Tomorrow I will share my personal resolutions. Here’s some that I made for Citizens of the Internet. I’m guilty of more of these than I care to admit. Feel free to add your own. It’s kind of like an airing of grievances so we can start the next year all shiny and happy and less assholey than usual.

• Proclaiming ignorance regarding some event or person who a lot of people are chattering about. See: Taylor Swift, The Oscars, The Superbowl, or anything else people deem themselves above.
• Tweeting checkins. It’s 2015 motherfuckers, enough with the Swarm (formerly known as Four Square) checkins. Nobody cares. Not one single person in the whole world.
• Speaking of which, turn off your nonsense auto-tweets about your horoscope or number of followers or number of re-tweets you’ve gotten. It makes you look stupid. Let’s start 2015 by not looking stupid, okay?
• Tweeting something along the lines of “Quirky Thing I Have Just Done: A Memoir” or “Annoying Thing Dot Tumblr Dot Com.” Yeah, I’m guilty as hell when it comes to this one. It’s fun, but you see that shark over there? We’re jumping it right now as I type. And along the lines of this one, writer & book people, we really, really, really need to retire the ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About. . .’ headline. Please, for the love of Raymond Carver, let’s put this one out to pasture.
• Knee-jerk reactions. I’ve got a bad temper, too. You know what helps? Counting to ten, taking a deep breath, and then thinking a little bit. Just a little. Let’s cut each other some slack in 2015. We all do stupid things give people time to atone. Also, there’s much to be said about the ol’ cliche “forgive and forget.”
• Hash Salad. This has gotten better on Twitter over the years, but man is it ridiculous over on Instagram. #I #Just #Don’t #Understand #Why #You #Need #So #Many #Hashtags. #Does #It #Increase #Viewership #For #That #Photo #Of #Your #Fall #Leaves. Also, how do you have time for such bullshit? My god, go take another picture and stop with the hash.
• Talking about the amount of email you have. Nobody cares if you’re at Inbox Zero or Inbox 88,191 or if you have a lot of email to respond to. We get it, you’re a very important person with a lot of people demanding your attention. Now shut up and respond to your fucking email.
• tbh = Face it tbh, an acronym for “to be honest,” is the “just saying” of 2014. Whenever you add tbh to your tweet/update it makes me think, so all the other times you aren’t being honest.
• smh/smdh = Fuck you and your damn judgmental head shaking.
• Using the First Amendment to try to escape consequences of something you said/tweeted/wrote. The First Amendment starts “Congress shall make no law. . .” It doesn’t mention anything at all about being free to say what you want without consequences. Me calling you an asshole because of your shitty sexist joke does not hurt your First Amendment rights one little bit.
• Using the term “butt hurt.” KNOCK IT OFF. Really, just stop it.
• I can’t even. Guess what? You don’t have to even. Also, you have the option to shut up until you can even.

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As you probably know most of the country is in the grips of the evil Polar Vortex, who is sitting on her ice throne in the Arctic circle feuding with her brother the Heat Miser and intermittently caressing her pet baby seal while cackling gleefully at all the humans throwing boiling water into the frigid air. I mean evil weather geniuses gotta have some fun too, ya know?

Because of the Polar Vortex sent to kill us all, Minnesota’s governor cancelled school yesterday and K-12 public school students (& teachers) all across the state were shouting “woohoo snow day or not really a snow day but we’re calling it that because extreme cold day sounds dumb!”

Then because the Polar Vortex wasn’t done toying with us, many superintendents from around the state called off school today. And again the K-12 public school people were with the woo and the hoo.

However, these free days were coming at the end of what I can only guess is the longest, most excruciating holiday break in the history of breaks. Parents all across this great state were begging for the public schools to take the children back. Please, take them back.

And as someone who grinned for 36 straight hours after my house was emptied and all my holiday social obligations were fulfilled, I feel for these parents. I have not come to chastise the parents who just need a fucking break already.

No. I have come to chastise the fucking parents who were whining about “back when I was a kid they never called off school” and also the non-parents who were complaining “it’s always cold in Minnesota in January why is this so different that they have to call off school.”

People, look at what you’ve become. You’ve become, literally, the back in my day we went to school when it was -20 degrees out people. You are the quintessential insufferable asshole cliche that we all make fun of about walking to school uphill both ways. YOU ARE THAT PERSON. How dare you become that person? What is wrong with you?

Last night I thought maybe part of the problem is that so many of us came of age in the grunge era where many of our uniforms consisted of a long-underwear type shirt worn under a t-shirt that was then covered up with a raggedy flannel (if you were truly grunge and not a Gap Grunge^TM). This look was also complimented with a pair of Docs (or some other industrial-looking footwear) and depending on the weather jeans or shorts. We were layering before Polar Vortices were cool.

But that was the 90s and most of these MN parental Gen-X whiners were talking about school in the 80s. So I don’t know what the hell their problem was.

I’m all for getting on my generational high horse with the “In my day if we wanted to make a playlist we had to hold a tape recorder up to the radio speaker and hope we didn’t capture too much of the commercial and we were happy to do it damnit!” But really? REALLY Gen-Xers of Minnesota you are pulling the “Wah! Going to school in inclement weather was so much harder in the 1980s crap?”

Shame on you. SHAME SHAME SHAME. Your punishment is to go find the nearest Baby Boomer and sit there while they tell you all about Vietnam and how it made total sense to be peace, love, and harmony hippie and eventually vote for Ronald Reagan not once, but twice. You asked for it buckos. That’s what you get for being the back in my day weather/school asshole who begrudges the young’uns a damn snow (or extreme cold for you pedants, and I’m sure there are some pedants amongst you) day.

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I don’t have a lot of records. I did once upon a time ago, but the crate I kept them in was swiped from the front lawn of the house I was moving out of while I was in college. There are a few of those that I mourn. Madonna’s “True Blue” 45 that was actually blue. One of The Beatles’ 45s which was most definitely a reprint, but a gift from Jodi Hanson. This is not to say that I would have any, or all of them had they not been stolen. I go through long streaks where I am surprisingly unsentimental and detached from things and stuff. There are times where I fantasize about burning shit to the ground and starting over with nothing.

We all have that fantasy right? And then I immediately feel guilty because I know I would be sad to lose the afghans my grandmothers made for me, the signed copy of Cat’s Cradle, and some other crap I can’t name right now but would miss some day down the line.

How I got off on this tangent, I don’t know. I didn’t come here to write some thing about having too much junk, which is a brilliant coincidence. I stopped typing mid-sentence yesterday (when I started this), right after the word junk. The post and thoughts quickly abandoned because The Pixies sounded weird. So weird that even my nephew, Cade, stopped playing Minecraft long enough to ask, “Is that supposed to sound like that?”

“No,” I said, getting up from the couch to investigate.
“Did I break it?” he asked. He had recently flipped the record and now the sound was coming out slow and warped.

We did what any great tech support person would do, we turned it off and on. We tried different records — Heart’s “Little Queen,” The Replacements’ “Let it Be.” Same slow, warped sound coming. We switched speeds from 33 to 45 to 78 and back to 33, where it belonged. It would play at the right speed for about a verse then slow back down for the rest of the song.

Son of a bitch.

My brand new, unboxed for 45 minutes, absolutely adorable record player was utter crap. Look at how orange and cute it is. But heed my warning, never trust a big butt and a smile, I mean don’t fall for adorableness and price over function. Granted it’s not like I just jumped in blindly. I’m not stupid. I read all the Amazon reviews and took a calculated risk.

And it’s not that I was expecting great sound. What I was expecting was the ability to play records. Fool!

It seems that Crosley Radio is pretty well known for making adorable plastic garbage. As if I need to invite anymore adorable plastic garbage into my home. Hell, roughly 45% of my furniture is from IKEA. I got more adorable garbage than I need.

So now I’m on the hunt for another record player. I thought maybe just that small taste I got yesterday would either sate my desire and let me go back to being all MP3s on my computer all the time, but no. Not even close. Suddenly all I want to do is listen to records. I want to put the needle down on the vinyl. I had forgotten how much I missed that small action and now like any good junkie, I want more. I want more of it all the time. ALL OF THE TIME.

Which means I’m on the hunt for another record player. Boo. I’ve had recommendations for inexpensive (remember: poor, single, mortgage-having freelancer here) turntables, which are not cute but are functional.

I haven’t made a decision yet because I’m still in the pouty, entitled stage of desire thwarted. I really wanted a record player with internal speakers, because I don’t want big, stupid speakers clogging up my already small and crowded living room. So much pouty brattiness, I know. I feel like Veruca Salt right now, and I only feel a little bad about it.

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Enlightened music dudes (and probably a few dudettes) of the 21st century, you need to stop with this panty dropping/tossing metaphor when it comes to describing female music fans going to see a male singer/band. Well, you can use it if there are actual underthings being tossed and/or dropped. Like literally. But if not, shut it with the panties. And for the sake of everyone, just ditch the word panties from your vocabulary. That word sucks.

So why do you need to stop? First of all, it’s heteronormative bullshit. Not all female music fans are heterosexual. Second of all, it’s a stupid, demeaning sexist trope that you need to retire from your repertoire. Along with describing what a female artist is wearing or looks like or anything about her appearance that has nothing to do with her work.

It might come as a surprise for some music reviewers, but not all female music fans want to fuck the lead singer (or drummer, or anyone on the stage for that matter). In fact, a lot of women I know like the music because it is good and it has nothing to do with the cuteness/hotness of anyone at all.

This is not to say that music can’t be sexually arousing, because heaven help me, it is, and I’ve made more than my fair share of mistakes under the influence of a attractive man with good taste in music. But you see there, see how that didn’t actually have anything to do with the appearance of the music makers?

This is to say that I’m sick of you making sexist remarks about the way women enjoy music, specifically live music. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone talking or writing about popping boners or erect penises at a concert. Do men not find music sexually arousing? Or is it that most heterosexual men can’t get over the homoerotic nature of worshipping rock & roll dudes?

I don’t know. But what is this, this women must find a singer sexually attractive to enjoy the music? Where did it start and how do we kill it?

Do we blame this on the way the media spun Elvis and his hips? The girls screaming at The Beatles? It reminds me of a scene from Kicking & Dreaming when Nancy Wilson talked about how puzzled she was by her friends choosing which Beatle to marry when all she and Ann wanted was to be The Beatles.

And while I can understand the swoony teen idol with teen girls thing, at what point do women get to leave that behind? Do we ever? I’m forty-one years old and just a few months ago I got an email from a guy who asked me why I was such a big fan of The Replacements because none of them were that cute.

He seemed to be of the belief that panties must drop for a woman to like music.

Fuck that nonsense.

At first I thought it was me being extra sensitive on Sunday when I saw the phrase. Because of course I always think it’s me and not someone being offensive. Grr. . . After all, my outrage feelers were on high alert after the Zimmerman verdict. But today I was discussing the phrase with my friend Robin who is a writer and music reviewer in St. Louis and she agreed that it’s offensive and induces blood boiling.

Also, it’s just fucking lazy. What does it mean? That a largely female audience was really into the music? Or were they sexually aroused? Is it a compliment to the fans? To the musician? Or is it, as it seems to me, just another way to ostracize female music fans and make them feel less than?

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I’m pondering changing the name of this website to “Cranky Lady Leaves the House and is Cranky.” Now Part II of yesterday’s rant.

So after Low’s horrific 27-minute long assault on my ears, Bob Mould took the stage. Uncle Bob can rock like nobody’s business. Seriously. He tore through a bunch of Sugar songs, a few Huskers, some solo stuff, and then capped it all off with “If I Can’t Change Your Mind” which is probably on my Top 20 Favorite Songs of All Time List. Maybe even Top 10. I fucking love that song. I love that song so much that whenever I hear him play it live tears leak from my eyes because my body doesn’t know what else to do with all the joy.

However all the joy Uncle Bob brought to the cranky old lady was short lived, because in the middle of his set I was besieged by the a band of Faux Hippie Hipsters Who Ruin Everything.

You may not be able to tell from the picture, but the FHHWRE were a band of five college-aged kids. In my snapshot, only one of the three women is wearing the offensive headdress, however when they arrived two of them were adorned in offensiveness. You know that wearing hipster faux Native American headdresses is incredibly offensive, right?. Okay, good.

The third woman was wearing neon pink, knee-length leggings, a lavender tutu, a grey tank top, and red John-Lennonesque sunglasses. Oh, and thank you universe, she was also wearing full-on brief underpants. I thank the universe for this because she took the tutu off at some point and that left her leggings-covered ass to hover disconcertingly close to my face whenever she had to bend over to dig her American Spirit cigarettes out of her embroidered bag.

Speaking of tutu leggings, her boyfriend wore a matching pair of sunglasses that went well with his rainbow-tie, peace-necklace and vest. The other dude was wearing a silver, ruffly satin jacket that was probably part of some bridesmaid dress from the 80s. He also had a Lorax tattoo that featured a Truffla tree and the quote ‘I speak for the trees.’

From the moment they took up residence near me I was annoyed. It was like insta-annoyance and I could not hide my disdain. Every ounce of my cosmic energy was screaming “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?” at them.

Was it the very obvious patchouli stink? The offensive head gear? The motherfucking hoola hoops? All of the above?

I wasn’t sure, and I’ve spent the past forty-eight hours trying to discern why I was so annoyed. I think it’s obvious that my reaction is more about me than it is about them. So what the hell is my problem?

Well, to begin with the hoola-hoops. Rock the Garden is not a hippie-type, hoola-hoopy event. At least not this one that I attended. The hill was crammed with people, the grass was wet, slick, and muddy. You need a lot of space to hoola-hoop, and frankly the space wasn’t there. That did not stop the Faux Hippies. If I had $1 for each person who was hit by a hoola hoop, I could get us all tickets to next year’s rock the garden.

Now that’s not to say my offensive Faux Hippie friends were not great hoola hoopers. One of them was really good, and when I could let go of my hate enough to just go with her flow, I sort of enjoyed watching. I might have enjoyed it more if any of the music at Rock the Garden was hoola-hoopesque, but the rhythm was off. So there was always a weird sort of discord or dissonance. Also, people trying to hoola-hoop to Bob Mould and Metric look ridiculous. It’s just not right.

So are their crimes against fashion, rhythm, and taste enough to merit such a reaction? Probably not, but damn I was just so fucking annoyed.

Their obvious and annoying ploy for attention drove me bonkers. They reeked of patchouli & look at me. And I’m not kidding about the patchouli, I had two friends stop by to chat and both commented it. And I wasn’t the only one annoyed by their schtick. All the people within a five-foot radius of me complained. At one point a hoola-hoop broke and a small cheer went up from the six or seven people directly behind me. This was followed, not 20-minutes later, by a groan of despair from the party next to me when she fixed the busted hoop with a sticker.

At one point I was so happy not to be alone in my disdain that I wanted to go all hippie and hug the people around me. We were united as one in our annoyance and that made me feel moderately better for hating on the Faux Hippie Hipsters.

I’ve chalked up my reaction as intolerance to a way of life I cannot understand. I don’t get look-at-me-ism.

As a large, freakishly-tall woman I have spent most of my life hoping people wouldn’t notice me. The points, stares, questions, bug-eyed-reaction to my appearance embarrases me and makes me uncomfortable. When I am out in the world I want nothing more than for people not to notice me. It rarely happens. Half the reason I got tattoos was to give people something to talk about other than my size (the other half was that I wanted them).

So, I don’t understand why someone would want to call such attention to themselves. I don’t know what they get out of it, and frankly, at an event where the attention is supposed to be elsewhere it seems rude to start a sideshow, and that’s what this was, a sideshow.

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