Friday Confessional: Gotta Get Down on Friday

Greetings from sunny, temperate Boston on this glorious Friday morning! It's finally starting to feel like Spring and, despite being my least favorite season, even this bad-weather-loving lady is ready for some sunshine and Sam Summers.

Ok, let's cut to the chase. It's Friday. On Fridays, we wear pink confess our deepest, darkest, most embarrassing thoughts, obsessions and musings.

I have never made a secret of my adoration of terrible, horrible, no good, very bad pop music. Is it embarrassing? Sometimes (and by sometimes I more accurately mean never). I am that girl at the bar who interrupts your regular Friday night Pitbull dance party by putting old school *NSync on the jukebox. And you know what? Seven times out of ten, I am not the only one singing my head off, nor am I alone in recreating the choreography of "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" and "Baby One More Time."

My only fear is that the 21 year old younglings think of these contemporary pop classics as, "vintage party jams," much like my friends and I freaked out every time "Take Me Home Tonight" and other songs of that ilk came blaring through the TKE basement speakers, spurring everyone to break into spontaneous Pat Benetar-inspired windmills and generally creating a ruckus ("Can you describe the ruckus, sir?" ::coughcough:: "Was that the ruckus?" Oh John Hughes, how I miss thee).   

It is with this love in mind that I must make the following confession:

Every Friday, without fail, I listen to Rebecca Black's "Friday" at least twice.

I KNOW.

The vocals are robotic, the tune is annoying and the lyrics are complete rubbish. These are all the exact qualities that draw me to it. Make of that what you will.

When the song first debuted, I initially thought it was meant as clever satire. With the likes of Ke$ha's "Tik Tok" dominating the Top 40, it was a perfectly-crafted mockery of the ridiculousness spewing from our radios, worming its way into our ears and causing us to bungle totally bizarre lyrics such as, "drop my keys, brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack," and bringing nonsensical words like, "sizzurp" into the modern-day lexicon. Surely, I mused, no one could have ever penned the words, "tomorrow is Saturday, and Sunday, comes afterwards," without tongue planted firmly in cheek. I'm still not entirely convinced that they didn't.

Yet I love it anyway.

I tried to hate it. I really, really, realllly tried to fight against this ...noise... but I couldn't. It's just so perfectly awful and campy that it appeals to my inner sixth grade nerd who is painstakingly applying eye glitter across her brow bones and parading in front of a mirror while warbling into a hairbrush. Though there is no amount of money in the world that you could pay me to repeat that era of awkwardness, I do occasionally miss those simpler times when my biggest weekend stressor was figuring out which seat I could take on the bus. Now I have to juggle errands, laundry, cleaning and long runs while maintaining a social calendar that involves a decent amount of day-drinking.

Sometimes, being a grown-up is hard work.

I also feel less guilt about this little pleasure because, despite getting off to a bit of a rocky start, Rebecca Black seems to be doing alright for herself in the grand scheme of things. She's appeared on one of those vocal voting shows and has something insane like 50 million views on YouTube. And if nothing else pans out for her, she can rest assured that someday down the line, there is a high likelihood that people will have figured out that it's way more annoying to Friday-Roll their unsuspecting friends than to surreptitiously lead them to that other classic earworm.

[Source: UrbanDictionary.com]

And so, I shall continue my little Friday tradition of gifting my coworkers and Andrew the masterpiece that is "Friday," while reminding them that it could be way worse. Harlem Shake, anyone? 

PS- You're welcome.

PPS- Happy Easter to those celebrating this weekend, and Happy Passover to my Jewish friends!

A Journey to Chiro

You guys, I'm a hot mess.

I'm the type of person who hates... HATES... caving and going to a doctor. Which, let it be known, I am fully aware is not a right afforded to everyone -- I am beyond grateful to have access to good, quality medical care in the best medical community in the world, and to have really great benefits that make seeking treatment possible. These are the things I think about whenever I want to scream at the top of my lungs when I'm stuck in yet another waiting room or being poked at by another person in a white coat (you could at least buy me dinner first, Doctor McGrabby).

By now everyone is sick to death of hearing me yammer on about my ankle/tendon/foot problems, myself included. Thankfully, after six months of treatment, five weeks of PT and finally finding the right podiatrist, I've been fitted with custom orthotics and am fully cleared to run/exercise freely again.Which would be fantastic, aside from the fact that while foraging under my bed for the mate to my perfect, sparkly Steve Madden heel, I managed to tweak something in my upper back to the point that I yipped.

YIPPED, people.

A week and a half later, I still can't move my head toward my left shoulder or backward without getting a searing shot of electricity down my right arm. Football-type friends of mine have informed me that this is what is known as a "stinger." While it sounds cool (like I'm related to Optimus Prime or something), it hurts like a bitch, as does the lingering ache that seems to have taken up residence through the entire upper right quadrant of my body. I'm pretty sure my stomach walls are weeping for mercy after ten days of anti-inflammatories, but that's what the doctor ordered.

Which is why later this afternoon, on the advice of my massage therapist, I will be embarking on my first foray into the world of alternative chiropractics.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I saw a chiropractor for a lumbar injury sustained at age 18. He was a member of my family medical practice who also happened to be a DC. He checked my chart, asked some questions and cracked my spine to improve blood flow to promote healing in the vertebra that was hurt. I went three times and that was that. This, however, promises to be in a completely different stratosphere from that encounter.

To put it in perspective, the first question on my New Patient Intake form is, "Please tell us about any stress you know of that was associated with your birth (your entry into the world, not your child's)."

It took every ounce of self-control I possess not to start that answer with, "It was a dark and stormy night..."

Admittedly, I'm a bit nervous, but not in a bad way. I'm nervous in the same sense that I was when I went to my first cognitive behavioral therapy session for my social anxiety in college ("What if she says, 'sorry, pal, you're screwed?'"), my first yoga class ("Is there going to be chanting? What if I fall asleep and drool all over the floor, causing the teacher to slip and fall in a puddle of my saliva, ruining her knees and costing her her livelihood?"), or my first massage ("What if my body is weird? Will there be Enya?"). I went into all of those "alternative" practices with a heavy dose of cautious skepticism which, at the end of the day, proved totally unwarranted. I use the techniques I learned through CBT each and every day. I love yoga and partially blame this new little "problem" on the fact that I stopped practicing while I rehabbed my foot. I firmly believe that a deep tissue massage was the single best use of my money in the past six months.

I'm relying on my positive experiences with all of the above to get me through this new, somewhat intimidating, encounter. Sure, it might be weird and it might push me way outside the boundaries of both my physical and emotional comfort zone, but I am trying to approach it with an open mind. The practice I'm going to has a TON of five-star reviews and when I called my health insurer to double-check my coverage, they knew exactly where I was talking about. All bode well for an interesting new experience and, with any luck, some relief from this continuous ache. Besides, at this point, if some random stranger on the T said that he or she could cure these stingers, I'd probably offer up my car, my computer and the deed to my first, unpurchased house.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a birth story to concoct....

Friday Confessional: Tic, Tic, BOOM!

Holla, Party People!

I've been spending my Friday inhaling coffee by the bucketful and crossing things off of my work-related To Do list like a crazy person. It's cute; I imagine I look like a chihuahua on speed as I whip my rolly chair around  and knock over all of the pink/green/yellow accessories with which I've spent the past two weeks painstakingly decorating my desk area. Seriously, I even got the go-ahead from my boss to purchase these babies:

[Source]

I do realize that pink rhinestone scissors are totally obnoxious, and I love it. I'd like to see the vagabonds I work with try to steal THOSE without me noticing.

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 I feel like I've been on a bit of a "write what I feel" kick lately, and while that seems to be working out for the best, I feel like it's been FOR-EV-ER since I did a proper Friday Confessional.

There are some bigger confessions that I have planned, both of the entertaining and the more serious variety, but I started to work on some of them and then realized that I'm not in the right mindset at the moment to really give them the attention they deserve. I find that happening a lot with my posts lately; I'll know exactly what subject I want to write about, but just don't have the time or energy to give the topic my full attention. I could totally half-ass some of those posts, but I feel like that wouldn't just be shortchanging my readers (holla!), but also myself. Because I like writing about that stuff, and I like the feeling of putting out quality posts more than I care about hitting some arbitrary "schedule" or "deadline" I've set.

Thankfully, I have some mini-confessions to make today, which require neither a ton of attention nor a ton of time. And so, I do hereby confess:

- I LOATHE having bolded, unread emails in my inbox. It makes me feel all squirmy inside and I have to either read them or delete them in order to feel "right" again. Before I switched to Office 2007, I would literally comb my Outlook account for the sole, unread email blemishing my inbox for more time than I care to admit.

- At least six times a week, I inadvertently look at the clock and it will read 9:11. Some people would take this as a bad omen, but for me, it's always a source of comfort. My beloved Gramma passed away on 9/11/06, and every single time I see it on the clock, I make sure to say "Hi!" and thank her for checking in on me.

- Andrew and I make up names for people in our neighborhood all the time, usually because we find out their names after we've been consuming adult beverages and then forget what they are. "Ann-Marie" is our favorite waitress at our local watering hole, even though her name is Sarah. Likewise, "Not Chris" is the door man at said establishment. He totally LOOKS like a Chris, but we have no idea what his actual name is despite asking him on several occasions. Sometimes, this little quirk gets us in trouble. I once made the mistake of referring to one of the brothers who own the packie across the street as "Mike Sullivan" to his face.... even though his name is neither Mike nor Sullivan. He looked at me like I was crazy, but still sold me my wine. No harm, no foul.

- In addition to the "unread email" quirk I mentioned above, there are a few other scenarios that legitimately induce a nervous tic in me from time to time. For starters, I get physically uncomfortable if my bed isn't made, and will 100% make it even if I get in to it 30 seconds later. I also feel compelled to straighten things that are askew, which leaves me straightening the damn frames at work every single day. Lastly, I can't just crumple up a paper wrapper for anything -- I have to fold it into a little triangle or I feel "off."

Now that I sound like a raving lunatic, that's enough of that.

Do you have any weird neuroses that drive you absolutely bonkers?  I love learning about other people's odd quirks; it makes me feel better about my own!

Have a great weekend!