Jesse already posted about this, and I actually wanted to post about it myself because it was something that happened to me worth mentioning. So, there's this 3 day festival in Mankato called "Fun Days," Fun days is this weekend and there are rides, music, fireworks, and a 2 hour long parade. People get CRAZY about this parade, and it happened to go right in front of our house, so lucky us - front row seating. We invited some friends over because it's hard to find a spot to watch this, people seriously put blankets and chairs on the grass of the parade route 5 days in advance, some even ROPED down. Not gonna' lie, it was hillarious to me when it STORMED the night before the parade and everyone's lawn chairs and beach blankets got soaked, but yeah, people love this parade and it's apparently a big deal. I had no idea what to expect, but when I saw the kids that came over with us carrying grocery bags, I got the idea that their might be candy or beads of some sort.
Just like any other parade, local buisnesses, cars, candy, stickers, churches - fliers, music, homecoming queens, huge dresses, lots of waving and fake smiles. There were a few particularly odd things in my eyes. One of them being that it started out with the army carrying guns, marching, even firing blanks... in front of nearly every kid in Mankato! I know that I can be overly opinionated sometimes, but I can't say that I believe kids should be condioned to think that people should praise you if you fire guns? That you're a hero if you go to another country and kill people? So, i'm afraid of the military, they seriously creep me out, but why is everyone getting excited about people dancing with WEAPONS? Moving on, local buisnesses, local buisnesses, CHURCHES, lots and LOTS of churches. Some of them played music, some of them gave us fliers, freezy pops, candy, but one church, they gave us money saving tips, one being "learn how to tell your money what to do," Um... Loving Jesus, will do that... for me? Going to church will help me with my finances, even though they're begging for my money every time I go? Cool, sign me up... fuckers. Back to the parade, Monster Energy hands out Energy Drinks, a dentist hands out sugary freezy pops (isn't that against their code?) the girl scouts come by with cookies (and I actually snagged them, thank you mom for giving me huge boobs to attract the lesbian leaders! :D) and then... the two things that I thought were the weirdest and most corrupt of all...
A group of shrine car drivers come by, wheeling in circles, then their van follows, with a sign that says...
We ride so crippled children can walk!
Isn't that a little... un-pc? And a little... nonsensical? We RIDE, so crippled children can WALK, uhh... wtf man?
A few cars later we see bubbles, and everyone says "Cover up your camera, you're about to get wet!" Assuming this means there will be water guns or water bottles sprayed at us or something, I do... and those invasive, disrespectful assholes threw buckets of HOLY WATER at us! They drove by and the back of the truck advertised their church... WAIT A MINUTE! Okay, I believe that everyone has the right to believe as they feel fit, I really do, for this reason I never impose my beliefs on ANYBODY, or even point out the flaws in their system(s), it's disrespectful and I feel morally corrupt. Being that I feel spirituality is a core right as a human being, I expect the same respect and freedom given to me, and living in the Midwest is definitely harder to keep an alternative belief system strongly defended but I still allow these brainwashed creeps to tell me about the Bible, I keep an open mind, because they have the right to share their beliefs with me. Whether I agree or not, that's irrelevent, the point is that I respect their freedom enough to let them believe as they chose, so when I'm sitting at a parade with my friends and their kids, and a truck drives by and unwillingly get baptised, I can't say that I'm the happiest clam in all of the sea. So, to the ideamaker for that float, FUCK YOU, if I wanted to be blessed I would come to your church in my own free will! GAHH
So, that was the parade, we ended up with an entire bag of candy, a box of girlscout cookies, those around us energy drinks, toothbrushes, toothpaste, church advertisements, army recruiter information, and freezy pops. Translation: Overly consume, get crazy from the MSG in all of that candy, fuck up your nervous system with Taurine and Caffeine, rot your teeth then go to the dentist, love Jesus and join the army, that was the entire point of the parade - propaganda. Will I sit in the sun for 2 hours next year and have stuff thrown at me? Probably not, but maybe the holy water seeps into my skin and I'll change my mind. Gahh.
What question do you hate being asked?
"Why would you move to Minnesota when you could live in FLORIDA???"
*Ahem * Have you seen the weather updates down there right now? The 90 degree weather we're dealing with in dry air isn't even a hint to 100+ weather in 100+ humidity every single day of the year! Have you ever actually been trapped in your house while living in the Sunshine Capital Of The World?? Or woke up in a puddle of your own sweat, because you forgot to turn the air back on before you went to bed? What about the days where you wake up and your 2 hour makeup job melts off before you make it to your car? Why would anyone want to live anywhere except for there, it sounds amazing!
Weather aside, knowing that in even the best areas you're surrounded with high crime rates, people doing things that the Midwest couldn't even dream of, and not being penalized at all for them? I find contentment in my 4 am bike rides, which would have been my suicide living down there, leaving my house without any daylight, are you kidding me?!
Um... Spring Break, drunk college kids flooding the streets, fake friendships here and there, serious drug use; puke. The people up here aren't a ton better but the shady people up here are A LOT easier to spot, and even easier to avoid. I feel really old, but I'm content not living in a party town, some people are...
My old apartment was a little under a $1000 a month for a 2 bedroom, 800ish square feet, plus utilities, which wasn't even a great apartment or a great neighborhood. Call me crazy but at 19 years old I wasn't loving 60 hour work weeks just to make ends meet, a tale very commonly told down there. The cost of living up here is SO much cheaper, I could have never imagined eating the way that I do living down there, or taking vacations all over the place, because I would have had to have worked 2 full time jobs to do it!
I probably get asked this question twice a day, every single day, but really... why would anyone want to live in Minnesota when they could live in FLORIDA??
In the last few days I've...
+ gone camping for the first time (!) (with random friends from Washington and South Dakota). Apparently S'mores come second nature to me, but sleeping on the ground.. not so much.
+ put some slutty hippie girl in her place for being a slutty hippie girl
+ put some crazy druggies from another campsite (that wandered into our area) in their place, same night (i don't care that you have a huge bag of pot, the police have been over here 4 times tonight - not going down, sorry if you hate me!)
+ had amazing sex in red and black stilettos, mrow!
+ made friends with the kids at Rebike, hung out at the shop for a while
+ realized the responsibility that we carry to keeping good, positive, people in our lives and made mental friends cuts
+ been to not one, but two closed smoke shops looking for a new hookah bowl :(
+ had an allergic reaction to ONE cookie (i'm thinking there were at least 5 eggs in the recipe?) and got crazy on Benadryl as my face swoll up, which was sad
+ not slept... anywhere near enough and posted on vox.com
:-D
Ever since we moved to Mankato I've been thinking about a couple I met when I first moved here, Brandi and Terry. Brandi is an executive chef (who studied at Le Cordon Bleu - where I want to go if I can ever gather the money), and Terry's training to be a Shaman, or healer. She's amazing at what she does, and I've been do discouraged about all of the young, drunk people that are around here all of the time that i've become desperate to have somebody around that's on the level, y'know? Well a week ago all of my manifestations came to a face and we actually ran into them! I was so excited, exchanged numbers and blew off protesting last night (which I feel really bad about) and went over there. We had amazing conversation, they actually have the exact same fire pit I was planning on buying a few weeks ago, Brandi let me borrow Professional Baking (which is the book that they use in all Pastry Schools around the country) and then we started discussing energy, and Terry opened up with us about her healing, which I was unaware of before. She worked on my hands for a few minutes and actually told me that my tumor's getting better (a huge fear of lately). My vision's been getting terrible lately, and it's located on my Occipital Lobe - which controls my vision, so Jesse's been getting really worried as I've refused to continue treating it. Terry wants to start healing with me on Tuesdays, and see what she can do to help physically and emotionally shrink its effects. It's amazing, she's so strong that I could feel her in my arms for like an hour after we left. I'm really excited about being here now, I know I'm going to learn a lot from them.
gore_gore_g0re: i think i see you in north mankato like twice a week
gore_gore_g0re: the other day you had a tattoo and were driving a mini van
ghadxl: nice
ghadxl: sounds like the dream me
ghadxl: i want to move back bad
gore_gore_g0re: You should, then i'll actually have a friend in town that aspires more than getting schwasted every single night
gore_gore_g0re: its poop.
gore_gore_g0re: i hate the people in mankato
gore_gore_g0re: theyre all like drunky drunk drunk
ghadxl: i know that was partly why i bailed
gore_gore_g0re: and im like "woo! political change! lets make art! lets bake the world away!"
ghadxl: hahah
gore_gore_g0re: i feel very uncool.
ghadxl: im like woo eff politc eff the world im going to write a story
gore_gore_g0re: which is better than HOT DAMN i think i pissed my pants!
gore_gore_g0re: i love it when people brag about that shit
gore_gore_g0re: im like "hey so does my 3 year old nephew... but he can't help it!' doucheface.
ghadxl: they brag about it?
ghadxl: i thought we were supposed to be ashamed of that
ghadxl: maybe they watched billy madison one too many times
gore_gore_g0re: "DUDEMAN, last night I drank an entire bottle of vodka then my cat and i rolled around in my puke for about an hour before i peed in my girlfriend's hair, tomorrow night... 24 pack of corona?! schweet! im thurr!"
ghadxl: hahaha sadly i can totally hear that
gore_gore_g0re: "Last night i got so schwwaaassteeddd that i cheated on my girlfriend, lost my wallet, kicked a baby in the head, got arrested for peeing in a public fountain, ate a tube of raw hamburger then ralphed neon black! let's do it again, dude! ROCK AND ROLL!"
PUKE!
We adopted him from the Humane Society, where we went looking for a DOG because I was "too sad about Tuxedo to love another cat," and he picked me. I heard a Meow, I looked around, couldn't figure out where it was coming from, looked in the corner and started CRYING, instantly! The connection there was so much, and he bared such a striking resemblance to Tux that I knew I was supposed to take him home, some of their mannerisms are eerily alike also! So we took him shopping for toys and collars and food and all of that rasmatas, brought him home and it's been amazing ever since! I can't believe how much I love him even after the first day! We lu kikitty!
The other day I was riding my bike, my 10 speed Pacific Wanderer, not a motorcycle (as most people assume when I tell them this story) and I/we are coming down a hill, kind of fast, and see a college aged girl with her unleashed BIG dog roaming around the sidewalk. I'm guessing it was a black lab? Just roaming around, we slowed down and Jesse was able to ease through, no problems, so I go out of my way to swirl the opposite direction of the dog and the thing runs straight into my wheel! There was nothing I could have done to prevent it, at all, so my wheel is spinning into this dog's side, it's yelping at me, I fall off of my bike, bang the crap out of my knee, and the thing is showing its teeth at me.. I thought it was going to attack me! It ran away, lady's like "ARE YOU OKAY???" and i'm like "IS YOUR DOG OKAY???" and she's like "ARE YOU OKAY???" and i'm like "IS YOUR DOG OKAY???" she ran after the dog to check on it, I dust off, get on my bike again and run off with a very bruised knee - very traumatized. I felt sooooo bad, I am sure I hurt it, but alas - you should never leave your dog unleashed outside, anywhere, because crazy bitches on their bikes will smash them... :( :( :(
Seriously though, who hits a dog... with their bike??? Pet owners beware, i'm on the loose...
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on "Fun Days" parade