Category Archives: Silly

Deciphering Taylor Swift’s Lyrics…

…everyone’s favorite parlor game.

No one is immune to the grandeur that is Taylor Swift.  NO ONE.  I tried avoiding her for years because:

  1. I’m a grown-up
  2. I’m a grown-up
  3. I’m a grown-up
  4. I don’t particularly care for that sort of watered down country pop (if I must listen to country music, it had better be OG country music)
  5. The last time I had a crush on a boy was, like (twirls hair and snaps bubble gum), 198x, k.?.

Now, I find myself all giggly and screamy whenever I see Taylor for she is positively fabbo.  I mean, the woman carries around her fucking Scottish Folds (note:  I’m hipster crazy cat lady and knew the breed before any of you!) and those cats actually don’t freak out in public.  She’s either the cat whisperer, a witch or heavily sedates them with kitty ludes.  Oh, and her wardrobe:  uh…ah-may-zing.  I would sacrifice all my future trips to Starbucks for one just one of her purses or a day shopping with her.  And don’t even get me started on her fan-lovin’:  total heart of gold.  Clearly the woman has descended from the heavens above.  She must be the Messiah or Second Coming of Christ (or Christina, if you prefer).

How did I get into the bliss that is Tay-Tay?  Easy.  I have a kid and when you have kids of a certain age, you need to be exceptionally cautious about song lyrics (teachers of your kids, otoh…).  With my lexicon, it should be pretty apparent that I give zero fucks if/when Milky starts rifling off profanities.  I’d much rather him not do it at school or in front of other kids because other parents can be less than appreciative of playmates who use the word “cunt” as often as the word “please.”  Wait.  My kid has to be reminded to say “please.”  Let’s use “now” instead.

Back to the topic at hand – deciphering her song lyrics.  It’s my understanding that many a fangurl will sit down with their secret decoder rings and ponder for days over which ex-suitor Ms. Swift is singing about.  I’m considerably out of touch but the shit the kids read these days have these articles which take a deeper dive (oh fuck you, corporate speak!  Get the fuck out of my private time!) explore this in great detail.  Well, I wanna play that game now, too!  It’s a little known secret that adults like to have fun now and then, just like teachers have sex and drink booze (source:  every teacher everywhere).

Shake it Off was released right around the time The Sprog started kindergarten.  He changed schools and it was a bumpy road in the beginning so I started playing this song for him each day, encouraging him to physically (totes adorable, double-oh-em-geeeeeee) and emotionally shake off the troubles of the day.  I’m not going to say that I don’t understand the lyrics because my IQ is considerably high (for realsies, stepfather was working on one of his eighty billion continuing ed degrees and I took like a trillion IQ tests and I’m supposed to be like this super genius or something) but the whole “And to the fella over there with the hella good hair…” did pique my curiosity.  Isn’t “hella good hair” subjective?  Great googly moogly, Chris Rock did a whole documentary on good hair (Good Hair and I totes recommend).  This shit is deep, yo.

Then, this morning, as I’m scrolling through my Facebook feed (before the two cups of coffee it takes for my brain to begin functioning), I spy, with a blurry eye, a video featuring The Try Guys which was posted by the lovely Kitten.  Oh?  The Try Guys are going to get nice and naked and I get to see this before 08.00?  Okidokiloki!  Then, I saw it.  Like the proverbial beacon in the night, I saw it:  the fella over there with the hella good (hipster) hair.  Eugene.  The mind boggled.  If I had any artistic abilities what-so-ever, I would doodle a picture of my head with springs flying out of it, eyeballs dangling and tongue hanging from the corner of my mouth.  Alas, I don’t so you’ll just have to imagine that bit yourself.

I’m on coffee number two so I’m still a bit drowsy but not so drowsy that Eugene did not pop my cork, pet my monkey, float my boat or trip my trigger.  Ha!  I’m awake NOW.  I’m awake and thinking of Eugene, pizza and inappropriate things to do with Eugene and pizza.  If all y’all thought the teacher was shaking in his normcore sneakers, adorable Eugene should be in full panic mode for I am wildly inappropriate when good hair and pizza are in the mix.

Monday is starting off as a quadruple win:

  1. I finally get to play “What’s Taylor Really Saying?”
  2. I played “What’s Taylor Really Saying” and won!  ZOMGWTFBBQROFLCOPTERZ!!!111!
  3. Kitten introduced me to the glory of Eugene, whom I shall cover in glorious pizza whenever he asks provided I get to muss his hair with my tentacles of doom.
  4. Partial nudity.

This only means one thing:  it can only go downhill from here.

While we’re on the subject of pens…

Ohhh…I’m a lumberjack and I’m okay. I write with a girly pen all day…

Perhaps, dear readers, you have already heard about Bic’s new “for her” line of ball point pens. They are nice and soft so as not to damage a woman’s delicate hands, and come in appropriately girly colors. Oh bless.

Okay, stop laughing. Take a deep breath and calm down. While this is definitely a “what were they thinking” kind of product, one may perhaps understand where they were coming from by examining some of Bic’s other products. They do produce pink disposable razors “for women” which are purchased most enthusiastically by the fairer sex. So why not market a special pink pen just for women?

Makes sense, right? Well…no. We’re not buying it, both literally and figuratively. However, while these women’s pens are totally stupid and utterly sexist, they have produced a number of hilariously ironic reviews on Amazon. This one is my favorite:

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a pen.

However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a stationers, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their salespeople. However, this has not always been the case for young ladies.

“My dear Mr. Hodgson,” said my lady to me one day, “have you heard that Bic are making writing tools for ladies at last?”

I replied that I had not.

“But they are,” returned she; “for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it.”

I made no answer. Surely this could not be true, why would a woman have need of such a thing?

“Do not you want to know who will buy them?” cried my wife impatiently.

“You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it,” I said.

This was invitation enough.

“Why, my dear, you must know, a well known online retail establishment have been selling these, and it has encouraged young Lizzy to attempt to write down her fanciful ideas . Apparently a young lady from a nearby town has even done so and attempted to write a book!”

“What is her name?” I asked her.

“Austen.”

“Is she married or single?”

“Oh! single, my dear, to be sure! A man could never want to marry a young woman who thinks anything she has to say is so interesting it could need to be written down,” said my wife, most accurately.

And so it was that I assured her that there would be nothing to worry about, that women do not need special pens, no matter what Mr. Bic may think, and that nothing would ever come of this young ‘Jane Austen’ girl and her flights of fancy.

The End.

P.S. Lizzy says she is a bit fed up of pink and purple, when do we get some in a nice floral pattern?

In response to the following news article: “Swerving to Miss Moose, Norwegian Man Slams Into Bear”

For some reason, that headline really speaks to me.

Oh, Miss Moose,
You silly goose.
For when I saw you there,
I swerved to avoid you,
For being hit,
Would have annoyed you.
And would have been unfair.
Sometimes it’s hard,
Being a Norwegian.
When moose are legion.
And nearly everywhere.
But then a brown bear,
Caught me unaware.
So hit it I did,
And it ran and hid.
Looks like irony,
Ran right over me,
When I ran into that bear.

New Kids On The Block




New Year’s Day – wee hours of 01 January 1989 – Philadelphia, PA

Having been relieved of our babysitting duties unusually early for the night and knowing that our parents were not expecting us until the follow morning, my galpal *Brie and I decided to go into town to see what sort of hell we could raise.  Aside from sucking face in the back seat of the car with two very drunken, hot male students from Penn (drenched in the aroma of Drakkar) who were waiting for the Mummers Parade, my best memory would be the soundtrack.  The soundtrack of a perfect night.  Rosalita by Bruce Springsteen. Houndog by Elvis. Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi.

Also included in the mix was one of the best R & B bands of our generation.  That’s right. New Kids On The Block.

The first time I heard “Right Stuff” my world was rocked.  And it wasn’t rocked by the tongue of a stranger stuffed down my throat.  It was rocked by the BEAT.

Oft overshadowed by the contributions from Seattle in the 1990s, Boston was cranking out some serious shit in the 1980s.  Some of the unsung heroes of the time are Mission of Burma, Dinosaur Jr and The Pixies.  For the R & B inclined, New Edition was the gold standard.  Alas, what Beach Music did to Motown, New Kids On The Block did to New Edition.  Those white boys showed Bobby Brown and company what true R & B was all about.

For those of you unaware, New Kids On The Block was formed by Maurice Starr who took George Martin’s stewardship of The Beatles to its logical conclusion.  Starr had a vision of taking five talentless hoodlums destined for a life of petty crime and/or musical theater and turning them into the Greatest R & B Act of All Time.

Although their early releases were unappreciated by the connoisseurs of Top 40 radio, they served as the building blocks for a career that would make The Jackson 5 sound almost as solid as The Osmonds.  Starr and company struggled with finding the perfect hit to unleash their greatness on the world but once “You Got It (The Right Stuff)” debuted on the airwaves, the world was transformed.

In early 1989, the magnum opus that is “Hangin’ Tough” became an anthem for young America.  Gone were the days of listening to hip-hop and old skool rap.  New Kids On The Block captivated mall and arena audiences throughout America, dethroning the Queen of the Malls, Tiffany, and raking in trillions of dollars in revenue from poster sales to the tweenage girl demographic.

The NKOTB catalogue is as solid as it is stellar.  Throughout their career, NKOTB released an astonishing 19 singles from eight compact discs.  Of the 19 singles, three of the songs took their rightful place at the pinnacle of the pop charts.

Musical greatness aside, NKOTB busted down doors for scores of oppressed white boys throughout America.  Had it not been for the brilliance of Starr and the temerity of these rapscallions, the music industry would have ultimately been denied extraordinary acts such as Backstreet Boys, ‘N Sync and 98 Degrees.  A world without Justin Timberlake is a world not worth living in.

I could wax philosophic about the contributions of NKOTB, the boy band era and Starr for ages.  Rather than sully their collective magic with my simple prose, I shall let the music speak for itself.

Enjoy the YouTube clips and bask in the glory.

*names changed to protect the naughty