Girls Gone Mild is on a mini-mildcation

But when we return, expect a mild review of blister-band-aids...because lets just say I've done a lot of power-walking lately.

OK, I can't lie to you, I actually decided to wear heels ONE TIME for a FEW HOURS N-I-N-E days ago and I am still feeling the agony over it.

Girls Gone Mild wear flats for a reason.

TO BE CONTINUED.

Mild Listening.

What is the opposite of XXX pictures?

Oh, maybe THESE.




I'm on vacation, but I'm keeping it mild, REAL MILD.

Asleep at the mild wheel.

Well, once again a Mild Girl's priorities were skewed by her ability to be in so many places at so many times and after taking a 1-day weekend so I could work Monday (normally my day off since I work Tuesday-Saturday) to compensate for tomorrow since I'll be missing it, I needed to let cut loose before I conceded to FIVE days with my family in South Texas.

So on Wednesday night, totally exhausted from my 1-day weekend, my 3-days of mega-hard work so I could feel good about leaving the office for so many days, I went home and frantically cleaned my bachelorette pad for my CAT-SITTER!

A Mild Girl does not leave her mild pet alone for the holidays.

After eating my take-out dinner ALONE, I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned and then passed out for about 45 minutes. I woke up to lights on, candles burning and felt so stressed out.

I needed a beer (or two) and I needed to see my nearby friends before I left them for a week.

A little after midnight, I drove myself to a bar that I can always guarantee to feel like a friend's living room.

Because seriously, a Mild Girl rarely wants to leave the house which is why "living room" seems so appealing.

I arrived. I drank a $6 beer which I asked in the most grandmotherly way "Is that beer with the special cap expensive?" to which the bartender replied "Only if you think $6 is really expensive!"

He gave me my next beer for free since I had recently made him a mix CD. See, Girls Gone Mild make an equal amount of mix CDs for their bartenders and they do for their Moms.

I'm not even kidding, upon arriving in Texas yesterday via California, my Mom asked when she was finally going to get "another" mix CD from me.

Girls Gone Mild are in high demand.

Which is probably why I was so tired at Thanksgiving dinner yesterday.

From the desk of Ms.Mild

I know what you're thinking: another picture of a mild girl and her cat on a Saturday night, but AHA! This picture comes with a different tale (or should I say TAIL...Ha!).

So imagine I used to be super into punk rock. Like, I completely avoided all the regular teenage stuff like dates and proms and getting my ears pierced (OK, BABIES do that) because all I wanted to do was listen to college radio, write angsty (albeit AWESOME) letters to pen-pals in other cities, go to all-ages punk shows while my parents pretty much waited in the car, etc, etc.

My whole life I was obsessed with bands. I tried to play music, but our band (in the 8th grade!) broke up before we ever played a show. And then my bass guitar just sat in my bedroom before traveling with me to college, the city my post-college boyfriend lived in, grad school and now my post-grad Mild Life.

All my friends have always been in bands (or writers). It makes more sense with me to hang out with people who play music (or write) than people who make visual art or even films (which I do make). I think it might be a class thing really. But we can talk about that later...

ANYWAY...at some point, maybe in say, grad school, I kind of stopped going to shows. Seeing live bands was no longer as fun as it used to be for a multitude of reasons, but I think a big one was that NO ONE EVER DANCED.

When you have been going to shows from age 13 to like 25+, things just start to get a little TOO MILD. You need something that is going to be a lot more than what you've already seen in a 1,000 different incantations.

Cue the above photo.

Imagine that ever since I moved to L.A. in October of '08, I got introduced to this cumbia (look it up if you don't know what I'm talking about) band and I just GOT IT instantly. Their music was more than mild. It put me and everyone else in their audience in a sweaty booty-shaking dance trance! This is the kind of live music I can dance to and it's barely amplified. Wow, I can dance AND not go deaf--a perfect combination for a Girl Gone Mild.

Unfortunately, a lot of my friends haven't given this band a chance and/or hate paying the inevitable $10 or $12 that always comes with seeing said band in L.A. (cheapos!).

Anyway, I think this band realized there was a Girl Gone Mild in their fanbase and eventually asked me...

IF I WOULD START SELLING MERCH FOR THEM.

Only a Girl Gone Mild would get asked to not be a groupie, but ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING THAT INVOLVES COUNTING.

It actually struck me as the most Girls Gone Mild thing I could do. I could go to their shows and not feel awkward about being alone and I would have a PURPOSE.

Here's the deal. If I'm going to either see a band I like or go to a bar (or both) ALONE, I need a purpose. I need a friend there I can talk to or...A TASK I CAN BE GOOD AT.

So now in the last breaths of my 20s, I totally watch my favorite live band for free and then get paid for selling a few of their CDs and t-shirts (OK, more than a few because it turns out Mild Girls are really good sales people...SIGH, a curse.) at the end of the night.

And I'm home safe and sound a little after 2am with a certain less-than-mild feline.

I look forward to wearing glasses someday. Then I will fit every mild-girl stereotype.

But seriously, being mild kind of rocks when you do it right!

Morning Mild.

Apologies for the lag in blog posts. A mild girl's life is a busy life sometimes.

So lets take you back to the beginning of my mild week.

On Tuesday night, I was feeling mildly SUPPRESSED. Both my days off, Sunday and Monday were full of more work tasks than they should have been. Sometimes mild ladies have trouble saying NO to things like bringing work home with them or being the most reliable friend that everyone can always count on. All of this takes a lot of time and energy and nothing over last weekend really felt like a break for me. So by Tuesday night after work, I raced to the movie theater, grabbed a Stella on tap (such a good mild-lady drink) and saw:

MORNING GLORY.

The most Girls Gone Mild movie of 2010.

I want to preface the below with the fact that I have a Bachelors in Media Studies from a very progressive liberal arts school where we watched experimental ethnographic films over Citizen Kane and Kubrick any day of the week. Then I got a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Arts/Film and made my own experimental films where I was more interested in form and technique over content.

I tell you all this because sometimes I need a in the minute/in the now movie or television ESCAPE. Sometimes my mildness comes to a breaking point and I need to be alone but laughing (as opposed to alone but THINKING).

This brings us to my "review" of MORNING GLORY.

I saw the billboards and trailers for it everywhere for the last few months and I knew it would be about a young woman struggling to climb a corporate/semi-entertainment industry ladder. I knew it would ultimately be about her career fulfillment or disfulfillment and she would more than likely FIND LOVE in the process of figuring these things out. How not very unique.

I, and so many of the Girls Gone Mild I know are married to our careers. I don't know any other way of saying that so I apologize for using the M-word. I think it's great. I'm proud of myself and my friends, but I, like Rachel McAdams in MG work really really hard and sometimes I don't have a good idea of what I'm working up to. When does this working hard pay off and lead to something more? Does it ever?

Morning Glory did not answer these or any questions of course, but it did make me happy that there was a movie with a Girl Gone Mild in the lead. At one point, she told her love interest that she doesn't pick up on romantic cues from men at all. Total MILD STYLE. Mild girls are totally busy getting things done to remember to have fun sometimes.

If you are totally mild-ed out from your workweek or even your personal life, I recommend a little MORNING GLORY. There were moments I couldn't stand--the fake empowering-ness of Rachel McAdams running in slow motion to that Natasha Bedingfield song or the naivete of her character rejecting her dream job to stay with the "little guys" who helped get her to where she is. Blah blah blah.

I have to say that I hope others besides Girls Gone Mild and/or feminists notice something that is really clear in MG. When a talented young woman is put in a position of power, she has so far to prove herself, she might as well be an intern. It's clear in MG that this is the case and that my friends, IS NOT FICTION.

So you don't feel left out of the mildness.

Self-portrait of me and my cat-child keeping it real mild-style.



This photo was taken on a Monday night before I was about to go out for a mini-night on the town. See, that's one of the problems with being mild all the time. Your internal clock gets all confused from all the mildness and when you're finally ready to go out IT'S MONDAY NIGHT.

Sigh.

Bornnnnnnnn to beeeeeee miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiild.

xo

A special treat I deserve because.

Did someone say ice cream margarita? I love you, Beer 'N' All for basically being a drive thru corner liquor store specializing in mixed drinks that are legally served in sealed plastic bags. Tonight, I resorted to a comforting favorite, the Mangorita, an orange-tinted slush with traces of unmixed mango syrup mixed with a liquor I can't even identify (vodka? tequila?). The girl was nice and dressed in a halter half-shirt and really tight black Forever 21 pants that lack definitive seams, a main marketing ploy. In the summer, the girls wear bikinis and sit in large neon green metal cages along the street looking sad and bored. There's always an ex/current boyfriend or two lurking in the parking lot, keeping an eye on things. Need I mention the looming danger feeling? I got out quick after tipping the poor young waitress under the awkward stare of a boyfriend? sitting at the lone picnic table out back.
I admittedly unsealed the plastic bag and sipped my beverage on the way home. Then got paranoid and shuffled the bag around to make it looked unopened. Mild style.

I can't tell you how many times I wake up like this.

Did you hear the one about Sunday night?

Woke up ALONE and picked up a friend and we proceeded to get coffee at our local park's concession stand. Trust me, it makes sense if you live here. And wait, actually I got LEMONADE because I didn't want the caffeine to make me too "crazy".

We saw a celebrity drinking her coffee while paparazzi snapped her picture dozens of times and the thought actually crossed my mind to feign tripping in front of her so the pap's could either photograph her "helping local woman" or "rudely not helping local woman" but ultimately, I was too busy eating my "Snake Dog" to even walk her way.

Met up with another friend who asked me why my cat liked to sit on plates (I'm glad that this blog had already made a few waves) to watch indie-folk bands cover Nirvana's NEVERMIND. So mild you couldn't even handle it.





Afterwards, I dropped my friend's off and ATE ALONE at this little pizza place before HEADING TO A GARAGE SALE I was told was going to be MOSTLY BOOKS. Like MILDPALOOZA!

In one of the most MILD moments I've had in recent history, I purchased a DICTIONARY. How much more mild can you get?!

I raced home because my friend, Nikki (a strong arbiter of MILD) was coming over to drink tea and catch up. Uncaffineated tea because we can't be bothered to stay up. MILD TIMES, people.

After Nikki left, I ordered A SALAD which I picked up (thanks for the two forks, you wishful thinking cashier, but Earl doesn't have opposable thumbs) and ate while I drank tea and wrote LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION for my students all night. Karma for that one year I tried to apply for grad school at the last minute I suppose.

Seriously, this is what the end of my twenties looks like, people.

No wait, actually THIS is what the end of my twenties looks like. I bring you, Earl using me as a stepping stone/bridge/walkway:



Keep it mild, y'all.

xo

Interestingly enough

I dropped a plate (yes one, because I was eating alone--duh) and immediately, my 18-year old cat, Url (yes, that's actually the proper spelling of my senior citizen pet) jumped on it.




I don't know what's more mild--the fact that this happened and I am blogging about it on a Saturday night ALONE or the fact that I took pictures because I believed someone would want to see them. (Admit it, you mild girls are loving these pics.)

GIRLS GONE MILD for the win!

PURR-serverance

Saturday night: Watching awesome japanese cat squeeze into tiny boxes

Take a walk on the mild side

People think I go out all the time, but tonight, Friday night I worked all day and then rented TEN documentaries to show my high school students tomorrow. Can you imagine seeing a young woman on a Friday night with a stack of TEN dvd's in her hands? One of them being KOYAANISQATSI.

Lets just say I doubt there's going to be a missed connection on Craiglist anytime soon that says:

"You, alone, Friday night. You hurried through the crosswalk with a massive pile of DVDs that signaled you were staying in tonight and maybe headed to Chipotle before drinking a Coronita because 7-ounces is enough to give you a buzz these days."

Sigh.

Welcome to the mild side, y'all.