My Parents Weren't Too Concerned With My Movie Choices As A Child

Looking back on my life, I would definitely say I had a pretty good childhood given some circumstances. My parents took great care of me, I had a loving family, and since I was an only child I pretty much never had to share the awesome toys grandma bought me behind my parents' backs (that is until my mom remarried and my step-sisters would visit and mom said I had to share because that's what makes you a good person). Being an only child, I'm not going to lie, I was spoiled and pretty much got to do what I wanted (within reason of course... my parents usually said no to me driving the car or throwing the cat).

The big thing I can remember my parents not really caring about too severely was the movies I was watching. Looking back I have two reactions about some of the movies my parents allowed me to watch. My first reaction is, "wow, my parents were so cool. I was watching R rated movies at age three!" My second reaction is, "Holy shit... some of those movies could have severely damaged me emotionally and lead to further issues in my future."

There are three movies that immediately come to mind when I think of this topic (and honestly probably the only three that would really stand out to anyone): Terminator 2: Judgement Day; The Sixth Sense; and Titanic.

Let's discuss Terminator. First of all I would like to say that the second film was, bar none, THE BEST of the Terminator movies. Now that I have gotten that out in the open, why don't I talk about how my obsession with this movie began around age three.

I can promise you that I was the only three year old on the block whose movie collection included 101 Dalmatians (which I just called Puppies because Dalmatian is a really hard fucking word to say), Pocahontas, and Terminator 2 (does it baffle you that I could say Terminator but not Dalmatian because it baffles me...). I have one very specific memory of getting up early on a Saturday morning, walking over to our entertainment center and putting in the VHS of Terminator 2. While sitting on the couch watching a very intense chase scene between the good terminator and the bad terminator, I remember becoming enraged at the sun shining through my living room window making a glare on the television screen.

If you have never seen the second Terminator movie, I strongly suggest you take a look... but I would not recommend it necessarily for three year olds. Mainly because of the strong violence, extreme swearing, and discussion of the apocalypse in great detail. According to my dad, I loved the movie so much because I thought John Connor was super cute and I liked the chase scenes. Thank God I had a really good filter because I'm sure my kindergarden teacher would not have appreciated me telling her to "pass the mother fucking scissors, bitch".

The film that almost ruined my childhood would definitely have to be The Sixth Sense. I don't really recall the first time I watched it, but I know that the movie came out in 1999 which made me seven years old at the time. My mom and step-dad really liked the movie so I guess I decided to sit down and watch it with them. For literally the next year, I could not go to sleep; was afraid of my bedroom, my closet, and my school; I avoided the color red at all costs; and I was convinced that if my step-sisters and I built a fort there would be a little girl inside of it throwing up. I think the reason this movie scared me so much was because Haley Joel Osment was very close in age to me (he's four years older than me), and I was absolutely convinced that I would also have the ability to talk to ghosts because that's how my seven year old mind worked. It also didn't help that my parents loved the movie so much they continued to watch it even though I was utterly terrified of the film. The solution to me being in the room while they watched the movie was for me to put on head phones and play on the computer... it didn't work. I have gotten over my fear of The Sixth Sense and in fact it is one of my favorite movies. I also love acting in horror films/ skits which is definitely not something I would have seen myself enjoying twelve years ago.

Lastly, good old Titanic. When I was in the first grade, I guess no ones parents really cared what we watched, because it was common at recess to play Star Wars or Titanic. I of course was always Rose and one of my good friends was always Jack (we liked each other in that first grade "hey, I have a crush on you but I'm not going to do anything about it because I'm six" sense). Every recess we would act out the movie in the most detail our fifteen to forty five minutes would allow depending on the break. The giant jungle gym was the ship and the gravel on the playground was the frigid cold Atlantic Ocean. Of course we didn't exactly understand every part of the movie. For instance, when Jack and Rose are in the car and well... having fun times... we would just go sit under the jungle gym for a while until we thought it was an appropriate amount of time to go back up and see the ice berg. I think I asked my friend once what he thought Jack and Rose were doing in the car and he said, "I don't know, drawing pictures in their breath fog on the window?"

Dear Bicycle, I Think We Should See Other People.

I hate the feeling of being out of shape. There are many reasons for my hatred of being out of shape, but the biggest one is because it is SO fucking hard to get back in shape and so much easier to be lazy and eat mini-oreos all day. It's super hard for me to stay in shape while working at camp because I'm usually so tired by the end of the day, the last thing I want to do is go running or do aerobics or pilates. Also, it's very hard for me to pack healthy lunches because it's just way easier to bring Easy Mac every day and pop it in the microwave (my new nickname from my camp director is Half-Mac). Since I'm on a two week break from camp right now, I decided that I am going to workout every day and eat super healthy for these two weeks and hopefully I will stay motivated when I'm back in Bozeman.

So far I've been doing a great job with the working out every day thing. My dad was the camera man on a workout video last summer and jeez oh man, it's a kick ass work out. A little FYI for anyone trying to get in shape, anything that is dance inspired will do your body wonders! I kind of hate working out on my own though because it's so easy to become demotivated, so I decided to ask my best friend Ren if she would want to be my workout buddy for the next two weeks. She said yes, and our first workout took place yesterday.

The original plan was to ride our bikes to the University, go hike the M, then ride our bikes back home. In my mind we were going to do all of this without breaking a sweat, and when we were finished we were going to be so in shape that if you punched us in the stomach, your hand would just disintegrate. Like usual, my imagination was about as wrong as Anthony Wiener's penis size (congress men should not be packing heat).

We left Ren's grandparent's house and got about halfway to the University when we decided we wanted to go to the Italian restaurant she works at but we forgot money.

We stopped for a little photo-op. 

This was before we realized life sucked on bikes. 

After going half way to the university, then back to grandma's house, and back to where we had left off, we had traveled 3.5 miles. This was the moment we decided that hiking the M was no longer an option. We kept riding and the temperature climbed to about 88 degrees. We rode to the University and then over to Ren's favorite park which added another 2.84 miles to our ride. When we arrived at the park we collapsed on the grass under the shade of a large tree, and we didn't move a single muscle for a good thirty minutes.

The view from our spot in the grass.

After deciding we were hungry and wanted to go to the restaurant Ren works at, we got up and got back on our bikes. Apparently during the time of sitting, our butts left their state of bicycle seat shock and realized they were in pain and never wanted to touch a bicycle seat again. When I sat back down on my bicycle seat, my butt screamed in horror. I felt like I imagine a prison inmate might feel like... you know what, I'm not even going to finish that sentence. Just know, it was painful, and I didn't like it. The whole way to the restaurant we were both griping and groaning about the pain our butts were suffering, and that this was the worst idea in the world.

The trip to the Restaurant added another .92 miles to the bike ride. We sat down, vey tenderly for the sake of our bottoms, and ordered some Pasta and a desert. For the fun of it, and also to suck up some time before getting back on those torture devices that we used to think were oh so fun, we asked if we could learn to toss pizza dough. We weren't very good, but we had a blast pretending we were good!

So basically my best friend is gorgeous and makes pizza dough look hot.

It broke. Oops.

After our failed pizza dough adventure we decided to get back on the ass destroying machines and go back to grandma's house (we also forgot our to go boxes but remembered after only two blocks so that wasn't too bad). When we got about seven blocks from our destination, my bike decided that it no longer wanted to wear a chain. We then presumed to look like complete idiots on the side of a very busy road attempting to fix a bike. I made eye contact with a woman who was laughing at us! As soon as she saw me look at her she tried to pretend she wasn't laughing, but I saw! I know you were laughing at our misery Lady in the car, and I do not appreciate it!

As we were struggling a guy on a bike who was wearing the spandex and everything rode right past us like we weren't there! He didn't even offer to help, and you know he would have been able to fix the bike because he was practically dressed like he took a wrong turn off the Tour de France and ended up in Montana! What a jerk! I hope he reads this and knows that I am judging him right. this. second. Okay, I'm done with that.

We walked the bikes a little bit and then all of a sudden my bike decided to wear the chain again. Bike, make up your damn mind please! We FINALLY made it to grandma's house, and when we walked into the house, we looked like we had been stranded in the desert for days without water and were inches from death. We weren't even exaggerating one little bit, I promise. We eventually collapsed in the living room and watched The Social Network (great movie). I also went on MapMyRide and our bike ride totaled 9.2 miles!!!

Today my mom asked if I wanted to go on a bike ride and I looked at her with the most serious face possible and said, "I'm currently not on speaking terms with bikes."

More Often Than Not, I Wish I Was A Cat.

I want to first of all, apologize for the lack of postings from me lately. As most of you know I am currently employed at a children's theatre camp and I've been putting so much of my creative energy into camp that I haven't had much left over for my blog. I am, however, on a two week break right now and so hopefully I can give you guys some nice material and hopefully during the second session I will be a little more pro-active about blogging because I've definitely missed it.

So tonight while I was sitting on my couch thinking about what the perfect come back topic would be, it hit me that there is no better topic than cats and how my life would probably be fucking fantastic if I was a cat.

Pros of Being A Cat:
1) If I was a cat these are the things my day would consist of: sleeping, eating, sleeping some more, licking myself, sleeping, chasing some string, sleeping, eating, and sleeping some more. As a human, I love sleeping, but it is socially unacceptable to be asleep at four in the afternoon unless you have mono or are narcoleptic. If I was a cat though, I could sleep whenever my little cat self desired and no one can say shit about it because I'm a cat which means I'm better than you.

2) People would put videos of the funny cat shit I do on YouTube and I would be famous. I don't think I will ever be famous as a human, but as a cat, all I would need to do is roll on the floor or attack my owner with my little hands and BOOM, 1,000,000 hits.

3) Humans will suddenly become my bitch. Look at how a cat lives. They lay on our furniture like it's really theirs. They poop and pee in a box and humans clean it up. When they are hungry they just walk to a bowl that is (usually) always full. The most work they do in eating is sitting in that little ball close to the bowl so their little mouths can reach it.

4) As a cat I would be able to wear a big ol' look of "fuck off" and no one cares because I'm a cat. If I do that as a human I get labeled a bitch and people throw things at me. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but I do get a lot of harsh vibes that feel like things being thrown at me.

5) I can get fat and people just think it's cute. Cats don't get judged for being fat. I think we could all learn something from cats.

6) Cats can make like 100 different sounds! As a human, sure, I can probably make more sounds than that, but I have a dictionary of words that tell me how to make different sounds. Cats just make their little cat noises, and guess what, there are about 100 of them! That is some sophisticated voice box.

Cons of Being A Cat:
1) Dogs think it is so funny to chase me. I don't want to be chased by a dog. I want to be a cat and lay on the floor and have people adore me.

2) I hate water and the world is about 75% water... so that sucks.

3) Small children like to pull on my tail. I say no. No pulling on my tail.

4) Hair balls.

Well here's my pro and con list of being a cat. I think I really just need to accept that I'm a human and be happy with it. After all, as a human I can reach things that are sort of up high. So even though I am a human and will just need to be content with my species, that doesn't mean that I can't randomly meow and pounce things around my house or my friends' houses. I think that is totally socially acceptable.