Chronology: It's Fricking Important.

Okay so everything got a bit behind schedule. So shoot me. Even though Comic Con was extraordinary and I have a ton of insane/awesome/insanely awesome shit to share, my OCD has determined that I share everything in chronological order. You're talking to a girl who has bookcases for specific genres, where the books are alphabetized by author then title. Also the girl who rainbowtizes her cereal boxes. Just...just freaking read it, okay? The pictures are pretty.

So, Hawaii. That was an adventure. I always forget some of its bizarre little idiosyncrasies that both make it fun and odd at the same time. One of the primary things I always seem to forget is how easy it is to fall right back into pidgin, the local slang there. I think the wheels had been down for five minutes before the cadence of my speech changed to match theirs. That might just be a weird me thing, though. Just for giggles, we'll go through my time in Hawaii chronologically, too. Things will just be easier that way.

First was Waikiki. I love Hawaii, but...if we could just make all of Waikiki go away, I'd probably be okay with it. If you're reading this and have never been to Hawaii, please turn off whatever else you're doing and pay close attention for a minute:

NO ONE in Hawaii says "Aloha" "Mahalo" or "Kokua" except for tourists and people who make their living off of them. When they teach you to say alooooooooooooohaaaa!!! that is how they mark you for the rest of the island. You may as well be wearing a sign that says "I know nothing and will give you large sums of money for shells that I could find by myself on a beach twelve feet away." Don't fall into their trap!

For reasons that have never been all that clear to me, this has always annoyed the hell out of me. Look past the bullshit, people!

Ahem. Anyway. Waikiki. Despite the tourist population, there are often many interesting things to see. Also to eat.

Observe:

The chili omelet. Bless you, purveyors of local cuisine.
















Some obligatory Waikiki Beach shots.




















Some interesting-looking people. Guys, tying your t-shirt in the back looks really gay. Which, if you actually are gay, is fine, but if you're not, it just....it's just gay. Stop it.




















As promised: A Freaking Pig On A Leash. What in the hell, Waikiki? Cute pig though.














I then proceeded to go sailing on a boat called the Grand Louis and captained by a mildly intoxicated Frenchman called Gerard. Gerard was very kind but tried to take us to Australia and, failing this, proceeded to try to kill us by turning the boat sideways. There was a moment during which I was lying flat on my back on the deck but my body was almost completely perpendicular to the water. It was frightening but also pretty awesome. No pictures from this particular adventure because I was unwilling to sacrifice Annabel (one of my cameras) to the oceans.

And then. Good grief, Charlie Brown, and then there was Diamond Head. And hiking. Those of you familiar with me and my personality will likely be super confused as to why I would ever let such a horrendous thing occur. The official word is that I was lured up a mountain with the promise of beautiful pictures. That's pretty well the surest way to lure me into doing anything. Halfway up I literally crashed to the ground and very nearly passed out, while my father laughed at me. Thanks for that, dad. Your laughter was super helpful. So was the laughter of the Australian couple behind us. You guys were just freaking peachy. And also keen. Who decided that peaches were a positive state of being?

Anyway.

The following conversation took place shortly before this happened.

Me: Okay so...how did you...manage to talk me...into doing this?
My dad: I dunno.
Me: Because it seems to me...that it combines...two of my least favorite things...physical exertion...and sunlight...
Australian couple: (snicker)
Me: (Glare Of Death and Pain)

Following me getting extraordinary tunnel vision and seriously contemplating letting myself fall off of a cliff (also contemplating punching a little kid for his snickers bar), there was a stupidly steep staircase as well as a dark scary rape tunnel and a spiral staircase. Then there was a landing, where I sat very still for about half an hour because my legs wouldn't hold me up. Now see the purpose of my self-imposed torture.



A tiny, tiny bit of the trail I took, which totally almost killed me.




















Some of the reasons I made the journey.



























Here are some stairs that very nearly killed me dead.




















After this we went to Pearl Harbor. I took tons of pictures that I think are cool, but I'll just post my favorite. It's a bit...I dunno, kitsch isn't quite the right word, but it's close. But I don't care. Fullview, or the terrorists win.




















Then there was Waimea Valley. It's gorgeous and cool and green and damp and completely lacking in cell reception, which is oddly freeing. There was gorgeous scenery. And some plants, too.














Supermegafoxyawesomehot he isn't, but the tats were intriguing.


































































It's not creepy if I just thought it was sweet right?



















Needless to say I'm a bit of a voyeur. It's harmless, I swear. And by harmless I mean that I haven't yet been given a restraining order. Which I consider to be a great success. Now I am going to show you pictures of delicious food you cannot have. It has already been enjoyed. Feel free to be jealous.

Coco puffs with love from Liliha Bakery. Yummy pastry filled with chocolate custard and topped with a thing called chantilly which I can only describe as butter-flavored joy with magic sprinkles.





















This is a brownie. Except it's more than a brownie. It's the most terrifying, glorious, beautiful thing you ever will see. Brownie+red velvet+chocolate chips+raspberry+marshmallows=this.




















And then the pineapple burger. It's simple, it's elegant, it's delicious, it's mine and you can't have it.




















So. So that was my adventures in Hawaii. It was delicious. Up next: that which is Comic Con.

Until next time,
Mars

Melancholy, plane and simple

The following was written on notebook paper on the plane between catnaps:



I survived week one with my family and part one of the epic trilogy that is my summer vacation. It was looking a bit iffy there for a while. I love my family more than life itself, but they are exhausting sometimes.

Harry Potter was an extraordinary, emotional, draining kind of event. My best friend and I arrived around 3pm. Because a) we're insane and b) it's the last one (the latter excuses the former. Really.). It's in the constitution, read it sometime, bitches. Anyway. Super quick synopsis: gorgeous cinematography, bits of awkwardness, Chuck Finch fucked up (dammit, gaffer, do your job!!), best friend and I sobbed pretty much the whole movie. She was Dobby. I was Hipster Harriet Potter.

I'm on the plane now, watching the Rachel-Loves-Schu episode of Glee, being actively reminded of how exhausted I am by the fact that I keep bursting into tears every five minutes for no apparent reason. It's very distracting, I am running out of napkins, and my seatmate appears most concerned for my sanity and her safety. I am the picture of functionality. Meanwhile, the women in front of me are on their fourth and fifth respective bloody marys and have spend the majority of the flight quizzing the flight attendants on their Hawaiian and hitting on anything with a penis. It's good times. I'm fairly certain they preboarded the Hot Mess Express in Sacramento. Ah well. Takes all kinds, I guess. Hope they have a ride when we land.

Anyway.

I slept maybe an hour last night. It's interesting the things that come floating to the surface when my defenses are down. Airplanes do that anyway, for whatever reason, they make me extremely introspective. Thoughts of the future, of the past, of truth, of fact--of the difference--of choosing to believe what I like despite and due to evidence to the contrary. Impossible is nothing.

I miss my bed. I miss my tiny apartment. I miss my adopted toddler waiter. I miss my fount of the majority of my distress, and consolation. It's that curious soreness that you wish would bruise so it would at least have a tangible, visible origin.

There's something about being flung several thousand miles in an aluminum can that always puts me in such a chatty melancholy. Meantime, I'm addicted to the soundtrack for Rio. It's a movie about birds. With awesome samba music. And also Jamie Foxx. So, right off, pretty good.

Needless to say, I haven't taken my meds in quite a long time. I had a cinnabon and two cups of POG. This was likely ill-advised, and also the explanation for why I am sitting here talking about how tired I am instead of sleeping and possibly eradicating the issue. That would make far too much sense. Accursed logic.




Pics for good measure!!!

First are a few random ass terrible sketches from the plane. Don't judge me.




















And my bestest friend, Dobby:





















The precious toddler who adopted me:
















And found at a record store with more personality than allotted:





















So...it's been fun. Up next, Hawaiians and their idiosyncratic Pig On A Leash.

Until next time,
Mars

Epic Summer of Epic

Greetings readers. Both of you.

So far, my summer has been made of dullness, hatred, and a generous sprinkling of failure. Luckily for all (three) of us, that is about to change very soon. Please behold my itinerary below:

July 8-14: Home! I get to see family. This will be way more interesting for me than it is for you.

July 14 (evening): HOLY SHIT IT'S HARRY POTTER. I will be dressed up and first in line, I will be with awesome people doing really awesome shit. Also, I will probably be a salty puddle of sadness and bittersweet sorrow.

July 15-22: Hawaii!! I'm sure my family still isn't that interesting to anyone but me, BUT--some truly bitchin photographs will come of this trip, and they will be available for all to see!! Beautiful waterscapes, mountainscapes, and on occasion supermegafoxyawesomehot (wo)manscapes abound. You're welcome in advance. I offer no judgment for what you choose to do with these pictures once I provide them. I also accept no liability if you get arrested.

July 22-24: Holy sweet baby moses in a tube top, it's freaking ComiCon. I am going as the personal guest of one Felicia Day, her webseries The Guild is sponsoring my registration, and I am staying at the Roddenberry residence (you know, the ones that created Star Trek? Yeah. I'm made of awesome). It's basically a geek-gasmic getaway weekend where I will be dressed as Mrs. Dr. Horrible and everything will be made of awesomeness. Also, I plan to take pictures of everything with physical form at the con, so...that'll just be freaking sweet. Get excited, yo.

Basically, I am going to be Felicia Day's new bestest most awesomest friend, and my whole life is going to be a sheetcake made of victory and talking owls. Preferably blue ones.

My journey is set to begin in about an hour and a half, when my bus arrives to take me to the airport, where I will hang out in my hotel room and find things to desecrate in various creative ways, then probably eat a sandwich. I like sandwiches.

Until next time,
Mars

People suck, and that’s why I love them.

Sometimes it can be hard to sort out what is true and what is false in this crazy world we live in. Let me help you.

People suck.

People have always sucked, people will always suck, and people generally sucking causes all the world’s problems. The whole point of existence is to try to suck less.

That said, I love people. Not in the humanity-loving, we must save all through power of love kind of way, but in the same way that I love sharks on Shark Week. We are an endlessly fascinating species, and if you know where to go and how to listen, you’ll never need a television.

The airport is my favorite place to sit back and watch. Everyone is absolutely exhausted, at wit’s end, and just generally one twelve-dollar water bottle away from snapping and hurling themselves into a propeller. It’s beautiful.

Perhaps my favorite airport is in Honolulu, HI. Aside from the obvious temperate nature, this is the absolute best place to watch people at the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Come with me, if you would, to Honolulu sometime in mid-May:

You are a Hawaii resident. Or, if you prefer, you like Hawaii, but leaving it for any reason does not fill you with anguish. Because of this, you are free to observe the rich madness that inevitably surrounds you.

You are in line at the check-in counter. In front of you is a family of five with matching Hawaiian shirts and crispy, bright red skin. The father is trying to haggle the price of checked baggage with the desk guy—“It didn’t cost a damn thing when I flew here!”—while the youngest tries to out-red his family by screaming at the top of his lungs. It is safe to assume, at this point, that this very child will be sitting next to you on the plane, particularly if he “doesn’t fly well.” Your chances double if he is sick and/or you like your chosen outfit. The other two children, probably twins, are trying to strangle each other with the plastic leis they bought in the event that someone back in Bumfuck, Minnesota is unclear as to where they spent their vacation. Mom is staring blankly to the middle distance, possibly wondering where her life has gone, how many lava flows she can afford once she gets past security, and how much it would cost to check her children into cargo (“THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS?” “Sir, perhaps six ukuleles aren’t necessary...”). If it kills all of them, they will look back on the experience as: The. Best. Fucking. Vacation. Ever.

You are at the security checkpoint. It’s Hawaii, so things are a little less intense than at normal airports. The TSA agents, while not cheerful, seem to lack either the desire or the motivation to shoot the magnitude of disgruntled tourists who joke about the bombs they have in their water and the prospect of getting to second base with someone they’d never met. Then again, maybe they just ran out of ammunition. Meanwhile, the family of five is trying to locate Twin 1’s left sneaker, Twin 2’s iPod, and Screaming Child’s tonsils, which appear to have flown out onto a TSA agent’s shoe. However, you are still waiting on the flightless side of the x-ray machine because the forty-three Japanese tourists who somehow managed to get in front of you now must remove their cameras, iPhones, keys, molecular accelerators (so that’s how they got ahead!), and backup cameras from their person and into individual buckets. This takes approximately three weeks, but you are patient because you get to watch forty-three Japanese tourists attempt to speak what they clearly think is English to a TSA agent cleaning tonsil off his shoe, who attempts to respond in what he clearly thinks is English.

“Is beautifurr, yes?”

“Eh?”

“Is vedy beautifurr hede!”

“Uh…yeah…. Eh, brah, jus’ take one step back, yeah? Cannot scan errybody at one time, eh?”

“One…? Oh, yah, yah.”

The spokesman must then communicate to the other forty-two Japanese tourists that he needs to move backward. In order to demonstrate his fluency, he does this in English first.

“Go back!”

“Back?”

“Back whede?”

“Back!”

This goes on for a few hours before the tourists, apologizing profusely, finally make it through the machine. One of them forgets a backup backup camera tucked into a holster on his calf and sets off the buzzer. He is promptly taken outside and shot.

Congratulations! You have made it through security and are now walking to your gate (no need to rush, though—your flight left about a month ago). After a few days, you begin to wonder if your gate is in the same hemisphere as security. Fear not! It totally is. They just moved the lines last week. Aren’t you glad those tourists held you up now? As you stumble into your gate, you see that the Japanese tourists are taking turns posing with a plastic palm tree and Twins 1 and 2 have built a fort out of napkins, suitcases, and the tears of exhausted travelers. And, what luck! A plane has just landed! You watch the parade of fresh-faced, tired but exhilarated tourists in matching Hawaiian shirts and plastic leis (worn in the event that those in Bumfuck, Wisconsin are unclear as to their destination) tromp off the plane. They are completely blind to the fate that awaits them in a few weeks, burned and glaring at those just embarking on their adventures. Eventually, the plane boards, the twins must collapse their fort, the palm tree is bleached white from the excessive exposure to flash, and you sit next to the crying baby whose sole purpose in life is to pop a snot bubble on the back of your hand. The desk agents close the door behind the last traveler, spray paint the palm tree green, and return to their Sudoku puzzles.

You are now in Bumfuck. It is snowing. You, being the forethinking person you are, considered the possibility that the temperature in Bumfuck may differ from the temperature in Honolulu. Your crispy friends did not have this stroke of genius, and are now sniping at each other all through baggage claim, their screaming brood trailing behind them. They are never leaving the state, ever again. Ever.

There.

Now aren’t you glad we did that? There is quality familial self-destruction everywhere you look, and it is infinitely more entertaining than reality television. Because you just can’t script that kind of crazy. If everyone was mellow and people didn't suck, imagine how dull that flight would have been. Now, next time you realize that people suck, you can remember that that's why they exist, and that that is why they are so damn funny. You're welcome.

Until next time,

Mars

Walmart, and other circles of hell

I am Mars. Not the planet, and definitely not Roman god of war, though that would be cool. Marlena became Mars, and it just kind of stuck. Go with it. Anyway, I like words and on occasion I can arrange them in a fashion that some people find amusing. It’s happened at least twice. On this day, I wish to arrange words that discuss a nightmare and a circle of hell unto itself.

Walmart, as you are no doubt aware, is a horrifying place where one keeps the dregs of society. The overweight, the under dressed, the dreadfully disfigured, and the impressively icky all have a way of gravitating to this place.

Then there's me.

You see, dear reader, I am employed by this dreadful place they often call Walmart. I have seen things no ordinary human should see.

I have seen a lime-green t-shirt advertising a "testicle festival." Complete with helpful illustrations for those too drunk or illiterate to determine for themselves just what said festival is celebrating.

But, working at Walmart is not without redeeming qualities. There are many characters in my mundanely strange life that, while individually are unremarkable, together make something truly special. I like to pretend that my time at Walmart is a wacky sitcom with all kinds of bizarre caricatures of life that couldn't possibly exist in the real world. This is, of course, a blatant lie I tell myself to facilitate meager amounts of sleep following less meager amounts of sleeping pills.

Here are some characters with starring roles, complete with helpful labeled diagrams:

Vanilla Ice--

My department manager, who is a "three-foot, chubby redneck cracker-ass honky who thinks he's a drunk black woman" (*as described by another character you'll meet later). This man is annoying as all hell and to be avoided at all costs.

Sassy Gay Friend--

My good friend from day 1, a ridiculously talented artist and a drag queen (not always in that order). He and the gayness that, according to the straight guys on our side of the store, shoots from his pores and infects all in its sparkly path, are absolute magnets for trouble. Granted, drawing impressively endowed women, naked, on the side of a box of frozen corn was perhaps not among his better plans.

Mom--

Though not our actual mom, Sassy Gay Friend and I both adore and fear her--just like real family! She has the work ethic of that little engine that could, often guilting us into doing actual work. This would get immensely annoying if she weren't so damned apologetic about it.

The Scottsman--

A night manager, and one of the only reasons Sassy Gay Friend and I go to work. The Scottsman is adorable and amusing and regularly tells me how pretty I am. Clearly he is a genius.

Mary--

This is actually a guy, but I'm pretty sure he loves Jesus just as much--if not more--than Mary did. So that's what we're going with. He once told me that he would vote against homosexuality. Like, as an option. An option of something to be. Like we're fucking Singapore or something. Apparently gays are beneath lepers. Well...sometimes. ZING! Mary wouldn't have gotten that joke. He's too busy loving Jesus.

The Analyst—

Several years older than SGF, Mom, and myself, The Analyst does everything she can to get our lives in line and find out why we are who we are. She is our official life cheerleader, and wants us to be the very best we can be.

Guest stars:

Ginger-- I rarely see him, but he’s very cute and flirts incessantly. He’ll come up once in a while.

Mickey Mouse-- He looks sixty and sounds like a 90-year-old Mickey with tourette’s.

The Official Walmart Lesbian-- I think this one is fairly self-explanatory.

Pineapple-- a brainless beauty in electronics who SGF plans to ravish one day.

And think, that’s just Walmart: The Abridged Version. There are plenty of bizarre people I know in the real world. You will meet them later. It scares me more than it does you, I promise.

Until next time,

Mars

*I’m not telling you who though. Or I could even be lying. You have no way of knowing. I win the internet.