The Official List of Taylor Swift's Top Songs (In Alphabetical Order, but in all honesty Treacherous Wins) (Jordan's Version)

(He's a Red guy)

All Too Well (I'm good with the regular version, 10 minutes is a really long time)

Better Man (Back to Back Fuck Jake Gyllenhaal? That's rough.....oh well)

Betty 

Champagne Problems 

Cornelia Street (I also lived on Cornelia Street in NYC....was it the same Cornelia Street?....no. but that part isn't important)

Dear John 

Don't Blame Me 

Dress (She Fucks.)

Fearless

Forever and Always

Getaway Car

High Infidelity 

Illicit Affairs (The We Love Cheating Trifecta courtesy of the Alphabet)

Marjorie

Midnight Rain

Mine

My Tears Ricochet (Fuck that Scott dude)

New Romantics

Style 

The Archer

The Great War

The Lakes (I love this fucking song minus the line about tweeting the rose....that one really pisses me off, soz Tay)

The Last Great American Dynasty

Treacherous 

......aaaaaand all of remaining songs on Folklore and most from Reputation

Christmasy Cozy Vibes

 The absolute best part about not living in the USA (aside from the healthcare and the guns thing...) is that Thanksgiving does not exist therefore we don't have to awkwardly hurdle that holiday and can instead charge right on to Christmas! 

Happy to report, November 18th and Christmas has well and truly arrived at my house.

Now if you would please excuse me it's time for me to spend the next month watching Christmas movies with my AC cranking so it feels nice and cozy, wrapping presents, jingling my bells and most likely eating my weight in cheeseboards from the comfort of my own couch.

P.S. My Top 3 Christmas movies since I heard nobody ask?

1. The Grinch (The Jim Carey version obviously. I saw it in theatres when I was 7 and I have been a changed person ever since)

2. Home Alone (Both 1 and 2 at an equal tie, fuck the rest).

3.The Santa Claus (Bernard 4 ever)

Music Monday XXII

Side Note: Have I ever mentioned that I listen to this song whenever I need to get shit done?It gives great "I'll show you how valuable Elle Woods can be" energy!

Music Monday XXI

I love Sam Cooke and have been listening to Live at the Copa on repeat for pretty much the whole year but if you could go ahead and just IV this song right into my blood stream that would be most ideal, it really just itches my brain in the best way. I'm also very Anti-Bob Dylan to my core, like just doesn't do it for me, so we can just skim over that part.  Side note: I was today years old minus about 7 days when I learned that there are two versions of this song. As a 90's pop bitch to my inner core I was SHOCKED. I knew the words to both versions so they must have fused together in my mind but I think I have decided this is my preferred version.

Come on Over > Come on Over Baby....fight me about it.

Moody Blues

This week was one of the busiest weeks of my life...but not for the reason one may think.

Let's back track to when I was 8.

I used to find sleepovers to be an unbearable inconveniences that plagued the pathway through childhood. Wait, let me clarify. I loved having my friends stay at my house, hell one of my friends stayed over almost every single weekend for multiple day stretches. The idea of sleeping in close vicinity to a pal was not the dilemma. The problem was when they wanted me to sleep in close vicinity to them, whilst also being not in my own home.

Burn the idea. Kill it. Throw it away.

There are a few key feelings that stick with you and for some reason one of my big ones for me, was the growing panic I felt at a sleepover prior to the age of 11 (Oddly, once we moved to New Hampshire that fear evaporated for me....)

I could be having a whale of a time in the daylight but as the sun started to set it was like a mass was forming in the centre of my chest. Another key trigger was typically when my friends fathers would return from work, a site typically unseen in your standard post-school play date. No matter how lovely a man, his presence signalled that things were different. At this point I would normally excuse myself to the bathroom to have a little deep breathing session, hoping rapid breaths would squish out the flames in my chest. 

Dinner would roll around and my thoughts would be on what my family were eating in my absence and suddenly I had FOMO for like....a lamb chop with my Mum and brother. 

I would feel sick to my stomach, or my head would hurt and my friend and their family would look on whilst I cried. I would call my Mum typically asking if she could bring me more things, thinking somehow having my hairbrush with me would make me feel better.

But it never did. 

She would drop my things off and before she made it back home I was ringing to let her know she forgot me.

Get me the hell out of here.

The relief I felt as I skipped away from my frowning friend and into the trusty Holden Apollo ready to be on my way home was a joy like no other.

My Mum never seemed to understand, but she always came to reluctantly collect her dramatic child none the less.

Now.

Cut to present day.

On Sunday, something in my brain flipped. Suddenly I felt that same mass in my chest that I used to feel as a child and I couldn't shake the feeling. Dan and Norman (human and dog of my life) looked on in confusion as I sobbed uncontrollably. Why? God knows! 

I felt stressed and squashed and confused and like everything from today onwards was cold and pointless. This feeling mirrored the way I felt as a child in a foreign home past sunsets, yet I was curled up on my own couch this time.

On Monday, Dan insisted we both played hooky from work to take me to the dr. He hand delivered me and sat in the waiting room in case I somehow shattered.

That evening I sat with my friends in a local Nando's crying into my Peri-Peri chicken. We laughed about how random this personality transplant was and after 3 hours of chatting I was feeling the mass in my chest shrink ever so much.

I decided this was how I was going to attack this feeling (well in addition to the lovely mental healthcare plan my GP had started me on of course, go to therapy folks!)

Every day this week I was on the go.

Dinners with friends, work out classes, the movies, lengthy dog walks and sunset decompressing (side note: Norman was so fucking done with how much walking he had to do this week he physically gave up one afternoon and I had to carry him all the way home because his little legs were done with my bullshit).

My friends sent me flowers to boost my mood or hand delivered me lunches and I confided in my boss that I'm not sure what was happening, but I think I temporarily lost my mind.

I'm not normally one to lean on others when I am feeling sad. I tend to become a bit of a fortress of solitude but it turns out this week others is exactly what I needed.

I'm not sure what caused this week of misery, but it was a lovely reminder that no matter how irrational my thoughts are, there are people in my life who are willing to swoop in and save me from the theoretical sadness sleepover at the drop of a hat.

On a much more joyous note, the Philadelphia Eagles (or more importantly my main guys Jason Kelce and Jordan Mailata because like sure, sure Pats forever but also....I love those guys!) have released the first song of this years Christmas album so it's time to start jingling those bells and counting down the seconds until my Christmas tree will be in up (let's be real...it's probably already up)

Norm is Two

You know how they say millennial dog parents are the fucking worst creatures to walk the earth or whatever? What's up motherfuckers, sorry you weren't hugged enough as a child, buckle up!

Norm is two today and he deserves all the praise and adoration I can muster because one day we will die and my love for him deserves to live forever on the internet (I can confirm these deaths will take place on the same day because once he goes, in the words of our lord and saviour, Taylor Swift,  I will be jumping off of very tall somethings.) Wow this took a turn.

Norm is a literal star. All he wants in life is to wake up early (it has been observed that he lovingly body checks me repeatedly in the morning until I wake), be your best friend (that is a collective your, he isn't picky he already thinks you are the best) and most importantly, love and adore the apple of his eye, Buttons (my parents dog who is jacked like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and has incontinence issues so occasionally has to wear a diaper, no judgement from Big Norm!) 

When I walk in my front door, whether I've been gone 4 seconds or 4 hours, Norm jumps double his body height to let me know he missed me. Do you know who else has gained air because they love me? Literally nobody I have ever met, like honestly click your heels so I know it's real or something.

Does he insist on sleeping on solely silk pillow cases? Yes. Did he get in trouble at day care once and my instinct was to rip him out because he's an angel and she was wrong? A possibility. Has he, in the past, ejaculated all over the patio whilst people were actively eating dinner? Suuuure (That minx Buttons gets him every time!) 

But would I literally chop off my arm for him any day of the week? For suuuure.

Thank you Normie for being an absolutely legend, for not judging me when I cry during your favorutie TV show (The Dog House....it really kicks you in the nuts) and most improtantly for not hating me forever when I roll in drunk and torment you way past your bedtime. 

As I always tell you (and it's a good thing I do because I'm not 100% sure you can read) You are my best mate and I think all the other dogs are definitely jealous of how handsome you are.

(Also so sorry for admitting I cried for multiple days when I first got you....that was out of pocket).

Noah Kahan rips my fucking heart out?

A year ago a friend from high school told me I needed to listen to this album that had just come out because it was by a local guy and you know Upper Valley gotta roll for one another, ya know? 

I gave it a listen, liked some tracks on Spotify and then swiftly went back to cranking the Home Alone soundtrack or something I'm not really sure.

Back in August though, I went back home to visit my Mum for the first time in four years and spent 2 weeks roaming around the woods in Vermont, inhaling Folklore by Taylor Swift and then stumbling back on Stick Season and suddenly that shit hit different.

I loved growing up in New England. Did I like chipping ice off my car or getting tardy slips because the doors were literally frozen shut? Hard pass. Did I love that cruising to Walmart to buy car air fresheners and Elvis CD's to sing scream on the way home was a thrilling Friday night? I mean...not at the time. Did I think it was fun to fucking pulverize a deer in Cornish in the Driver's Ed car? Heavily traumatic. 

But I wouldn't change it.

The slush and the numb toes, sneaking 30 racks into the woods to sit by a fire and complain about how boring life is or jumping into gorgeous rivers under the watchful eye of looming mountains.

(Sidenote: Gordon Ramsey fucking hated that place)

At the time my grass was always greener. I was plucked from Australia at 11 and thrown into a literal blizzard. I craved sunshine and a tan. I thought life was bigger and better and more exciting anywhere but here (and honestly it probably was.) I didn't care that the leaves in October were gorgeous and people travelled for miles to witness them. My jaded ass blasted down 89 flipping them the hypothetical bird.

It was slow and it was safe. Although we all scattered like marbles the moment they let us be free, running for Boston and New York and Philly and beyond, I think hindsight is a wonderful thing and as I get older the joy that was had in the bubble settles in. 

Going back home after so long and wandering around Sunapee, looking at teenagers thinking I should know them before realising that all my peers are now lawyers, teachers, mothers and other tax paying old people was quite a trip.

Whilst home, I inhaled Pizza Chef for like two straight weeks as if  I was 14 and it was Friday night post basketball game, or it was the summer and we got bored of wandering around aimlessly or I had just finished a shift (First Job shit you know?)

I thought about how the kids at the day-care I worked at in Highschool were now graduating and wondered if they were also bursting at the seams to get the fuck out of this snow globe like we were?

It was good to be home for a while (in the Summer...catch me not visiting in February, sorry kids) and ever since I've left, I've had Stick Season on repeat. Honestly chisel that shit onto my tombstone at this point. How an album chews up a place and spits it out so beautifully kind of blows my mind. At this time I would like to  personally apologise to any unsuspecting victim I've come across during my downward Noah Kahan spiral who has had to hear about street names they never drove on, speed traps they never had to worry about and ugly black melting snow patches they didn't have to hurdle.

I'm just trying to set the scene through mildly rose coloured glasses, sue me!

10/10. Would listen again...and again...and again.

(Although if anyone told me to my face they wanted to hold my hand until it decomposed I think I would like... change my fucking name....just sayin')

The Shortest Fuse.

At no point in my life would I have ever described myself as a placid soul.

I've always felt I walked a very wobbly tightrope between right as rain and misery guts. 

A personality akin to a trapdoor, ready to flip open and drop you into the mouth of a crocodile at any given moment.

It's not exactly my most sparkling quality and it's one I'm sure is the most frustrating to those who have to deal with me on a semi-regular basis.

Recently I have noticed my hair pin has been firing more frequently than ever before, and for the dumbest of reasons.

To make matters worse what comes firing out is always a surprise to those in the splash zone. It could be tears (I love to cry), it could be rage (I will make you want to cry), it could be silence (the scariest sound) or it could be the JT 1000 Super Trifecta. 

A few years ago whilst I was in the hospital frustration boiled over at my circumstances and I had the fattest cry in front of 5 visitors all squashed around my small bed, internally urging them to leave so I could eviscerate the nurse who had pissed me off in peace. Before leaving my Dad made sure to point out that looking at me in that moment he saw his father, and himself, my lovely short fuse lineage in all it's glory. He knew what the snap felt like, he once quit a job on a whim because he found out a less skilled colleague made as much money as he did and nothing that was said could stop him walking. I asked him if they had offered him more money, would he have stayed? In short, No. It was about principal, and before he knew it he was already driving home.

Although he seems unbothered by the quality, I can't say I'm too fond of this particular DNA strand. 

Have you ever tried pushing those wiry, plastic snakes back into those peanut tins after they have exploded out around a room? I haven't either, but I imagine it's fucking annoying and that is exactly how the clean up feels after a snap.

My favourite method is pretending nothing happened, we didn't just sit in silence for 3 hours or I didn't just flood my pillow with tears, but no matter how calm of an exterior, internally my brain is awkwardly shuffling around collecting snakes and coiling them back in my peanut tin.

I often tell my Dad that I think we both need a good therapist and he scoffs at the thought. Why would we possibly need therapy? As we sit, just two little frogs on a log ready to flamethrower your entire life and hop way forever in a moments notice.

That's just been on my mind a lot recently.

Instead of you know...getting actually help with my problem. I have instead placed a bottle of hand lotion on my bedside table so I can pretend I'm in a sitcom and aggressively lotion my hands before bed whilst a having a bitch to my dog about all my problems.

10/10 would recommend. 

Semi-annual check in to let you know I never left.

 

Whoops.

It's been several months.

The other day I was talking to my Mum about this blog and how what started as a way for my friends to keep in touch with each other after high school became 12 years of ramblings so quickly.

Here is one more rambling for ya.

Well...for future me really!

Firstly, Happy last few weeks of my twenties for all who celebrate.

I was recently speaking with a fellow 29 year old who told me she was feeling super bummed leading up to the end of the most overhyped decade of ones life for no other reason than the fact that suddenly time feels real. It suddenly hit her that she could never be 21 again, that even though in a successful job and recently married, the fact that she would never again be of an age beginning with a 2 was really fucking her up.

I wish I could say part of me understood where she was coming from...

...but that would be a lie.

I had some wonderfully fun times in my 20's.....I also had some wonderfully fun times at 16.....I thought I was Ashley Olsen at 9 and that was a real top notch hoot....but I'm fine with moving on forward with life. 

I don't mind having to scroll a bit more aggressively when selecting my birth year on online forms and the few wrinkles that have lovingly taken up home in the middle of my big ass forehead I attribute more to the fact that I scowl too much rather than the fact that time is disappearing beneath me.

I just went and checked my previous blog post to make sure I wasn't just writing the same blog post 6 months later and turns out my last post was about how I love doing puzzles, see, I'M BUILT FOR THIS SHIT (Aging that is...hell I even work in Aged Care, it truly is my whole brand!) Yesterday my defacto-person-who-I-have-been-consistently-with-for-3-years-almost-all-whilst-deny-we-are-in-a-relationship-to-anybody-who-dares-push-me-on-the-subject-even-though-we-tried-to-have-a-baby-for-six-months-before-shrugging-it-off-as-infertifility (more about that in your local therapists office) asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I had to stop myself from saying slippers because  old girls love cozy feet.

I'm on a tangent, now but you get the picture.

I'm spending the final days of my twenties with no resolutions, no plans, just vibes. 

I'm spending my days asking my dog if anybody has called him handsome today and refusing to take pictures of anything other than him.

In uncomplicated, low maintenance, friendships that we all agreed a few weeks ago will probably go the distance due it being just that easy and low maintenance. Where they don't care that I ignore them for days in the group chat, I don't kill them for being late to literally everything and I let them take as many pictures of each other as they like as long as they don't make me partake ("You look like you are the friend we don't fuck with," they often point out as I stand 6 feet away from them looking in the other direction ignoring them. Just the way I like it!)

Spending time with my family after spending so many years living in cities without the ability to pop over for dinner (whilst still retaining my freewill to ditch family dinner when it clashes with my social life, much to my Dad's annoyance, and refusing to host anything at my place because this is my oasis kids, I'll catch you at yours any day of the week!)

That's it. That's the energy.

Unrelated Current Faves-

• Mandy by Barry Manilow. I know, I know, grandma in full effect but I'm fucking sorry that song is a full bop. Do I have the urge to sing "Oh Mindy" because I'm a 90's baby raised on The Simpsons, hard yes but when you get past that fact, full bop, fight me about it.'
• Formula 1. Am I a bandwagon fan who happened to binge watch Drive to Survive a year ago and now actively wakes up at 3 in the morning to sit and watch cars go vroom vroom around a track? Yep, and proud. Charles Leclerc is a babe and deserves better, but that is unrelated.
• Saturday Bahn Mi's and an infrared saunas, my favourite tradition. Catch me in an infrared sauna near you (actually don't because I will be naked, chilling out probably listening to Barry Manilow and you aren't invited).
• The Yuzu slushie at Yoko in Brisbane, I talk about this too much....but they are really top notch, will hit you like a small bus.
• Wild Horses by The Sundays. Does this song make me immediately think of Mark Walhberg fingerbanging Reese Witherspoon on a rollercoaster? Without fail! Still a vibe. Also that scene and movie really stayed with me at like 8, my parents probably should have monitored my TV viewing a little better.
• John Williams. Not much to say here, I just love the man. I know I ranted and raved up there about how aging isn't shit but when it comes to other people I take it all back. Ever since I lost the greatest love of my childhood life/ultimate eternal babe, Christopher Plummer, a few years ago I've been hoping they find a way for John Williams, Dyke Van Dyke and my ultimate #1 queen Julie Andrews to live forever.
• Telling people about how legendary the Tarzan soundtrack is multiple times a day just in case they forgot or somehow didn't know. My man Phil Collins SNAPPED with that one, I've said it once and I will say it many more times (also somewhat unrelated, I wish it would rain down by Phil Collins? You could literally slaughter me to that song and I would probably be vibing too fucking hard to realize).
• The New York Times Crossword...but only on Monday's because otherwise it gets too tricky for my mushy brain to consistently crush and if I ain't winning, I ain't grinning!
• Cooking. Specifically soup. If I'm on my phone I'm either on Tiktok with the youths or I'm on Pinterest pinning soup recipes with my oldies, I hit all demographics. 
• Better Man by Taylor Swift. Another full fucking bop. Now let me tell you something about Taylor Swift. I wouldn't have ever said I was the biggest fan, she was out there firing off songs and I was out here coexisting and getting them stuck in my head most likely, like girlfriend can right a catchy song like no fucking other, but I also find her incredibly fascinating. She's just rich, successful, talented and full on vibing not giving a fuck. I would easily be reincarnated as her tomorrow, catch me on a stage surrounded by people crying whilst I shimmy and shake in some sequins, let's roll out.  
• Iced Chocolates aka let's go get coffee but coffee is yucky so please give me the adult sized pup cup because nothing says adult like ice-cream at 8am, who am I Richie Rich? Now I g2g oil my kidapult (anybody? that movie slaps...) Actually...
• Richie Motherfucking Rich- The Macauley Culkin version, sorry Simon from 7th Heaven you just can't fill his shoes. Actually....
• McCauley Culkin absolutely crushing it so hard as a literal 10 year old and no other child being able to live up to him....here is lookin' at you Home Alone 3-100 and Richie Rich 2.

I'm on a full tangent now.

Best to leave it here.

See you in a few months most likely, but you never know it could also be tomorrow! 

To do list:

• Stop saying Bop.
• also vibe.
• also probably swearing.