The all-ages show

Guys, I don’t want to grow up. I write about it here and avoid it as much as possible by limiting my number of responsibilities. I don’t want to grow up, but I am. Last weekend I had an experience that made it undeniably clear that I am, despite my denial, getting older.

My roommate accompanied me to see a show at a small-ish venue near our house. Now, I’m a terrible judge of age, but we had to part a line of young-looking females outside the venue to purchase a ticket from the box office. Shortly after arriving and well before the music started or the lights were even dimmed, my roomie had to bounce per too much alcohol intake. He got an uber and I got my concert go-to combo: a PBR tallboy and a shot of Fireball (which was classily served in a dixie cup).

Not only was I hyper-aware of my aloneness, as this was the first time ever ridin’ solo at a show, but I realized pretty early on that I was one of the older people present, as evidenced by the beer in my hand that did not have x’s, unlike most of the people in the front row.

The opener started and, as I made my way toward the front, I was surprised. Was this band One Direction of yesteryear? No, it was Hippo Campus, some sort of indie pop boy band. I’d listened to a few songs beforehand but hadn’t realized why it was so easy to sing along with music I’d never heard: the lead singer had the voice in the range that I, a female, could easily match. He had the voice of a girl, okay?

All the bandmates were all drinking water, and I admired them for the effort they were putting into the performance based on the amount of perspiration and level of screams from the adoring fans. They are pretty cute. There were many conflicting emotions swirling around inside me–grateful to be alone because I hadn’t spoken the thought out loud, and at the same time creepy because I was alone–  it was like I had contracted teenage angst by proximity.

As the show went on, they continued at the same level of energy. How? how is this sustainable?  Are they on drugs? Is that why they’re only drinking water? They sound okay and don’t seem super fucked up, but I don’t know much about drugs. And then it hit me- Ohhhh they’re young. This is what it is like to be young. I’m old. Am I too old to be here? Is everyone looking at me like that creepy cougar trying to pick up a baby rockstar? Maybe I should leave.

However, I stayed, but as the music went on I realized: Fuck. I forgot my earplugs.

On my way out –after the band that I was actually there to see and was much older played— I encountered the boy in the middle who confirmed my suspicions: he is 16.

All I do is wine, wine, wine no matter what.

Not a typo. Not whining. Wine-ing. Like winning, but with wine. It’s a thing.

Example 1: After completing a 10-mile autumn hike to some mountain lakes, I encountered a couple in their mid-40’s sitting on a bench having an adult picnic of turkey+ cheese Lunchables and plastic cups of wine. So f***in classy. I looked at them and thought to myself, well damn, if that isn’t what I aspire to be one day…

Example 2: Boxed wine! The most genius invention ever. And no, I’m not talking about Franzia. Again, wine is supposed to be classy, so you have got to step it up off the bottom shelf post-college. Boxed wine is sort of like that parable of Jesus with the wine and the fish and the bread, where he fed and watered two shit tons of people. A box of wine, while on the more watery side (which solidifies the parable, turning water into wine or whatever), is the equivalent of of three bottles, which means it is a) more economical, and b) perfect for when you want to be cheap but provide drinks for many people. In fact, I don’t think the Jesus thing was a miracle so much as the invention of boxed wine, which is better. ALSO, a box of wine actually comes inside a giant (and sturdy) bag/pouch inside a box, which means it can go where no bottle can go, including, but not limited to: the beach, music festivals, or on backpacking trip to hot springs…  which are three places I have recently taken boxed wine. Hell, you can even stick a straw in it and voila- adult Capri Sun. Overall, my rating of boxed wine would be: yes. It’s a win-win-win.

Example 3: Quantity. Sure, most people measure their wine-consumption in glasses. I prefer to measure it in bottles. Nonchalantly, of course. As long as I leave a little sip in the bottle, I usually opt for, “Yea, I had some wine last night”, or I vaguely allude to how many people were sharing the bottle when in reality, it is usually just me. Because what’s classier than red-wine stained lips and alcohol-fueled writing? Rhetorical question. Nothing is classier. This is actually the classiest post you will ever read from me, and that’s only because I say the word “wine” so many times (disregard the number of times I say “boxed” in front of it).

Urban Dictionary, feel free to use my examples. Wine-ing. Look it up. (Just kidding, don’t…not yet at least.)

Food pornographers

I have a bone to pick, figuratively and literally, with people who post photos of food on the internet. Good job! You fed yourself today, as any adult should and does every day. Maybe you are proud you didn’t go out to eat, and want others to be proud of you as well. Perhaps you are trying to impress those of the opposite sex with your domestic skills. (Isn’t Facebook just a social resume?) Maybe you’re impressed that you did go out to eat and want to show everyone how #boss you are because of what you can afford to consume.

Whatever the reason, I would like to appeal to the mass audience out there who takes photos of the food they are about to eat (or even worse, a picture of their nasty-ass plates that contain only crumbs, bones, and shells once most of that food is finished): please stop. Please. Stop. I’m getting hangry just thinking about it.

You might as well label that photo “pre-poop” because that is all it really is. Yes, that’s right, though it looks delicious now, that food you are about to eat will be poop in 12-24 hours. Is the next stop in food porn going to be a post-poop shot, with a description of what it used to be? Pretty solid poop today, TGF broccoli #amirite or Don’t worry guys, that’s not blood in my stool, I had beets for dinner last night or Beer shits again. Need to lay off the Coors Light. I mean, c’mon. Ya’ll are disgusting.

Martha Stewart tweeted this food pic and no, it’s not post-food. She called it “Best slow cooked onion soup with baguette croutons and gruyere and Comte cheese melted on top. Garden onions to which a tweeter replied: That soup pic looks like a toilet bowl after an attack of intestinal flu. #preach This one actually made me less hungry.

Worst of all, these photos remind me how inadequate and hungry I am. Today I’ve had a handful of cherries (raw) and chips & cheese that I made in the microwave. So thank you, food-grammers, for reminding me of my hunger and my almost adulthood via my inability to feed myself. Pass the jar of salsa, please.

This one actually made me throw up a little bit, making me less full but also less hungry at the same time.

Raising a Dog Baby

I work at a great place. I have minimal complaints, and seemingly endless vacation days. My coworkers are fun and smart and pretty chill. Pleasantries aside, I do run into some occasional issues. Let me preface the following segment by saying I am one of two employees who is not married, and one of five who does not have children. Also, my dog’s name is Frankie. Okay!

I hear a lot of stories about children being cute, children being annoying, children sleeping through the night (miracle!), children not sleeping ever (disaster!), and a lot about children’s bodily functions (hard pass). I am led to believe that having children changes your perceptions on life, and I get it, you guys! I get it. I welcome your stories and I support you as a parent. I will listen to your praises and complaints, but I am also going to participate in these conversations in my own way.

After about every third children-oriented story I hear, I throw in my own. About my dog. Who is definitely not a baby. Nor is he human.

“Oh gosh, that sucks that your baby woke you up at 3 a.m.! My dog was just bouncing around my bed in the middle of the night! I don’t know what got into him!” Nothing got into him. He’s a dog and does whatever he wants. It also didn’t really bother me. I just went back to sleep.

“No way! I can’t believe that your kid didn’t want to take a bath and screamed for hours straight when you made him! Frankie hates baths, too!” I mean, he does hate baths but he’s small and can’t get out of the sink. He just deals with it. Because he’s a dog.

“That is such a cute photo of your baby! Frankie did such a cute thing the other day, too. Look at this!” And then I show them, at minimum, five pictures of my dog.

And I will show you, too:

 

Home is where the awkward family questions are

I recently made a trip back to my homeland, aka Michigan, aka America’s high five. I spent two weeks living it up as a Michigander – tubing down a river, lying on multiple beaches, kayaking Pictured Rocks, etc. I also saw a lot of family.

My time in MI coincided with my grandma being back from Florida for an extended stay, so I got to see her for the first time in 3+ years. We met for breakfast at Russ’, which if you haven’t heard, is like a Perkins or Denny’s but more Dutch, aka cheaper. Our conversation was mostly about health care, insurance, mortgages, and other family members- you know, stuff adults talk about. At one point, it came up.

You know what it is. Single, married, young, old, it never fails. Get together with an old person- relative or not- and they’re going to ask you about kids.

To make matters worse, my grandma threw in a guilt trip, “I’m 83 and I don’t have any great-grandkids,” she said.

“Don’t look at me- I’m not the oldest!” was my unsympathetic, knee-jerk response.

“That’s what they all say,” she said, with a sigh of dismay that only a grandma can master, enough for me to question myself for a split second, Oh, I’m not married and I don’t even know if I want to have kids, but maybe I should have children, she is old and sure she’s doing well now but…

As if that’s not enough, my other grandma, who is 78 and does have great grandkids, asked me the same question.

“You have two, grandma! Isn’t that enough?!?”

It’s never enough.

-DK

Cadet Kelly and Other ‘Classic’ Films

Adulthood is on a very fluid spectrum. It seems that whenever I feel full-on adult, something comes along and brings me down a few pegs. For example, I could have all the ingredients to make a well balanced meal, but then I decide to eat popcorn and Reese’s peanut butter cups for dinner… three nights in a row.

Candy in the morning, candy in the evening, candy at suppertime.

So yeah, when I eat candy for dinner, I feel pretty youthful and cool. But these feelings are fleeting, especially when I have a conversation with a former intern that ends up being really, really depressing.

One day, Former Intern and I were discussing Netflix recommendations, as one does, and I told her to watch Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead or Adventures in Babysitting. (I don’t know why I was on a babysitting theme kick, but whatever.) These recommendations got me into a flurry of nostalgia, so then I told her to watch Teen Witch (classic late 80s), The Great Mouse Detective (classic mid-80s), or the cartoon version of Robin Hood (classic early 70s. And seriously, how good was this song and this one, too!).

I digress.

She then tells me, “Oh yeah! I love old Disney movies, too! If you look at my recently watched it has like, Cadet Kelly and Holes on there.”

I honestly didn’t know what to say, but I did feel a burning hot rage among my insides where my spirit lives.

Hillary Duff, aka Cadey Kelly, is 27 years old. Shia LaBeouf, aka that kid in Holes, is 29. Cadet Kelly was released in 2002. Holes was released in 2003. DO YOU SEE ALL OF THE HOLES (pun intended) IN YOUR CLAIM, FORMER INTERN? I didn’t mean to have such an angry inner-monologue but, c’mon. Cadet Kelly is barely ten years old. If a movie personified can’t legally drink alcohol, it’s not an ‘old’ movie.

Adulthood is as cyclical as it is fluid, and it’s been a real bitch lately. But, it’s going to be okay. One day there will be a youngin’ who tells Former Intern a movie that came out while she was in high school, like WALL-E or High School Musical 3, is a classic.

Pet Cemetery

Truth: I kill every pet I own. Not on purpose. Not with my own two literal hands. Really, the opposite–  by the lack of my own two hands (a.k.a neglect). I’ve never been diagnosed with ADD because I don’t have it, except for when it comes to pets.

My first incident was Sassy. Sassy was adorable when she was a kitten, but the second she became a teenager and realized she didn’t like humans, I was over it. To make matters worse, Sassy did not adjust well when my family got another dog. She became the middle child– forgotten and angsty– which resulted in her pooping and peeing all over the house. My mom did not like this, mostly because she was the one cleaning up after “my” cat and well, cat urine smells pretty bad. (Mom, I’m sorry, Sassy was my kitten, but when she became a cat, she became yours.) Needless to say, Sassy didn’t last long at the Krolewicz household. My mom didn’t even try to lie and say she went to “kitty heaven” (does such a thing exist? probably not). She told me straight up that she took Sassy to the Humane Society where she was “most likely euthanized.”

If this was my cat, it would probably kill me, not the other way around.

There were other animals, Furby the hamster, bunnies from the county fair, Snakey the lizard, the list goes on. All dead. The worst, by far, was Charlie the cockatoo.

I inherited Charlie from a college friend who decided to hitchhike across America post-graduation. Apparently, birds don’t make great travel companions. Charlie was very annoying. Ever walk outside and hear a bird chirp and think “oh, that’s pleasant”? This was nothing like that. Sure, Charlie was usually watered and fed, but he was not happy. In addition, Charlie had a habit of escaping from his cage. To complicate things, my apartment had mice, so we had mouse traps set out. Mouse traps are non-discriminate– they snap anything that lands in it, mouse or bird alike. One day I received the inevitable call from my roommate who had come home to find Charlie with his leg in the mouse trap. The Animal Emergency Hotline was not much help. Apparently there isn’t much you can do for a bird with a broken leg.

Needless to say, Charlie died. We played “I’m Like a Bird” by Nelly Furtado at his funeral but it was winter so we had to bury him under a mound of snow. 

-DK

Long Live Night Naps

I believe life is all about balance. If I watch three straight hours of Parks and Recreation on Netflix, then I make sure to read a book for a while. If I have a salad for lunch, then you better believe I’m hitting the carbs HARD for dinner. If I go on a walking tour of a historic housing district for six hours with my mom, then I’m going to take a night nap for two hours immediately afterwards.

Night naps are a sacred gift. I am eternally grateful that my main responsibilities (my dog) allow me to take night naps when I see fit– and, honestly, my dog enjoys them as much as I do. I understand that my access to night naps is dwindling, which is probably why I find myself taking full advantage of them whenever possible. Long day at work? You deserve a night nap. Woke up early on a Saturday? That’s a disgrace, take a night nap. Spent all weekend with family? Go ahead girl, get that night nap.

I feel that night naps are one of the final aspects of not-quite-adulthood that I am holding on to. Adults need to be responsible at work. They need to pay their bills, go grocery shopping, and schedule doctors appointments. They need to do their dishes, sweep their floors, and fold their laundry. They need to take care of their children but– a-ha!– I don’t have those yet. So until I do, night naps shall prevail.

-SG

 

Living with Roommates 101

A lot has changed in the last two and a half years. I got a credit card. I moved away from my childhood home to another state. I started a new job. I saw the Grand Canyon. I turned 25 and then 26. A lot has changed. A lot, though, has stayed the same. I’m still unmarried, childless, and working several jobs. And I still have roommates.

When I moved to Denver, I lived rent-free in the basement of a family friend for several weeks before finding my way into a communal living situation. It’s a great location, the price is right, and it’s fully furnished. It also came with 6 roommates.

I love having roommates. There is always someone to lend me grass-fed cow butter or let me snack on their gluten-free crackers and beef liver. However, with that many people living together under one roof, there are bound to be problems – and sexual tension.

I made the mistake of “dating” a roommate for a hot second when I first moved into the house. It got awkward when he wanted to tell our roommates. It was one of those classic you’re-35-and-unemployed-with-six-roomates situations and I preferred to keep it a secret (although he did meet my mom?). Shortly thereafter, I ended things with him in a very passive way that took him a couple days to figure out, all the while maintaining/feigning normalcy around the house.

Let’s just say it was not great. It was one of those classic moments when you are home for Christmas break and you get a text from ex-but-still-current-roommate informing you that he is moving out because of said failed relationship that lasted all of three weeks and when you return two weeks later sure enough he has moved out of the house where he’s lived for the past three years and you hear he went to Mexico to work on his novel which is a murder/thriller that he later self-published on Amazon.

One review reads, and I quote: “Have you ever read a book and had this feeling that characters and locations were based on people you know in real life? This is one of those books … Lock your doors, crawl under the covers and get ready for a damn good thriller.” Classic, right?

Guys, I think as an almost adult it is okay to have roommates. Most of my roommates are older than me (one is 45 with two kids!). That being said, should you date a roommate? Sure. Why not. But be warned: your alter-ego with the same name may appear in a book about murder.

-DK

Am I an adult yet?

You guys, I feel like in the past two and a half years I have started exhibiting more adult qualities. I know, right? It’s a little weird and I feel uneasy.

For example, I recently utilized this magical thing called ‘Curbside Service’ at my local Meijer grocery store. Some may say ordering your groceries on-line and picking them up the next day is lazy. I say it is a blessing from the produce gods.

I despise every aspect of grocery shopping:

• walking down the aisles
• venturing across the store because I forgot ONE THING (usually toilet paper)
• the people
• grocery carts with faulty wheels
• long check out lines
• realizing that even though I trekked across the store I still forgot the toilet paper

Literally the only thing I like about grocery shopping is eating my groceries. Curbside Service eliminates everything I hate about grocery shopping and I am so excited that I told everyone at work, I FaceTimed my parents, I tweeted about it, and now I’m writing a blog post that is basically an unofficial endorsement for Meijer. I also bought almond milk.

Is this what being an adult is like?

 

-SG