Headshots and Bongs

Wednesday, December 22

I woke up to find my mother sitting in the living room.  She informed me that she didn't even know that I was sleeping in the bedroom.  She's a mess.  I had slept in my clothes from the night before and had no make-up.  Again.  I told her that I would go visit Grand with her before my trip back to Dallas.   So we headed to very south Fort Worth to the rehab shack.  It's a very nice facility and her roommate Ruth is really sweet.  She is probably in her 80s but she had actually broken her hip.  My grandmother didn't look good at all and it put me in a real dumper.  Who wants to spend there birthday in a hospital? Her expected getting released time is January 7th.  So we'll see how that goes.  I gave her a Christmas card and her birthday card (she counts them and is very proud of them, she makes everyone look at them).  The hospital had gotten her a birthday cake and flowers.  I thought that was really nice.  After a visit, I had to hit the road back to Dallas to get ready for my headshots!

I sped to Dallas and hoped in the shower.  My bestie Lizz was going to be taking my headshots for me tonight at her work.  I am so blessed that someone who is moving across the globe in a week took the time to help me out.  Thank you again Lizz!  So I tried to get all glamorous.  I decided to wear my hair straight because I think I wear it more like that than I do curly.  I arrived at her place of business with my bag full of goodies.  I met all of Lizz's co-workers who all seemed really nice.  Lizz's desk is enormous!  I was kinda jealous of her working girl qualities.  She also has a huge gorilla costume chilling behind her desk.  In case anyone needs it.

She took me back to the studio and I showed her all my outfit choices.  We decided to go with my blue sweater first since it matched my eyes the best.  After I got dressed, Lizz put some more make-up on me.  I trusted her completely.  She tried to put lipstick on me which was really awkward because: a. I'm really awkward and b. I don't seem to have an upper lip.  So she told me when we don't have lips, we make lips.  Business talk.

After I was all beautified, Lizz made me jump around the 'stage' to warm up.  Here is what happened:

I am an idiot.

Out of the 400ish pictures we took, Lizz chose the best 50 for me to choose from.  Jeez she's a good friend.  Some of them were smiling and cute, some serious and ugly and others just funny and idiotic.  However, the 'sexy' ones did not go very well.  Every time Lizz would say, "Ok, sexy".  I would do my best to be sexy.  And Lizz would drop the camera, laughing her ass off.  So that was a real confidence booster.  At one point she even said to me, "less eyebrows".  And rightly so.  I was just trying to make my forehead seem not so enormous.  

Here are the best of each genre:

Smiling

Serious

Sexy?

(Insert laughter here)

I was wearing two other different outfits but this shirt seemed to work best for me.  

I also thought these would be funny to just pass out to people I meet in the streets of New York:

I was doing the Deb pose on the right from Napoleon Dynamite.  Nailed it.

After our photo shoot, we headed back to Lizz's apartment where I bought us dinner (least I could do for all her hard work).  Lizz's last day of work was that next day and she was leaving for Austin on Friday, then Tokyo January 2nd!  So suffice to say she had a lot going on.  We watched Jeff Bridges' SNL gig and didn't laugh much.  Except for on Weekend Update when a holiday message was given by my three favorite impersonations done my Fred Armisen (Governor David Patterson), Bill Hader (Stefan) and Bobby Moynihan (Snooki). Shit's funny.

After a little hanging out, we said our emotional goodbye and I headed back to my sisters.  Time to call it a night.

Thursday, December 23

I was going to drive down to Austin for the day/night but since all my Austinite friends had Christmas family plans, I bailed.  I didn't want to be intrusive.  Instead I stayed in DFW area and made lunch plans with an old college friend Jessica.  Jessica was Kellen's freshman roommate and after I met her, I made her become friends with me.  So she had no choice in the matter.  She now works with some big wigs in Dallas CPA'ing.  We went to Freebirds because I had been craving it ever since I landed in DFW.   She bought me lunch secretively and I threatened to run her over in my grandmother's Buick.  We ate our burrito's and caught up on life.  It was so nice to see an old College Station friend!  Love her!

After lunch, I headed to Fort Worth to visit my grandmother.  She was looking better but it hurt to watch her do her physical therapy since she was in so much pain.  However, this visit turned into a "lets bash Lauren" tirade.  The first thing my mother and grandmother did was tell me about how they met her roommates grandsons.  One of them had just entered college and the other just graduated high school.  They said they were really handsome and wanted me to meet them.  Grand, I'm not hooking up with someone that just graduated high school.  They have to be at least 20 years old.  I have standards.

They started to talk about my grandmother's birthday cards and who sent her one and who didn't.  The people that don't automatically go on the shit list.  Rightly so.  They made some comment about someone   who had sent a card from our Comanche days.  I couldn't remember who they were but it was the person who gave my parents a leash for me when I was little.  That is right ladies and gentlemen.  You are reading the blog of a... leash child.  My parents could not keep up with me so they put me on a fucking leash like a dog.  For several years.  I hope you are slowly putting together the pieces of why I'm so weird.

My sister finally arrived to visit my grandmother.  I thought this would lay off some of the heat on me.  Boy, was I wrong.  My sister got my grandmother a pin for her shirt that said '99' on it.  So instead of just yelling at strangers about her age, she can just point to her collar instead.  My grandmother's roommates daughter and husband arrived.  My mother introduced my sister and then pointed to me and said, "And that's my unmarried daughter".  Ouch.

Later in the conversation, my mom brought up how she had read a story on how breastfed babies were scientifically proven to be smarter.  My grandmother replied, "So Lauren wasn't breastfed?".  Double ouch.  I don't cuss too much in front of my grandmother but I replied with, "Well shit Grand".  Not only am I unmarried, I'm a dumbass to boot.  Everybody started laughing and when my grandmother realized what she had done, she started laughing so hard, she was in a lot of pain.  I'm always here for other peoples entertainment.  My mother keeps on reassuring me that she loves how I'm not married and likes how I am very choosy when it comes to men.  I tell her she should be because I could be married to someone like Pauly Shore by now if I weren't.

After this beating, I left to go to Lake Worth to visit my friend Lauren while she was working.  It was a brief visit since she was busy but really good to see her!  I then made my way to Euless to visit Darrelyn at the cigar bar.  I stopped into Target first and got some last minute shopping out of the way.  The store wasn't as crazy as I expected and I did not have to wait a long time in line at all.  Thank goodness.  Because crowds make me suicidal.  Crowds, escalators and large dogs.  Lauren's phobias.

I sat at the tiny bar of the cigar bar and made Darrelyn talk to me.  I sat by a guy who was one of her regulars.  Well let me restate.  Everyone that comes into the bar is a regular.  We chit chatted for a while but I think I scared him.  I called an action he did gross and he didn't understand me.  He was like "Why is that gross?"  And I said, "It just is.  It's one of my sayings.  Just ask Darrelyn".  Darrelyn nodded her head and he replied with "I don't get it".  You don't have to get it.  99% of what I say, people don't understand.  Don't be so hard on yourself buddy.

After some chit chat, I headed over to Dallas to meet up with my friend Stephanie.  We went to our old haunt Ozona.  Well the Dallas version anyway.  It is never the same as College Station and the employees there are generally rude, we still go there anyway to make ourselves feel better.  We caught up on life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness.  After a while, we decided to head to her friend's house to hang out because he lived nearby.  One of the residents of the house worked at the Carino's in College Station but he was past my time.  We just hung out and they showed me there Christmas decorations.  It consisted of a cardboard cut-out of a fireplace on one of there walls.  Oh a house full of college aged guys.  Later a guy arrived that I actually did work with at Carino's.  I asked him if he remembered me and he said of course!  Well, his exact words were, "Ya!  We floated the river together and I puked the entire way down the river!"  And then he re-enacted it, minus actually vomitting.  Oh, college.  I decided to call it a night because I was getting in one of my sad moods.  It was so great to hang out with Stephanie though, I miss her sooooo much!  I went back to my sisters and called it a night.

"Hey, you'll be happy to know that as soon as you left, I popped your daughter's trunk!"

-Crawl played by Pauly Shore in Son in Law