excuses make you lose your power...**

Excuses, excuses, excuses... we all use them. They’re convenient, sometimes easy to come up with, and make everyone feel better about the situation at hand. But when do excuses cross the line?

The other day while driving home from work, I was pulled over by the Pasco police. Why, you ask? Oh, well, it was because I didn't have my lights on, and it was roughly 10:30 PM. I've been driving for nearly six years, ergo I should know when it's appropriate to use my headlights.

When asked about my egregious error in vehicle maneuvering, I came up with this gem of a reason... “I just wasn’t thinking.”

Yeah bitch, I guess.

We, as in humans/Americans/people in general, seem to use the, "I just wasn't thinking", excuse a lot. Why is this? We all know it's total bullshit. Umm, yeah right, I wasn’t thinking... I'm pretty sure it's physiologically impossible to 'not think'. Sometimes I’m just a dumbass, plain and simple.

Overuse of this ‘not thinking’ line could mean one of two things. Either society’s intelligence is nearing reality show star level (several points above a vegetative state, for those of you who are unfamiliar with The Hills), or... we just like to make shit up to cover our own asses.

Could stupidity and the ability to ‘not think’ really be a pandemic of H1N1 proportions? I certainly hope not, but we all had to know that the end of human intelligence was near when a show like, "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant", had enough material to air more than one episode. Really? You didn't know you were with child? For the love of all that is holy, keep it to yourself, and hope that your kid doesn't someday stumble across the DVD record of you telling the nation the story of its birth, which happened to be in a toilet, while you were halfway through your shift at Wendy's. The poor kid is going to have a hard enough life with you as a parent.

As hopeless as I feel after watching a marathon of idiotic pregnant women confessing their parking lot birth stories (more so because I wasted time watching, rather than caring that it actually happened), I don’t think stupidity is the real issue. I know, I'm as shocked as you are.

I think, what people actually mean when they say, "I just wasn't thinking!" is, "That was so fucking stupid, I can't believe I did that, I’m sooo embarrassed." Blaming your less-than-brilliant idea (or lack thereof) on misfiring synapses in your prefrontal cortex just sounds better than admitting your own defeat.

"I just wasn't thinking!" isn't the only ‘cop-out’ phrase we frequent... Who hasn't used the little ditty known as, "No offense-", as a pre or post statement warning? By informing our conversational target that we mean no ill-will, it's almost as if we're allowed to say anything without fear of repercussions.

It’s quite literally an excuse to be a jerk, because, you’re forcing the person beforehand to take no offense. Like telling someone you’re going to pinch them, and then following through- they can’t get mad, can they? You warned them!

But, like all good excuses, ‘no offense’ can only go so far in protecting you. It’s like verbal birth control, it’ll most likely keep a child at bay (take note, ‘I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant’-ers!), but it won’t save you from herpes... shudder.

"No offense, but that was the most idiotic thing I've ever heard," seems allowable in conversations amongst friends, but I would never utter, "No offense, but your baby is ugly as fuck,"... even if the child in question was exceedingly unattractive. It just seems rude, and it’s one of those things you can’t come back from (like herpes...). It’s highly unlikely that the mother of Godzilla’s mini-me will let you continue in your attempts to assure her that your statement was really a complement, that ‘ugly as fuck’ means ‘pretty as an angel’ in your vocabulary. You’d be better off feigning a strange bout of Tourette’s.

To me, saying 'no offense' is technically just saying, "I'm an ass, and I realize that this is a rude thing to say, but I'm going to go ahead with it anyway because, well, I already told you I'm an ass... What more do you want from me?!?"

When it comes down to it, we're all guilty of using convenient phrases to skirt around common decencies like accountability, assumed aptitude and decorum... it’s part of our charm. And while excuses seem reasonable at certain points in our daily lives, we all need to realize that they are always going to be just that... excuses. They may give us a chance to bide some time and make up for our bad behavior, but they’ll soon become as tired as Tom Cruise... and no one will want to hear, or see them, anymore.

But have no fear! Thankfully, college has shown me that there is one excuse that nullifies nearly anything you could ever say or do (sans bodily harm or injury, those trump all)... Yep, you guessed it.

Drunkenness. No explanation needed. You’re welcome.

PREACH.




**And I'll buy a beer, or juice, for the first person to name the man responsible for the title of this entry.

look at me, i'm maturing... sort of.

It seems like it was just last week that I declared my immaturity... you know, my penchant for Hercules, Mulan and the Little Mermaid and distaste for matrimony and children?

Oh, wait, it was last week. Literally seven days ago. But I'm here to tell you, that yes, I am maturing. Slowly.

As ridiculous as it may sound (and I assure you, it will sound ridiculous, especially if you read it out loud in a Minnesotan accent), I discovered my new found maturity while singing along to a Miley Cyrus song. Right, I know. It's not just my varied music tastes that assure me of my limitless intellectual boundaries...

You see, all my life, I've been terribly afraid of what other people think of me. I'm a very cynical and sarcastic person, but I try to keep my bitchy asides to myself, and the people I call my best friends- you know, the ones that I'm friends with because they either have incriminating photos of that one night, know way too much about the 'real' me, or because it's too hard to break in a new friend at this age. But to strangers, I strive to be unusually pleasant and try way too hard at being humorous and agreeable.

It's exhausting.

I've always been fearful of disagreeing with the status quo, or voicing my opinion if I thought it to be contrary to the majority's. I don't know why, but I've constantly censured myself. It's not even that my opinions are that wacky, or outlandish, or offensive. When I was younger, I guess it was just easier not to have them at all, tame as they may be.

Last Thanksgiving, we were all sitting in my grandparent's living room, when my cousin let out a slight giggle. "Nice shoes, Grandma."

I looked over to my grandmother, who was born in the 1930's, and down to her fancy footwear. She was wearing Rocawear sneakers.

"Thank you! I got them at Macy's." --Was her reply. She didn't care that people her age generally stick to Keds, and I really doubt she knows who, exactly, Jay-Z is. The simple fact was, they were brown and gold and matched her outfit, so she bought them. She liked them, and that was all that mattered.

It got me thinking... maybe that's what maturity is? Liking what you like, being who you are, with no excuses or explanations necessary.

And that begs the question... who am I? I'm not really sure, but here are a few truths:

I like that Miley Cyrus song. I don't like all of her songs, but the new one, Party in the USA? I like it. If it's on the radio, I'll sing along. If it comes up on my iPod's shuffle (yes, I downloaded it) I may pause long enough to hear it through its last chorus.

Clueless, is probably my favorite movie of all time. I have others that I quite enjoy: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Next, This is Spinal Tap, My Man Godfrey, Edward Scissorhands and the Princess Bride... but Clueless? It was brilliant. I don't care what anyone says.

I love Target. It is a fantastic store.

Sometimes I watch NFL games, but only for three reasons. Tom Brady, Brady Quinn, and Mark Sanchez. I couldn't care less about the game. I usually only watch a few minutes, get in a few close-ups of the QB, and peace out to a different channel. Probably ABC Family or something equally juvenile.

I'm disorganized to a fault. It's pathetic, because I have planners and binders and file folders and bins and hangers and ANYTHING anyone would ever possibly need to be a reasonably neat and tidy person. And I disregard them. It's as if I buy them to appease some sort of cleanliness obsessed person deep inside me, but my sloth-like tendencies always come out the victor.

I hate Ugg boots, Ed Hardy, Juicy fits (tracksuits, to those of you who don't have a Jevon dictionary) and probably almost anything fashionable... Perhaps it's that I have no fashion sense, but I'm okay with that.

Apathy is something I've mastered, conquered and learned to hate. It's who I am, but I know that to become a better person, I need to fight against it with all my strength. I'll work on that tomorrow, I guess.

I don't understand the whole Twilight, Edward, vampire obsession. I've read the books, I saw the movie. I still don't get it. And I'm pretty sure I'm one of about eight people that shares that opinion. I also don't understand the hoopla surrounding Star Wars, or the Lord of the Rings. Though, I have to admit, I love Harry Potter. I'm not 11, but I sure as hell would drop anything and everything if my Hogwarts letter rolled in tomorrow, late because of my frequent address changes...

So there you go. A tiny, little peek into the real me. These things may not seem monumental, at all, but most of them are things that I clearly remember lying about. Oh, also, I lie a lot. Mostly to strangers, but does that make it any better? Actually, I think it does... but that's neither here nor there.

It comes down to the fact that you may not like me, but I can't say that I actually care. Well, I probably do, because who am I kidding, I live to be liked... But I'm going to try not to.

I'M BECOMING A GROWN UP!

So suck on that, suckers (lame...).

the real world: pasco

No, I don't live with seven strangers while camera crews chronicle my every inebriated mistake (assuming that most decisions made under the influence are, in fact, mistakes), but I feel that I've begun to wade into the pool that is 'real life'.

FYI... It is an icy cold bitch with one hell of an undertow. And it's riddled with slimy seaweed that scares the crap out of you when it slithers around your leg.

The many perks of real life have made me stop and think, and realize that I sincerely miss college.

My memories of joy and splendor in the tundra of the 509 prompted me to recently rearrange my entire schedule, setting aside a Saturday night especially for a Pullman reunion. One night in the birthplace of constant revelry and drunken good times was all it took to comprehend how far I've come since my abrupt departure last spring.

I've become lame, and sober, or as some of my friends would say, "Bitch can't hang." Two beers into the night, I found myself content with watching the lewdness surrounding me rather than joining in. I poured out the warm ale taking up residence in the bottom of my bottle (something that is practically punishable by death) and became a fly on the wall in the world of collegiate merrymaking.

Truth be told, I even refused a thrice offered pull of watermelon vodka. Of course, I hate watermelon, I've struggled with vodka since a camping trip gone awry, and I'm a little bit of a hypochondriac- thereby deathly afraid of catching the swine flu... but I haven't always been so pragmatic. The old me would have thrown caution to the wind, impending illness be damned. I would have choked down the fruit flavored atrocity gladly, if only because it was free and wasn't wearing a Monarch label.

People climbed on cars, falling off them ever-so-gracefully, they were tricked into taking shots of olive oil, they screamed and yelled and fell and most likely vomited. There was ping pong in the yard, and condoms strewn about the ground. Reliving the night, I'm beginning to think that every college movie and show that we all feel is ridiculously over-exaggerated... probably isn't. Crazy shit goes down.

College is one of those places where people sing in the streets and dance on the sidewalks. It's where people get their heads shaved (unbeknownst to them) on the front steps of their friend's house at one in the morning. In college you can heckle a girl on the bus because you don't believe her English accent is real, or run through parking lots screaming about some boy you're obsessed with in your Econ class. Just don't throw your camera in his general direction... drunk you won't be able to figure out how to fix it until the tequila wears off...

People in college can run into Pita Pit, in the middle of the afternoon, holding a small white mouse, demanding shredded cheese. They can also discuss shrooming in a tanning bed, and scream into their cell on campus, "I do not have AIDS!"

In Pullman, Wednesday is Wing Night, and on Tuesdays you used to be able to consume Flat on Your Wileys until you regained consciousness next to your trash can, in your bed, your house key bent in half. You can even wake up in your apartment managers office, having pissed all over her desk, wearing a swim cap with an American flag draped over your body.

God, I miss those days.

Most of the time, I don't feel like a grown up at all. I still live with my parents, I can't stomach the thought of eating tomatoes, and I have a certain affection for Disney movies... but I am 22 years old. I am technically a grown up. I see people my age (and younger) having babies, and getting engaged, and getting married... and it all makes me a little bit sick. Not because it's bad, or gross, or unnatural- but because I am so far away from 'that place' that it's hard to fathom my peers are nearing it. Or taking up residency in it.

Then, while perusing Facebook, I see the many albums of the 'kids' who are enjoying their first year or two out of high school. I think to myself, "Do they do anything other than drink? Good Lord. They're seriously drunk all the time. And why are they posting these pictures? They look hideously wasted. And whore-ish."

Cut to picture #242 of yours truly, and feel free to call me a hypocrite. Or a drunk. Or one hell of a competitor... (did I previously neglect to reminisce about 'The Ladder'?)

WSU was (and I say was with immense fondness and slight sadness) an amazing time. I love the town, and the people, and the energy that surrounded the Palouse. But there's nothing like one night in the breeding ground of debauchery to jostle me (permanently) out of the college mindset.

I'm not 19 anymore. I like drinks that taste good, and I quite enjoy waking up before noon. I have a limited tolerance for idiocy, as I get enough of it at work. I hate screaming over the music, and I shiver at the thought of sticky floors. I've become so incredibly lame.

I'm going to Vegas in a month, a place I'd vowed never to return to after my last four night stint... though I retracted my rather rash claim shortly after boarding the plane. I'm not worried, though. I know I'll be able to hold my own... Vegas can't touch Pullman. Even on the quietest of nights on the Palouse, choruses of "She's not that drunk!" can be heard near and far.