I HAVE A NEW SHIRT!!!
I bought it at Lady Footlocker for $3.99, and it was probably made in a sweatshop, but
I HAVE A NEW SHIRT!!!
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
A Strange Thing That Happened
This is the story of a strange thing that happened to me a couple of hours ago.
My roommate came home from work and was very upset because work is a place people go to so that other people can make them upset. She wanted me to go out to eat with her so that she could tell me all about what the people at work did to make her upset and also so that she could eat food. All I had in the refrigerator was the second half of a pasta dish that I made last night by pouring a drained can of olives and a drained can of chickpeas over casarecce pasta and adding a tablespoon of olive oil and the juice of an entire lemon (plus salt and pepper), so I told my roommate that I would go out to eat with her, but she should drive.
I probably should have driven instead. I had asked my roommate to drive because she has a fancy luxury car that is ordinarily very comfortable, but I had forgotten that I had hurt my back moving one of her big fancy flowerpots out of a storm a couple of days ago, so I moved like an old and/or pregnant person while I was getting into her low, fancy car. Ouch! Also, and perhaps worse, was the fact that my roommate was still quite upset from having a job, and that did not make her driving very good. Also, it was rush hour. Also, she remembered suddenly that she needed to buy something at a store, so she cut across some different lanes and stuff, which was scary.
By the time my roommate was done buying the thing she had remembered she needed to buy at the store (plus some other things she remembered she needed to buy at the store while we were looking for the first thing she had remembered she needed to buy) she decided we didn't have time to eat a sit-down meal at a restaurant if we were going to get back in time for her favorite television show, so we went to a bakery/restaurant to get some takeout instead. First my roommate ordered herself some food and paid for it. Then I ordered myself a healthy vegetarian meal. Then I saw that there was one last fancy red velvet cupcake in the enormous dessert case next to the cash register. I hadn't had a red velvet cupcake since the grand opening of my grandmother's lesbian neighbors' fancy day care for small, fancy dogs in a fancy far-away town almost four years ago, so I asked if I could please have the red velvet cupcake too. The lady at the cash register said I could! Then she took my credit card and scanned it and told me my receipt would be attached to my bag of food.
I sat down to wait with my roommate at a little marble-topped table. The restaurant was empty except for a family that was made up of a mommy and a daddy and three little girls. The littlest girl was so little that it looked like it might have been a boy instead of a girl, but it was wearing a short blue dress over its blue jeans, so I think it was a little girl (but it might not have been). The mommy and the daddy and the two older girls were eating their food at a table, but the littlest girl was toddling all around the restaurant. I thought about stealing the littlest girl, but the lights were really bright, and my roommate would have had to help me run away with the littlest girl because, remember, my roommate was the one who drove us to the restaurant. So I decided not to steal this particular baby even though it was a really cute baby and kept running up to the dessert case and then walking away and then running back, just like I'd done when my roommate and I first showed up at the bakery/restaurant!
After a couple of minutes, two beautiful Persian-looking ladies came in and ordered some food, and I tried not to stare even though they were very beautiful and I was wondering if you could tell if a lady is Persian just by looking at her beautiful Persian-looking eyes. I decided to look at the baby some more because babies almost never get offended if you stare at them. Sometimes they even giggle and wave! The Persian-looking ladies were looking at the baby too, and they laughed at how the baby would run up to the dessert case and point at all the different desserts as if she wanted to try each and every one! (That's what I do too!) Then a busboy brought the Persian-looking ladies their food, which made me feel kind of left out because my roommate and I had ordered our food at least five minutes before the Persian-looking ladies even came in!
Then some people who looked like they were in their early twenties came in. I didn't pay attention to them because the baby's mommy decided it was time to bring her littlest girl back to the table where her other little girls were sitting with their daddy. The littlest girl saw her mommy coming for her and ran away so that her mommy would chase her. The other little girls got up to help their mommy, but the mommy told them to sit down again. The second littlest one wouldn't, so the mommy took her hand and led her back to the table. The littlest girl saw that and decided it would be a good time to toddle halfway to the table and then lie down on the floor on her front. Her mommy saw this and said, "You silly goose!" and picked up her littlest girl so that the littlest girl's little feet hung down and I could see the dusty bottoms of the littlest girl's little white socks.
Then the cash register lady came out from behind the enormous dessert case with our bags of food. My roommate was already getting into her car when I realized that the cash register lady had forgotten to put the one last fancy red velvet cupcake in my bag even though the receipt stapled to the bag said I'd paid two dollars for it. It wasn't in my roommate's bag either, so I went back in and said to the cash register lady, "I asked if I could have the red velvet cupcake, but it isn't my bag even though the receipt says I paid for it!"
"Oh!" said the cash register lady. "Remember those people who were just in here?" (She meant the people who looked like they were in their early twenties. I hadn't noticed that they had already left because I had been looking at the baby girl who had been toddling around but was now sitting with her family.) The cash register lady said, "Well, they had actually already called ahead to reserve the cupcake, and I forgot to tell you that."
"They reserved the cupcake!" I said. "I've never heard of such a thing!" Have you ever heard of such a thing? It seems like a very strange thing to me, to call ahead to reserve a cupcake.
I could hardly believe what the cash register lady had just told me so I said, "They reserved a cupcake?" (with a question sound at the end). The cash register lady nodded. "But I paid for it!" I said.
"I know," the cash register lady said. "I'm very sorry. I can put the money back on your card, or you can have something else."
I didn't want to give the cash register lady my credit card again in case she was just a crazy person who only wanted to charge me for more delicious treats that other people had already reserved for themselves by special telephone pre-order, so I asked if I could have two cookies instead. "You can have as many as you want 'cuz I feel so bad," the cash register lady said, but I only asked for a snickerdoodle and a cowboy cookie because I don't like to take things I haven't paid for, even if there is a ten cent difference in favor of the establishment, which, in this case, there was.
The cash register lady gave me my snickerdoodle and my cowboy cookie, and I thanked her and went back to my roommate's car. When we got home, my roommate went into what was originally called "the common room" but which my roommate has recently begun calling "my room" in order to watch her favorite television show on my seven-hundred-dollar television, while I set my food on the kitchen table and turned on my roommate's two-hundred-fifty-dollar kitchen television so I could watch "Raising Hope". At that very moment on "Raising Hope", the patriarch of the Chance family, Burt Chance, was devising a plot to free MawMaw from the state-run nursing home that involved seventy-five red velvet cupcakes. The Chance family's imaginary red velvet cupcakes didn't look nearly as delicious as the fancy red velvet cupcake I'd been sold at the bakery/restaurant (but didn't get to take home with me) had looked, but they were still delicious-looking enough to remind me of the aforementioned cupcake that had been so close to being mine. So that was another strange thing.
I ate my healthy vegetarian meal and watched as the Chance family did a lot of silly things to try and get their MawMaw back. My healthy vegetarian meal was pretty good, even if it did cost me almost ten dollars. When it was time for a show called "Ben and Kate", I took the fancy red velvet cupcake-replacing cookies out of their little paper bag. Both the snickerdoodle and the cowboy cookie were very gross and stale. They made me so sad that I couldn't even enjoy the zany new "Ben and Kate" television show, so I turned the TV off and came here to my room to write this story in my blog.
The end.
My roommate came home from work and was very upset because work is a place people go to so that other people can make them upset. She wanted me to go out to eat with her so that she could tell me all about what the people at work did to make her upset and also so that she could eat food. All I had in the refrigerator was the second half of a pasta dish that I made last night by pouring a drained can of olives and a drained can of chickpeas over casarecce pasta and adding a tablespoon of olive oil and the juice of an entire lemon (plus salt and pepper), so I told my roommate that I would go out to eat with her, but she should drive.
I probably should have driven instead. I had asked my roommate to drive because she has a fancy luxury car that is ordinarily very comfortable, but I had forgotten that I had hurt my back moving one of her big fancy flowerpots out of a storm a couple of days ago, so I moved like an old and/or pregnant person while I was getting into her low, fancy car. Ouch! Also, and perhaps worse, was the fact that my roommate was still quite upset from having a job, and that did not make her driving very good. Also, it was rush hour. Also, she remembered suddenly that she needed to buy something at a store, so she cut across some different lanes and stuff, which was scary.
By the time my roommate was done buying the thing she had remembered she needed to buy at the store (plus some other things she remembered she needed to buy at the store while we were looking for the first thing she had remembered she needed to buy) she decided we didn't have time to eat a sit-down meal at a restaurant if we were going to get back in time for her favorite television show, so we went to a bakery/restaurant to get some takeout instead. First my roommate ordered herself some food and paid for it. Then I ordered myself a healthy vegetarian meal. Then I saw that there was one last fancy red velvet cupcake in the enormous dessert case next to the cash register. I hadn't had a red velvet cupcake since the grand opening of my grandmother's lesbian neighbors' fancy day care for small, fancy dogs in a fancy far-away town almost four years ago, so I asked if I could please have the red velvet cupcake too. The lady at the cash register said I could! Then she took my credit card and scanned it and told me my receipt would be attached to my bag of food.
I sat down to wait with my roommate at a little marble-topped table. The restaurant was empty except for a family that was made up of a mommy and a daddy and three little girls. The littlest girl was so little that it looked like it might have been a boy instead of a girl, but it was wearing a short blue dress over its blue jeans, so I think it was a little girl (but it might not have been). The mommy and the daddy and the two older girls were eating their food at a table, but the littlest girl was toddling all around the restaurant. I thought about stealing the littlest girl, but the lights were really bright, and my roommate would have had to help me run away with the littlest girl because, remember, my roommate was the one who drove us to the restaurant. So I decided not to steal this particular baby even though it was a really cute baby and kept running up to the dessert case and then walking away and then running back, just like I'd done when my roommate and I first showed up at the bakery/restaurant!
After a couple of minutes, two beautiful Persian-looking ladies came in and ordered some food, and I tried not to stare even though they were very beautiful and I was wondering if you could tell if a lady is Persian just by looking at her beautiful Persian-looking eyes. I decided to look at the baby some more because babies almost never get offended if you stare at them. Sometimes they even giggle and wave! The Persian-looking ladies were looking at the baby too, and they laughed at how the baby would run up to the dessert case and point at all the different desserts as if she wanted to try each and every one! (That's what I do too!) Then a busboy brought the Persian-looking ladies their food, which made me feel kind of left out because my roommate and I had ordered our food at least five minutes before the Persian-looking ladies even came in!
Then some people who looked like they were in their early twenties came in. I didn't pay attention to them because the baby's mommy decided it was time to bring her littlest girl back to the table where her other little girls were sitting with their daddy. The littlest girl saw her mommy coming for her and ran away so that her mommy would chase her. The other little girls got up to help their mommy, but the mommy told them to sit down again. The second littlest one wouldn't, so the mommy took her hand and led her back to the table. The littlest girl saw that and decided it would be a good time to toddle halfway to the table and then lie down on the floor on her front. Her mommy saw this and said, "You silly goose!" and picked up her littlest girl so that the littlest girl's little feet hung down and I could see the dusty bottoms of the littlest girl's little white socks.
Then the cash register lady came out from behind the enormous dessert case with our bags of food. My roommate was already getting into her car when I realized that the cash register lady had forgotten to put the one last fancy red velvet cupcake in my bag even though the receipt stapled to the bag said I'd paid two dollars for it. It wasn't in my roommate's bag either, so I went back in and said to the cash register lady, "I asked if I could have the red velvet cupcake, but it isn't my bag even though the receipt says I paid for it!"
"Oh!" said the cash register lady. "Remember those people who were just in here?" (She meant the people who looked like they were in their early twenties. I hadn't noticed that they had already left because I had been looking at the baby girl who had been toddling around but was now sitting with her family.) The cash register lady said, "Well, they had actually already called ahead to reserve the cupcake, and I forgot to tell you that."
"They reserved the cupcake!" I said. "I've never heard of such a thing!" Have you ever heard of such a thing? It seems like a very strange thing to me, to call ahead to reserve a cupcake.
I could hardly believe what the cash register lady had just told me so I said, "They reserved a cupcake?" (with a question sound at the end). The cash register lady nodded. "But I paid for it!" I said.
"I know," the cash register lady said. "I'm very sorry. I can put the money back on your card, or you can have something else."
I didn't want to give the cash register lady my credit card again in case she was just a crazy person who only wanted to charge me for more delicious treats that other people had already reserved for themselves by special telephone pre-order, so I asked if I could have two cookies instead. "You can have as many as you want 'cuz I feel so bad," the cash register lady said, but I only asked for a snickerdoodle and a cowboy cookie because I don't like to take things I haven't paid for, even if there is a ten cent difference in favor of the establishment, which, in this case, there was.
The cash register lady gave me my snickerdoodle and my cowboy cookie, and I thanked her and went back to my roommate's car. When we got home, my roommate went into what was originally called "the common room" but which my roommate has recently begun calling "my room" in order to watch her favorite television show on my seven-hundred-dollar television, while I set my food on the kitchen table and turned on my roommate's two-hundred-fifty-dollar kitchen television so I could watch "Raising Hope". At that very moment on "Raising Hope", the patriarch of the Chance family, Burt Chance, was devising a plot to free MawMaw from the state-run nursing home that involved seventy-five red velvet cupcakes. The Chance family's imaginary red velvet cupcakes didn't look nearly as delicious as the fancy red velvet cupcake I'd been sold at the bakery/restaurant (but didn't get to take home with me) had looked, but they were still delicious-looking enough to remind me of the aforementioned cupcake that had been so close to being mine. So that was another strange thing.
I ate my healthy vegetarian meal and watched as the Chance family did a lot of silly things to try and get their MawMaw back. My healthy vegetarian meal was pretty good, even if it did cost me almost ten dollars. When it was time for a show called "Ben and Kate", I took the fancy red velvet cupcake-replacing cookies out of their little paper bag. Both the snickerdoodle and the cowboy cookie were very gross and stale. They made me so sad that I couldn't even enjoy the zany new "Ben and Kate" television show, so I turned the TV off and came here to my room to write this story in my blog.
The end.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
How Gross I Am, On A Scale of Zero to Twenty
Last night, while doing a little reconnaissance on askmen.com, I stumbled across the following article:
http://www.askmen.com/dating/dating_advice_600/662_a-single-girls-habits.html
If you don't care to read it, I'll just tell you what it's about. Basically, Ask Men stumbled across an article in a women's magazine called The Frisky (I guess Ask Men was doing reconnaissance too) that is a semi-facetious rundown of 20 gross, naughty, and/or annoying habits single women may fall into as a result of living all alone with no one around to criticize them. I found myself going through each item in the list to see how I compare. I did fairly well, but I have to warn you, some of these ladies are pretty icky. Below, I quote each item from the article (with its attendant description), followed by my own take on the habit. It starts out pretty tame:
"1. Playing Tetris On The IPhone While Watching The Real Housewives on TV: Obviously, this is about conflict resolution. The Real Housewives marathon is the conflict. The Tetris marathon is the resolution."
I don't have cable, nor do I own an iPhone. I do, however, play Tetris on my laptop while listening to podcasts. I find if I don't keep my hands busy, I'll pick up a magazine or book or diary and be like, "What is this noise that's making it hard for me to concentrate on what I'm reading? Oh, it's the podcast I've chosen to listen to and would fully enjoy if I were paying attention to it." I do this partly because I'm more of a visual learner and partly because I am, unfortunately, asocial (I feel empathy, though! Why do they assume solitary people lack empathy? Whatever.). I'll give myself half a point on this one.
"2. Making Salad In A Giant Wooden Bowl And Using The Bowl Both For Prep And Eating To Avoid Washing An Extra Dish: It might look stupid. But the two minutes saved on washing extra dishes is worth it."
I don't see how this even made the list. Basically, you are eating a large salad in a large vessel. I make/eat my salads in a Pyrex baking dish. We lady-humans need lots of folate (which is contained in leafy greens) in order to maintain the health of our baby-growing organs. Large salads go with the territory. I think the iffy habit is eating soup directly from a saucepan, like my dad does, since you risk scorching the table (not to mention your tongue!). But I'll go ahead and give myself a full point here.
"3. Rinsing Dishes Instead Of Using Actual Soap: Speaking of dish doing... soap is overrated when you're the only person who uses your dishes. Bask in your own germs."
No thanks. The only thing I will sometimes merely rinse is my paring knife, but even it has to be washed with soap after cutting oily foods like bread or lemons. I use original scent Dawn dish detergent, which not coincidentally, is what I used to clean my brushes back when I was into oil painting--because it works better than mineral spirits! So my soap addiction might not be great for the environment, but even if I've only been drinking water, the glass I'm drinking from is going to have lip and finger prints all over it in about four hours. And water's just not as refreshing when it comes from a dirty glass. Zero points!
"4. Same For Hand Washing After Using The Bathroom. Waste Of Hand Soap!"
This item makes me hope this whole list was made up. While I'm often worrying that I may someday become a woman of ill repute, forced to dance naked for strangers in order to earn enough money to keep buying the five-dollar hand soap I like (Mrs. Meyer's, Geranium or Lemon Verbena scent), there are people out there blithely splashing plain water on their filthy people-paws so they can better smear poop germs all over their hand towels/ doorknobs/ light switches/ clothes/ TV remotes/ iPhones/ friends/ neighbors/ mailboxes/ outgoing parcels/ etc. An emphatically disgusted zero points.
"5. Eating Straight Out Of the Fridge Or in Bed With The Laptop: If you've recently wiped down your regular eating area, it's dumb to get it dirty by taking yet another meal there... alone. Skip the kitchen and go straight from fridge to bed."
If my roommate is being unbearable in that special way that only roommates can, I'll eat on the floor of my room in front of my laptop. Standing with the refrigerator door open is bad for the environment (I have to do something to offset all the soap I use), and eating in bed is for people who already have so much grease oozing out of their pores that they don't mind rolling around in buttery crumbs and oily drips of salad dressing all night. Half a point.
"6. Drinking Straight From the Bottle: Drink Diet Coke straight from the plastic liter. Wine straight from the bottle. Milk straight from the carton."
I don't drink a lot of bottled beverages anymore because they cost significantly more than the disgusting but readily available water-like liquid that comes from the tap. When I do indulge in a bottle of wine or mineral water, I'll use a glass until the bottle is three-quarters of the way empty (or, as the happy people say, a quarter full!). Half a point.
"7. Smushing The Trash Down Further, To Fit More Garbage In, Instead Of Taking It Out: It doesn't matter if your apartment smells like rotting spinach if you're the only one who has to smell it. A candle or some room spray will cover that shit right up and you'll live another day without having to go down four flights of stairs to the dumpster."
I was taught as a child to smush the garbage. However, everyone knows: rotting spinach should be buried in a compost pile (if you have a yard) or a worm bin (if you don't). Also, scented candles are a great way to tell me that you hate me and want me to get a migraine that makes me hate you right back. Room spray is for people who want to develop respiratory conditions. Half a point.
"8. Spilling Something On The Counter And Brushing It Onto the Floor: Coffee grinds, cereal crumbs, pistachio shells, all of it belongs on the kitchen floor where it blends into the ugly linoleum and gets stuck to the bottom of your fuzzy socks."
This relates to The Great Order of The Paper Towels. It goes thusly: 1. Use a paper towel twice to dry your hands (each end of a select-a-size is big and absorbent enough for this if you have girl-hands). 2. Use the damp paper towel to wipe the counter, table, or stove top, folding crumbs into the towel, but knocking the occasional stray crumb onto the floor. 3. When you notice crumbs, dirt or hair accumulating on the floor, find one or more of these partially-used paper towels and wipe the floor. 4. Wash your hands, and dry them on a paper towel, thus renewing the cycle. That is The Great Order of The Paper Towels! Half a point.
"9. Wearing the Same Pair Of Socks Multiple Times: And even if the bottoms of those fuzzy socks are covered in coffee grounds, you can put off washing them for a while. A long while."
I change my socks 2 or 3 times per day. And I wear them around the house with Crocs (aka the best kind of house shoes and the worst kind of shoes to wear in public) which I wash every morning in the shower. Zero points.
"10. Using A Towel For A Really Long Time Without Washing It: Same goes for that face towel you've been using in the bathroom. You can flip it up to four times before every surface is covered in your mascara."
I pray to Little Baby Jesus that this isn't the same person who doesn't wash with soap. I change my towels about once a week. (Maybe this (and the sock thing) is why I feel like I'm always doing laundry.) And I only wore mascara ONE TIME because it gave me a horrible eye infection (is there any other kind of eye infection?), so I threw it away and got some antibiotics. It's not worth risking your eyesight to have clumpy-lashed raccoon-eyes. Zero points.
"11. Boogers Don't Really Need To Go In Tissues: Boogers also can be wiped on walls, under beds, in the carpet. Boogers also like to be flicked. But don't eat boogers. That's truly gross."
No. Please please please please no no no. (Do these girls even own the carpets, walls, etc. they are defiling? If you do this in a rented dwelling, I'm especially horrified.) When I was six or seven, my dad & my sister & I read The Hobbit together, taking turns reading aloud. One thing that stuck with me was Bilbo Baggins' distress at having forgotten his handkerchief when he left home on a perilous journey of many months or years or something. I liked Bilbo a lot, so I left behind the booger-wiping habit when my age was still comfortably within the single digits, and developed a serious tissue-carrying habit. Later on, Ford Prefect taught me always to carry a towel (for a variety of reasons he's happy to expound upon), but I didn't read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy until the summer before high school, so I never formed a towel-carrying habit. This is fortunate because I was already one of the least popular kids at my school. Zero points.
"12. Waiting To Buy TP... : Until you've used every scrap of paper towel and napkin in the house. Boogers especially don't go in tissues if you've been putting off your toilet paper run for a while. Because tissues are the same as toilet paper. Duh."
I'm no longer embarrassed to buy toilet paper. As soon as I put a fresh roll on the doohickey and discover I have just one spare roll left, I'm off to Target for the 36 double rolls... you know, the giant, double-shrink-wrapped package that fills the entire cart. (It's called "economizing".) I'll even go through the check out line that's manned by a super-hot 22-year-old dude-cashier. Too young for me anyway, right? My roommate, however, does do the putting-off thing, then asks to "borrow" a roll from me (gross phrasing--it's not like I want it back!) and promises to "pay me back soon", but so far she hasn't. Zero points.
"13. Leaving Clumps Of Hair In The Hairbrush: As long at [sic] the bristles still run through your hair, you're in business, Betty."
I quit using a hairbrush when I realized that the only way to smooth my hair is to load it up with conditioner and comb it under the shower. This method leaves you at high risk for clogging the drain though, so I'm forever dropping strands and clumps of hair just outside the shower in an untrafficked corner of the bathroom. Where it accumulates. Which is worse than leaving it in a brush. One and a half points.
"14. Taking A Hell Of A Lot Longer To Wash Period Blood Stained Sheets Than We Care To Admit: But, what the hell? We're admitting it now. There is something comforting about sleeping in one's own period stain. Reminds you that you're still fertile, even if no one is "tapping that.""
Are the dudes barfing right now? Or have they all become super-groovy feminists who wish they had periods themselves just so they could better understand our pain? Period blood isn't any grosser than regular blood... perhaps it's even less gross. I don't know. But this is ridiculous. You won't leak all that often if you plan ahead. And if it does happen: 1. Get a shower. 2. Put all stained clothes and sheets into the washer immediately. My mother used to make a big fuss and tell me I had to pretreat and soak and scrub and cry over it and curse my ancestors, but--surprise!--you won't get a stain if it goes in the wash right away. Zero points.
"15. Eating Potato Chips And Onion Dip For Dinner: Tastes better if eaten at the fridge or in bed with the laptop. We recommend following that up with pretzels dipped in peanut butter and Nutella for dessert. An entire meal without dishes!"
I had peanut butter a couple weeks ago, but I haven't eaten potato chips, onion dip, pretzels or Nutella in years. The closest I've come is having Triscuits and hummus as a snack. But unless it's the last serving in the tub, I'm going to use a bowl and a spoon. Zero points.
"16. Sleeping with a teddy bear: His name is Ralph. So what?"
I have a gray Pound Purry kitten named Kitty, but she left the bed when I entered high school. Zero points.
"17. Cupping Our Bare Breasts Or Vagina While Watching TV: It just feels right."
Say what? I've been known to pull an Al Bundy, or pretend my tummy is a lump of freshly-risen bread dough and poke at it a little, but this seems to be taking it too far. Don't get your herpes on the remote, creepos. 1/4 point.
"18. Eating Two Dinners Because The First One Wasn't Very Good So It Didn't Really Count: This will be highly unlikely if you ate potato chips and onion dip for dinner. That shit is satisfying."
We're in the home stretch here. Are you really still reading this? I'm not sure I'M still reading this. Oh well. I'll keep going. Two dinners, you say? I'm a lactose intolerant vegetarian, so my meals are just a series of side-dishes, basically. They can go on and on, ad infinitum. But it's mostly vegetables, so where's the shame in that? Zero points.
"19. Taking MySpace-Style Self Portraits In The Bathroom Mirror: It's important to commemorate these special single moments. Like celebrating an entire day of not using dishes or utensils. Or beating your own Tetris high score while watching The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills reunion special."
The three-year-old profile picture I've been using for the last sixth months was only supposed to stay up until I could get a better shot. So whenever I'm near the bathroom mirror and think, "Gosh, I look a little better today than I've looked in a while," I'll grab my camera and pose. But inevitably, the camera is not impressed (see below), and the old, tired profile pic lives on. One point.
http://www.askmen.com/dating/dating_advice_600/662_a-single-girls-habits.html
If you don't care to read it, I'll just tell you what it's about. Basically, Ask Men stumbled across an article in a women's magazine called The Frisky (I guess Ask Men was doing reconnaissance too) that is a semi-facetious rundown of 20 gross, naughty, and/or annoying habits single women may fall into as a result of living all alone with no one around to criticize them. I found myself going through each item in the list to see how I compare. I did fairly well, but I have to warn you, some of these ladies are pretty icky. Below, I quote each item from the article (with its attendant description), followed by my own take on the habit. It starts out pretty tame:
"1. Playing Tetris On The IPhone While Watching The Real Housewives on TV: Obviously, this is about conflict resolution. The Real Housewives marathon is the conflict. The Tetris marathon is the resolution."
I don't have cable, nor do I own an iPhone. I do, however, play Tetris on my laptop while listening to podcasts. I find if I don't keep my hands busy, I'll pick up a magazine or book or diary and be like, "What is this noise that's making it hard for me to concentrate on what I'm reading? Oh, it's the podcast I've chosen to listen to and would fully enjoy if I were paying attention to it." I do this partly because I'm more of a visual learner and partly because I am, unfortunately, asocial (I feel empathy, though! Why do they assume solitary people lack empathy? Whatever.). I'll give myself half a point on this one.
"2. Making Salad In A Giant Wooden Bowl And Using The Bowl Both For Prep And Eating To Avoid Washing An Extra Dish: It might look stupid. But the two minutes saved on washing extra dishes is worth it."
I don't see how this even made the list. Basically, you are eating a large salad in a large vessel. I make/eat my salads in a Pyrex baking dish. We lady-humans need lots of folate (which is contained in leafy greens) in order to maintain the health of our baby-growing organs. Large salads go with the territory. I think the iffy habit is eating soup directly from a saucepan, like my dad does, since you risk scorching the table (not to mention your tongue!). But I'll go ahead and give myself a full point here.
"3. Rinsing Dishes Instead Of Using Actual Soap: Speaking of dish doing... soap is overrated when you're the only person who uses your dishes. Bask in your own germs."
No thanks. The only thing I will sometimes merely rinse is my paring knife, but even it has to be washed with soap after cutting oily foods like bread or lemons. I use original scent Dawn dish detergent, which not coincidentally, is what I used to clean my brushes back when I was into oil painting--because it works better than mineral spirits! So my soap addiction might not be great for the environment, but even if I've only been drinking water, the glass I'm drinking from is going to have lip and finger prints all over it in about four hours. And water's just not as refreshing when it comes from a dirty glass. Zero points!
"4. Same For Hand Washing After Using The Bathroom. Waste Of Hand Soap!"
This item makes me hope this whole list was made up. While I'm often worrying that I may someday become a woman of ill repute, forced to dance naked for strangers in order to earn enough money to keep buying the five-dollar hand soap I like (Mrs. Meyer's, Geranium or Lemon Verbena scent), there are people out there blithely splashing plain water on their filthy people-paws so they can better smear poop germs all over their hand towels/ doorknobs/ light switches/ clothes/ TV remotes/ iPhones/ friends/ neighbors/ mailboxes/ outgoing parcels/ etc. An emphatically disgusted zero points.
"5. Eating Straight Out Of the Fridge Or in Bed With The Laptop: If you've recently wiped down your regular eating area, it's dumb to get it dirty by taking yet another meal there... alone. Skip the kitchen and go straight from fridge to bed."
If my roommate is being unbearable in that special way that only roommates can, I'll eat on the floor of my room in front of my laptop. Standing with the refrigerator door open is bad for the environment (I have to do something to offset all the soap I use), and eating in bed is for people who already have so much grease oozing out of their pores that they don't mind rolling around in buttery crumbs and oily drips of salad dressing all night. Half a point.
"6. Drinking Straight From the Bottle: Drink Diet Coke straight from the plastic liter. Wine straight from the bottle. Milk straight from the carton."
I don't drink a lot of bottled beverages anymore because they cost significantly more than the disgusting but readily available water-like liquid that comes from the tap. When I do indulge in a bottle of wine or mineral water, I'll use a glass until the bottle is three-quarters of the way empty (or, as the happy people say, a quarter full!). Half a point.
"7. Smushing The Trash Down Further, To Fit More Garbage In, Instead Of Taking It Out: It doesn't matter if your apartment smells like rotting spinach if you're the only one who has to smell it. A candle or some room spray will cover that shit right up and you'll live another day without having to go down four flights of stairs to the dumpster."
I was taught as a child to smush the garbage. However, everyone knows: rotting spinach should be buried in a compost pile (if you have a yard) or a worm bin (if you don't). Also, scented candles are a great way to tell me that you hate me and want me to get a migraine that makes me hate you right back. Room spray is for people who want to develop respiratory conditions. Half a point.
"8. Spilling Something On The Counter And Brushing It Onto the Floor: Coffee grinds, cereal crumbs, pistachio shells, all of it belongs on the kitchen floor where it blends into the ugly linoleum and gets stuck to the bottom of your fuzzy socks."
This relates to The Great Order of The Paper Towels. It goes thusly: 1. Use a paper towel twice to dry your hands (each end of a select-a-size is big and absorbent enough for this if you have girl-hands). 2. Use the damp paper towel to wipe the counter, table, or stove top, folding crumbs into the towel, but knocking the occasional stray crumb onto the floor. 3. When you notice crumbs, dirt or hair accumulating on the floor, find one or more of these partially-used paper towels and wipe the floor. 4. Wash your hands, and dry them on a paper towel, thus renewing the cycle. That is The Great Order of The Paper Towels! Half a point.
"9. Wearing the Same Pair Of Socks Multiple Times: And even if the bottoms of those fuzzy socks are covered in coffee grounds, you can put off washing them for a while. A long while."
I change my socks 2 or 3 times per day. And I wear them around the house with Crocs (aka the best kind of house shoes and the worst kind of shoes to wear in public) which I wash every morning in the shower. Zero points.
"10. Using A Towel For A Really Long Time Without Washing It: Same goes for that face towel you've been using in the bathroom. You can flip it up to four times before every surface is covered in your mascara."
I pray to Little Baby Jesus that this isn't the same person who doesn't wash with soap. I change my towels about once a week. (Maybe this (and the sock thing) is why I feel like I'm always doing laundry.) And I only wore mascara ONE TIME because it gave me a horrible eye infection (is there any other kind of eye infection?), so I threw it away and got some antibiotics. It's not worth risking your eyesight to have clumpy-lashed raccoon-eyes. Zero points.
"11. Boogers Don't Really Need To Go In Tissues: Boogers also can be wiped on walls, under beds, in the carpet. Boogers also like to be flicked. But don't eat boogers. That's truly gross."
No. Please please please please no no no. (Do these girls even own the carpets, walls, etc. they are defiling? If you do this in a rented dwelling, I'm especially horrified.) When I was six or seven, my dad & my sister & I read The Hobbit together, taking turns reading aloud. One thing that stuck with me was Bilbo Baggins' distress at having forgotten his handkerchief when he left home on a perilous journey of many months or years or something. I liked Bilbo a lot, so I left behind the booger-wiping habit when my age was still comfortably within the single digits, and developed a serious tissue-carrying habit. Later on, Ford Prefect taught me always to carry a towel (for a variety of reasons he's happy to expound upon), but I didn't read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy until the summer before high school, so I never formed a towel-carrying habit. This is fortunate because I was already one of the least popular kids at my school. Zero points.
"12. Waiting To Buy TP... : Until you've used every scrap of paper towel and napkin in the house. Boogers especially don't go in tissues if you've been putting off your toilet paper run for a while. Because tissues are the same as toilet paper. Duh."
I'm no longer embarrassed to buy toilet paper. As soon as I put a fresh roll on the doohickey and discover I have just one spare roll left, I'm off to Target for the 36 double rolls... you know, the giant, double-shrink-wrapped package that fills the entire cart. (It's called "economizing".) I'll even go through the check out line that's manned by a super-hot 22-year-old dude-cashier. Too young for me anyway, right? My roommate, however, does do the putting-off thing, then asks to "borrow" a roll from me (gross phrasing--it's not like I want it back!) and promises to "pay me back soon", but so far she hasn't. Zero points.
"13. Leaving Clumps Of Hair In The Hairbrush: As long at [sic] the bristles still run through your hair, you're in business, Betty."
I quit using a hairbrush when I realized that the only way to smooth my hair is to load it up with conditioner and comb it under the shower. This method leaves you at high risk for clogging the drain though, so I'm forever dropping strands and clumps of hair just outside the shower in an untrafficked corner of the bathroom. Where it accumulates. Which is worse than leaving it in a brush. One and a half points.
"14. Taking A Hell Of A Lot Longer To Wash Period Blood Stained Sheets Than We Care To Admit: But, what the hell? We're admitting it now. There is something comforting about sleeping in one's own period stain. Reminds you that you're still fertile, even if no one is "tapping that.""
Are the dudes barfing right now? Or have they all become super-groovy feminists who wish they had periods themselves just so they could better understand our pain? Period blood isn't any grosser than regular blood... perhaps it's even less gross. I don't know. But this is ridiculous. You won't leak all that often if you plan ahead. And if it does happen: 1. Get a shower. 2. Put all stained clothes and sheets into the washer immediately. My mother used to make a big fuss and tell me I had to pretreat and soak and scrub and cry over it and curse my ancestors, but--surprise!--you won't get a stain if it goes in the wash right away. Zero points.
"15. Eating Potato Chips And Onion Dip For Dinner: Tastes better if eaten at the fridge or in bed with the laptop. We recommend following that up with pretzels dipped in peanut butter and Nutella for dessert. An entire meal without dishes!"
I had peanut butter a couple weeks ago, but I haven't eaten potato chips, onion dip, pretzels or Nutella in years. The closest I've come is having Triscuits and hummus as a snack. But unless it's the last serving in the tub, I'm going to use a bowl and a spoon. Zero points.
"16. Sleeping with a teddy bear: His name is Ralph. So what?"
I have a gray Pound Purry kitten named Kitty, but she left the bed when I entered high school. Zero points.
"17. Cupping Our Bare Breasts Or Vagina While Watching TV: It just feels right."
Say what? I've been known to pull an Al Bundy, or pretend my tummy is a lump of freshly-risen bread dough and poke at it a little, but this seems to be taking it too far. Don't get your herpes on the remote, creepos. 1/4 point.
"18. Eating Two Dinners Because The First One Wasn't Very Good So It Didn't Really Count: This will be highly unlikely if you ate potato chips and onion dip for dinner. That shit is satisfying."
We're in the home stretch here. Are you really still reading this? I'm not sure I'M still reading this. Oh well. I'll keep going. Two dinners, you say? I'm a lactose intolerant vegetarian, so my meals are just a series of side-dishes, basically. They can go on and on, ad infinitum. But it's mostly vegetables, so where's the shame in that? Zero points.
"19. Taking MySpace-Style Self Portraits In The Bathroom Mirror: It's important to commemorate these special single moments. Like celebrating an entire day of not using dishes or utensils. Or beating your own Tetris high score while watching The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills reunion special."
The three-year-old profile picture I've been using for the last sixth months was only supposed to stay up until I could get a better shot. So whenever I'm near the bathroom mirror and think, "Gosh, I look a little better today than I've looked in a while," I'll grab my camera and pose. But inevitably, the camera is not impressed (see below), and the old, tired profile pic lives on. One point.
"20. Listening To The Same Song On Loop For Five To Six Days In A Row: And it doesn't matter if it's something uncool like Soul II Soul's "Back to Life." Your Plants won't mind one bit."
Guilty. But I tend to do this only when I'm depressed, so my tastes run toward the melancholy. I'll sing to Adele's 21 until I can't even speak, or lie curled up on the floor as my clock radio/CD player wears out Dog On Wheels by Belle & Sebastian. "Promise me you'll always be around when I call/ And when I fall...". What can I say. Single life is depressing. One point.
So let's see: I think my total is seven and a quarter points. If this were a test in school, I would have failed miserably. I'd be in for remedial grossness classes. But I'm glad it's not because that would be sad. We live in a world where you're free to be as non-gross as you want to be! Thank you, Super Target, for supplying me with most of the things I need in order to live a non-gross life! Now give me my soul back, you credit card statement-dominating Leviathan!
Monday, October 8, 2012
Saturday, October 6, 2012
"I Am So Mad!": This Day in My Personal History, October 6, 1997
Below is my ninth-ever diary entry, from shortly before my fourteenth birthday. It's pretty short and straightforward. I can still picture everything I mention. The restaurant we went to dinner at was an inexpensive (but excellent) pizza place my family went to about once a week for 20 years until the owner decided he had had enough and just moved away without telling anyone (that was about 10 years ago--he must have checked in soon after because I don't remember anyone wondering if he was dead).
The Saturday I mention in the next paragraph was the 4th of October. My sister had recently started her freshman year at Texas A&M University, and her roommate and others were hard at work on one of the colossal bonfires they used to build before one collapsed in 1999 and killed 12 people. At the time of this entry, I thought it was a stupid tradition if only for the waste of trees and the waste of effort, and I was highly skeptical of the intense brainwashing my sister and other A&M students underwent as an essential part of upholding the school's many other ridiculous traditions. I mention none of that in this entry though, because, like I said, I was 13, and this was only my ninth diary entry ever, and I hadn't quite figured out that it's okay to write down these kinds of thoughts.
The entry:
October 6, 1997
I am so mad! My Dad [sic] told me a few days ago that we saw the MIR space station and we didn't! I wanted to see it all day and we had to go to dinner at the exact time it was going to be visible. But we got out of the car too late and what my Dad [sic] said was the station was moving N-S!
Went to visit my sister at college Saturday. That day was 1st CUT for bonfire. Just as we got there, people started getting back from the woods with their grods [A&M slang for muddy work clothes] on and orange pots [A&M slang for hardhats, color-coded by age group] on their heads. [My sister]'s roommate got right in the shower, so we went to the TV room to look at some photos. In about 5 minutes, three sweaty, dirty, blistered handed guys come running up to the TV to try and find the A&M/Colorado game. Soon, about 20 or 30 people came in and started moving furniture and sat in it, covered in mud!
The Saturday I mention in the next paragraph was the 4th of October. My sister had recently started her freshman year at Texas A&M University, and her roommate and others were hard at work on one of the colossal bonfires they used to build before one collapsed in 1999 and killed 12 people. At the time of this entry, I thought it was a stupid tradition if only for the waste of trees and the waste of effort, and I was highly skeptical of the intense brainwashing my sister and other A&M students underwent as an essential part of upholding the school's many other ridiculous traditions. I mention none of that in this entry though, because, like I said, I was 13, and this was only my ninth diary entry ever, and I hadn't quite figured out that it's okay to write down these kinds of thoughts.
The entry:
October 6, 1997
I am so mad! My Dad [sic] told me a few days ago that we saw the MIR space station and we didn't! I wanted to see it all day and we had to go to dinner at the exact time it was going to be visible. But we got out of the car too late and what my Dad [sic] said was the station was moving N-S!
Went to visit my sister at college Saturday. That day was 1st CUT for bonfire. Just as we got there, people started getting back from the woods with their grods [A&M slang for muddy work clothes] on and orange pots [A&M slang for hardhats, color-coded by age group] on their heads. [My sister]'s roommate got right in the shower, so we went to the TV room to look at some photos. In about 5 minutes, three sweaty, dirty, blistered handed guys come running up to the TV to try and find the A&M/Colorado game. Soon, about 20 or 30 people came in and started moving furniture and sat in it, covered in mud!
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
"Fuck Your Fucking Bauhaus": This Day in My Personal History, October 2, 2003
Today I wanted to remember what my life was like on this date nine years ago. I chose 2003 because I had a dream last night about architecture school, and fall 2003 was the beginning of my second year as an architecture student at what the faculty loved to refer to as "the fourth best undergraduate architecture program in the nation" (after, I think, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton). That semester was also when I first began to wonder if architecture was really the right career for me. At the time (and perhaps even now) I wanted to work in film--writing and/or directing--but I was telling everybody that I was becoming an architect in order to go into set design or production design. It was my way of doing what my dad wanted me to do (architecture) while still believing I was moving in a direction of my own choosing.
I was nineteen at the time, a little over a month from turning twenty. I felt horrible anxiety at the end of my teen years because EVERYONE in my childhood had acted like they expected me to be a great prodigy of some sort or another. If I hadn't written a novel/ shot a feature film/ saved the fucking planet by the time I was twenty, would I ever really amount to anything? This seems absurd now, but as I approach 30, I find I feel much the same about my twenties as I did then about my teens.
Below is my diary entry from October 2, 2003. As you read it, please keep in mind the following:
1) I know that this entry is ridiculous. I laughed the whole time I read it and I hope you'll do the same.
2) I abbreviated all the names to save everyone involved any embarrassment, especially myself.
3) S., L., and G. are professors (coincidentally, all female). I had and still have a great deal of respect for all three of these women, but they were demanding teachers and very much in line with the elitist aspects of a professional education.
4) At this time I shared the top floor of a Victorian house with two strangers. J. was the young man I shared a bathroom with. (The crazy landlord and his crazy common law wife/secretary lived downstairs.)
5) I am NOT bi-polar. I was nineteen and going through a difficult time socially and emotionally.
6) I DO know the words to that Jimi Hendrix song. In fact, I think I knew them then and I was just making a crappy joke.
7) I do NOT hate men/boys. I have fond memories of all the boys I mention here, none of whom I actually dated. The problem was, what I took to be intentionally cruel mixed signals (i.e. flirting with me heavily one minute, snogging some other chick the next) I now recognize as typical, unfocused, college guy horniness.
8) I cut this entry down to be slightly less insufferably long. It's still pretty long though.
9) I almost never curse this much, even in writing.
Okay, hopefully that covers it. Here's the entry:
October 2, 2003
11:02 PM
Just got back from "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind". Finally. I did not realize it was written by Charlie Kaufman until the end, but I should have known. I'd like to think that someday he might write a screenplay about my life and how pointless and ironic it is and still manage to inspire hope in the weird way that he does.
The process of becoming an architect fascinates me. Rather, the life of a young architect. This feeling hits me sometimes like I'm doing the most glamorous thing that has ever happened. I mean, fuck. It's been going on for so long. Like soldiers. Like priests. Like whores.
I'm fascinated by everything. Now. Two weeks from now I'll want to blow my fucking brains out again.
I have a big ego for hating myself. Just what I need--another reason to hate myself.
Whoa--what happened to my good mood? Here it is--tomorrow's Friday and I don't give a shit, so I'm going home!
M. was probably stupid. Booksmart, yeah--literature. But he said himself he failed a lot of math. How fucking worthless does your logical core have to be to not only not know that a square is a rhombus while a rhombus is not always a square, but to not know that that pertains to geometry? I don't give a fuck about Rabbit Run. You can fucking suck it.
F. is a bastard. When every girl you meet can't help but want to flirt with you, you're automatically a bastard. I don't give a shit if he does like me.
B. and fucking X. B.'s a fucking cowboy who gets stupid when he's drunk. X. is a bragging, lying little fuck who would sell his soul to be fucking important.
Fuck them all. Just fuck them.
I'm sick of crushes. I'm sick of wondering. I'm sick of being a stupid little fuck who can't concentrate when a hot guy walks in the room. Fuck it. Just fuck it.
I probably might (what the fuck is "probably might"? fucking pick one) be manic-depressive for real. I think "bipolar" is more offensive--it implies that you are round and portly--like a planet.
MANIC-DEPRESSIVE. Like the Jimi Hendrix song--how does it go? "Manic-depression..." sumpin'-sumpin'-sumpin'.
M. was nice. And smart. And handsome. And presumably rich. Martha's Vineyard. Martha's fucking Vineyard. Who the fuck grows up there?
IF J. IS GETTING IN THE FUCKING SHOWER I AM GOING TO FUCKING KILL HIM NO ONE NEEDS three fucking showers in one day. Okay. He was just taking a piss.
I've started saying "bullshit" among my peers because there is so much of it. I also said "bitch". In reference to nevermind [sic] who. I want cake and milk. Silver fork. China plate. CAAAKE. MIIILK.
AHHNNNGGG.
Fuck it, I don't give a shit.
Fuck your Harvard, S., and your Yale, L. Fuck your fucking Bauhaus, G. I fucking hate architecture! Why do I have to fucking love it so fucking much!
I treasure the film stamp I get at the [Student] Union theatre [sic] free showings. It makes me feel like... God. Free movies are the sexiest thing ever. Honestly.
Chocolate cake. Cookie. Donut. Anything. Feed me pleeeeease.
I should go to bed.
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