A personal message to Spotify

Dear Spotify,

I discovered something unpleasant about you today that I believe the world needs to realize before more damage is done. You, Spotify, have been posting all the songs I listen to on you to my Facebook wall. This is decidedly unacceptable. You didn't even ask me first! Even farmville had the decency to ask me before it posted horribly obnoxious messages about how many cows I milked in a day or when I bought a fancy new barn because it was almost christmas and I wanted to reward little farmer me for all the hard work he does. Obviously, I told farmville to post these things so my friends could see my achievements. But you are a different case spotify because I use you for a very specific reason: to listen to embarrassing music that I don't want to download to my iTunes.

When I have the shameful urge to listen to Shania Twain, I turn to you to satisfy my secret love of sassy country pop. And I love that about you Spotify, but that is a secret best kept between me you and Shania. I don't need all my friends, relatives, acquaintances, people I met once at a party, and people I couldn't remember but we had enough mutual friends so I accepted their friend request anyway to see when "Man, I Feel Like A Woman!" is playing in my headphones. It's really none of their business and I'd prefer to enjoy Ms. Twain without your subtly-judgmental statements about my music choices on my profile. You can try to make it sound like your just being friendly about it, casually letting people know that "Joe Ziemba listened to 'Don't Be Stupid (You Know I Love You)' by Shania Twain" but I know you are secretly mocking me, metaphorically pointing your virtual finger and laughing in my face. Well you know what Spotify, there's nothing wrong with liking Shania, she is a talented and wonderful woman with life experiences to share with us through music!

Kind Gestures for the Sick

A short poem for my sickly roommate:

Dear next door roommate, in the bathroom across the hall

I can tell your very ill, I hear you puking through the wall

Your dry heaves are horrendous, as you barf with all your might

You should consider the possibility, of an alien parasite

I know its not that likely, but its good just to make sure

I don’t want to make you clean your own entrails off the floor

Whatever sickness you have, I hope it gets better soon

Because it’s really inconvenient to have you hogging the bathroom

I don’t want to be rude, but now with that said

If you don’t get out soon I swear I’ll pee on your bed.

I’m not kidding.

An excerpt from "Spring Break: The Early Days"

Wherein I talk about hell, wine, and rich people.

During an impossibly long feeling 6 hour drive to Kiawah, South Carolina for spring break this year, I realized how much life sucked before man found fire and brought into his cave then realized it was too damn hot so he put that shit out and cranked up the AC. And lo, the air conditioner was invented. Being hot is a terrible feeling, definitely top 10 worst feelings of my life. I mean, its below "dissolving my stomach lining with vodka" on the list of terrible pains I've experienced, but definitely above "swamp ass" and "crunchy Bologna." So yeah, it's up there.

I had to be uncomfortably hot for like three whole hours during this car ride. The AC was broken, but apparently driving friend has heat proof skin or is secretly a fire-dwelling lizard monster because he had that shit blowing hot air the whole time. We were all too hot to complain, but we made the effort to save ourselves by opening the window from time to time. That lasted maybe 3 seconds before fire-lizard in the drivers seat rolled it back up. 

Eventually my increasing amount of ball sweat over-rode my desire to not expend energy and I opened the window again. Demon-fire-lizard closed it again but the swampiness of my ass was at an all time high and something needed to be done before I ran out of liquid and started excreting dusty chunks of my internal organs.

“Dude stop doing that! What do you have against air?”

“The air is on.” Hissed the lizard monster.

“But your AC is broken it's just blowing hot air”

“I don’t want the windows open while the air is on, it’s pointless.”

“I’m pretty sure your air vents are pulling straight from the depths of hell.”

“It’s the same air that comes in the windows.”

“Except for the part where Satan might as well be LITERALLY farting into this car because its THAT HOT IN HERE!”

Backseat passanger friends backed me up with a solid logical argument that didn’t involve any allusions to a lake of fire or Satan (which were my main points), and we ultimately won the window battle.

About half an hour later was pit stop time at a quality gas station. I can tell it was a quality gas station because the first thing on display was a rack of wine for “$8 and Under!” as the sign proudly told me. I have a few problems with this wine. For one, when your classiest wine selection is only eight dollars you have no business selling wine. Also, if you’re buying wine from the discount rack at a gas station, you probably need something stronger to take away that sting of getting fired from your job at the Burger King. It’s a hard, hard life and you’ll need a higher alcohol content than $8 wine can provide to make the pain go away.

Shortly after thinking that I realized I was in no position to judge. I was wearing a cut-off t-shirt that said "For a good time call: 1-800-Suns Out? GUNS OUT!" Which I clearly wrote myself because it was in sharpie marker so I couldn't even blame it on the shirt. I was probably the least classy person in that gas station. People could’ve easily assumed I was homeless and I probably shouldn’t have made fun of the eight dollar wine because everyone in that store expected me to pick the cheapest bottle, put it in a paper bag and start chugging out on the curb. The thought crossed my mind to dress a little classier next time I had to be in public, but then I bought some Cheetos and stopped caring about that because, DAMN do I love me some Cheetos.

Two hours later we finally rolled up to the gates of Kiawah, or as I renamed it “The Hidden Island of the Rich People.” The one-white-glove-wearing gatekeeper doesn’t let anyone past him without a parking pass, but theres no barricade or guard rail. It's literally just this guy with his one glove. So I'm assuming people stop and let him check their passes pending threat of of being devoured by a fire-dwelling lizard monster because it's definitely hot enough there to have those. We had to get our friend who lived there to call the gate and convince them that despite the trashy kid wearing a cut-off shirt in the front seat, we were allowed to be there. "Sorry for not wearing your golf-outting attire fancy island people, I guess I'm just not good enough for you." I said snarkily in my head to cover up for my shame of looking like a homeless reject from MTV's Real World....so much shame.

Adventures in Sleep Depravation

I’ve taken to reading a lot lately, not anything useful of course, like my boring books for my Literature class. God no. I’ve been reading internet things. This is never good, nothing productive ever comes from me and the internet interacting on a casual basis.

Especially when I’m sleep deprived. Like right now. Yesterday I was also sleep deprived. Every time I sat in a chair my brain went all “YES, SLEEP NOW DEEP SLEEP” but I couldn’t sleep because I had to work so I put so much caffeine into me that I became a freaking MACHINE of being awake but really was incapable of accomplishing anything. And then last night I gave my brain permission to sleep (as I generally do every night) but it got all holier-than-thou on me and decided it wanted to stay up alllllll night and do nothing but be extremely excitable about internet memes. Then I went to the gas station at 6AM and bought 2 Starbucks coffee can things and watched the sun rise.

But the second the first ray of sunlight graced my presence, asshole-brain decided that’s when it was time to sleep. Because I’m now an opossum and have to be nocturnal? No, I have daylight responsibilities asshole-brain, so fuck off. Conscious self took control over my needy body and its physiological requirements for things like sleep and proper nutrition. You know what body? I OWN you, bend to my will. I SAID BEND DAMMIT.

But it’s a losing battle. Apparently when running on no sleep, normal everyday activities such as walking and having proper vision take a lot of skill. Walking straight takes all my willpower. I go slow, keep my balance, and eventually make it to my destination. But it’s a struggle when giant mutant flies that can’t possibly be normal size because when did they start making flies that god damned big plunge in front of your face like you’re a freakin bug zapper and disrupt your focus and sense of determination and you have to throw your arms out to protect yourself from the impending doom and make loud exasperated noises when you realize your holding a cup of hot coffee that you just catapulted into the air and need to avoid because you decided to wear one of your nice shirts today in hopes that the fanciness will distract people from your hideous sleepy death face so you stagger like one of your legs is falling off and land on a conveniently placed outdoor barbeque

...*deep breath*…OK, I’m better. I’m calm now.

Don’t worry, the shirt is safe.

I probably shouldn’t be allowed to drive in this condition either. I did anyway because I am a SURVIVOR and I don’t let my physical needs get in the way of my hopes and dreams. Forgetting which side of the road your supposed to drive on isn’t that bad anyway, everyone does that sometimes right?....Right?

Sleep deprived me also has an irrational fear of anything that moves. This includes, but is not limited to, squirrels, birds, cars that I didn’t see as I started crossing the road because I have tunnel vision, more squirrels (they’re EVERYWHERE) and my own body parts that decided they wanted to move involuntarily. Sleep deprived world is a scary place.