Christmas Time Is Here

Well hello there internets! It's your long lost pal Peg, taking a moment away from her long winter's nap to wish you Merry Christmas, Blessed Yule, and/or Happy We-Survived-the-Mayan-Apocalypse! Of course, in my MBLF* world, there's no better way to do that than through music.

Omni Carolers circa 1997

And yes, internets, I know what I'm talking about with Christmas music. I spent 14 years in a professional caroling group (complete with Dickensian costume and Cockney accent), directing the group for nearly half that time. I'm kind of a carol snob. Wailing divas or cutesy pop pablum don't tend to make me happy in general, and they're downright maddening to me at Christmas.

As you'd expect, this playlist is pretty diverse. Swing, ska, folk, rock, Celtic all figure prominently, evoking emotions that range just as widely—joyful, jubilant, wistful, mischievous, reverent. (And of course there are a few cartoons represented, because Christmas without Muppets or Whos is unconscionable.)

Some are chosen for novelty, because I can't resist a musician who successfully ventures outside their usual genre. Some have meaningful lyrics, some remind me of childhood, and some are simply beautiful for their stark simplicity or lush harmonies.

Note that the first track is distinctly NSFW. Please avoid it if you have delicate sensibilities!  It's from the South Park Christmas episode Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics. It just makes me giggle, but for many it's beyond irreverent and downright offensive.

So with that, internets, I wish you all things merry and bright, and more love than you can handle so that you have plenty to share. The world needs more of that, but especially at Christmas.

* Music-based life form

I Love a Parade

St. Paddy's Day in Dallas is quite the event, internets, and this humble blogger is proud to announce that she survived the celebration unscathed. That marathon of a day took no small amount of planning (and liberal, regular applications of bar food) to successfully achieve, however. Totally tactical—that's me!

My sister was able to join the festivities, experiencing the Greenville Avenue St. Patrick's Day Parade for the first time (thank you, Mark Cuban!). It was a special treat for your truly, as her erstwhile work schedule meant we never had the same weekends off. Her new, regular-weekends-off job means more opportunities for malfeasance good, clean fun (hi, Mom!).

 (Here's we are bright and early - the "Before" shot, if you will. No "Afters" were taken. Stop asking.)

As with all the fun drinking holidays, you don't have to be the appropriate nationality to celebrate, but those of us who are get to feel a little smug so there's that. (As my birth mother helpfully pointed out, I'm a mutt... but being Cajun, German, and Black Irish means I have rights to all the best drinking holidays: Mardi Gras, Oktoberfest, and St. Paddy's!)

We started off with the aforementioned parade, getting there ridiculously early to ensure a parking space and prime parade viewing. However, I erred in thinking that the new crackdowns would disallow camp chairs. That would have made the 2 1/2 hour wait a lot easier to take. Hindsight and all that. Meh. But there was some excellent people watching.

A few observations:

• For an Irish holiday, Irish beer was not the norm. I saw way too many illicit cans of Bud and/or Miller light pass by. (The natural follow up, then, becomes, "How the hell do these amateurs get that pasted on light beer?!?") Guinness was in short supply. Come on, Dallas. Is image really that important? Chance the calories. Live a little.
• While I appreciate folks that get into the spirit of celebration, the guy in the lederhosen had me bumfuzzled. Beer-based holidays (and the corresponding nationalities) are not interchangeable, mein herr!
• Being a follower apparently means that when your drunk-ass friend decides to climb a tree for a better view, your equally-drunk-ass self is required to do it, too. Those of us too smart to look up and watch the shenanigans will still, however, end up with bits of bark in our eyes (not that I'm still bitter).
• For special occasions, a theme song frequently surfaces. Such things cannot be coerced, though; they occur naturally. This parade was sexy and it knew it. At least a dozen times.
• In a crowd of 100,000 spread over almost 3 miles of city streets, I will still manage to see someone I know.
• This isn't news, but I'm not a nice person. I'm a good person; these are not the same thing. The crowds made me 1) a little hostile antsy; and 2) regret my lack of Guinness. Once we found the Friendly Drunk, though, and moved away from the Party Rock Crew, I was much happier (even when he nearly got shanked for loudly admonishing all the damned Irish to go the Hell home, making himself poster child for People Unclear on the Whole Point of Things).
• Onion rings make everything better. Lee Harvey's has great onion rings (but it's all about the chipotle aioli to go with).
• I never learn. Why I thought I could eat a fried egg sammich and not end up with yolk-covered boobs is beyond me. They're food magnets. (The end-of-day "When did I eat THAT?!?" moment will never not be disconcerting.) 
• My crazy friends + an afternoon of beers + the elevator at Reunion Tower = rampant, unapologetic silliness.

 (And the Tower even got into the spirit of the holiday! Don't take pics while driving, kids.)

So there you have it, internetsl—another great day with folks I adore. No arrests, no hangovers, and no regrets (except maybe wearing flip flops in a crowd of 100,000; surely there are better ways to show off my green pedicure).

And unlike the last parade in which I was involved, I didn't find Jell-o shots in my purse the following Monday at work. Not sure if that's a success story or a sad anecdote, actually...

Numbers Can Be Hilarious

A New Blog Post! Now With NSFW Video Links! And Extra Capital Letters!


One of the fun parts about nurturing a baby blog is tracking growth. It's pretty cool to see where the site's hits come from—Russia! Brazil! How cool is that?!?—and to watch the number of page views increase.

So far, the most page views any one blog has had is 37.

But because I'm basically 12 years old on the inside (and also a big fan of Kevin Smith and the movie "Clerks" *), I'm finding this inordinately funny today—hence the unscheduled mini-post.

(Seriously. I can't even type the number without giggling to myself. Puerile much? Then again, I use words like "puerile" pretty regularly. I'm a conundrum.)

Because my brain is always filled with tangentially relevant movie and/or song quotes, it's all I can do not to gleefully holler Dante's horribly crass parting salvo as Veronica storms out of the store as I'm writing this post.

Arrested Development—not just a brilliantly funny TV show, folks. I'm living proof.



* Again, language isn't safe for work, or those easily offended by sexual subject matter or crude language. If this describes you, don't click!

Laissez les Bon Temps Rouler

I have performed at Renaissance festivals off and on for more than 20 years, internets, and I tell you this so that you will appreciate how much experience this gives me in the parade department. (If you've never been to a RenFest—which is what regulars call it—there's always a big midday death march parade so that all the characters and shoppe owners (the extra letters give it authenticity, don'tcha know) can show off their wares and exercise their patron harassment improvisation skills.)

All this is to say that know a thing or two about parades and the doing of them.

After this weekend, I can honestly say this is a Schroedinger's Statement—both true and untrue at the same time.

The Bishop Arts District in Dallas' Oak Cliff neighborhood is a fun, funky area. My dear friend is the owner/producer/director of Delish Films and got me and several friends to krewe the parade entry in the 3rd annual Bishop Arts Mardi Gras parade. (She has a long and illustrious history of getting me to do wacky things; sordid details to come in subsequent blogs. Probably. By which I mean not really.)

This parade experience differed from my RenFest experience in several key ways in that I was not:
1) walking;
2) wearing 25 extra lbs. of clothing (including a corset);
3) overheating due to 100°+ heat index;
4) entirely sober.

These things made it alternately easier and harder in equal measure. The not having to walk 35 acres (or the Dallas street equivalent) was better, as was the ability to wear a t-shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes. Also, it was a balmy 60° so hooray for all of that!

But when you have hordes (and I think over 11,000 attendees qualifies as "hordes") of people screaming for beads, and you've theoretically had half-a-dozen Jell-o shots, a couple beers, and a giant to-go coffee cup of Jack Daniels (Hi, Mom! You realize blogging sometimes involves fiction, right?!? And remember LE Bean's Exaggeray?), untangling strands of cheap beads and flinging them with impunity can be... interesting (in the Wash sense of things).

On a related note, people will go nuts over cheap trinkets as rewards. I've seen it in my career in corporate training—seriously, a room full of grown bankers competing for a sticker?!—and the parade hype is no different.

It was kind of a heady, powerful feeling, internets. They wanted my beads, and I made 'em work for it! I demanded that they holler and make noise; my minions the crowd did just that. (Except I was a sucker for cute little kids. There was one beautiful little girl in a tutu that looked like peacock feathers and I lost. my. damned. MIND. I'm not proud, internets; it happens.) I wanted them to jump? They jumped. Dance, monkeys, DANCE! Muahahahahaha!





*ahem*

I learned lots of other things, though, besides this rather disturbing tendency of mine that should have probably been forced to remain latent for everyone's safety and well being.

For example, internets, did you know that it's possible to make a giant king cake out of a foam egg crate mattress, some satiny fabric, a lot of glitter and enough spray-on glue to get the 1996 starting line up of the Dallas Cowboys wasted? True story.

 (This is the work in progress, but it's still pretty awesome for all its lack of glitter.)

I also learned that once you start gluing sequins to your face, everyone will want to join in (though, sadly, I didn't have time to give everyone an awesome YouTube-inspired makeup Mardi Gras mask like mine).

 (Me and my BFF Buffalo Gal)

But really, it was an incredible day spent with some incredibly talented, creative people and I am already looking forward to next year.

My liver, however, is dubious.

My Loud Brain*

Help me, internets! I'm new to this whole public blogging thing and I'm not sure of the protocol. Do I introduce myself? It seems a bit, I don't know, sudden or presumptuous to just start spilling my thoughts onto the pixelated page.

But hey, there's a reason my name is Square Peg. I'm one of those grown ups who is old enough to know better, but frequently doesn't act that way. I'm waiting for that awkward moment when I enter a room and it literally reverts to grade school (instead of that metaphorical "High School Never Ends" state we all know and love loathe), with everyone pointing at me, saying, "Look at you, ya big FAKER!"

Yes, I'm an awkward teenager in a grown up suit.

(Those of you who know me IRL shaddup! Your help is not helpful!)

ANYhoodle...

I'm noticing as I type this that my brain is a noisy place. I guess that's the double-edged sword of being a music-based life form. A couple of key words and suddenly *BAM!* I've got a lyrics snippet in my head, which turns into a full-blown song and then I get all distractimicated (yes, internets, that's what I meant to type) by the song in my mental jukebox.

And if it's not music, then it's a quote from a movie/TV show/comedian. I hear Eddie Izzard in my head a lot with his oh-so-British "I-don't-know-how-to-wrap-this-up" phrase... So, yeah.

Occasionally it's Jerry Seinfeld and his "Ever notice how... blah blah observational comedy schtick here."

So yes, it's loud inside my brain. And now maybe by sharing this, some of it will rub off on you, internets.

Muahahaha!

*ahem*

I mean, "You're welcome."



*So as you can see, internets, I didn't mean my brain is loud is the same way that chartreuse, fuchsia and purple plaid is loud. I don't know why I felt the need to clarify, but there you have it.