Exciting news about The Huffington Post

10:10 AM: My blog post has been moved to the front page of The Huffington Post. I know that this is largely due to the outpouring of support from you guys. I feel like a broken record, but I'm gonna keep needle scratching these words: thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 

Happy Wednesday, friends. 

I'm really excited to share with you that as of a couple of days ago, I will now be submitting content on The Huffington Post. 

Some Q&A: 

Q: Um...what?? 

A: Good question. What this means it that I'll be one of their Contributing Bloggers. Should a post of mine get "featured," or picked up by an editor of a particular section, it will be posted on that section's front page. Until then, you can find my writing at the links I'll provide. 

Q: Does this mean you aren't blogging here anymore? 

A: Heck no. Actually, HuffPo encourages "cross-posting," meaning they like for people to post blog entries in more than one place to drive traffic to their site. You'll most likely see a lot of posts on HuffPo that you've seen before here (at least to start). This is great news, because a lot of sites require you to submit exclusive and original content to them and never post it anywhere else ever again for the rest of time. So thanks, HuffPo. 

Q: Are you a big deal and/or cool? 

A: No. 

Q: How can I help you become a big deal and/or cool? 

A: First of all, I'd like to say this: 

As cliche as it sounds, I never expected to have this much support around my little old blog. The amount of people who are reading along with me, who are reaching out and telling me they think a Bachcap is funny, or that a post resonated with them in some way - y'all, I really can't tell you what that means to me. It is overwhelmingly kind that you come here at all, let alone read and share the things on this blog. I feel so bowled over and elated by that alone that I'd liken my emotions to Kristen Bell's on Ellen when Ellen says she's going to bring a sloth out.  (And if you haven't seen that amazing piece of television, click this link.)

Seriously, to have anyone walking along this journey with me chokes me up. All I can say (even though it's inadequate) is thank you. Thank you so, so much. 

SO. 

The way that Huffington Post tracks which writers it wants to feature more regularly is by looking at the traffic that a post generates. That's where you come in. 

If you see a post of mine that you like on Huffington Post, share it. "Like" the Facebook link. Tweet the URL. Comment at the bottom. All these things are basically big red arrows to the Higher Ups at HuffPo saying, "HEY! LOOK OVER HERE! PEOPLE LIKE THIS ONE!" 

I realize this is a lot to ask, and that you only have so much social media capital to spend, so I'm going to try and streamline everything by continuing to post direct links on this site should anything go live on HuffPo. 

Q: Do you feel fulfilled, excited, reinvigorated, grateful, and a little bit gobsmacked? 

A: To say the least. Thank you for your support. I'll never be able to say it enough: you have given me some purpose in my life. 

So - here it is. The first one (click the picture below to be taken to the post):

Hope you enjoy. 

Singing with Sid

A little music for your Monday morning. 

One of the things I'm realizing as I get older is how fortunate I was to grow up in a musical household. There was always music somewhere - playing on the stereo, being sung by my mom, or being played by my dad. 

Dad was good enough at the guitar that he could play anything we wanted to sing. He was also good enough that when Parker and I were really small, we would just start making up a song and he'd follow along with us. Some of my most cherished memories are centered around nonsense-songs that Dad would create to entertain us, just walking around the house with his guitar and singing about totally random things. If you are a parent and you're even SLIGHTLY musical, make it a part of your life. Your kids will remember it for years to come. 

Dad and I have played together lots of times - at church, at my high school talent show, for Junior Miss stuff, etc. - and it's always something I've taken for granted that I could sit down with him and pick up where we left off. When Jordan and I went to Tulsa this most recent time, I asked Dad if he would mind me filming us playing together to put on the blog. So here we are, in PJs, playing one of our old favorites: Killing the Blues, in the style of Shawn Colvin. It's not my best vocal performance, but this is something so precious to me - playing music with my dad - that I wanted to share it here. 

Hope you enjoy. 

5 Things You Would Never Expect about Me

Here at 5 Things Friday, we strive to bring you collections of interesting information, facts, lists, and recommendations. Despite the fact that this blog I run this blog, I don't do a lot of talking about just me. It's usually Jordan and me, or The Bachelor and me, or the kitchen and me. Today, though, 5 Things are going be facts about yours truly. 

1. When I was 8, I went to New York and auditioned for a Broadway agent. 

I have always loved to sing, and on a big trip to NYC in 3rd grade, part of the gig was that I got to meet with talent agency. I had no idea what I was doing, so I sang her Gavroche's excerpt from Little People in Les Miserables. 

For you non-theater weirdos, Gavroche is a boy, and that little ditty is about 5 lines long. So...there's that. She was probably like, "Who the hell is this person??" I'm sure most people sang gender-appropriate, full songs. 

She told me my accent was way too strong and that I would probably not do very well unless I hired a dialect coach to get rid of it. So here I am, Broadway contract-less, but Southern accent strong. #rolltide 

2. I am pretty unathletic, except when it comes to disc golf. 

It's very possible that this was an anomaly, but I'm choosing to believe I have a gift. 

This most recent trip to Tulsa (where my parents now live), Jordan convinced everyone to play disc golf. I was REALLY not looking forward to it. I threw my first disc, and...it went the direction I wanted it to go. And it just kept happening. It was freakish, but I wasn't challenging whatever disc golf gods were on my side that day. 

So if you play disc golf with me, watch out. I'm profoundly not terrible and I might just beat you. 

3. Loose hair is #1 on my list of things that gross me out.  

This has actually always been the case. My mom tells me stories of having to make sure there weren't loose strings on any of my clothing or shoes when I was younger because it bothered me so much. 

My freshman year in college, every time I would take a shower, there'd be a fresh clump of someone's hair in the shower drain (this is making me gag to even type). Or, better yet, someone would clean out the shower drain and then slap the hairball ON THE WALL OF THE SHOWER WHAT KIND OF MONSTER DOES THAT. 

If I or anyone else finds a hair in their food, that's pretty much game over. Hairballs in movies, that scene in The Ring where Naomi Watts chokes on a long string of hair...I actually can't keep typing this because I'm going to throw up. You get the point. 

And the good Lord saw fit to give me a dog that sheds as much as two dogs put together - maybe this is a boot camp for my inevitable long, dark haired future children. I just can't. I don't wanna. Please don't make me. 

4. I once got the worst spray tan anyone has ever gotten. 

I should've known when I walked into the studio and the walls and windows were sticky and dripping wet with old spray tan solution. She had me put duct tape on the bottoms of my feet to avoid getting slimed. It was like a Saw movie. I was half-expecting that weird masked figure to pop up and be like, "YOUR VANITY HAS RUINED YOUR LIFE. NOW YOU MUST DRINK TANNING SOLUTION IN ORDER TO LIVE." 

Anyway, here's what ended up happening. 

Yep. Real. I sat in a bathtub full of baking soda for two hours, to no avail. I ended up having to go to the event like this, and at one point I was standing under a black light by accident. My WHOLE BODY glowed. It was...special. And awful. 

5. I am a little bit claustrophobic because Parker used to sit on my head. 

Here is a picture of my brother and me. See how much taller and bigger he is? 

Mmmkay. Well, when we were little (he was normal-sized then, but I'm using the photo above to make my story sound more dramatic), he used to throw a blanket on my head and sit on me. My arms, legs, everything was trapped, and I couldn't get out. For four to five harrowing seconds, I thought I would die. Then he would move and everything would return to completely fine. 

To this day, I can't sleep with both arms and both legs under the covers. I had to have at least one limb free to move. If I'm under a blanket on the couch, for example, and Jordan comes to sit down sweetly next to me, if he sits on my blanket by mistake and traps my limbs underneath, I am panicked until I can free myself. Only then can I actually enjoy his company. Otherwise, I basically feel like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill. In the coffin. MY NIGHTMARE. 

Well, this took a really neurotic turn, didn't it? But I'm committing to it. Hope you enjoy this stroll down Mary Catherine Belongs In The Loony Bin Road. Have a great weekend, friends! 

An Open Letter to Middle School Girls

...or almost middle school, or just left middle school - you get my point. 

Dear beauties, 

Hey. 

Yeah, I know. I really do know. Middle school, right? WOW. It is so freakin' brutal. It's like that for everyone. It has been like that for everyone since they invented middle school. If you live somewhere where they don't call it "middle school," I'm talking about grades 6-8, and ages 11-14. Call it "intermediate school." Call it "junior high." Whatever you want to call it, it is ROUGH. 

Having been through middle school and having taught middle school, I consider myself pretty proficient in how it works. Somehow, regardless of who you are and what you bring to the table, middle school is unkind to to every single person who passes through it. My dad always said, "If we really wanted to win a war, we'd deploy a plane full of 12-year-old girls. That'd do it." Oh man, how true that is.

Teaching middle school, I heard the meanest things anyone has ever said to anyone else. 
Going through middle school, I said the meanest things anyone has ever said to anyone else. And had them said about me. And so does everyone.

But here's the big difference: when I was in middle school, there was no such thing as Instagram. No Snapchat. No Facebook, even. Social media hadn't been invented yet. 

In my own middle school experience, if someone was talking behind your back, they did it the old-fashioned way: when your back was turned. When you left the room. In the corners of the locker room at P.E. On (now-archaic) three-way-calls after school -- and, by the way, to make those calls, one had to ask, "Is Jennifer there?" to Jennifer's mom. Because it was a landline. Because it was 2000. 

But the game has changed, my friend. Just like YouTube videos or Vines, meanness can be viral. It spreads like a plague from one smartphone to the next, and before long, everyone has seen/read/heard/watched something horrible about you. 

I honestly can't imagine what that must be like. 

As a 12-year-old human, I looked like this: 

Well, it's me and April. But I think we can all tell who's who.

Okay, the first one was just to make you laugh. That was me getting my braces. Oy. 

But the second one - please take note of a few things. Braces, first of all. Unkempt baby hairs everywhere. Chubby cheeks. I don't think I wore makeup yet. This picture happens to be from my 12th birthday. At this particular birthday party, we had cake and watched Stepmom on my back porch. It was awesome. 

I didn't worry about how cute my party was because I wasn't going to post it on Instagram later. I didn't worry about whether I had dark circles or wrinkles on my face, or about how thin I looked. I wasn't adding this photo to my Snapstory or editing it on Facetune or ANY. OF. THAT. SHIT. 

(I said, "shit." Know what kids in middle school say when their parents aren't listening? "Shit." Everyone calm down.) 

If you're in middle school today, the world is telling you that you aren't good enough. The world has always told middle schoolers that. But now, the world has new technology to drive the point home. The fact that there is an app called "Perfect 365" in which you edit yourself to look, you know, perfect...365 days a year...is terrible. The further fact that a new version of middle school mean-girl three-way calling is for someone to pose in a picture alongside a friend, then edit ONLY themselves, leaving the other person to appear (heaven forbid!) unedited, and therefore less attractive, is MIND-BOGGLING TO ME. 

On social media, we curate a very particular version of ourselves. We like to choose or best, prettiest, funniest moments. EVERYONE does this. The problem is, it's not terribly genuine. And in lots of cases, especially middle school, it just gives people another platform to say mean things about you. 

Snapchat changes their filters all the time, but one that has stuck around is the "Beauty" filter. This filter...well, actually, let me just show you. 

I tried to make the same face, but you get the point. The left-hand photo is me, unfiltered, regular ol' MC. Although I am doing what Jordan calls my "social media face," wherein I do not show my teeth and try to get the apples of my cheeks to pop. (See? I, too, am ruined by all this crap.) The right-hand photo is me with the Snapchat's "Beauty" filter - you can see that my skin is suddenly glowing and poreless, my eyebrows are perfectly manicured, my eyes are bigger, my nose is slenderized, my jawline and chin have been tapered and shaved down. 

I have to tell you something, middle school girls: 

This is all bullshit. 

(I know, I said "shit" again.)

You know how self-conscious and insecure you feel? I have a secret - every SINGLE person in middle school feels this way. Some days, you'll mask this insecurity with confidence and it won't bother you a bit. These are awesome days. These are the days you'll laugh out loud - not at people, but with people. You'll dance goofy dances. You'll fail a test, but so will your best friend, so it's all kind of okay. You'll stop the gossip around you and talk to the new kid in school even if you risk losing cool points. You'll freely like and comment on the Instagrams of your friends without saying anything ugly or snotty about them. You'll throw yourself into whatever it is you care about with abandon. On these days, you will be your best self. 

Some days, on your less-than-lovely days, your insecurity will win. You will say something nasty about someone, it will get back to them, and you'll have to sit with the knowledge that they'll probably remember your words for a long time. You'll throw a friend under the bus in class. You'll let boys be more important than your girlfriends. You'll sneak out of the house, or send your boyfriend a picture of yourself in your underwear. You'll pass around a photo of a girl in her underwear - a picture she sent her boyfriend in private - and ruin that girl's reputation. She might change schools because of it. 

(A note here for all parents who may be reading this and think that middle schoolers sending each other sexually inappropriate pictures isn't a Thing: it's a Thing. Heads up.)  

These will not be your finest moments. They are ugly moments. They're moments that you'll cringe about for years to come. Whatever the severity of the ugly moments - be it idle gossip or going too far with a guy - everyone will have them. 

The idea that any of us - ANY of us - Kylie Jenner included - leads a Perfect 360 life is a Perfect 360 lie. 

It's just not REAL. 

Realness does not exist in a screen.

Have you ever seen a sunset and pulled out your phone to try and photograph it, only to be totally disappointed that your picture isn't reflecting how truly awesome what you're looking at is? 

That's because reality is TOO BIG FOR OUR SCREENS. It's just too big and grand. It won't fit. 

The true, gritty, weird, kooky, off-beat, awkward, brace-face, chubby-cheeked, "does the robot at parties because you're too self-conscious to dance" realness that is YOU is just so unbelievably fabulous that it doesn't fit in a frame. It can't be captured with 140 characters. It can't be polished into submission on Facetune. You are too awesome for that. You are too good to be shoved into a tiny box with a giant lightbulb and a touchscreen. You're too good to try and edit yourself down to what other people think you're supposed to be. 

So listen to me, because I'm older than you (I've been waiting years to say that, okay? I know it was annoying but just let me have it): 

Go forth and be kind, and be weird, and be real. But do not go forth and be perfect. If I catch you attempting the myth of perfection, I will come to your house and scribble on you with permanent marker until you remember what I said about being kind and weird. 

As you're starting school, you're going to feel a lot of pressure to be perfect. Remember instead to join a club or a team, to be respectful to your parents and teachers, to stick by your friends. Remember how awful it felt when someone said that crappy thing about you, and try to not say a bunch of crappy things about other people  -- in person or on the Internet. Hold on to the people who make you feel good about you. Be that person for someone else. 

Whoever you are, go be that person. Unfiltered. 

(And just for the record? You're right. You can do that math with a calculator when you grow up and you don't actually have to learn it. Don't tell your parents I said so.) 

Love, 
Mary Catherine
(Who still looks exactly like this in her own mind.)