At LEAST six

Derek is in the field all week, so my sleep has been patchy, at best. I haven't really dreamt much, but I had a dream last night that I woke myself up laughing over. I love when that happens, because it's so disorienting and fun, and kind of creepy, but in that milquetoast kind of vein.

I had a dream that someone was trying to tell me that Rick Astley was a one hit wonder. I described my dream response to Derek as "borderline belligerent" because that person in my dream was super wrong. Dream me knew it. Waking me knows it, too, but I would never get as worked up as dream me did. I don't remember much from the dream except that it was absolutely critical that I yell at this faceless nobody about Rick Astley's string of hits.

Now.

Waking me does not know of a string of hits belonging to Rick Astley. Waking me knows about two Rick Astley songs:

Never Gonna Give You Up (obviously)

and

Together Forever (I fucking LOVE this song so much. Earnestly love it. It's a fucking bop. Fight me)

My husband does not share my views on Rick Astley's immortal hit Together Forever. Which is why I thought it would be hilarious to force him to listen to it on our way to NOLA a few years ago.

But wait! There's more! In which I do a HORRIBLE Rick Astley impression while trying to pretend I don't actually do an AMAZING Rick Astley impression and that I also do not know all of the fucking words to that song.

Video evidence aside, I am far from a Rick Astley connoisseur, I know next to nothing about him, his career, his interests, and I am not so huge a fan of his that I would ever scream into your face about it. So I decided to see just how right dream Drea was about Rick Astley, because I was curious about it all day. Who knows why. I think it's because I really love being the Trash Heap of fucking useless pop culture trivia.

I googled.

Gee. Thanks.

I thought that was really fucking funny, but I really wanted to know now, so I had zero time for Google's passive aggressive bullshit. 

Sit back, kids, you're about to learn about Rick Astley. As I do. 

So, Rick Juniper Astley was born to Diego and Miriam Astley in April of 1966 in County Gloucestshire, Ireland. Literally none of that is true. 

All I care about are the hits. Of which he had 8. Eight fucking top ten hits, Rick Astley, damn. My love of shitty music of the 80s soft rock persuasion has really been sleeping on you. Let's assess. 

His only number one was Never Gonna Give You Up. It spent five weeks at number one, which isn't record breaking or anything, but for the whitest man alive singing a song about some serious male entitlement issues and his relationship wishes of autocracy over some women who...if the lyrics are to be believed...isn't interested, five weeks is nothing to sneer at. It spent a total of 23 weeks on the charts. Twenty Fucking Three. 

He had TWO number two hits:

When I Fall In Love was the follow up to Never Gonna Give You Up, and he rode the wave of his like...fucking WAY unlikely pop stardom into that number two hit staying at number two for...uh...I have no idea how many weeks, but staying on the charts for twelve weeks. Which, I've gotta be honest, is a lot more than a mediocre cover (that sounds less like a cover and more like a lounge singing, drunk Nat King Cole impersonator who does a great job when they're sober, but they are never sober) deserves. Fresh outta the gate with your fame, and you're already riding on the coattails of geniuses? Bold fucking move, Rick. And by bold I mean GO FUCK YOURSELF, RICK ASTLEY. 

Together Forever is the only follow up to Never Gonna Give You Up that matters. I'm glad he didn't preemptively M. Night Shyamalan himself by releasing his best song first. This was on the charts for 9 weeks. I have no idea how many of those were spent at number two. We'll say all of them and call it even. 

Keeping with the order, he had one number three hit:

Whenever you Need Somebody was his actual follow up to Never Gonna Give You Up, and I mean, it seems pretty fucking well received. It hit number three, it stayed on the charts for 12 weeks, three weeks longer than his best hit (FUCKING FIGHT ME, BILLBOARD). I have never heard this song before, so I am listening to it right now. It opens JUST LIKE Together Forever and Never Gonna Give You Up.

Oh. Oh my god. He's fucking violently white. 

I...I have never seen anything so fucking white and so fucking 80s and so fucking lame EVER, and I am fucking white and lame and from the fucking 80s. 

Just...I...things like this are why I'm an atheist. 

Moving on, because I told myself I'd listen to his top ten songs that I haven't heard, and there are four more to go. If they're as bad or worse than this, I'm going to stab myself.

He didn't have a number four, or a number five. Skipped those and went straight for number six:

She Wants to Dance With Me spent eleven weeks on the charts, no idea how many were spent at peak spot. I have never heard this song, either. It's not as offensive as Whenever You Need Somebody, but...hang on. I lied. It is. It's just as offensive. It seems very on brand for Rick Astley as I've always imagined him to be as a person, though. Just fucking malignantly bland. This video is a god damn riot, though. Not intentionally, of course. Worth a watch if you want to cringe yourself into outer space, though. 

For his next trick, he charted at number seven:

Cry For Help is one of those songs that you know, but you don't know you know. I was under the impression I had never heard it before when I looked it up a little earlier (this was the first hit of his I looked up that I was unfamiliar with). It is a song I don't know from real memory, but my brain was like, listen closer, bitch, you hear this in elevators and the PX and malls and dental lobbies ALL THE TIME. And I was like, good call, brain, you're the smartest. This song was on the charts for 7 weeks, I'm assuming because it's fucking TURRIBLE. Emphasis on the URR. Not worth a listen at all. 0/10. Fuck you, Rick Astley, you are a terrible person. BUT, if you do watch the video, the aesthetic is...it's just **chef's kiss**. So fucking bad. So god damn bad that you can't even laugh. The hair, the outfit, the lighting, the everything. It triggers the schadenfreude. 

I'm really souring on Rick Astley. If this billboard dive has taught me anything, it's that the 80s can't be trusted. I'm glad I only have two more songs of his to talk about. I don't know how much more Rick Astley expansion I can handle, it isn't improving my opinion of him. 

Billboard hit the consecutive next reached number eight in the top ten:

Take Me To Your Heart was on the charts for 11 weeks, Again, never heard it in my life. When I put it on, I thought it was going to be an Ace of Base song. This is neither good nor is it offensive, it's just aggressively boring. If it had had a great chorus, this song could be a total fucking jam. It has potential, but...well...white people ruin everything. 

His last top ten hit topped out at number ten:

Hold Me in Your Arms was his second weakest chart offering at 8 weeks, only one more than Cry For Help, and I am on my last new Rick Astley listen. I'm not expecting anything. I didn't let myself down. But if you watch this video, I am currently demanding a Rick Astley Bio-pic starring Ryan Reynolds in the titular role. I can't unsee the similarities between them, except I think Rick Astley looks less like a mouse than Ryan Reynolds. UPDATE: THIS SONG FUCKING SUCKS. 

So. There it is. My deeper than necessary dive into Rick Astley's claim at NOT one hit wonderdom. Suck it, dream asshole. He also released an album a year ago. He's fucking STILL at it. And he's charted more hits in the Top 100, but I'm not so curious as to listen to those (five more on the top 100). 

I don't ever want to do something like this ever again.

We drank pork soda with tangled legs

I've had the fucking flu, and I've been god damn miserable. For a week, I just laid around, moaning miserably and wishing I were dead, but in a way where I could be alive again once my flu was over. I'm not completely out of the woods, but I feel vaguely human adjacent again, and I can get out of bed and STAY out of bed without crying pitifully.

So a few fun things that aren't actually fun, but I like to spoil surprises, and sarcasm doesn't translate well via the written word.

I've been planning a trip to big island since December. Plane tickets were bought in November, the hotel stay is already paid for, the car is rented (I would say that I can't even express what a great deal I got on these things, but that's a lie. I got three roundtrip tickets for less than 250, a weeklong stay in a hotel in Hilo for 500, and a weeklong car rental for less than 300. The amount of money I saved curating this trip is absolutely obscene), I've had a countdown going, Derek was taking the week before off, it's just been this big, shiny beacon of fun coming up.

A few days ago, we get a letter in the mail from our friendly government neighbor, the IRS. We're being audited! Hooray! Our stupid number was just up. Now, normally this wouldn't be a big deal or anything, an audit is an audit, whatever. BUT, we were going to use about 3K of that money for our week in Hawaii so we could really enjoy ourselves. We've been diligently paying down our credit cards, so any money that should be put into savings has gone into paying our CCs off in three years. We're not broke or anything, we're just on a strict budget that leaves us no wiggle room. We want to be debt free by the time we get back to the mainland, so we've put every available bit of skrill into paying off our debt. PLUS we just paid 2 grand to clean and repair our cameras, because that's how I make my tiny little living.

So, fun thing the first is we're pretty sure that the audit will not be completed by the time March 11th rolls around, and that we'll have to cancel the big island trip. It's completely fucking depressing because literally the ONLY things not paid for are food and gas (all of the activities we had planned are free. Hooray, nature!). But Hawaii is fucking expensive, and there's no way that we could stretch our normal food and gas budget to keep us reasonably comfortable, gas and food wise, for an entire week on big island. We'd seriously spend all of both budgets on gas ALONE. If it were just Derek and I, I'd consider just pushing it and damn near starving the entire time so we could still go, but I've got to make sure that my Brobdingnagian son doesn't fucking die of hunger, because Derek and I are too god damn busy when we travel. He'd die of malnutrition by day three. I've been starving for about a year and a half now, so I'd barely notice, and Derek is military, so his life sucks all the time, anyway.

Fun thing the second, but this one is actually fun, my accelerated class is finally fucking over. A 16 week course over the course of five weeks isn't fucking fun, and I've been so fucking swamped with homework that I haven't been able to fucking breathe. Now I'm only going to be bogged down by my stats class. I fucking HATE that class. It isn't as difficult as I thought it was going to be, which is a relief, but my professor is such a ridiculously strict grader. Examine this case study: I had a quiz last week that I got a 7/10 on. I got two questions wrong, one worth one point, one worth two points. The first question was actually a two parter, both parts being a point each. The first part, the math part, I got right. The second part was the interpretation, which I got correct, EXCEPT I didn't say "the average number of points scored on the quiz BY THE SAMPLE was 8". Now. Given that the question was fucking DIRECTLY ABOUT THE GOD DAMN SAMPLE, it stood to reason that I didn't need to point out who the fuck was scoring those points. But I got it wrong, because I didn't say "sample". The next question, the two pointer, was "compute the variance". I did that. My math was solid. I got a nice little check mark and an ok by it. But I didn't interpret it because it DIDN'T FUCKING SAY TO. And I got docked all the points. Which seems god damn ridiculous to me. Anyway, his class is my primary focus for the next fucking 10 weeks, and I suppose I'm just grateful that I don't have to balance it out with a paper heavy research class that was 16 weeks of shit crammed into 5.

Ok, so now onto my for real point.

I am a fucking traveler. I love traveling, I always have. I've moved around the country, I've traveled outside of it, I am fucking fascinated by anything and everything strange and new. Dan told me once that I was like the husband from The Time Traveler's Wife, and I always thought he was so full of shit and was just trying to find pseudo-romantic platitudes to cushion the blow of the battering ram when he rejected my thirsty ass advances so soundly, but I suppose sometimes, I can see why he'd make that parallel. I just like to drop shit and trade it in for other shit on a whim. I always have. Throw me some place new, and I can definitely enjoy myself and find things to obsess over and fall in love with. Food, music, sights, what the fuck ever, man. I am plagued by onism, so I am just starving for cramming in as much as I possibly can into the finite time I have. I want to see everything and do everything and I want to take pictures of all of it, and today, I was just devastated by the idea of us not getting Germany as our next duty station. We won't know until...I think around November of this year, and Derek thinks he can for sure pull it out (which is why we're not getting ready to move there NOW, because he could have put in for it for sure a few months ago, and we would have gotten it for sure, but he wanted to leave at a better time for everybody involved. I wanted to GT fuck O, but I lost that fight), but I'm already panicking over not being able to be stationed there. There are just so fucking many things I want to do and see over there, and I have to. I have to or I'll fucking die.

But then I think about all of the amazing things I've seen back on the mainland. And the amazing things I've seen here. And I think about how much I want to go back to New Orleans and find the millions of things we missed. The places I've been to already that Derek has never seen that I want to take him to. Things I want to show my son that I had planned on showing my daughter one day, too. And...I get freaked out about that. If I'm off fucking about in new places, I start to lose my ability to see old places again. There just isn't enough fucking time and I have so much anxiety over that. It keeps me from sleeping sometimes.

I've seen so much more than most people ever will. With the exception of a few REALLY FUCKING SHITTY YEARS, and some just truly fucked up experiences, I've lived a comparatively charmed life. I've gotten to see so much and document almost all of it. I can go back and look at my photos with my husband and talk about the day the photos were taken, and the experiences, and that's awesome. I get really sad that I can't necessarily share that with others, and these photos only matter to me, and when I die, they die, too. Are the rest of you, like, NOT freaking out about this shit?? I  have so much fucking death anxiety, but not because I'm scared of it, I'm just scared of all the things I won't get to fucking do before then.

Just to round all of this nonsense out, Glass Animals has been one of my fucking favorite bands for four years, hanging out in my top three with Muse and The Eels (all of these things are not like the others!). They released a new song a few days ago, and I cannot fucking stop listening to it. It's got some serious The Other Side of Paradise vibes (one of my favorite songs of theirs), spiced in with a little bit of Life Itself and Pork Soda, and it's just a god damn jam.

There are a few bands that I just really god damn hate sharing with people because I want to keep them to myself, and when I find commonality in such bands with new people, I take my trust of their taste a little more seriously. I really like to keep my shit as unique as possible, which is precisely why all but three of my tattoos (my first three, it should be noted, when I just wanted tattoos and didn't care about my tattoos being MINE) were designed by me, or are such strange tattoo requests that the number of people who could possibly have them is extremely small (er, relatively small is what I meant). I keep my interests relatively private, because I get frustrated when I've shared them and people take them on and then laud them as something super special and unique about them. Am I the first person to be interested in these things? Certainly not. But it is REALLY FUCKING ANNOYING to be copied and not credited. It pisses me the fuck off, man. Either find your own god damn interests, or credit me for introducing you to shit. This has been done to me several fucking times, and I despise it. So while I have wanted to keep Glass Animals in my little snow globe, I dig this song too fucking much. Most of my music interests have been introduced to me (more often than not by Allen, thanks bro bro!), but my favorite bands, my top three, I found them all on my own. Again, I am aware that I'm far from the only person who loves these bands, especially Muse (I've been to a fuckload of their concerts. Can attest, I am one among legion), but nobody in my circles knew about Glass Animals or The Eels (Derek knew about the Eels, but he's also older than Methuselah, so he doesn't count), so my interest in them has been unique to me. I'd like to keep it that way, so I'm for once really fucking grateful that nobody reads my blog.

Strike that. I think I have a pretty fucking solid idea about a few people who read my blog, with possible regularity, but I'm not worried about any of them glamping my shit because I will never fucking know.