I’m Superior Because I Spent The First Year Of My Life Building A Chin Army

Scowls on my face, don't give a fuuuuuuuuuuhg. 

Scowls on my face, don’t give a fuuuuuuuuuuhg.

People are always telling me a lot of things can happen in a year.  And according to this picture, the better part of my first year on earth as a baby was cultivating an army of chins to protect my head from falling off.

But you take one look at that picture and you can sense the essence of pride my mother must have been feeling when her firstborn daughter turned the big bad numero uno.

And aside from being all things adorable and totally growing up to be an upstanding, completely serious and focused human being, you can’t help but want to celebrate the little milestones in life, even if those milestones solely consist your daughter’s ability to mass produce neck fat.

That’s why I’m here to celebrate, because today, my friends, is my blog’s FIRST BIRTHDAY.

Yup, October 2, 2013, I took the leap into complete and utter insanity and made a website where I complained about all of my life’s problems because I thought I was important enough to do so.

So if birthing and growing a blog for a year is anything like parenting, I’m going to be pretty good at it.  I mean how hard is it to pay attention to a kid for four or five days at a time and then do whatever the hell you want on the weekends?

Am I right, mom and dad?

In all seriousness, I am so happy and thankful for how far this little website has come from day one. Starting this thing as a place where I can write uncensored thoughts – that then became censored because my mother and grandmother starting reading – and having it turn into a chronicle of my life over the past year is amazing.

I’ve always had a penchant for journaling and writing everything down, and never knew that doing so would eventually open so many doors and opportunities to do this in my professional life.

This blog is my creative outlet; but more so a representation of who I am as a person, the way I think, and how I react to the ridiculousness of society and the world around us. I never could have imagined the reach that my posts would have, being featured on Freshly Pressed and eventually leading me to a Contributing Writer gig at Elite Daily and The Eighty8, and somehow making this thing still work to my advantage in convincing people I’m not certifiably insane when I say I want to be an onion ring connoisseur.

I want to thank each and every person who has read this blog over the past year.  Whether it be once, twice, or daily, I thank you.  Putting myself out there may not seem like a big deal, it’s hard when you take time to write something and not have it noticed.  I thank all the people who have commented, liked, shared, or reblogged my posts.  I sincerely thank all of the people who have let me guest blog, tagged me in a blog hop, and followed me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

I’m thankful that my baby did not grow eighteen chins over the past year, but there’s always the future and I can’t be held accountable for what happens to my brain child over the next 365 days.

But regardless, I thank you. Cheers, here’s to year two, three, and beyond. Maybe one day I’ll get paid for this shit. 🙂

Oh, and if you haven’t already, let’s be friends.

It’s Come To My Attention That I Am Short On Friends…

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Mark West is my only friend.

Like, I think I enjoy spending time alone with wine, but it might be because I don’t have anyone to hang out with and drink the wine with me.  So that’s where you come in, I think, PLEASE COME IN!

It’s Thursday, and I’m in a giving mood.

(Not like that, get your mind out of the gutter)

I’ve had a slew of new followers over the past few weeks, which is amazing and I am super-dee-duperly thankful for all of ya peeps!  So I wanted to take the time to get to know all of you, since you’ve been so wonderful as to care about what I have to say.

Which is awesome because my cerebral cortex is one weird place.

So here’s what to do if you want to be friends, which essentially means you’ll instantly be on the proverbial path towards greatness and celebrity status and I will shower you with compliments and fairy dust ( or just do it to take pity on me) :

1.  I’ve added a shiny, new “Friends” page. And I want you to be on it!

2.  Grab the badge at the bottom, put it somewhere on your page.  Remember to link back to me (http://thehalfandhalfblog.com)!  Once you’ve done this, message me, post a link to your blog in the comments, or yell really loud so that I can hear you telling me you’ve done it.

3.  Once you’ve done it, I’ll add your blog to my friends list. Which is essentially like being the most popular kids in school, but it’s the internet, so it’s better than school.

4.  Once we are friends, feel free to send me a message and let me know if you’d like to guest post. I want to make this here blog more like a conversation, and I’d love to have multiple perspectives on topics.

 

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How sexy is this puppy? Don’t answer that, it’s so sexy.

 

If nothing else, do it so I know my mother isn’t the only one who reads this blog.  Help me, help you, help me.  You can follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Because too much of a good thing is never too much… or is it? No, it’s not, because ice cream and puppies exist, and you can never have too much of those.

Thank you again for being interested in the inner workings of my brain, and I look forward to finding out what you have to say.  I love reading.  Almost to the point where I do it too much and this is why I’m asking for friendship in return for virtual slice and bake cookies.

Read on, soldiers!

xoxo, Meg

Food Taught Me Everything I Ever Needed To Know About Life

You can learn a lot about a person by what they eat.  And no, I’m not saying you should stare at people while they’re eating, that’s rude.  Unless it’s a celebrity, then please report back because I NEED to know what Oprah eats for breakfast that makes her so powerful.

 

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This may come as a shock – or it won’t because you’ll realize that my brain works in strange ways, and this is just one of those things that makes me unique – but food has taught me everything I ever needed to know about life.

Real talk.

Sidenote: Let me start off by saying that if you looked in my cabinet where I store all my food, you’d probably think I had a child.  But alas, those are my groceries, I just eat like I’m seven.  So this is one of those times where I will make judgments about others, completely ignoring the fact that I have been all of these people at one time or another.

For starters, if you’re sitting on your couch in dirty sweatpants using a ladle to eat a pint of Ben and Jerry’s, I’m going to assume you’re going through a breakup. Or at the very least, a rough week.  When a spoon just isn’t big enough to satisfy your cravings for creamy delights to the point where you’re going to go straight for a ladle, among the Cherry Garcia remnants, you have heartbreak written all over your face.

And for you, I will pray.  Because no one can stop after one ladle scoop of B&Js.  It’s impossible.

When I see a twenty-something eating a steak with an older man or woman, it’s a safe bet that they are not paying for it.  You never eat the cheapest thing on the menu when your parents are footing the bill.  I’ll hit up Olive Garden and pay $9.99 for unlimited soup, salad, and breadsticks; but you best believe when I’m out with my parents I’m getting my fill of fine wine and filets.

If you can eat it in your pajamas, it’s not acceptable to feed a potential life partner.  Nothing says, “Hey baby, let’s get married!” like bagel bites with a side of Doritos.  You should learn to cook something substantial before you commit to someone for the rest of your life.

But when you’re drunk, it’s completely acceptable to throw all dietary restrictions and personal inhibitions out the window and go face deep into a pile of nachos and cinnastix.  A good rule of thumb is: if you don’t remember it, it never happened.

This is also a great indicator for how old someone is.  No one above thirty should be forgetting they ate forty-eight loaded tater tots and an entire Christmas ham the previous night due to alcohol.

I immediately know I need to tread lightly when I see someone eating a salad.  Especially men.  Woman have this extra chromosome where they can turn off their memories of delicious food and focus solely on bathing suit season.  It makes stomaching a salad almost mouth-watering.  Almost.

But the time a man voluntarily orders a cobb salad at a restaurant, don’t say anything mean to him within a five-foot-radius.  He is not choosing to eat that salad.  His doctor, his mother, or his girlfriend told him he needed to stop eating so many carbs and watch his cholesterol, and eating an entire head of iceberg lettuce is the only thing stopping him from shoveling a foot-long chicken parm sandwich down his throat.

When you’re around someone who is grumpy, they may need a snack.  That’s why I always like to keep a few granola bars in my purse.  You never know when a romantic stroll with your boyfriend will turn into the last moments of your life because you told him the restaurant was “like five minutes away” an hour ago.

Boys need to eat sixty-times more a day than women.  Granola bars save lives.

I also know you’re having a great time at your dinner date by the filter you’re using to instagram your food.  Anything less than a high contrast filter means your date sucks.  No one wants to see a poorly photographed, low resolution cheeseburger.  I want to see that thing oozing grease out of my phone.

If you don’t instagram a picture of your food, I assume you’ve either died, or are having a real, face-to-face conversation with the person who brought you out, and there may be hope for your love life after all.

 Also, if you like Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut, you may be my soul mate.  Inquire within. 

Does This Mean I’m Cool?

liebster2So I’m happy to announce that Cents and Cents-abilities has nominated me for a Liebster Award 🙂

I WON SOMETHING, GUYS!

The Liebster Award is pretty much the equivalent of being the new kid in school, you’re recognized cause you’re new but no one really knows anything about you.  Thus, you must do the following things:

  • Link back to the person who nominated you.
  • Answer the 10 Liebster questions given to you by the nominee before you.
  • Pick 10 bloggers to be nominated for the award with under 200 followers.
  • Come up with 10 questions for your nominees to answer.
  • Go to their blogs and notify your nominees.

Here are my answers:

1. How long have you been blogging?

I started back in 2009 when I studied abroad in Ireland, it’s cringeworthy mostly because I completely disregarded the rules of proper grammar and capitalization.

2. What inspired you to start blogging?

I wanted to keep a log of my travels abroad, and let my mother know that I was alive and well and wasn’t a kidnapped and held hostage like that girl in Taken.

3. What advice do you have for new bloggers?

Write every day. Write about anything.  Find your voice.  You only get better with practice.

4. What is the hardest thing about blogging for you?

Trying to come up with fresh, innovative, entertaining content is tough!  But somehow my brain works in weird ways and I find that talking about burritos and pictures of myself from middle school are sufficient ammunition for posts.

5. Describe yourself in three words.

Hungry.  Impulsive.  Creative.

6. What is your favorite post on your own blog?

Catharsis, my post about reflecting on my first year moving away from home is up there, but it is tied with Sole Mates, my post about socks in the dryer.

7. If you were going to write a blog post about your life, what would the title be?

Directionally Challenged.  (I don’t know where I’m going.  But I know how I got here.)

8/9. If you could have a super power, what would it be and why? 

Teleport.  Hands down.  Plane tickets are EXPENSIVE, and I got places I need to see before I kick the bucket.

10. If you weren’t blogging about (your blog’s subject matter), what would you blog about? 

I’d love to take a stab at blogging about animals.  Puppies, kittens, whales, the whole kit and caboodle.  If I had more patience and a higher IQ, I totally would have loved to be a vet.  But who has time for that much school when you have an entry level job and you live in the basement apartment in your building?

 

Here are my nominees (those nominated must answer my ten questions below, OR ELSE):

British Chick Across the Pond

The Wandering Poet

Cents and Cents-abilities

http://renardmoreau.wordpress.com/

John Greaves III

Life in Portsong

U Mad Yet?

The Importance of Being Edited

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Dr. Killpatient’s Weird Fiction

 

My Ten Questions: 

  1. What made you start a blog?

  2. Where do you see your blog going in the future?

  3. What talent (other than your fantastic writing skills) do you wish you had?

  4. What is your dream job?

  5. What is your favorite post you’ve written?

  6. Describe yourself in three words.

  7. What are 3 goals on your Life To-Do list?

  8. Who would be your dream guest poster?

  9. Who is your BFF in your head (meaning a celebrity that doesn’t know you exist, but you know you’d be best friends if they did)?

  10. What would you title a blog post about your life?

..

Thanks again, and congrats to my nominees!

xox Meg

If you don’t watch this speech from Ellen Page, you’re just dumb.

By far one of the best speeches I’ve ever heard.  So completely inspirational.

Ellen Page is the shit.

I knew we would be friends when she was in Juno.  Calling a newborn child a seamonkey when they’re in the womb was brilliant, and I bet she ad libbed the whole thing.

Hey America, this is who we should be considering a role model.  Let’s start telling women to look at her.

But, I guess I’ll wake up from my nap and pick up my magazine with the cover story, “Kourtney Kardashian’s beach vacation in Cabo San Lucas! See all the juicy photos of her and Scott’s tropical getaway!”  That seems like a way more worthwhile and newsworthy topic.

Watch the video below: