, I thought. Maybe he's not pining away for our lost teenage love after all! Hm! Just to be sure, the next day I asked him how he was feeling about all of the big changes happening in his life. Except I worded it more like "so, do you think you're going through some sort of midlife crisis or something?" He asked me to define Midlife Crisis. "You know, you get to a certain age and start questioning all the choices you've made in your life, feeling like the grass is greener elsewhere, regretting things, deciding to try again, take more risks...things like that."

He thought about this for a beat and said "nah, that's been my whole life. My whole life has just been one long midlife crisis. I can handle all this stuff. It's just sort of overwhelming being here with" (here it came - the big, torch-carrying confession...) "Russian River being right down the street from your apartment!"

And that was the end of that.

I realized that actually he'd just gone out of his way to postpone connecting flights, put off some business, and shuttle from San Francisco to Santa Rosa then back again for one simple thing: Beer.

I hope it was worth it!

The Brother Series: Ben

Ben is my youngest brother, and my favorite. I realize I'm not supposed to say this, but he's the only one that ever reads this blog, so he wins by default.

He was trying to tickle me, little fucker

He was a shithead of a kid, the kind that I wanted to strangle for various reasons. Off the top of my head I can think of a couple of examples. One being that he was the type of kid that would blow out candles. You know - other people's birthday candles, candles when the power goes out during a tornado warning...the candle inside the INCREDIBLE jack-o-lantern that I'd just carved, in fact the first pumpkin I'd ever carved in my whole life, the one I was so proud of...so proud in fact that I drove it all the way to my dad's house to show it off, where they turned off the lights so I could demonstrate how AMAZING it was when all aglow...only to have Ben blow out the candle. Repeatedly. Again and again (I'm sure you know what the word repeatedly means, but I'm just making sure you get the point here). Even after everyone started yelling and getting pissed, saying "Ben! Come on, cut it out!" he would just hesitate, snicker, then do it again. He was such a little prick.

Around the time I became of babysitting age, my step-mom put two-and-two together and asked if I might want to spend some more time at their place during the summer. Translation: Babysit my Shithead Kid for Free.

As a youth I was naive and eager to please, so of course I said yes. Aside from the fact that I had a lot more freedom in that house than in my own, I felt very worldly spending my summer months in Kalamazoo, and thought it might give me some much-needed clout when I went back to my hometown of Gobles. It didn't.

I had to feed and keep safe this youngest-born of my dad's, and every day as I was making lunch Ben would yell from the living room "I Want Lunch! Feed Me Lunch...SLAVE!" It killed me that I had to actually feed him after that. But I didn't want to make his mom mad, so I dished up his boxed mac n' cheese with a healthy side of lifelong resentment. I knew that would show him!

Ben is very cool now, if still a bit cocky in that I'm-Way-Better-Than-Everyone-Else way. Somehow he pulls that attitude off and has never been punched in the face, which I've never understood. In fact he and a friend of mine were discussing how they've never been punched in the face, despite being completely obnoxious dicks when they're drunk, so Ben punched him in the face...and STILL didn't get punched back! Voodoo.

Aside from finally being cool enough for me to want to hang out with socially, Ben has his own stuff going on, too. He's kind of a really, really good musician, and has contributed to lots of bands and albums and stuff.  He makes genius music mixes, and has gotten me through any number of situations with his depth of musical knowledge. I'm someone that is heavily affected by music, so I appreciate this skill. (Even though he for some reason doesn't have Peter Gabriel in his repertoire, I've finally  let that go).

He used to make me random mixes just for fun, with lots of Beach House and The Dirty Projectors on them. When my ex and I split up, I asked for a breakup mix - something to listen to when I needed to embrace my anger, heartbreak, and disillusionment. That mix included Famine Affair by Of Montreal. Just take a minute here and pretend you've been jilted. Now listen to that song. How does he do it?!  I also found this cover by James Blake appropriate.

We thought this would be
a really funny Christmas card...
to send to everyone else in our family.

Ben has been helping me plan all kinds of hijinks over the years, and recently moved to San Francisco to do so in closer proximity. Before he found his own place, he slept on my couch and "worked" from my dining room table. Basically this meant he turned on his computer then had a leisurely breakfast, shower, and then lunch; at which point he logged off and called it a day.

I talk to him more than any of  my other siblings but I honestly don't know what he does for a living. Something about computers...? I can't give you any more specifics than that.

I know that whatever he does pays well and affords him a really dumb lifestyle (read: I'm grumpy and crotchety and jealous). He drinks a lot of beer. The other night I got a text from him asking me to run down the street to the Russian River Brewing Company to buy him as much of their new fancy-pants limited-edition beer as I could. I tried to explain that I needed to somehow scrabble together enough money to pay my rent and bills, which already seemed unlikely, and that buying beer for him was not exactly in my budget. He assured me that he'd send me a check, and suggested that I just go ahead and use my credit card, because it would be expensive - like $10 a bottle. I patiently explained that I am not a rich person and don't have a credit card. He rolled his eyes (this was all via text, but I'm pretty sure I could read an eye-roll in there) and said just to get as many as I could.

I did some creative math and walked down for his beer, where I was informed that it was actually FIFTEEN dollars a bottle. Fuck! I thought about all the things I could pay off if I was a person who could afford $15 beers. I started getting bitter and feeling old. But then I remembered that there's a very slim chance that Ben will some day be married, maybe even with kids. And when money is really, really tight he'll look back on the days when he did nothing with his ever-flowing cash except drink it away - even though his intelligent and beautiful older sister Amanda warned him against it. And then I will GLOAT.

Oh yes, yes I will. That will be a glorious imaginary day, indeed.