photos are coming. and stories. a lot of stories. a few of them might be incriminating, but sometimes dignity takes a backseat to a really great tale.
or a monologue.
like the monologue i used to perform (by request) at keg parties, frat parties, dance parties, and parties of two just alike.
[it's a good one. and only compromised one semi-already-lame relationship back in the early college days when most relationships were semi-already-lame.]
photos and stories will come to you (whether you want them or not. hint: you want them.) when i find a pocket of time to connect one component (a memory card. and a memory.) into another component (a computer.) and BOOM it'll be like magic . . . but not like david blaine shit because most of that is just nonsense.
so in the meantime . . .
in an unrelated observation:
the two lead singers of lady antebellum have a chemistry that forces me to decide whether or not i think they're actually full-on lusting each other or are just totally the best actors on the planet.
i mean, let's be honest.
i went stealth for about two weeks, but there is sound reason for this.
the original title was nothing but negative, so here goes one that means nothing and alludes to nothing. and i just said the word nothing three times in one sentence. who am i.
i’m wearing a down jacket and i’m freezing. like saint louis in the dead of winter freezing.
[yeah, that was the post in which i tried tying together radiohead, missouri, bahamian beer, and puppies all into one. and failed. or didn’t. you be the judge, but don’t judge.]
i’m also sitting indoors and the heat is on.
this seems weird. and also a little par for the course.
but i bought four christmas gifts online this morning and that made some sense to me. except the part where i had to spend a seemingly large amount of bread on “rush shipping” . . . then sat for a minute wondering if i’d rather save said rush shipping and just go out in the cold . . . to a mall . . . and then remembered i hate malls more than just about anything on the planet and it really is my own fault that i’ve waited so long to buy presents and then i just clicked “confirm purchase” and sucked it up as personal punishment for being irresponsible.
especially since christmas is in t-minus waytooeffingsoon.
besides, rush shipping is the equivalent of about 3 cups of coffee and a stale scone at starbucks and since starbucks makes me lose faith in humanity and sensibility, i can justify this extra cash dish-out by simply not going to starbucks.
i have my own coffee maker anyway.
there is a plethora of things awesome about having a super-dee-duper large family.
christmas is one of those things while also being not one of those things.
[can’t we just give hugs one year? can THIS be that year? who’s on board with this? mom??]
oh, and i also just found out i may not be making it home on time for christmas this go ‘round.
[by on time, what i mean is several days before the 25th. or even just a few. it appears i may be hauling 545.70 miles of ass, by car, on christmas eve. do the math. making it home in time for dinner is going to be tricky, at best. and you can bet your sweet tookus that the traffic surrounding the district of columbia will fuck a part of this up as well. cheers. happy holidays.]
because i do that thing called working-to-pay-bills-and-buy-things-that-i-need-and-don’t-actually-need-and-both.
my job sometimes rules my world. except when i don’t let it. but lately i’ve been letting it.
maybe someone up here will adopt me for christmas not unlike the way you adopt anonymous families by selecting names and wish-lists off of adorned christmas trees at the mall (gag. mall. gag.) and then go buy a bunch of toys for families who actually need them.
[don’t tell my mom this just yet. also don’t tell her just yet that i really just want to give and receive hugs as gifts. i might find more things to buy online and then we can resume gift-giving in a traditional fashion.]
there is one thing i can promise you, though, in all of this complaining and uncertainty . . .
nothing will stop me from this:
[unless, of course, i don’t actually make it home and end up in the adoption process.]
or this:
and definitely not from this:
[shotguns and wood panneling mean christmas in the mckenzie family is ON. come at me.]
and not even from this. because, God knows, we need it this year:
oh, but remember that time we adopted a dog 4 days before christmas and then gave it away 2 days before the same christmas?
yeah, i don’t think that’s going to be happening again this year . . .
although, you never know.
anything is possible, really.
monday meaningless musings. absolutely none of this is terribly important.
things have been a little heavy lately. or super heavy.
life.
and other things.
heavy.
so in a vain attempt at lightening the weight of such topics as life, death, love, and loss, here are a few things that i’m distracting myself with pondering:
#1. Continenal Airlines gives you free earphones for the purpose of allowing you to have audio in your ears while flying for 5 hours in a seat with way too few inches of leg room. the earphones suck. and they break. they should really tag team with bose and step things up a notch. i’m already paying nine thousand dollars for the flight and an additional unforgiveable fee to pack a bag and take it with me (as if the notion of people taking a change of clothes with them is astounding). so what gives, party people? help a girl out.
[don’t bother using them at home either. pull out the bose. or walk to your car and grab your overpriced iPhone earbuds. overpriced because you lost the first pair and had to re-up. and in the car because if you don’t keep them there, you will always leave the house without them and that whole hands-free talking mandate is not a joke.]
#2. if you are my facebook friend, you may have seen one of these two images a couple of days ago . . . these people are for real . . . and i work with them . . . this concerns me . . .
apparently it was “wear your douchiest jacket to work” day and no one told me.
#3: new york city is beautiful. period.
#4: i once wore purple pants and meant it.
there is nothing else to say about this except WAY TO DROP YOUR DIGNITY, MARCY.
[everyone had an awkward stage. this was mine. just in case that wasn’t clear.]
#5: my dad and brothers (and cousins and uncles and friends and friends of friends) shoot guns and i like it.
[that is Papa’s cowboy hat, by the way. i like that, too.]
#6: beer and football go hand in hand. and especially when you accidentally order the “large” beer not realizing you will be served a gallon of whatever is on tap.
[don’t be fooled by the image. this required a double fisting type of situation. the glass is bigger than my head.]
#7: and on a similar note: world’s smallest beer mug fruity girly cocktail glass ever does not belong in this picture. or anywhere, for that matter. Landmark Tavern, you are fired.
#8: a massive sky can be remarkably good for the soul.
but i’m still never moving to arizona. ever. if i find myself missing any part of it, all i have to do is preheat the oven to 450 and stick my head inside.
#9: it would be weird if dogs didn’t have tails.
#10: i can’t think of a number ten. but i’m sure i could come up with something. give me an hour or two.
okay. g’bye.
one thanksgiving it took my 6 hours to get through dc traffic, so i got this.
last year, thanksgiving was this.
this year, well, it will be a bit different.
i’ll be trading concrete garden sculptures for cactuses.
[or cacti. or whatever. they are the same thing and both mean more than one of those desert trees with the spikey needles.]
i’m trading south for west.
and i’m trading a whole bunch of other things for a whole bunch of other things.
i won’t be with the plethora of mckenzies and rankins this year and i wasn’t overly sad indifferent bummed about it until rightthisverysecond.
BUT.
i am still thankful.
thankful my family will all be together even if i can’t be with them, atop jet skis in the garage or seated in canoes in the back yard under the maple tree with a box of wine and a pit bull.
thankful that next year i will be.
thankful that when i return, the apple will have vomited christmas cheer all over the place.
thankful that tourist season and this “holiday embargo” which has just landed in my lap will only be in full swing for another 4.3 weeks and then us locals can take back a hold on our city.
thankful for the people in my life. and especially the ones who make it better. so so much better.
and thankful for the understanding that letting other people go from my life is simply a part of just that . . . of life.
so grab yourself a box of wine and a garden gnome this thanksgiving and go count your blessings.
i’m betting there are tons of them.
[blessings, that is. not gnomes and boxes of wines. but if you have tons of those, too, then by god you really are lucky.]
i am making this shit up as i go.
stress level: approaching the ceiling.
time left to make magic happen: none. zero. zilch. shouldahappenedyesterday.
soundtrack running through my veins: david bowie and queen “under pressure”
[you’re welcome.]
in a little town called high point.
you could never understand how incredible this place is unless you went there.
it might be my favorite place on the planet.
maybe even more than all the islands i’ve hop-skipped-and-jumped around in a free bird kind of way. more than the foreign lands with strange accents and funny food which have impacted my soul and made my brain a bit richer just by being different. and awesome.
maybe even more than the house i grew up in . . . which will always be my home, no matter how far away from it i manage to go or how many months it takes for me to get back there.
we said our goodbyes.
and it sucked.
but we will always have 1108 and the love, the memories, and insanity, the eggs and grits, the laughter, the ballbusting, the maple tree, and the twelve stockings on the mantel.
this will always be the place where our hearts feel happiest.
for our Papa.
William Roberts McKenzie, Sr.
August 10, 1922 – October 31, 2011
it is with the heaviest of hearts that i bring myself to sit here and reflect on the greatest man i have ever known.
the greatest man i could ever know.
[well, except for my own father. but he’ll understand if i bump Papa up a notch for this occasion.]
i would wrap this all up nicely in a neat little package (and, subsequently, make it far easier on myself) by simply posting here his obituary. but the thing is, that feels like cheating.
this exchange between two cousins sums it up pretty well, though:
marcy: i feel like our lives just totally changed forever.
ashley: they did.
to have known him was to love him. and good God did we ever love him.
when the cornerstone of your entire family is pulled from under you, you almost don’t know what to do. it is more than just a loss of a person very dear to you. more than a loss of his eternal kindness, vast knowledge, and unwavering humor. it’s more than a loss of the comfort in knowing that he was always right there . . . in his chair . . . “not getting a whole lot done” . . . it’s a loss of a piece of yourself.
but that’s okay. i am fine with letting a piece of myself go with him. i wouldn’t even want it back anyway because it is his. and has always been.
to the world, Papa was a man more accomplished than most people could ever dream of being, more successful than most people can ever wrap their head around, more dedicated both to his family and to his community than even seems possible, and simply the single.nicest.person.in.the.entire.great.big.giant.world.
to me, he is the epitome of a southern gentleman. he defines what it means to be a husband and a father and a grandfather. go and google grace and poise and, what do you know, his picture is the first thing you’ll see.
and he whipped up a plate of scrambled eggs and grits that would bring you to your knees.
but it’s time to let him go rest. he deserves a good long eternal rest.
because he spent his whole life taking care of everyone else.
so, to my dearest Papa . . . thank you for setting the bar so so high. thank you for a youth spent running across your farm with the chickens and the fish pond. thank you for 1108 and for giving our family a real home to always go back to. thank you for the scrambled eggs and grits. and thank you for a trillion other things that we could never put into words.
lastly, thank you for hanging in there for one last week at the beach this year. i will cherish every one of those moments for as long as i live. if only i could just sit in that rocking chair next to you for one more day . . .
OH.
and thanks for always being the ultimate cowboy. you make it look so very cool.
i love you.
october happens every year.
this is a truth. a certainty. except that, for me, it’s bigger than that. and i’m not even sure why.
for the past several years, like clockwork, october has always been a big month. huge, if you will. far greater than my understanding.
and every year, like said clockwork, it has changed a part me of. in some cases, it has changed all of me.
it happened last year.
and the one before that.
and back a year before that.
and hey guess what.
it’s october.
and for reasons that i’m not going to disclose quite yet: it has changed me once again.
it’s how we do.
this hasn’t happened in about 10 months.
[actually it’s never happened because i only just met the girl on the far left yesterday.]
but the other 3 (who all share dna and one parent) haven’t been in the same room together since last december.
holy not okay.
so we did what any normal sibling trifecta would do on such an occasion and danced to robert miles on repeat (huh?), took vodka shots out of ramekins (what?), and sang ‘chicken fried’ on top of a stool (yeah, sounds about right).
and it was awesome.
4am kind of awesome.
october beach days are the jam.
suck it, haters. the summer isn't over yet.
what's better than going to the beach in october? going on a monday in october when everyone else is at work.
oh, unless they had columbus day off. what a lame holiday. i read it best this morning:
let's celebrate columbus day by walking into someone's house and telling them we live there now.
yes. let's.
it’s a peanut plug.
my freshman year in college was perfect for 2 reasons:
#1: i was a freshman in college.
#2: peanut.
because i thought it was a solid idea to apply to every college in the world and not make the final decision of where to spend those 4 formative years (i did it in 4, people. this isn’t so common anymore.) until about a day before classes started, there was a bit of a last-minute scramble to find a roommate . . . and one who wouldn’t stab me in my sleep or steal all my things or try and convince me to drink blood from a vial.
by the grace of God and by the power of friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend, i found my match.
peanut (whose real name is leigh) would later tell me that, prior to actually meeting me, she didn’t really fancy the idea of cohabitating with a girl she had already convinced herself was an anorexic ballet dancer who just wanted to pet cats all day.
little did she know.
so for 9 months, we lived inside a room not much larger than a prison cell.
we had fruit flies who we named.
we rarely cleaned anything.
she taught me how to make coffee and study at 5am while i taught her how to stay out all night and come home at 5am.
we laughed at really stupid things and cried over really important things.
we maneuvered through crushes on upper classmen, the importance of eating more than just cans of pees for dinner every.single.night., the value of a good coffee shop, and the reality that sometimes the best kind of friday night is the one you spend behind a closed door talking about how much you love each other. in a very kindred spirit kind of way.
and because i love her and because she is so damn smart and wise and funny beyond her own comprehension, i think it would be a good idea for you to read what she has to say.
so go here: Granny’s Bosom
and then thank me.
and then go find yourself your own peanut.
because you can’t have mine.
i'm interrupting this radio silence with another radio silence.
i barely made it through last week. so i might not actually be able to do 'anything' (YES I CAN) as predicted.
but i went to florida and that made everything okay.
a spiderweb of crazy and 42 hours in the company of the greatest people on the planet will do that . . .
if i make it through this week, i can do anything. and by anything, i mean anything.
this will be the most boring post ever because i don’t have time to be funny or cute or say something witty or take a picture of something fun and tell you all about it.
i’ve take on too much and i’ll be there first to admit it.
how is it only wednesday?
and how am i functioning on 17 minutes of sleep over 5 days?
trouble’s in town, too. and that’s always a circus act to juggle.
and rem broke up today.
you may not appreciate this is you never lived in athens or went night swimming while listening to ‘nightswimming’ or drank beer with mike mills on his front porch.
but if you did any of those things, and especially if you did them all, then you can understand why this is devastating.
i would probably cry about it for a few minutes if i wasn’t sitting in a room with 4 people i’ve never met and 2 people who sign my paychecks.
there’s always the walk home . . .
"i'm free next week if you're ready to destroy something."
watch how fast i rearrange my entire week upon receiving messages like this.
::09::11::11::
because i don’t have much to say, but feel like i should, i’m going to steal from myself and just say what’s already been said.
it’s okay to steal from yourself.
the photos are different, but it’s the same empty sky . . .
the post that follows this might well be of the memorial. and then i’m going to take a break from things which involve sad reflection and go back to talking about stupid stuff like dancing on coffee tables and hang gliding.
[okay, i’ve never talked about hang gliding before, but this could be a good time to start.]
it doesn’t hurt any less because a mere decade has
[almost]passed.it doesn’t feel any more comfortable just because we’ve had some time to get used to a new skyline. and hate it.
it doesn’t bring us any additional comfort to sit patiently and watch as cranes and heavy machinery attempt to bring back to life what we all know will never be again.
it isn’t any easier because i watched it crumble from a classroom in a southern state while you watched it fall from a sky that you could almost touch.
the sting isn’t any less great because i wasn’t born here.
and the sadness isn’t buffered by the fact that i won’t likely die here.
it’s a bittersweet reminder of where we came from.
and a significant blow to the idea of how far we still have left to go.
but it doesn’t make me any less proud to love this town.
and to know that she’ll flat out kick your ass if you so much as show her your teeth.
time zones are stupid.
even if you are only one hour behind me.
still stupid.
DO IT FOR YOUR DAWGS. and do it for the hometown, too.
i’ve known john isner since i was like zero years old. the isners were my next door neighbors growing up, our dads went to davidson together, and his brother was the first boy i ever saw naked…and also the first boy i ever took a bath with (SCANDAL). easy, killers. we were like 3.
as he moves into the quarterfinals of the us open, the hometown might just come unglued. not unlike the time he spent 3 days playing the same match at wimbeldon last year. (OHMYGOD DID YOU SEE THAT??)
and the bulldogs are pretty stoked, too.
at his match the other day, Double D asked me if watching john play on such a large stage is surreal. not any more surreal than it is seeing his likeness splattered across giant billboards.
yay isner. and yay fountains.
a reservation for heartbreak.
i’m not expecting this to be the most fun i’ve ever had, but i’m expecting it to be the 2nd most important visit i’ve made down there.
and i’m going alone.
i think it’s the only way to do it.
[p.s. who (WHO) has one-THOUSAND eight-hundred and seventy UNREAD e-mails?? how is this even possible? there’s probably some good shit in there i’ve missed . . .]
[p.p.s. i’ll pay someone to go through these e-mails for me. for reals. and with my account password, you’ll have carte blanche to read all my personal goods, too. knock yourself out. make a day of it.]
[p.p.p.s. i’m actually not kidding. someone out there has enough free time and wants this job. so whoever you are . . . CALL ME. i might even bake you something.]
a how-to guide for surviving an earthquake and a hurricane in the same week.
buy tequila.
buy ice.
(for your tequila. or also in case you lose power and need to put your refrigerator contents in a cooler for an indefinite period of time. but mostly for the tequila.)
buy paper products and bottled water.
(no one wants to be stranded without tp. if i need to explain this to you, then you deserve to be stranded without tp. the water if for hydrating post-tequila and for brushing your teeth when you lose the ability to consume your tap water. which is apparently still unsafe to consume. so i’m boiling pots of water like it’s my job and buying stock in poland spring.)
make some eggs. eggs? eggs.
(while complaining to mom that there aren’t a lot of non-perishable food items that belong outside the junk food and junk food categories, she suggested i make some hard boiled eggs and keep them on ice should i lose power. so now i have a refrigerator full of eggs.)
fill your tub with water.
(this was news to me, but apparently you’re supposed to do it. so i did it.)
buy more tequila.
(and don’t bother with upgrading to patron or anything fancy. your buddy jose will do just fine. you’ll be pummeling it at such a rapid pace that you won’t even know the difference. plus you can’t be high maintenance in the same moment that your windows are about to be blown out.)
other than that, alls you can do is sit. and. wait.
(and prepare to be slightly underwhelmed and wonder why everyone thought it would be so epically apocolyptic.)
OH. and one more thing.
to everyone out there who thinks that these 2 events are a sign of the end of days.
bitch please.
earthquakes and hurricanes have been happening since the dawn of time. and probably before that.
UMM HELLO, DINOSAURS.
hurricane provisions are not universal.
only the last 2 text bubbles are of importance.
i’ll let you decide if you think i’m the white bubble or the green.
(hint: i’m the green.)
this won’t be good.
God bless us in new york city.
and God bless my carolina.
i found my 5th reason.
T H I S stresses me out.
they look like transformers.
Uga I, II, III, IV, V, VI, and VII must be rolling over in their doggie graves.
fortunately it’s just for one game (right?) . . . we’re too classy of a team for this nonsense.
now excuse me while i go drape myself in a flag and pretend i didn’t see this.
go dawgs.
preseason stresses me out and here's why.
1. it signifies the dying of my summer. this is not something i take lightly or handle well.
2. it signifies the birth of a 16+ week span of time where i basically just hold my breath. also something i don't handle well.
tres. (that's "3" in spanish) it means i get to watch someone else own plaxico. and i want plaxico.
4. it reminds me that for a really lengthy amount of time, i'll harbor a solid sense of hatred for the entire state of florida (or maybe just the university of. jesus, marcy. relax.) and hope that someone (anyone) nukes it off the face of the universe.
5. i don't think i have a fifth reason. although i may after tonight. check back later.
Location:east rutherford.
real girls eat processed mexican food.
best decision i made all day: eating taco bell for breakfast.
worst decision i made all day: eating taco bell for breakfast.
* * *
post script: once upon a time, my friend stephanie told me, “i want to set you up with my friend. his name is burrito.”
huh.…ummm.…uhhh….okay.
although i never dated him and only ever met him once for about 11 minutes, i almost wanted to reply with a resounding “yes, please. where do i sign?” just so i could have the opportunity to drop a “hey, this is my boyfriend, burrito” at weddings and family reunions.
i mean, how seriously awesome would that really be.
it’s pink floyd on a boat y’all.
i could have fit in with the 70’s scene, i’m sure of it.
minus the bell-bottoms and drug-induced comas.
[don’t like bell-bottoms and don’t like seeing pink elephants on the wall. unless, of course, there are real live pink elephants on the wall. then i most definitely want to see that.]
and minus the free sex in public with random strangers.
[not elaborating on this.]
and minus vietnam.
[oh wait . . .]
okay so maybe i just like pink floyd on a boat and i’ll leave it at that and be proud i was born in the 80’s.
i don’t do drugs anyway.
[unless you consider the plethora of unisom and tylenol pm i have stashed in my medicine cabinet as “drug use.” then, yes. i am a pill-popping lunatic.]
topgun and oldest younger brother took their maiden concert cruise by storm.
as if a mckenzie would do it any other way.
