I know it's way too soon to be doing any sort of one-year memorial in honor of Kara - we've got nearly two months to go before we hit the anniversary - but I was editing something I'd written about our five-year reunion. And it led me to stop and look through the pictures I have saved from that weekend. And in my haste to open the whole folder, I not only opened the pictures, but highlighted and opened the Quoteboard that Kara and I started the first night of Homecoming weekend, 2009, but then forgot about:
1. "I've never been able to fit that much in my mouth at once."
- Becky, who then wound up fitting that much into her mouth
2. "It didn't help that they were really tall and narrow shot glasses."
- Kara, re the quote above
3. "I can't handle uppers of any sort."
- Becky, on why she only drinks decaffeinated Coke
4. "It was the best experience of my life so far."
- Kara, on being hit by naked old women with sticks
I think about her every single day. And Jesus Christ, I wish I would have thought to write down some context for that last quote...
Monday, August 22, 2011
Sunday, August 21, 2011
I tied my personal best, so go me.
I am sicker than a fucking DOG right now. Woke up, felt like shit, contemplated whether I should even get out of bed...
...got up anyway. Ran a relatively decent 5k. Drank four beers before noon. Left to a chorus of people telling me to come back because "alcohol kills germs" and I had obviously just "sweated the illness out of me."
God, I love Breakaway...
...got up anyway. Ran a relatively decent 5k. Drank four beers before noon. Left to a chorus of people telling me to come back because "alcohol kills germs" and I had obviously just "sweated the illness out of me."
God, I love Breakaway...
Friday, August 19, 2011
Cheap Beer of the Month Club: Late Again...But Exceptionally Well-Researched!
This month's entry is a tribute to last weekend, which was spent drinking this beer with my family. (We are classy vacationers, we Heinekes.)
Gas station or grocery store? Obviously, no one with even a shred of dignity would be seen walking out of a grocery store with this stuff. If you are going to drink Keystone Light, you are going to drink Keystone Light that you picked up at a gas station.
Price: Remember last month when I waxed poetic about 62 cents a can? SIX-NINETY-NINE FOR A TWELVE PACK. Depending on your sales tax, there is the possibility that one could hit the high 50-cent range per beer. THIS is the sort of thing that makes America great.
Swill quality: The swill quality is "high," and by "high," I mean this shit can be pretty tough to drink if you have any kind of discerning palate whatsoever. (Luckily for me, I don't.)
Packaging/label: The crappy blue rip-off of the Coors Light logo gets a pass, but only because Keystone is made by Coors.
Shame factor: Oh, God. It's up there. The shame factor is WAY UP THERE.
Overall: It is physically impossible to get through a can of Keystone Light without, at some point, uttering the words: "Keith Stone, you're so smooooooth." For that reason alone, everyone on Earth should drink the hell out of this stuff.
CHEAP BEER OF THE MONTH FOR AUGUST 2011: KEYSTONE LIGHT
Gas station or grocery store? Obviously, no one with even a shred of dignity would be seen walking out of a grocery store with this stuff. If you are going to drink Keystone Light, you are going to drink Keystone Light that you picked up at a gas station.
Price: Remember last month when I waxed poetic about 62 cents a can? SIX-NINETY-NINE FOR A TWELVE PACK. Depending on your sales tax, there is the possibility that one could hit the high 50-cent range per beer. THIS is the sort of thing that makes America great.
Swill quality: The swill quality is "high," and by "high," I mean this shit can be pretty tough to drink if you have any kind of discerning palate whatsoever. (Luckily for me, I don't.)
Packaging/label: The crappy blue rip-off of the Coors Light logo gets a pass, but only because Keystone is made by Coors.
Shame factor: Oh, God. It's up there. The shame factor is WAY UP THERE.
Overall: It is physically impossible to get through a can of Keystone Light without, at some point, uttering the words: "Keith Stone, you're so smooooooth." For that reason alone, everyone on Earth should drink the hell out of this stuff.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Becky Joins Google Plus and Realizes Just How Much She Misses MySpace
Remember MySpace? I wrote a blog there for nearly five years, the first few of which were spent in glorious anonymity. I wrote about my coworkers. I wrote about people from college I no longer had contact with. I wrote about that creepy guy at the grocery store who used to stalk me and is, to this day, the primary reason I avoid entering the Kroger in Bartlett...
And I did it all without fear of repercussion. Who would ever know? On MySpace, "Becky Heineke" didn't exist. I was "Prophecy Girl," hiding behind a screen name like every other user, surrounded by people age 25 or younger. It was 2006, and social networking was in its toddler phase, still bewildering enough to the general population to keep it fun for the rest of us.
The first time I wrote about Facebook being the downfall of the internet was, coincidentally enough, in 2006. Even then I was baffled by its popularity, but that was the year the college requirement for membership was dropped in favor of an open door policy. I feared that any network where I was known by my real name was a step in the wrong direction in terms of keeping my online activity private, and (for once) I was right. Without meaning to or even consciously realizing it was happening, I moved with the times, and "Prophecy Girl" slowly lost her battle to "Becky."
As my name changed online, so did my identity. Used to be, you could Google me and all that came up were a couple of embarrassing race results. But by a couple of years ago, anyone who could fumble their way through spelling "Heineke" could find out what I looked I looked like, what social networks I belonged to, and could read all those old blog entries that seemed so hidden away when I first wrote them. As more of "Becky" showed up online, I started thinking about what it was that people were seeing. I started asking myself the question that everyone now contemplates, but just a few years ago didn't even exist: Who was I to the internet?
Who was searching for me? What were they finding once they found me? How could I maximize my image to make them see what I wanted them to see? I wanted people to think of me as creative, but focused. I needed to acknowledge that my greatest claim to fame was through Jake Gyllenhaal, but also distance myself from being typecast. Make myself seem employable, but stay true to my freewheeling worldview. Look passably attractive, but keep it professional. Come off as smart, but not as a condescending hipster-intellectual. Embrace running, but make it clear I'm not a competitor. Play up the book, downplay the self-publishing. Keep online "friend" numbers low enough to suggest a life outside of the internet, but not so low as to appear anti-social. Be impressive, but not intimidating. Sell myself as the person I think I am (or at the very least who I *hope* I am) in the closest approximation to the real thing as possible, but without any of the grit (or blog entries about coworkers) that show any of it.
And WHATEVER I DO, I have to make sure that the specific version of the "real me" that I'm currently selling is one that fits best within the platform of each respective social media outlet.
When I got onto Google Plus for the first time yesterday (and thank you, Emily, very much for the invite), my curiosity over what the fuss was about quickly gave way to irritation when I saw that I actually already had a Google Plus profile. It was my Google Buzz profile, which is also my Google profile, which I had filled out in a vain attempt to fulfill each of the qualifications I listed two paragraphs above. And I didn't want to use any of that for my Google Plus profile. Regular Google Becky is a different Becky than the Becky I envisioned as Google Plus Becky.
So what do I do now? Do I start over? Do I leave it as is? Do I even bother with it?
Do I care?
The best part of the early days of social networking was the thrill of discovery: discovering old friends, discovering new ones, discovering that there were people in the world who were like you because they were online too, at a time when not everyone else was.
Google Plus has the right idea in allowing you to form "circles" to separate your nuanced social life...
...but the more people pile onto the online world, the more appealing the social nuances of the real one become.
The real irony of this is that the "Becky Heineke" who exists online now...she's the one hiding behind a screen name. The actual Becky Heineke was really only online for a brief time. Back in 2006. On MySpace. And in those days, she went by the name Prophecy Girl...
And I did it all without fear of repercussion. Who would ever know? On MySpace, "Becky Heineke" didn't exist. I was "Prophecy Girl," hiding behind a screen name like every other user, surrounded by people age 25 or younger. It was 2006, and social networking was in its toddler phase, still bewildering enough to the general population to keep it fun for the rest of us.
The first time I wrote about Facebook being the downfall of the internet was, coincidentally enough, in 2006. Even then I was baffled by its popularity, but that was the year the college requirement for membership was dropped in favor of an open door policy. I feared that any network where I was known by my real name was a step in the wrong direction in terms of keeping my online activity private, and (for once) I was right. Without meaning to or even consciously realizing it was happening, I moved with the times, and "Prophecy Girl" slowly lost her battle to "Becky."
As my name changed online, so did my identity. Used to be, you could Google me and all that came up were a couple of embarrassing race results. But by a couple of years ago, anyone who could fumble their way through spelling "Heineke" could find out what I looked I looked like, what social networks I belonged to, and could read all those old blog entries that seemed so hidden away when I first wrote them. As more of "Becky" showed up online, I started thinking about what it was that people were seeing. I started asking myself the question that everyone now contemplates, but just a few years ago didn't even exist: Who was I to the internet?
Who was searching for me? What were they finding once they found me? How could I maximize my image to make them see what I wanted them to see? I wanted people to think of me as creative, but focused. I needed to acknowledge that my greatest claim to fame was through Jake Gyllenhaal, but also distance myself from being typecast. Make myself seem employable, but stay true to my freewheeling worldview. Look passably attractive, but keep it professional. Come off as smart, but not as a condescending hipster-intellectual. Embrace running, but make it clear I'm not a competitor. Play up the book, downplay the self-publishing. Keep online "friend" numbers low enough to suggest a life outside of the internet, but not so low as to appear anti-social. Be impressive, but not intimidating. Sell myself as the person I think I am (or at the very least who I *hope* I am) in the closest approximation to the real thing as possible, but without any of the grit (or blog entries about coworkers) that show any of it.
And WHATEVER I DO, I have to make sure that the specific version of the "real me" that I'm currently selling is one that fits best within the platform of each respective social media outlet.
When I got onto Google Plus for the first time yesterday (and thank you, Emily, very much for the invite), my curiosity over what the fuss was about quickly gave way to irritation when I saw that I actually already had a Google Plus profile. It was my Google Buzz profile, which is also my Google profile, which I had filled out in a vain attempt to fulfill each of the qualifications I listed two paragraphs above. And I didn't want to use any of that for my Google Plus profile. Regular Google Becky is a different Becky than the Becky I envisioned as Google Plus Becky.
So what do I do now? Do I start over? Do I leave it as is? Do I even bother with it?
Do I care?
The best part of the early days of social networking was the thrill of discovery: discovering old friends, discovering new ones, discovering that there were people in the world who were like you because they were online too, at a time when not everyone else was.
Google Plus has the right idea in allowing you to form "circles" to separate your nuanced social life...
...but the more people pile onto the online world, the more appealing the social nuances of the real one become.
The real irony of this is that the "Becky Heineke" who exists online now...she's the one hiding behind a screen name. The actual Becky Heineke was really only online for a brief time. Back in 2006. On MySpace. And in those days, she went by the name Prophecy Girl...
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Personally, I never thought Mick's moves were all that sexy.
But Adam Levine can move for me any way he wants to, baby.
I've been going back through my MySpace blog, culling stuff (as I have been for a while), and I noticed something: while writing that blog, I had an observable pattern of posting old e-mails or chunks from Word documents when I happened to be particularly deep into a writing project offline. Apparently writing things that aren't blog-oriented makes me nostalgic.
And I have been listening to "Moves Like Jagger" nonstop all weekend...
No surprise then that after writing quite a bit lately in a non-blog-oriented way, I'm going to post something from a Word document right now, and it's related to Maroon 5. From "Summer Music 2003":
IT WAS ADAM FUCKING LEVINE. And Maroon 5 is now one of my all-time favorite bands and every single song I heard that night (that "wasn't my cup of tea") I know every word to. I was 21, they weren't yet famous, and Adam Levine was fucking staring at me across a sea of people in the hot Memphis summer.
Bragging rights FOR LIFE on that one.
(Because I'm choosing to believe he was watching me because he was intrigued, and not because I was gross for having not showered in two days. A devastating storm came through Memphis on July 22, 2003, which means I was four days into an eight-day stint without electricity at the time of this concert.)
I've been going back through my MySpace blog, culling stuff (as I have been for a while), and I noticed something: while writing that blog, I had an observable pattern of posting old e-mails or chunks from Word documents when I happened to be particularly deep into a writing project offline. Apparently writing things that aren't blog-oriented makes me nostalgic.
And I have been listening to "Moves Like Jagger" nonstop all weekend...
No surprise then that after writing quite a bit lately in a non-blog-oriented way, I'm going to post something from a Word document right now, and it's related to Maroon 5. From "Summer Music 2003":
July 26, 2003: Kill Hannah, Maroon 5, Everclear
With Kara and Jordan. It was the first Saturday after the storm and we almost didn’t go. But after seeing Pirates of the Caribbean a second time, we were pumped. :) I hadn’t showered or changed clothes in two days so I’m sure I looked wonderful. We sat next to the Buzz tent and I blatantly stared at a very attractive guy hanging out over there. Watching him sign an autograph, I realized that he was in Maroon 5. In fact, he’s the lead singer. He saw me staring at him and looked over at me a second time later. He then left and from where I was sitting, I could kind of see backstage. I happened to look over at one point and he was down there, looking right back at me. The band was good, but… As much as I love “Harder to Breathe” (and god do I love it), it sounds nothing like their other work. Good, but not my cup of tea. We only stayed to hear Everclear’s first song. Kill Hannah wasn’t bad, but I missed most of their set trading glances with my Maroon 5 man.
IT WAS ADAM FUCKING LEVINE. And Maroon 5 is now one of my all-time favorite bands and every single song I heard that night (that "wasn't my cup of tea") I know every word to. I was 21, they weren't yet famous, and Adam Levine was fucking staring at me across a sea of people in the hot Memphis summer.
Bragging rights FOR LIFE on that one.
(Because I'm choosing to believe he was watching me because he was intrigued, and not because I was gross for having not showered in two days. A devastating storm came through Memphis on July 22, 2003, which means I was four days into an eight-day stint without electricity at the time of this concert.)
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Flashback Post: The Teal Chameleons
(From MySpace, 2006.)
I was abnormal in my youth.
My brother and I formed a club with two of our neighbors when I was around 12 (I was the oldest and therefore obviously the President of said club). It was called the Teal Chameleons and I'm pretty sure the only reason I wanted to have a club was so that I could make up membership packets for everyone. I put everyone's name and position (John was "Bookeeper" because we decided "Secretary" was too feminine) on various sizes of manila envelops and also made a newsletter, created an expense report (WTF?!), and a membership application which for some odd reason included a space for your social security number. There was also a place to list three goals you wanted to accomplish through your membership but I notice I don't have a single filled out application in my Teal Chameleons folder, not even my own, probably because I hate setting goals.
Apparently I did not hate setting out rules, though, because there were two sets of them. The first set was a list of 4 along the lines of, "Don't talk when someone else is talking." I wrote those on a ceiling panel in pencil and nailed it to the wall in the barn (our meeting place). 12 years later and it's still there. I also typed them up in a special font and included them in the membership packet. Hilariously enough, I had yet another set of rules I labelled "criteria" which I'm going to share since it just proves how utterly Nazi-like I was and what the fuck was wrong with me?
Teal Chameleon Criteria
1. Every member must have one goal to reach for (see adjoining sheet). "Adjoining sheet" being the 2-page application. I'm guessing the "criteria" were what we gave to potential members should they be interested in joining although after reading this, it's no wonder we never expanded beyond the original four members.
2. Every meeting will have an intermission in which every member will spend at least 15 minutes doing something recreational outside, if the weather permits.
3. Every member much participate in activities which require some kind of skill or education, excluding sports. Example: EVERYONE (caps original) would help spy on the gang (I could easily write another blog entry on "the gang" and how it did not actually exist), but not everyone would have to play a game of basketball. (I hate basketball.)
4. Every member participates in projects. Example: EVERYONE would help clean out the creek.
5. If a member objects to a project or activity he or she has to participate unless three other members object to the same project or activity. (Note there were only four people in the club...)
6. Any member can impeach another member if three or more members agree on the impeachment. Yet, there must be a reason. Example: Someone is not doing their job.
7. If, for any reason, a parent objects to an activity or project, it is immediately aborted. (IMMEDIATELY ABORTED.)
8. Every member must complete a membership form. (So I could collect social security numbers.)
9. If the President is impeached ALL official material must be returned to the President (see above theory about club being created for membership packet purposes only).
10. ALL members must agree to join a member into the club. It would not be fair to have one person suffer while the rest have fun.
Me again. Or, 2006 me again, I guess I should say. I'm thinking I was having some issues with the members of the club who weren't my brother and thus went overboard asserting my dominance in the form of elaborate "criteria." I did use a nice font, though, and some professional-looking spacing. I really should have scanned in the expense report as an accompanying graphic, but I sort of forgot to do that last night.
John found my Teal Chameleons folder a few nights ago and apparently got hysterical over it. I can see why. There were also some handwritten notes on how much of everyone's allowance should be put towards the club treasury and a few torn up sheets of paper from some sort of voting we did. Most were along the lines of "yes" or "no," but there was a set in which everyone had written something like, "yes and he has to dress up like a girl." I really wish I could remember what that was all about.
I was abnormal in my youth.
My brother and I formed a club with two of our neighbors when I was around 12 (I was the oldest and therefore obviously the President of said club). It was called the Teal Chameleons and I'm pretty sure the only reason I wanted to have a club was so that I could make up membership packets for everyone. I put everyone's name and position (John was "Bookeeper" because we decided "Secretary" was too feminine) on various sizes of manila envelops and also made a newsletter, created an expense report (WTF?!), and a membership application which for some odd reason included a space for your social security number. There was also a place to list three goals you wanted to accomplish through your membership but I notice I don't have a single filled out application in my Teal Chameleons folder, not even my own, probably because I hate setting goals.
Apparently I did not hate setting out rules, though, because there were two sets of them. The first set was a list of 4 along the lines of, "Don't talk when someone else is talking." I wrote those on a ceiling panel in pencil and nailed it to the wall in the barn (our meeting place). 12 years later and it's still there. I also typed them up in a special font and included them in the membership packet. Hilariously enough, I had yet another set of rules I labelled "criteria" which I'm going to share since it just proves how utterly Nazi-like I was and what the fuck was wrong with me?
Teal Chameleon Criteria
1. Every member must have one goal to reach for (see adjoining sheet). "Adjoining sheet" being the 2-page application. I'm guessing the "criteria" were what we gave to potential members should they be interested in joining although after reading this, it's no wonder we never expanded beyond the original four members.
2. Every meeting will have an intermission in which every member will spend at least 15 minutes doing something recreational outside, if the weather permits.
3. Every member much participate in activities which require some kind of skill or education, excluding sports. Example: EVERYONE (caps original) would help spy on the gang (I could easily write another blog entry on "the gang" and how it did not actually exist), but not everyone would have to play a game of basketball. (I hate basketball.)
4. Every member participates in projects. Example: EVERYONE would help clean out the creek.
5. If a member objects to a project or activity he or she has to participate unless three other members object to the same project or activity. (Note there were only four people in the club...)
6. Any member can impeach another member if three or more members agree on the impeachment. Yet, there must be a reason. Example: Someone is not doing their job.
7. If, for any reason, a parent objects to an activity or project, it is immediately aborted. (IMMEDIATELY ABORTED.)
8. Every member must complete a membership form. (So I could collect social security numbers.)
9. If the President is impeached ALL official material must be returned to the President (see above theory about club being created for membership packet purposes only).
10. ALL members must agree to join a member into the club. It would not be fair to have one person suffer while the rest have fun.
Me again. Or, 2006 me again, I guess I should say. I'm thinking I was having some issues with the members of the club who weren't my brother and thus went overboard asserting my dominance in the form of elaborate "criteria." I did use a nice font, though, and some professional-looking spacing. I really should have scanned in the expense report as an accompanying graphic, but I sort of forgot to do that last night.
John found my Teal Chameleons folder a few nights ago and apparently got hysterical over it. I can see why. There were also some handwritten notes on how much of everyone's allowance should be put towards the club treasury and a few torn up sheets of paper from some sort of voting we did. Most were along the lines of "yes" or "no," but there was a set in which everyone had written something like, "yes and he has to dress up like a girl." I really wish I could remember what that was all about.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)