Tag: Little Rock (Page 3 of 3)

2008 sucked but not completely

December 29, 2008 / melissa / 0 Comments

Yeah this year was bad. The economy went to the toilet. People are losing their houses and their jobs. It’s chaos. Some fool managed to steal my identity and I am having fun with creditors. Also, I no longer have a job I hated. This is a good and bad thing. The bad thing is that my income went down—way down.

Here are some recaps.

Poop on the sidewalk in front of my office: BAD

George W. Bush getting a shoe thrown at his head: GOOD. REAL GOOD

Sarah Palin’s interview with Katie Couric: BAD BAD BAD

Tina Fey’s mocking of Sarah Palin’s interview with Katie Couric: GREAT!

Team Fabulous racing for the Cure.

GOOD

Tripping over Breezy’s Christmas present and breaking it.

BAD!

Michael Phelps winning a gazillion gold medals. GOOD

Chinese gymnast age controversy. BAD

Usain Bolt = Good/bad

Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight. GOOD

Heath Ledger dying. BAD. Very very bad.

Going to Erica’s Halloween party. GOOD (even GREAT)
Everyone and their Mama (including my own MAMA) forgetting my birthday. BAD… real bad. (okay I got some props from facebook but seriously no freaking phone calls or acknowledgement in the non-internet realm. That is sucking y’all.

Canvassing for Obama: good

Poll watching/voter protecting for Obama: even better.

Obama winning: fan-freaking awesome.

Racists going crazy after Obama wins. (thanks for putting the ass in assbackwards guys) BAD BAD BAD

Sarah Silverman fucking Matt Damon. Bad for Jimmy Kimmel Great for US!

Jimmy Kimmel’s revenge. EVEN BETTER!

OH

December 28, 2008 / melissa / 0 Comments

I love running and today was a very nice seven mile run. It was the same pace I usually run but it didn’t feel tiring. Also, I ran up and down some hills so it should have been more strenuous and slower than my other runs. Somehow I did it and I feel very proud of myself. Yes I am a dork.

I paid the registration fee for the Little Rock half marathon. I have talked and written about it for quite a while but I finally took the leap and paid it. Now I have to go. Well I don’t have to do anything but the fee is non refundable. I have told everybody and their mother. People have even said they would show up to cheer me on. Really? Cheer little old me?! I’m not worthy. Of course, I have a self esteem problem. Or not.

A couple of days ago, a friend of mine wrote about something that was very tragic and painful. I feel empathy for her and her struggle. Unfortunately for me, it is freakishly close to one of my own “very bad events in my life.” As a result, I’ve been a hot mess. I’ve been binging on food like it’s going out of style. I’ve made a very bad trip down to the swampy ugly pothole filled parts of memory lane and I am desperately searching back to Present-ville.

I’m looking towards the future and making plans to change a whole lot about my life. I have managed to put myself in a rut. I need to get out of it.

I can do it with my eyes closed

December 27, 2008 / melissa / 0 Comments

kitty

Originally uploaded by melissathegoofy

This was a meme.

1. Open paint
2. Close your eyes.
3. Draw a cat.

I did a pretty gosh darn good job.

Also, I officially registered (i.e. paid for) for the Little Rock half marathon. I’m officially in it. No backing out now.

Hey HO! let's go!

December 23, 2008 / melissa / 0 Comments

Facebook is a funny thing. It’s like a virtual high school, college, and workplace reunion all in one. You end up seeing people from your distant and not so distant past. They post pictures of their kids as well as pictures from the distant and not so distant past. Sometimes you catch up on mutual friends and whatnot.

This whole social network reconnecting is how I got invited to the DMZ reunion at Vino’s. I hadn’t seen her since school but it was a punk show. I live in the country and they don’t play punk down here so I was down with it. Also, Vino’s has great food. No seriously, it gets great reviews in the papers and everything. Yes I have eaten here before and it is on my short list of stops when I’m in town.

Of course, even though I had RSVP’d weeks in advance, the weather reports were threatening sleet on that day. And dammit I was a going.

And GO I did.

First, Arkansas has had a long and varied punk scene since the eighties. In fact, there is a documentary about the whole thing called Towncraft. Also, Evanescence (not punk) came from here. Another guitarist from one of the local bands went on to be in Green Day. So this DMZ 20 year reunion was sort of a big deal.

To answer your question, yes I had one of those awesome calzones. I had a snack for dinner and then ordered a calzone and ate half of it. I indulged but responsibly so.

The show was fun. Here are some pictures.

Matt Besser as the “Hunchback of Vino’s”

This is a very dark picture of what I believe to be “Trusty” playing. I might even have the band wrong. Man it was late.

This is the sign to the left of the stage. There were several of these around the stage. but but .. it was a punk show. What do you mean no stage diving? Then again, this was a twenty year REUNION SHOW. This means the average age was probably thirtyish.

Arkansas is a really small place. The entire population is about two million people and when you divide the age groups and then put the city dwellers and the people who would like punk music, well you see what I mean. I saw a bunch of people I recognized, which was nice. There was also this one guy who did this very public defriending of me on myspace complete with a blog entry about the whole thing. I haven’t experienced anything like that since the whole junior high “no you can’t sit at my lunch table anymore” scene. in well, junior high. And yet I don’t know what I did to offend so righteous indignationly. (is that even word? I don’t care!) So that was a little, what’s the word, AWKWARD! for minute.

What is about Social networks that bring out the worst of junior high school behavior and social politics in people who are old enough to know better? I just want to know.

But I survived and I go where I want to go, when I want to go. I’m a bad ass like that. Now if the place had only allowed mosh pitting, I would have been all good.

Mission may be accomplished but the war's not over yet.

December 15, 2008 / melissa / 0 Comments

This now ubiquitous video of an Iraqi journalist throwing shoes at George W. Bush will never get old for me. In fact, I like it so much that I fear I will be placed on the terrorist watch list. Oh Baby Bush has some lightning fast reflexes there. It seems that he is used to people throwing crap at him.

Oh the hilarity.

The Little Rock Nine have been invited to attend the swearing in ceremony of Barack Obama. This was at the suggestion of Senator Mark Pryor who pretty much didn’t campaign for Obama AT ALL. The Arkansas Times reports that Elizabeth Eckford, 67, who still lives in the house where she grew up, said she can’t afford the trip. It turns out that she doesn’t want to go because she hates crowds and the cold.

I guess if I went to school every day with a bunch of people yelling bad words at me, I would be hating crowds too.

The hilarious part is that Mark Pryor, the man who couldn’t be bothered to put up an Obama sign in his yard is now for having the Little Rock Nine come and the big time photo op that it entails. Did I mention he skipped out on the big Hillary for Obama rally on the Capital? Many many folks were completely lackluster in their campaigning even though Obama came here in 2006 to campaign for Mike Beebe.

See the “vote for Beebe” sign? I told you.

This is very surprising and one answer for that just might be racism. In fact, John Brummett called the citizens of Arkansas out for it. (I can’t find the original link so here is the column about the letters received after the original column ran).

So when I read the article about the Tuskeegee airmen and the Little Rock Nine with the headline, “We’ve Completed Our Mission” from this quotation:

“The culmination of our efforts and others’ was this great prize we were given on Nov. 4,” he [retired Lt. William Broadwater, 82] said. “Now we feel like we’ve completed our mission. This inauguration will be the ultimate result.”

I’m sorry Mr. Broadwater but as long as there are people making jokes about whether Obama will plant a watermelon patch at the White house (something I endured at a funeral, of all places) or someone is raising a Confederate flag to protest the election or you see “The Anti-Christ Hussein Obama” at a tattoo parlor, the mission is not over. Unless you are referring to the fact that the Commander in Chief will be a black man which could be considered the ultimate end result of the Tuskeegee Airmen’s mission, then yes that mission will be accomplished January 20th.

But the war is definitely, definitely not over.

This “fish and Chips” logo on the back of a Mini Cooper in Little Rock cracked me up. There are so many fundamentalist that the “Jesus fish” is pretty ubiquitous around these parts. Every once ina while, I will see an “evolution fish” but this “fish and chips” fish makes me laugh. In fact, I think I want one for myself.

Jingle Bell 5K

December 6, 2008 / melissa / 3 Comments

I woke up bright and early for a Saturday to run in Craig’s Jingle Bell 5K. Craig is Craig O’Neil of KHTV Channel 11 fame. He has big eyes and big lips. Think Mick Jagger but replace rock star sexy with goofy and that’s about it. This is the first race timed race I’ve run. It’s also one of the first larger races I’ve run. By larger, I mean large enough where I would have to worry about hitting or getting hit by other people in the beginning due to the crowd. Since running a marathon is one of those life goals on the bucket list, I figured I should get used to it.

It was exciting. Crazy exciting. I invited my mother to come with me to watch the action. It turned out she hates the cold and sat in a restaurant to keep warm the entire time. Oops. She was a trooper otherwise though.

It was chilly this morning. I hadn’t registered beforehand so I got to be there before 10:30 to get in. It was windy and chilly.

When I picked up my race number, I also got a temporary tattoo and some tiny jingle bells to put on my shoes.

ME and my TATTOO!

JINGLE BELLS!

I wasn’t expecting the big push of adrenaline waiting in the crowd at the starting line right before the race. It is a “I wanna go! I wanna go NOW!” feeling. Also, my training runs on the high school track and the shoulders of roads didn’t prepare me for the pounding that is running on the street. . Also, I didn’t know you could wear your iPod during a race so I had no music. There weren’t tons of spectators cheering you on like there were at the Race for the Cure.

My calf threatened to shut the race down on me at the first hill so I had to slow down my pace and walk up most of the hills. My time, therefore, sucked really damn hard. I had to remind myself this was my first race and the goal was to finish. This was a FUN RUN dammit. It wasn’t like I had any chance in hell of coming in first.

This 5K run/walk had the distinction that you could walk your dog in the race. There were lots of cuties. Some wore Christmas-y garb and some didn’t.

Here’s a picture of me looking like a dork at the finish line. (Dear Lane Bryant, Can you pLease make some jogging pants that don’t want to go up to my boobs. Seriously those are some Steve Urkel style highwaisted jogging pants from hell. I might send the other pair of pants I have unopened back.) Craig’s in the background.

My post race lunch was a gyro platter at Leo’s Greek Castle. YUMMY!

Holidailies.

My fabulous weekend

October 21, 2008 / melissa / 0 Comments

Team Fabulous 2008

Originally uploaded by mesawyou

I cannot tell a lie. I was a little bit nervous about meeting the “team fabulous” team and going out with them. The last time I met a large group of people that I mainly didn’t know, I was forced to listen some guy talk about his “Italian sausage” for 45 minutes at a sit down dinner.

But this was not that event. This was fun.

We loaded into the hotel shuttle and took our fabulous butts to La Hacienda on Cantrell. There was booze.

That’s a raspberry Margarita. It was orgasm good.

Since it was also a double birthday party, there was cake.

If you celebrate your birthday at La Hacienda, you get your picture taken with a sombrero and blanket, a serenade and a shot of tequila (if you’re over 21).

There was laughing and practical joking. I think we scared Mitch, the shuttle driver.

I didn’t get the memo about dressing like a Transvestite hooker for the Race but considering that I was called Man Woman in college (damn you Frank and Ken!), I think I can definitely pull that shit off. Nextyear, girls. NEXT YEAR.

It is quite awe inspiring to see 40,000 people gathered in one place to support one cause, no matter what the cause is. The Broadway bridge was bouncing. That was a little bit scary.

The other interesting thing is the groups that line the race route along the way. There are bellydancers, firemen, politicians, regular guys (or the Three miles of men), Bikers, line dancers, cheerleaders, a high school marching band, etc. It’s touching. Really.

Hillary Rodham Clinton…. last Friday

October 15, 2008 / melissa / 0 Comments

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Originally uploaded by mesawyou

Last Friday at 5:00, I was on the steps of the state capital awaiting the arrival of Hillary Rodham Clinton. She was set to speak at a rally on the steps and then go to a big fancy pants thousand dollars a plate fundraising dinner for Barak Obama.

There were lots of other “fancy pants” people there including Mary Steenburgen and Ted Danson (hey Hollywood fancy pants), Marion Berry, Vic Snyder, Blanche Lincoln, Mike Beebe, Wesley Clark, and David Pryor.

Of course, being politicians, they all had to get on the podium and say something. The formula is fairly simple: say something good about Arkansas, say something good about yourself, say something good about Hillary, say something bad about McCain, and say something good about Obama and how that good directly contradicts the bad about McCain. Therefore, to save the world from destruction, you have to get all your friends to vote for Obama.

Yes there is the political rally in one simple paragraph.

My one and only complaint about this and every other rally or rock concert in Arkansas. The idea of personal space. Seriously, people expect to have three feet of space between themselves and the other people in the crowd. Honey, if you smell that bad, people are going to smell you even if you stand a hundred and three feet away from them. Sheesh.

Archives