Day 1: So far, so good. I didn't succumb to temptation when I went out to eat tonight. Although man, the cheesecake sounded delicious. I got a withdrawal headache around 9 p.m. Not to worry though, 2 beers eased the pain.
On a side note: Do you think about Christina Aguilera much? Right, me neither. But the other day I was at the gym, just treadmilling along and Live with Regis and Kelly was on the TV. I glanced up at one point and was super excited to see Lady Gaga was on. The sound wasn't on, so I watched it for a bit, and all of sudden realized it wasn't Gags, it was Xtina. Look at her! Stealing Lady G's signature no-pants look. I really never had any feelings about Christina, good or bad, but now I'm pretty annoyed at her. I really feel like she's trying to be Lady Gaga. Get your own look Christina. I know your dirty hair, leather chaps, look never took off, but come on. Massive fail Christina, massive fail.
Oh snap - immediate update. I just googled them both and seems like I'm not the only one who thinks Christina is a copycat. And to make matters worse, Christina's response?
"This person [Lady Gaga] was just brought to my attention not too long ago. I'm not quite sure who this person is, to be honest. I don't know if it is a man or a woman."
I kept trying to think of something to do last week, and then all of a sudden it was Friday and now it's a new week. Sorry. I know it's a big disappointment. I'm disappointed, but I just couldn't think of anything. I mean, I was trying to come up with something sad like "watched a new movie," but I didn't even do that.
This week though, I'm giving up sugar. Another sort of cop out week, but I've got some good stuff coming up soon, just you wait and see. Plus, the sugar thing is going to be hard. I think I am addicted. Lately I just feel like I always am craving candy or cookies or brownies or ice cream or whatever. I'm almost ashamed to say it, but my favorite thing to eat recently is a hershey's chocolate bar, with creamy jif peanut butter, with sugar on it. Straight, white, granulated sugar. When you are topping chocolate and peanut butter with extra sugar, I think there's a problem. So I'm going to try to make it through this week without it. I mean, I guess just desserts, because there's sugar in everything. But no chocolate, cake, cookies, candy, etc. for me. No thanks.
Also, I want to amend a post I made a couple weeks ago about a bar by my house called "Carney's." I'm taking back my rave reviews. It's still a nice looking bar, and has a dog, and serves Blatz, but the other night some friends and I were there and overheard the management saying some inappropriate things. Things that I won't repeat, and that I don't agree with at all. So I don't want to be associated with a kind of place like that. Who knows, maybe they have rallies in the basement, I don't know. I'm just saying, in a town full of pretty great dive bars, I can find a better one than this.
Wow, I had a night of newness today. I had planned to go to the Cleveland Rib Cook-off this weekend, and I miraculously had my Sunday night free instead of working. So, I met up with two friends and headed down to the Time Warner Amphitheater for some rib eating. Just going to the festival was going to be new enough for me, but oh no, there was more to come. First, we decided that to maximize our rib variety, we would get a tasting portion of 3 or 4 rib bones from each place so we got to try more. We ended up trying 6 of the 10 cook-off competitors. We had two favorites, but I like Texas Thunder the best. The ribs were meaty and tender and the sauce was thick and sweet and spicy.
The rib fest alone would have been enough for me, since I've lived in Cleveland for almost four years and hadn't made it to the cook-off yet. While there though, I knocked out another new thing, sorta. I've never been to a concert. If you know me, or read the first entry of this blog, you knew that already. You also probably knew that I'm planning on rectifying that this year. It was supposed to be a surprise, but I have tickets to the Lady Gaga concert in July. SURPRISE! I'll talk more about that in a later post. It related to this post though in that I had my first taste of concert-going at the rib cook-off. L.A. Guns. Live.
The sound was great, classic, hair metal, and the crowd was fantastic. I really wish I had my camera to capture the eclectic mix of people there. Quite some characters. We only stayed for a few songs, but it was pretty fun.
Wait, don't leave yet, one more new thing happened tonight. After the ribs and music, we wanted to get some beer because the brewskis at the event were super expensive so we went to this little place by my apartment called Carney's. Evidently this place has been on my street foooooorrrrreeeevvvvveeeerrrrrr, but just recently they did some remodeling and actually put up a sign that they were there. I love a place with history. It's a total blue collar place and local laborers had been going there for years even without the sign. You just had to know it was there. The people were friendly. The place was clean and well decorated. And Billy the dog roamed around and I wanted to take him home with me. In short, I love this place. Also, I had a Blatz. Who has Blatz beer anymore? It went down like water and I'm pretty sure I'll have the biggest hangover tomorrow, but who knows. Blatz. Classic.
Got all my new stuffing in already this week. Ended up sorta being two things -- one planned, one... not so much. First, I planned to go to the local comedy club with a friend. We saw the guys from Broken Lizard. You know, the geniuses behind Super Troopers and Beer Fest. They were pretty funny and I had never been to a real comedy club before. I mean, one time Daniel Tosh came to my college and I went and saw him, but that's it. And, to this day, he still tells my favorite joke. Yep. The floor is lava. I grew up poor. YouTube it.
The other new thing is that I am now blogging on a MacBook. I feel like a grown up. My old computer went on the fritz Friday morning. I don't work on Fridays, so after a night out on Thursday, I got up and tried to get on the world wide interweb and it just wouldn't connect. I took it to a couple repair guys, they said it was toast, so I spent the afternoon at Best Buy talking to a geek. So now I feel very Sarah Jessica Parker circa 2001 . Carrie Bradshaw now uses an HP evidently. Not me though. I'm enjoying my hipster coolness.
Spent the weekend in Pittsburgh getting my new thing on. First, let's talk about driving in Pittsburgh. Now, don't get me wrong, the 'burgh is my city, but come on PA, those roads, that construction, signage people, signage! My brother and I ended up going about 100 miles all over the countryside just to get about 15 miles east. I saw more of Aliquippa, Sewickly, Etna, and Coraopolis than I ever wanted. Fun though, that we got to go old school with a Rand McNally map. In your face GPS.
We went to the Pittsburgh roller derby on Saturday night. Wow. I'm used to the Cleveland bouts, but my first time watching the Steel City Derby Demonswas something else. I mean, these girls were serious. Their coach was out there making them do drills before the bout. Gotta say, this girl called Hurricane Heather was the BEST derby girl I'd ever seen. She got rocked in the first jam and had to be evaluated by the EMTs, but came back later. If the Steel Hurtin' (get it, Steel Curtain, Pittsburgh, get it??) are ever derby-ing around where you live, go watch them.
So this is what I was afraid of. Here it is, a couple months into the year, and I'm out of ideas. This makes me feel like a boring, boring person. I mean, what happened to the spontaneous girl who flew off to Alaska for a few days by herself. Me. Alaska. Alone. That was how awesome I used to be. Now I'm counting "going to the library" as a new thing.
I mean, as my brother Sonny told me, "they can't all be Lady GaGa concerts and Warrior Dashes." Truer words have never been spoken. But still, I need to step up my game on this thing. Gotta get my awesome, fun, spur-of-the-moment, mojo back.
