Google Search: Feeling Trendy

www.KarissaLaurel.com

So, it's my first time attempting to do the "Google Search" feature that has become a staple at Across the Board. I had to study some previous posts to orient myself with how it works, and I found these rules (''loosely suggested guidelines"):

• Start a random search string in Google (or could be from one of your previous searches)
• Choose one of Google's suggestions
• Write up a post (or some flash fiction if you're feeling really creative).

Hoping for a flash of inspiration, I stared at the Google Search screen until I eventually noticed the “I’m Feeling Lucky” option. If I were feeling particularly creative, I would've spent the rest of this blog post making double entendre jokes about “feeling lucky” but I decided not to go that direction. You're welcome.

Instead, I hovered my cursor over the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button, and it came up with “I’m Feeling Trendy."  I'm the somewhat middle-aged mom of a sixteen-year-old boy and have not felt “trendy” in a long, long time. But, I decided to put on my parachute pants, my jelly shoes, and my white sequined single glove (y’all it’s been a REALLY LONG TIME since I’ve been trendy) and let Google trends inspire me.

The results were disappointingly lacking in suggestions on how to be cooler when hanging out with my kid (Okay, yes, I know the answer to that is: Just don’t even try). Instead I got a list of trending news topics, and I picked the top five to discuss here. Hopefully I won’t come across as too ignorant and out of touch and these might already be dated by the time this posts on Thursday (I'm writing this on Monday), but you work with what you got:

1. Jussie Smollett: He is/was the actor on Empire who was recently in the news as the victim of an alleged hate crime. Now he's back in the news because investigations have lead to some questions about the validity of his story.
      *Updated Thursday morning to add that Smollett has turned himself in to Chicago police, and he's been arrested on felony charges of disorderly conduct for filing a false police report.

This hurts my heart so bad I can't quite process it. It will be talked about ad nauseum today, and I have no interest in piling on, especially not in the middle of what is otherwise a silly post.

2. NASCAR: Look, y'all, I live in North Carolina, which is basically the birthplace of NASCAR and some folks around here worship it like it's the third hour of church on Sunday. "Preacher hurry up and finish the sermon. I gotta get to BoJangles, pick up my fried chicken, then get home and turn on the TV before they wave that green flag!" 

In my checkered past, I was known to buy a box of fried chicken from BoJangles and eat it in the parking-lot before an actual real-live NASCAR race. We had two Winston-Cup tracks in this state before Rockingham Raceway closed and the shunning of the tobacco industry meant NASCAR had to find a different sponsor. I make no apologies--it was the heyday of that sport, I thought Jeff Gordon was cute, and those cars are wicked cool when you're watching them live and in person.

That was a different life, I was a different person, and now I have no idea who Joe Gibbs is or why I should care. I have thoughts about why NASCAR is somewhat problematic in 2019 but that's a "whole 'nother" blog post. MOVING ON!

3. Elimination Chamber:What?

I had to actually click that link to discover what that was all about. I found it out had to do with a WWE professional wrestling thing, specifically "Elimination Chamber (2019) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view event and WWE Network event produced by WWE for their Raw, SmackDown, and 205 Live brands." 

My checkered past also involved--let's not say "following, let's say "being aware"--of professional wrestling back when WWE was still WWF and the NWO (New World Order) was a thing. If you don't know what I'm talking about, that's probably a good thing. I've mostly forgotten it too.

4. Cain Valasquez: Who?

I see it's a UFC thing. I've never followed UFC fighting. I don't care enough to click the link. NEXT

5: Elvis Presley:

So, apparently NBC did an All-Star special tribute to Elvis. I missed it because it started at 9:00pm. By then my husband and I were in bed and watching the Ken Jeong Netflix special, and I so, so, so much recommend it. Hey did you know Ken Jeong is from North Carolina? We're not all NASCAR, fried chicken, and professional wrestling here. His co-star in The Hangover, Zach Galifianakis, is also from North Carolina, a fact you probably find much less surprising. But I digress.

I visited Memphis for a week during the summer after my Senior year of high school to complete a service project. My team and I took the time to fit a visit to Graceland into our schedule. I'm not sure if it was worth the ticket price--his house is a museum to the decor trends (see how I worked this post's theme back in?) of the 60s and 70s but it really isn't all that ostentatious. Still, I'm glad that I can say I went. I loved Elvis movies when I was younger, and I still appreciate his music.

In his honor, I'll sign off by sharing my favorite Elvis song with you. Enjoy!