Here comes the Debbie Downer...oh, and the Bride! Bum. Bum. BumBum. (RICE!)

When I was 5 my Mother’s cousin flew the whole family out to Seattle to attend her extremely lavish and gigantic fairytale wedding. As the flower girls, my sister and I wore matching white dresses that complimented our matching bowl cuts quite nicely. 5-year old Madde thought this wedding was fabulous because her dress was soaked in sparkles and she got a McDonald’s Happy Meal on the flight home. 23-year old Madde has evolved into think that this wedding and most weddings are pretty redic. 

You see when I turned 23 there was a definite gigantic shift in my life. Suddenly, without warning, my friends started getting engaged and popping out real, live babies! WHAAAT? Because my childhood bowl haircut screwed with my oxygen-intake levels, I have been left incredibly self-involved, and subsequently I can’t help but wonder what this whole wedding business says about me. Here I am at age 23, in what I’ve liked to dub my “Second Puberty,” being distracted by cute boys and playing the field, while my dear childhood friends have found their soul mates and are starting their families. It seemed like just yesterday the same friends were dressing like hussies and flaunting their foobs (future boobs) for any boy who has just sprouted 2 chest hairs. What happened?? When did we stop being little girls and start becoming women? 

(....Alright, let’s talk about the elephant in the room....Yes, I just nearly quoted a Britney Spears song, but stay with me on this one!)

Weddings are a big deal, I hear. Upon reflection, I realized that my 5-year old fabulous wedding experience was the only significant wedding I had ever attended, and the extent of my wedding knowledge stems from years of extensive Romantic Comedy viewing, and seeing “Bridesmaids”...Twice.   

My dear sister, with whom I shared the darling matching bowl cut, will be getting married this September, and the fam and I are beyond excited for her new marriage! We really like the boy, we really like her, we really like this wedding. She’s 4 years older than I and I still think...”Woah! You’re a baby! How are you getting married right now?” I had what Oprah likes to call an “Ah-ha! Moment” recently. A major “Ah-ha! Moment” that changed everything...for now. 

"Ah-ha" with me for a moment...

With weddings come Maid-of-Honor duties, gift buying anxiety, brushing up on the Chicken Dance pressure, and looking appropriate/ showering responsibilities. There are multiple levels of anxiety when it comes to wedding talk with my friends and fam. 

Level 1: 

Insane pressure that this one day has to be ultimate perfection, and all involved are responsible for facilitating the success of this event. This is the level in which you feel like the ultimate wedding planner and imagine reality TV show crews following you around and capturing all this high-stress drama. 

Level 2: 

Bizarre self-involved stress time in which you linger for a moment and wonder if YOU will ever get married yourself. I'm assuming this is a self-soothing mechanism that is the only thing that prevents level 1 from making your head shoot off from the stress of the flower arrangements. 

 Level 2.5: 

The level where you try to explain to your family and pals just exactly WHY you are NOT bringing a “plus one” to the wedding. At some point they will get this weird look on their faces and then say, “Don’t you have a fun gay bestie you could bring! You guys could wear matching outfits!” After crying from the judgement factor, you then consider bringing an actual straight man, but opt out of it because you’re not ready to explain to other guests how he’s NOT your boyfriend, just a friend, and then they proceed through the buffet line and talk about how they always figured you were a lesbian, and how someone had heard you were moving to Iowa very soon with your life-partner, Janet Thunderpaws.  

Level 3:

 The most selfish of all the levels. Here is where you wonder if your dear friends or family will still have time for you in their lives after they get married and become an old maid or father-like man. :) This level requires faith and trust that no matter how fabulous their new husband or wife is, you remain even MORE fabulous. And yes, it is a competition. 

At the end of the day weddings force me to put aside my cynical side for a day and really believe in everlasting love and adoration between two people who love each other. It’s easy to make jokes and be a Debbie Downer when it comes to love. Hell! I’ve devoted over 200 blogs to this very topic (excluding my recent blog about my belly button...you can’t love a belly button...or can you??? I bet Janet Thunderpaws loves hers), but weddings are a time for optimism and the celebration of love. So, with the impending weddings of my dear love ones, I make this promise: I will celebrate all love. 

If my extensive RomCom watching research has taught me anything it would be this, 

You can’t truly love someone else if you don’t truly believe it exists. 

BARF.

An Ode to my Belly Button

(Warning: I am about to over-share.)

I'm not sure if I was nibbled on by a bug or what happened, but my belly button has been giving me some grief lately.  Yes, my belly button. It upsets me. To deal with the angst, I offer you a very special blog entry....

On Ode To My Belly Button

Hey there little button man.

Hi. Hello. Bonjour. 

Look at how you sit there and stare at me with your little button eye. 

Staring. With. Your. Button. Eye. 

Yes, I'm looking at you in a mirror. 

That is the only way I can see you face to face. 

Like. A. Man. Button.

When I stare down at you from up here, it is like I am a bird. 

Flutter. Flutter. Fly. Fly. 

A bird that stares at belly buttons as she soars on by. 

Don't worry. I'm a friend, not a foe.

I shall not try to eat you like a tree mouse. 

Chompy. Chomp. Crunch party.

Belly button, you have always been there for me. 

I mean, where else would you be? 

Belly. Button. Convention. In. Santa. Fe. 

I'm assuming someone I know tied you to me when I was born. 

Twisty. Twisty. Tie, tie. 

Thank you for staying around for the party. 

Enjoy. The. Punch. 

I know sometimes I hide you from the public.

Sensible tshirts and legging tops have kept you my little secret. 

I wanted it that way. 

Secret. Belly. Button. Spy. 

I don't think poorly of you. 

You're a great pal. 

Always there to give me a squeeze. 

Belly. Button. Squeeze. Party.

If I could squeeze you like a navel orange...and make juice...

I wouldn't. 

Respect. 

I keep you lint free as a gift to you from me. 

I don't want you feeling like you're some type of second-rate citizen. 

You're important, just like all the other buttons. 

Staples. Easy. Button. Ain't. Got. Nothin. On. You

Never leave my tummy belly button. 

Stay with me forever. 

We'll get through this. 

Promise. Promise. Pinky swear. 

An Open Letter to..DOGS HANGING OUT OF CAR WINDOWS

Dear Dogs Hanging Out of Car Windows,

Nothing, I repeat, NOTHING can make me happier than seeing you guys hangin' out of the window of a speeding automobile. Tongues flappin' in the breeze, fur flying with wild abandon, a single doggie ear slapping against the car door frame. This is the picture of summer joy. 

I love how much you love that highway wind. I do worry about flying objects sometimes, but not for long. Why? Because when you hang out of that car window you give me all sorts of hope. And my biggest hope is that a semi doesn't fly by and smack your little dog head off, but that won't happen, right?? Give me hope, doggies. Give me hope. 

Sure, would I like you guys strapped in safe in the back seat of the car? 

Maybe. But if we held you down, how would you bring me so much joy on the highway? HOW WOULD YOU DO THAT? 

Keep pokin' your heads out of those cars, gang! I can't promise I won't run into you with my car because I'm so distracted by the adorability factor of the situation, but if I do run into you, forgive me, and when you get back from the vet, don't stop highway head pokin' outin'! 

xoxo, 

Me

"OMG!!! PUT YOUR FACE ON MY FACE!" The Tale of a Drunken Texter

So I went to a party held in a fort the other night (that's another story...don't ask. No seriously, don't ask). Perhaps it was the fort, perhaps it was the heat, whatever the perhaps may have been.. people were in fine drunken form. Some drunk chick drunkenly got my friends number that night and has continued with her drunkiness ever since. My response? Not cute.

Cellphones have been around for awhile, so you'd think people would have learned how to use them responsibly by now, but unfortunately there seems to be a grey-zone when it comes to drunk texting.

Drunk texting is Flirtexting's ugly step-sister. You know, that ugly little creature who is only let out of the basement after the dinner party guests have gone home for the evening. (Let me explain this metaphor for you. You see in this scenario the "ugly creature" is the drunk texter, the "basement" would be their soul or perhaps the bounds of their self-control, and I'm going to let the "dinner party" just be a "dinner party" because you can get super drunk at dinner parties.... if you're tacky, I guess.) 

Sure there are certainly situations in which the drunk text can happen, is forgivable and sometimes even charming, but those times are walking a very fine line. If you are sending me drunk texts from Bonnaroo while you listen to your newest fav indie band, Daddy's Little Kitten Fairy Bomb, and it requires me to have to put my phone on silent...we're in trouble. A picture text of you in a sombrero eating a corn on the cob? Cute. 12 pictures of a weird rash you found on your leg after running through a swamp? Not cute.

Drunk texting gets even more tragic when the combo of "vodka + cellphone + smitten-dom" is involved. People think that professions of love via text message with the statement "i'm super drunky...and i think you're all sorts of hot sauce!!! PUT YOUR FACE ON MY FACE!" makes it all ok. In some ways it makes it may make it worse. First, you can't say that you like someone to their face? Second, you have to be 4 vodka tonics in to have truth spew out of your blow hole? Third, putting your face on someone else's face sounds.....aggressive. This makes me sad-sauce--and intrigued?

I know what you're thinking.....Am I completely innocent of this drunken text messaging behavior? Certainly not. I enjoy a sensible cocktail buzz and reckless texting as much as the next girl, but there's a point when shame must set in. Do I enjoy my stock excuse "Ooooo supey sorry about that one! You know how I get with a few pinot grigio's under my belt! Woo!"? Certainly not. As the sender and recipient of these drunken text messages, I will say that their amusing factor just becomes a little awkward turtle sometimes.

The problem with the drunken crush texts is that eventually you will come face-to-face with the textee. And when those faces meet, they may not be face-ON-face. Why? Well mainly because you both feel supey awkward about what was said. The non-drunk one assumes that the drunk one knew exactly what was said in that text message, and the drunk one assumes that the non-drunk one will pretend like it never happened and/or profess their love to them back. It's a cycle of awkward turtle. And if that awkward turtle were mine...I'd set it free in the ocean where it didn't get cell phone reception.

Ladies and gentlemen of the world, may I ask one thing of you this summer! Please avoid cellphones and hard alcohol combinations, for they will only lead to regrettable decisions, awkward turtle faces, and possible pregnancy.

An Open Letter to...Women that Wear Bikinis as Street-wear!

Dear Women that Wear Bikinis as Street-wear, 

Ladies, ladies, ladies. As the sun has become a fixture in our daily lives, so have the winds of change that seemed to have stolen your clothes right off your body. Swimwear is appropriate for the following places: pools, beaches, tanning beds, prancing around your house and looking in mirrors after you've lost that 10 lbs you've always resented. Swimwear is NOT, I repeat, NOT appropriate for the following places: restaurants, street corners, grocery stores, the theater. 

The swimwear as street-wear phenomenon that seems to have taken over the nations youth (and sometimes the.... not so youth) is always a shock to the system when I'm walking into an establishment and remembered to bring my clothes AND put them on my body. 

Let's just think about this for a moment. Say for instance you whipped out your old lady underpants. You know, the ones you wear when your cute undies are in the laundry and you can't bear the thought of going commando! Let's say you whipped those out and wore them on a leisurely stroll down the street. What makes that so different from your bikini bottoms, ladies? The rip in the bum of the old lady unders? That weird discoloration on the left cheek fabric? The control top? Basically what I'm saying here is that when you wear your swim suit out as street-wear it is no different from prancing about in your jacked-up underwear. 

I'm just sayin....

On a separate note, I would also like to inquire where you got that suit because it's supey cutesies!

xo, 

Madde 

Summer lovin' had me a blast....Summer lo---wait,wait...why are you so awkward?

I'm baaaaaaaaaack!

After a short hiatus, I have returned to the blogsicles. Yay! 

I have been tirelessly out in this field researching all things love, boys, girls, questionables, chipmunks, awkward turtle situations, and many more! What did I learn in this field? Well for starters, wear sun screen. There's nothing more uncomfy than being burnt to a crisp while you're trying to get your flirt on.

So, won't you join me for my summer adventures in redic sitches and things I'll probs regret writing and putting on the internets? (I think it may be a summer of a lot of abreevs...it's hot out, you gots to save timesicles!)

Yay!

xo, Madde