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Organic experience

Thursday, April 22, 2004

 

I know that just about everyone loves Elton John’s ‘Tiny Dancer’. The Ben Harper version is spectacular, in fact. But the song has always kind of creeped me out. ‘Now she’s in me’ always with me’ Tiny Dancer in my hand’. Is it just me? I kind of get an Ed Gein vibe out of that. But maybe it’s because I live in the Serial Killer state and somewhat overly suspicious.

Also, I suspect that linen sheets would offend my Princess and Pea mentalities. While undoubtedly absorbent, I just wonder wouldn’t they rather have some find pima cotton 600 thread count instead? Linen? Might as well sleep on burlap. Or very nubby Empire Strikes Back sheets with faded urine stains.

Kerouac had his road trips, I babysat for bed wetters. It’s amazing, the parallels.

A few nights ago, Esteban was working late and I was forced to feed only myself. It’s amazing (or not) how the quality of my food preparation is directly proportional to the number of people who will consume said food. For instance, when I prepare meals for Esteban and myself, I make some pretty good non-recipe stuff from my mental cook book, usually involving a better cut of meat, some kind of carbohydrate, a vegetable (summarily ignored by half the diners), and a good chance of some fresh bread product, be it either a spawn of the Pillsbury Dough Boy or something I cobbled together on my own. And usually, it’s pretty tasty. If we have a guest, I’ll usually up the number of vegetables, homemade bread becomes a must, and something in the chocolate family will make an appearance. If several people are coming over and I know about it in advance, I will generally plan something that involves a lot of work, like homemade ravioli, and usually go for some impressive side dish culled from a cooking show, and then go for a showstopper dessert that may or may not involve edible sugared flowers.

But to feed myself, I pretty much rely upon a sandwich, cereal, or, if I want to be extra special, a bowl of tomato soup. But really, let’s not kid ourselves’ most times, it’s just toast. Toast with peanut butter, toast with peanut butter and bananas (if they have not reduced to a black slurry), or toast with chopped cherry jam. And sometimes, just toast with toast. And then if I’ve been very good, more toast.

And honestly, I’m 32 years old. I should be eating better than that. I am mocked by 1970’s Saturday morning public service cartoons because I never not ever feel like a little sunshine on a stick. Toast. Just give me toast, thank you very much.

Also, apparently my star sign is in the frugal plane right now, as I found myself in front of the open refrigerator contemplating the boulder of Esteban’s leftover rice. And I decided’ hey, how hard can it be to make fried rice?

So I did. I had to actually scrape out sedimentary rice and break it up with my bare hands, so I was pretty skeptical that it was going to work. Also, I didn’t have (or feel like dealing with) any appropriate vegetables other than some rogue frozen peas and I didn’t add a vegetable. I did, however, have Kikkoman soy sauce (my friend Tim who owns and is head chef at a Japanese restaurant in town swears that it is the secret to his incredible fried rice) and fresh eggs. Esteban walked in after I had added peas (and therefore, in his opinion, turned the rice into a biohazard) and was whisking the eggs, so I got bonus points for being caught IN THE ACT of cooking for my very own self, as though I do it all the time and what is this ‘toast’ thing you speak of?

Then I tasted it.

I couldn’t believe what was in my mouth, so I carefully scooped up a non-pea portion and had Esteban try it.

‘Wow! That’s really good!’ He exclaimed.

‘I KNOW! I can’t believe it! It’s like’ the best fried rice ever in the history of fried ricedom! I wonder if I’m secretly an Iron Chef?’ I was perplexed.

‘See’ I know how to make good rice.’ Esteban smirked and wandered out of the kitchen.

Ok, Big Chief Automatic Rice Cooker. Whatever.

Seriously, it was the best fucking fried rice I’ve ever had in my life. I don’t know if it was the Kikkoman or the careful rehydration of the Brick O Rice, but holy hell I was way impressed with myself! And the plus side was that because I’m used to cooking for three people (Esteban has a farm boy appetite), by the grace of peas I still had a plethora of the delectable rice for leftovers. Leftover leftovers. Woot!

Esteban and I were watching my televised American Idol crack last night (seriously, if ever I have a doubt in my head that poor man loves me, I have only to think about how much stupid television he endures to hang out with me) when, during a commercial break, he snickered.

“I love it when the commercials offend you. You make the cutest little exasperated face!”

I had no idea. But he was right. The particular piece of offense this time was the Herbal Essence commercial, in which an apparently repressed woman derrives sexual pleasure not from touching her magic place, but rather from washing her hair with a certain shampoo. First of all, I’m pretty sure that’s a sexual dysfunction, but I don’t have my copy of the DSMIV lying around to check. And there are all sorts of obnoxious implications that a psychologist could probably expound upon entire reams of paper, finally blaming the entire mess on an emotionally distant father figure.

But then (but THEN!) her politically correct, same ethnic-grouped genetic male (which for purposes of the advertising world, is her husband and not her, say, fuck buddy) wanders in and says “Honey, where are my socks?”

She growls back “In your drawer… next to your loin cloth.”

Oh! You big sexy man beast! You grunting ape of a man who cannot fathom where the laundry fairy has laid your socks on that day. Could they be under a magical toadstool in the yard? Perhaps they are in the attic, with the Christmas decorations (because, of course, they are WASPs) in the wardrobe to Narnia. Yes, you smoldering pillar of phallus, the very fact that you must ask this obviously sexually UNDERWHELMED woman where she has last seen your tube socks, it makes her want to rip off your clothes! Ask her if the underwear in the drawer are clean and I’m betting that she’ll start humping your leg right then and there! She wants you! She wants you in all of your incompetent selfish male glory! Make sweet missonary position sex with her for at least two minutes like the porn star you are!

Fucking commercial.

PS. I do NOT make a cute face when I’m offended.

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Got pie

Monday, April 19, 2004

This weekend was pretty low key. Esteban worked most of the day on Saturday, and I did very little. Actually, I think I sat around reading magazines with a heating pad on my knee, drinking juice to ward off the impending bout of bronchitis that is lurking just out of the reach of my deepest inhalation. Later, Esteban came home and I made Ikea Swedish Meatballs and boiled red potatoes and homemade yeast bun thingies, which were very tasty indeed. The Ikea meatballs squicked me out a little bit, but Esteban found them quite delicious. He also tried his new rice cooker for the first time, because he likes to eat Swedish Meatballs with rice. He asked if I thought four cups would be enough, which I thought would be fine for the two of us, except that he meant four cups of uncooked rice. Thus, we now have a glut of cooked rice that is currently fused into a very formidable bowl-shaped rock.

We could not decide what we wanted to do for the evening, vacillating on going to see Hell Boy or Kill Bill 2 or just sit around and canoodle (my word, not his). Out of apathy, we ended up sitting there watching a Pie Cook Off competition and getting emotionally vested in the fact that we did not want Phyllis from Oklahoma to win, simply because she said untoward things about Marlis, also from Oklahoma. And then we got to have utter chagrin over the interview from several large women with large hair from Wisconsin who also had very strong opinions on pie making. Most of these women learned the careful art of pie making from their grandmothers or treasured great aunts, but I was struck by the fact that six women won first place in the dozen odd pie categories. Obviously, our wealth of excellent amateur pie makers has already begun to dwindle. Or perhaps there is so very little pride in piemanship left to compel people to travel to Celebration, Florida and get down and dirty with the dutch apples of the nation.

I wonder what will happen in the next several years, when there are fewer and fewer pie women out there. I love me some good pie, but honestly, there is really NOTHING like a good homemade pie. I’ve thought about making a road trip back to Osseo for the simple pleasure that is another slice of Norske Nook pie. A good crust is very zen. I think you can only produce a delicate flaky tasty crust if you are without a sin in your heart. Obviously, I wouldn’t have a clue. No one has ever taught me how to make a piecrust. My mother-in-law makes a very good one and when I ask her how to do it, she just laughs and says there’s nothing to it. I need to remind her that I’m serious’ she needs to show me how or write down the recipe or something. Although, honestly, I think I’m more afraid of the process than anything. Armed with a good recipe and a rolling pin, I could probably cobble through a few until I figured out the trick. But pie’ man, there is nothing like good pie.

After watching tourists shovel free pie samples into their mouths, Esteban said ‘So, do you want to go to the next Pie Bake Off?’

‘Hell yeah,’ I said, staring at a lascivious banana cream.

‘Ok, take this in the spirit in which it is intended’ as two fat people, how exactly do you tell people ‘Yup, going to the pie cook off’?’

‘With pride and head held high, my love. You can live your life with shame or you can have pie. There is no in-between.’

‘Great. Thank you Pie Yoda. See, I’d hate to walk into the hotel and have some little snot behind the desk look at me and say ‘Oh’ here for the PIE CONTEST are we?&AO8AvwC9AO8AvwC9-

‘You have to have a plan. You just cock an eyebrow and say ‘Yes, if by ‘pie’ you mean hair pie!’ and then rhythmically rock your pelvis going ‘Oh! Oh!’ and slapping an imaginary ass in front of you.’

‘You’re not like other wives, you know.’

‘I should hope not.’

As it turned out Phyllis won at least one of the pie categories, but much to our delight, Marlis took several first place ribbons. I hope it shut that damn Phyllis right up. Nothing like hubris to give pie a bad aftertaste.

Later, we watched and booed Bobby Flay in the most rigged Iron Chef ever. We don’t like Bobby Flay. We hope that he might accidentally stab himself one day.

I should probably be embarrassed that I just recounted fat people spending their Saturday evening getting emotionally wrapped up in Food Network. Except that I’m not.

Catching up on some issues that were mentioned in this space or on the notify list (I’m too clueless to sort out which):

*I didn’t get Dave Matthews tickets. In a bit of complete and utter stupidity, I was on the website and also on the phone at the same moment. On the website, I secured two lovely seats in the 26th row, but I decided to wait and see if I could get better ones on the phone before I hit ‘Buy’ on the site. You can already tell by the impending music of doom in the background that our feckless heroine accidentally found that the allotted two minutes had passed before she hit ‘Buy’ and the tickets were lost. Bird in the hand, people. That is all.

*I finally hooked up with my stylist Stacy after her broken foot incident. My initial suspicions about the butchering of my hair were confirmed. There were complete uneven weird layers and just general badness happening on my head. At one point, she held up a section of hair that went from two inches long to five inches and announced that there was a hole in the back of my head, which is a rather disturbing bit of stylist jargon. She has cleaned up the carnage as best she can, but my hair is now several inches shorter and the Growing Out project is now being investigated by a Senate subcomittee. Also, my bangs are now channeling Betty Page. I haven’t yet decided how I feel about this.

*My thumb still hurts. I know! It’s unreal! I almost cannot function without it. You would not BELIEVE how much I do with my left thumb. Everything from squeezing the toothpaste to putting the dishes away. Try to pull up your pants without your left thumb, once, just you try it. Damned near impossible, that’s what. I still don’t know what I did to it, but apparently it was very efficient.

*Two Saturdays ago, I broke my Target Streak. Shamefully, I have found myself wandering around Target for the previous nine consecutive Saturdays. I find that very sad and also telling. Telling what, that is for others to say. I was somewhat proud over the fact that I had gotten the Target off my back, however, this last weekend, I ended up perusing the aisles for a Kill Bill DVD (the notify list knows the scoop), so even though technically I wasn’t there on Saturday, I still feel very ashamed.

*The Demeter purchase that I made online during their big fabulous 10% off sale? Never arrived. Finally, seven weeks after I ordered it, they finally refunded my money. Bastards. I shall never stray from Sephora again.

*I started physical therapy on my knee last week. Which sucked. I’ve been limping all weekend and after the various tests and stretching, now something doesn’t feel right. And I get to go again tomorrow. I can hardly contain the excitement. Or the whining, apparently.

*I have received a few No Thank Yous from my last wave of short story submissions, including one weird one from Rosebud that seems to have some kind of insulting commentary, which has been hastily scribbled out with a very thick blue marker. I can only imagine that it doesn’t apply to me because it specifically mentions the story (I sent three) was too long (all three were under 3000 words, one under 1000) and mentioning that if a story is so long that it should at least get better if they are going to justify publishing such a long story instead of two smaller ones. So, because it’s crossed out and not really applicable, is he talking about me? Or did he cross it out because it was kind of harshly worded and he worried that I would dissolve in a peal of tears? And how professional is a big thick blue marker? Couldn’t he have just printed out another letter? What? Okay? (I now feel that every communication from a literary authority figure should end with the question ‘okay?’ because it still makes me laugh.)

*I have now heard from all of the graduate programs. One of them would like me to attend their school. While the news that I do not, in fact, suck is very swell and quite uplifting to my redheaded step-esteem, I have not yet decided what to do about this. But I will let you know when I do. Okay?

 

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Um…what?

Friday, April 16, 2004

I think sometimes that I seem smarter than I am. My head, sometimes she is a very spacious place. A designer might look at the real estate in my cranium and suggest filling it with armoires and four poster beds, going on Louis the Fourteenth on its ass. It takes a big space for tapestries, you know, but if you’ve got it, then, man, let’s go with the full floor-to-ceiling window treatments in brocade.

I don’t know what I’m talking about either.

But today, I have off. It’s sort of nice and all thanks to a beeper that I now carry instead of staying at work until it is dark and most children are asleep in their beds, dreaming about’ gah, I was going to say Pokemon, but I realize that is so, like, three years ago. Or more. I don’t even know. I’ve become one of those adults that were saying ‘Daddy-O’ when I was a kid and it was like, chyeah, like, I’m so sure.

Anyway, on my day off, I have this weird French thing going on. I’m listening to Edith Piaf and thinking about making popovers while reading some Lorrie Moore short stories (one of which seemed very familiar and then I realized that I’ve actually heard Lorrie Moore herself read it at a smallish Invitation Only Wisconsin literati event (smallish because Wisconsin has low Literati per capita (and here we go with multiple layers of parentheticals again))’ and then I had to switch to another book because I remembered that Ms. Moore had been kind of pompous and also kind of a jerk and when I complimented her on her reading later at the wine reception, she asked what my name was and when she hadn’t heard of it, and then I mentioned that I actually came to support two of the other writers, one of which was one of my friends, she got very disinterested and started looking around the room and then I swore that I would never act that way if and when I ever became famous or even famous in small circles, so there Ms. Moore, you poopyhead) and trying to remember what the French word for ‘sixty’ is, because otherwise apparently I can only count to 59 in French, unless I skip the sixties and then I can get up to 159. And my brain keeps insisting that it’s ‘sechsig’, but I think that’s sixty in German. Or the name of a Berlin strip club.

Last night, it was Cosi Fan Tutte (which is a lovely, less popular Mozart opera, and perfect for when you’re in the mood for some opera, but couldn’t really bear the thought of listening to something heavy like Don Giovanni. It’s perfect if you’re feeling, you know, opera peckish.) while I browsed home catalogs (aka furniture porn) and thought about taking pictures of rocks and using one to replace the only picture in our living room which is not a black and white photograph. I think I was munching on really old cheese and sipping 100% organic juice, too.

From a distance, someone might think I was one of those people. Those smart uppity Lorrie Moore kind of people. But they wouldn’t know about the pack of frozen raspberry zingers in the freezer. Or the two-week old copy of The Sun, with a compelling article about the shroud of Turin and also a lucky blue dot that will bring me thousands of dollars should I spend several minutes staring at it a day, visualizing myself having thousands of dollars. (I have not, however, tested that claim. I keep wondering if it just works for money, or if it would work for anything, say, cans of Campbell’s Chicken and Stars soup? If I visualized rows upon rows of lovely Chicken and Stars, would the magic blue dot bring them to me by the truck load? Or would it get confused?)

So, anyway, not so smart. Also, downloaded between the Edith Piaf and Charles Trenet, there lies a rather smarmy copy of Clay Aiken’s ‘Invisible’. Actually, two copies, because I’m too dumb to realize that I downloaded one already and hence, have now downloaded it twice.

Wait. Three times. Fuck.

And also a weird Elvis Costello cover of Abba’s ‘Knowing Me Knowing You’, which I had to download for the freak factor. It’s actually not that bad. It’s sort of Costello-y in that way that is almost the musical version of a post-coital deserted motel room containing an overflowing ashtray with three different types of cigarette butts in it. So this is a dirty Swedish Modern ashtray. And also, sort of makes me crave a Sea Breeze. I can’t quite explain that.

Esteban came home from Virginia last night. He asked me to meet him at the Ass Splinter Bar since it’s right by the airport. He wanted to get dinner after his tedious flights and layover in O’Hell. But his last flight was delayed, so I ended up sitting by myself at the Ass Splinter Bar for two hours, listening to truly horrific karaoke (and it wasn’t even Karaoke Gal and Karaoke Ma singing’ sadly the patrons themselves were making my ears bleed.) I figured since I was stuck there for at least an hour or more, I threw two slips at Karaoke Ma (who seems to get shorter and wider with old age, not to mention more compulsive about the song books) and then sat and stared at my Diet Coke and cringed at every karaoke stereotype that ever was (The Rose? Why the hell does that song even EXIST? And why does every bad female singer feel compelled to sing it? In public? It’s the karaoke version of a velvet kitten painting in a wood-paneled double-wide. It’s an auditory plague. No more The Rose! Say it with me! DOWN WITH THE ROSE!), including not one, not two, but FOUR mullets. Two on women. And one of the women was wearing white leggings (over apparently white Fruit Of The Loom Woman hipster underwear), tight to her cankles. She was fifty-two. And drunk. And chain-smoking Marlboros.

Esteban finally arrived at 10:30, but it turned out that the kitchen was closed, so we went home, where he dove into what is possibly the largest box of Lucky Charms I have ever seen. A bit of Esteban trivia: he is a dirty Lucky Charms slut. He never got sugar cereals as a kid and still really hasn’t gotten over the novelty. I rarely buy them because he will eat five bowls in one sitting, but this box was such a monolith (not to mention, on sale for less than a normal-sized box) that I had to buy it just so that Esteban would feel like a damned Czar with a treasure room filled with pre-sweetened cereal. And then after I stowed it on our cereal shelf in the pantry, I promptly forgot about it. So when we came home and Esteban prepped for his cereal dinner and withdrew his giant box of cereal from the pantry, he remarked ‘Whoa’ that’s a lot of Lucky Charms.’

I wandered into the bathroom to wash my face. ‘Yeah, I thought it was large too. In fact, when I saw it in the store, I thought I heard the faint strains of the 2001 Space Odyssey theme, only performed as an Irish drinking song.’

I then changed into my pajamas (Which, by the way, yoga pants are such a mystery. How is it possible that anyone actually does exercise in them? I put them on and boom–ass on couch. It’s totally cause and effect), and wandered back into the living room.

Esteban, between the blue moons and purple horseshoes, said ‘You know, I must be getting very stupid, because I just got that.’

‘What?’

‘The Irish 2001 thing.’

‘I thought it was funny.’

‘I’m not saying it wasn’t funny. I’m saying that I’m apparently stupid.’

So the question is: did I catch the stupid from him or am I the carrier? I would compose a theorem, but there’s a bowl of jelly beans in the kitchen. So yeah. That.

If I’m really lucky, there will still be some banana Life-savers in the mult-pack that I call Many Urpy Flavors And Also Banana.

My camera and I went to the second-hand store today, where I bought a desk but left the store without it (see above). Then we drove out to the ledge and pretended that we were artsy. So here you go.

These

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Public Domain ROOLZ!

Tuesday, April 13, 2004

Want to make Doug pee his pants?

I do.

Go vote for his band Public Domain here. Oh and take a listen to the music too… you’ll quickly understand why he’s in the running for this honor.

Also, I added pictures to last night’s entry, including the crazy Ford Focus. Which is SO not going to be me. Like I’d ever drive a FOCUS. Gah.

Vote for Public Domain.

You know you want to.

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Meat or Death

Monday, April 12, 2004

The weekend, ah what a lovely weekend.

Esteban had his Dorkathalon on Friday night. This was a surprise to me. Somewhere, somehow, I think they switched weeks, as it seemed to me that the Dorkatalon coincided with my pay day and last Friday was distinctly not my pay day. I complained that this totally messed with my social life, as his Dorkathalon Fridays also coincided with Carissa’s ex-husband’s kid weekend, and therefore, we usually planned Bad Bar nights on those Fridays. But apparently it had something to do with the calendar and the month of April having five Fridays and it will all sync up again in either October or November (ie. So bloody far away that it hardly matters) so now I just have to live with it. And whine. Which is good because I excel at whining. And my pout can take out entire armies of men wondering what they did wrong.

Anyway, since I had planned to consult with Esteban on our plans for Friday night, I didn’t plan anything myself and then when I found out that I was on my own, I sort of wandered around the house without a clue until 8 pm, then went for a drive, half-expecting to go to the mall or something, but then by the time I got in the area of the mall, it was 8:30 and it was going to close, so instead I drove around a bit more, listening to mix CDs, singing along to the Pixies at the top of my lungs, and then ended up back at the house with a complete sense of having wasted time. And, if you know me at all, you’ll know that I am not a time-waster. I may procrastinate, lawd’s sakes alive yes, but I usually am accomplishing something else in the process. I hate the feeling of blowing an entire night doing absolutely nothing. Which I did. Which sucked.

I then retired to my bed around 11 and blew through the backlog on Ricky Fitts (how much do I love Coral on new Real World Challenge? Seriously, I probably understand Coral better than any other reality television person out there. Most women on television either offend me or leave me cold for falling into stereotypes and giving females a bad name (Trishelle, I’m looking your way) but Coral’ Coral needs to stay gold, Ponyboy.) After I turned out the light, the concept of sleep was impossible. My brain was in overdrive. I couldn’t even distract it with my cadre of mind-movies (the current one starring Russell Crowe as a rapscallion pirate inexplicably dressed like Alexander the Great) and finally I gave up and played Internet Backgammon on the pc against a Russian until Esteban came home at 1. Then we stayed up talking about the future, my current existential crisis, the meaning of life and how much I want a Kate Spade purse (still). Because apparently, I’m three parts Martha Stewart, two parts Marilyn Monroe and one part Mama Cass with a little Camus dabbed behind each ear.

Finally, I was able to fall asleep around 4:30 am, and woke around 10ish. We laid in bed talking about nothing much. Esteban asked me what I had planned for the day, which was pretty much nothing. I had some vague goals, but nothing really concrete. Esteban planned to catch up on work since he was going to be on a business trip to DC for most of the upcoming week.

Then he cocked an eyebrow at me and said ‘Want to take a road trip in the truck to Ikea in Chicago and buy my desk?’

I balked. It was already quarter to 11 and Chicago was four hours away. I suggested that we go on Sunday, but that was Easter and everything would be closed. I suggested the following weekend when we could get up early and do it right. Esteban pouted ‘Sure, the one time I am spontaneous! You want to be all Planny McPlansalot.’

Now I know what it’s like to argue with me. Fucking annoying.

I waffled and then whined a bit and then suggested that we could take the M and certainly the desk would fit in the trunk. Esteban countered that there was no way it would fit in the trunk and what if we got down there and it didn’t? Then the whole thing would be for nothing. I asked about ordering it online, but he had already looked into it and they couldn’t ship it because it was just too big. I predicted the whole thing would be tiring because we both needed to shower and also the interior of the truck hadn’t been cleaned since the last time Joel borrowed it (and it was so filthy that he got squicked and took it to be washed) and I didn’t want to bounce around in the truck and be all itchy from dust for eight hours or more. Esteban offered to get it cleaned while I took a shower. I said ‘Let me think about it.’ But then once I was in the shower decided that it did sound like fun and I could also return one of the pairs of shoes that I bought at the Maul of America Nordstrom. So by the time I had finished getting dressed and drying my hair, Esteban returned from getting the truck washed and fueled and we were walking out the door.

We had a delightful drive down to Chicago, fueled by a 125-song MP3 disk full of sing-along songs and discussions about how David Crosby was really a freaky choice to be a father of Melissa Etheridge’s children and if we were a lesbian couple, my choice for the perfect rock daddy would be Sting or Robert Smith (from The Cure) and Esteban’s choice would be either some guy from the band Yes (Ian Anderson?) or Colin Hay (who I thought wouldn’t be so much because he’s not really done anything since Men At Work and also he’s got that weird eye thing going on). Honestly, though, I fail to see how anyone could not pick Sting to be their baby daddy. I mean, can you even conceive of a stupid or ugly Baby Sting? No. Not possible.

Three and a half hours, a politically ridiculous Ford Focus (that I pointedly ridiculed and photographed for posterity, forcing Esteban to comment that without my propensity toward the snobby, that would be me in ten years), and two bathroom breaks later, we found ourselves in Schaumburg, Illinois, contemplating the maze of access roads and then staring at an unbelievably busy Ikea. It reminded me of an anthill, swarmed by people and cars carrying objects twice and six times their size. In a low voice, Esteban said ‘So, since this place is open until 10, do you want to go to the mall first?’ ‘Absolutely’ I replied, dreading the inevitable crusade into the great blue box filled with overzealous DIYers.

First we went to the various after-market retailers (Nordstrom Rack, Marshall’s, etc), where the general retail mishap and messiness curtailed my consumer instincts. Esteban did claim a dry measuring cup, the first in his Alton Brown shrine. He longs for a salt cellar.

Then we went to Nordstrom Proper so that I could return my too-tight black penny loafers. I then experienced love at fourth sight when I spotted a completely perfect Kate Spade bag (the Sam, if you’re curious) in both hot pink and also my perennial favorite black. It was $140. I had just received credit for $100 for the shoes, so really, it would be a $40 bag. I picked it up. I put it back down. I picked it up again and carried it as far as the Kiehl’s counter. Then I walked it back to the other bags. I wandered to the coffee bar and got a banana smoothie. Then I walked back through the store, the lovely little purse winking at me over the jewelry counter. I paused by men’s shoes and called Esteban, who was waiting for me in the truck, having an inborn resistance to the allure of Nordstrom.

The ‘I want to buy a bag. It’s a Kate Spade.’

‘So buy it.’

‘It’s $140.’

‘Wow.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Sheesh.’

‘But I just brought back those shoes and they were $100.’

‘It’s leather?’

‘No, nylon.’

‘It’s a $140 nylon bag? Made of nylon? For $140?’

‘Ok, I needed that. Thank you.’

So I didn’t buy the bag. Had it a pink polka dot interior or a better closure on the top, I would have bought it, but it was imperfect and therefore not worth $140. But I rest soundly in knowing that I will find a Kate Spade bag that will be perfect and at that time, I may choose to buy it, even if I am very poor and even if I already have four hundred little black bags, but no matter, for it will be perfect and we will be destined for each other. I may not be a hopeless romantic for love, but I am definitely one when it comes to shopping and to accept anything less would cheapen the thrill of the game.

I actually don’t like all Kate Spade bags. I don’t like them just because of the name. We saw some at the Rack but they were fugly and gross gallumping kind of bags that girls with no pride might use to schlep their condoms and yeast infection medicine. Or so I presume. But some of them are exactly right, exactly what I would have designed would that I were a snooty purse designer. But I am not. I am not visual. I simply know what I like. I sort of do wish I had as cool of a name as Kate Spade, though. Or rather kate spade. The decision to have her name in lower case was brilliant. Brilliant! I would do the same, except that my name is not so compact and so prettily serifed. Only a kate spade could get away with that motif. A Hildagaard Mortensen would have to choose something else entirely. And probably only sell her bags at Mal*Wart for $9.97.

Esteban then suggested that since we were in one of the four cities with a Fogo de Chao that we take the opportunity and have dinner there. I’ve wanted to try the Brazillian fare since Esteban dined there on a business trip to Atlanta. I called and made a reservation but the earliest we could get a table for two was 10 pm. We both shrugged, took the reservation, and figured that since we had only been awake for five hours, it wasn’t that unreasonable to eat dinner in five hours and then drive home for another four.

Ikea! We then endeavored into the big blue box of Ikea and found Esteban’s desk. I wandered around looking to pick up something, but in the end, I just bought a bunch of similar different-sized black frames for some of the black and white photos I snapped in England. Then, we loaded up the truck, after helping a confused couple from Grand Rapids jump start their Dodge Intrepid (they also drove four hours just to go to Ikea’ hullo, richest guy in the world, are you listening?) because apparently they asked fourteen different people to help them and we were the first who agreed to do it.

Then we endeavored back toward the city to find the restaurant. The hostess at the restaurant gave us only the weak ‘Take the Ohio street exit off 94’ but didn’t offer which direction off 290 we needed nor the exit number. When we got to 94, I suggested that we turn towards Indiana, because that way if we went the wrong direction, at least we wouldn’t end up backtracking when we went back home (which makes perfect sense to me and I suppose, if analyzed by a computer, would be the key to unlocking my messed up logical processes). We did and of course, it was completely the wrong direction on the Dan Ryan. We had to turn around, so we exited when we spotted an off-ramp with a matching on-ramp in the other direction. Except that the on-ramp was closed. And there was a detour.

Through what might have been hell itself.

Seriously, it was awesome. Because I am so sheltered (and, as Esteban would likely mention, completely unconcerned with my own safety), I am delighted by nasty neighborhoods. Seriously. And this neighborhood looked like a third world country. It was like we were driving through a movie set. There was a specific lack of graffiti. I suspect it was because the residents couldn’t afford paint. There was even a burning trash can. When we both watched wide-eyed as what had to have been a drug deal went down on the sidewalk next to us, Esteban murmured ‘Great’ just great’ while I squealed with delight. It was great! It was prime entertainment.

And yes, I am the whitest girl on the planet. But seriously, I’ve now seen a hooker/john pickup and a crack deal in progress. My Urban Decay bingo card is well on its way!

However, eventually we wove our way through downtown Chicago’s gauntlet of one way streets and legion of taxis (and one fun moment when we were driving under the L and I looked over at Esteban and said in my best Elwood ‘We’re on a mission from Gahd.’ To which he replied ‘four fried chickens’ and a coke.’ Because sometimes you don’t need words, you just need to dork out about really old movies. ) to finally end at the little restaurant with the tableau of spinning roasted meat in the window. We valet parked, then plunked down in the bar, where soon I was quickly placated with some deliciously strong caipirinha.Ok, two. It was a long wait. Soon I was giggling and didn’t care one bit that I was seated in a very expensive restaurant, wearing baggy jeans, a t-shirt and white canvas sneakers.

And then dinner. Oh my yes, dinner. It was, in a word, divine. As Esteban commented, someone must have kidnapped and then murdered my inner vegetarian, because I was giddy each time that a flamboyant gaucho came by bearing his sword of meat. I mean, how could one deny him? He has a sword! A sword of MEAT. In fact, there are thirteen different gauchos, all with different meats and implements of death! You eat meat, or you perhaps die. Thus, I renamed the restaurant Meat Or Death, and then laughed at my little Eddie Izzard reference in between bites of filet mignon and grilled lamb chops. Or whatever the hell it was. It was heavenly. Highly recommended. Although most people probably wouldn’t have the impertinence to pull off sitting in a posh dining room wearing hoodie sweatshirt and discretely ripped jeans.

Meat

After the Meat Or Death, we sat at the table, breathing through our mouths, wishing that we had either a second stomach or, in Esteban’s case, the ability to perform ‘a quarter puke’. We waited outside for the valet and this time I couldn’t look at the spinning Wheel of Meat in the front window, lest I swear off all meat products from now until forever. Finally, the truck barreled up Michigan Avenue and we were on our way, debating which of the next Six Deadly Sins we were going to commit next, since dinner at Fogo De Chao certainly hit Gluttony out of the damn park.

We drove home in a haze. I sacked out in a meat coma with my head resting against Esteban’s knee because I am a cruel wife to make her husband drive four hours alone in the middle of the night. Finally, we were home and we collapsed into bed where we did not (or perhaps could not) move for nine hours. The next day, we both had meat hangovers and didn’t eat anything substantial for most of the day.

Maybe the reason that we’re both overweight is that instead of partying like rock stars, we party like Sumo wrestlers.

So that was the weekend. And now it’s Monday. If I wasn’t hungry last week, I am so beyond not hungry now. I may not eat until I stop feeling like my veins are coursing with gravy. I have only had water or Sbux since Saturday night. I may have some vegetarian pizza for dinner tonight, but right now, it may be premature. In fact, planning to eat anytime in the month of April might be a tad premature.

As is buttoning my pants.

You know how I have unreasonable hatred sometimes?

I have a new hatred motive: when people say ‘tortilla’ like ‘tor-till-ah’ instead of ‘tor-tee-ah’. I spend the next five minutes suppressing the urge to smack them. It’s not as bad as when people say ‘ain’t’ but it’s close.

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The ham does not need a prop

Friday, April 9, 2004

This morning, as I was driving to work, I decided to listen to the tragically horrible Green Bay radio instead of my normal foursome of mix CDs. And the morning radio crew of the Top 40 station (see, I told you it was tragic. The best selection is a radio station featuring the turds shat from the ass crack of Casey Kasem. Also, my Mafia Grandmother uses ‘shat’ but I suspect that ‘shit’ doesn’t really have a past tense, since it’s a swear word, but ‘shitted’ sounds weird. I’m sure the comments will have opinions about such things) were doing a remote at a grocery store that I was actually about to drive past as I got on the freeway. So the morning guy is free-babbling that they are about to be asked to move their van because an official store guy was walking over to them, but then, probably because he was now live on the radio, he said that they were fine where they were. Then, the radio guy said ‘What do you have in store for us there in the ‘store?’

Not everyone can adlib, and yet, the store employee came back with

‘We got ham, man. We got lots of ham.’

I burst out laughing. They got ham, man. The way he said it was like an embattled sergeant reporting sadly of seventy-two lost platoons. He was so personally astonished and accepting of things that were beyond his control, and at the same time, a wee bit Spicoli-esque. It was beautiful. If that guy hosted morning radio, I might actually listen. However, then they launched into reading the specials (Kitchen Kleen potatoes, five pounds for 77 cents!), so I switched the channel, ended up listening to far too much John Cougar Mellencamp (the tragedy! I told you!) and then changed the channel again to ANOTHER of Seymour, Indiana’s finest, and then poked at my CD button in disgust, relieved to hear whining indie boys talking about finding my hair on their pillow and wishing that I would come around. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Speaking of desperation, last night I dreamt that I saw three completely naked celebrities at different points in the same day. And the thing that Dream Weetabix was impressed with was the likelihood of that. Dream Weetabix could have understood the serendipity of, say, two unrelated naked celebrities, but three? That was truly something else.

I don’t remember who the first two celebrities were (I remember one was a woman, perhaps Anna Nicole Smith) but the third was Kevin Smith. (Wait! The first one was Will Smith! I now see the cosmic link! Thank god it wasn’t Dame Maggie, as I totally don’t ever need to see Professor McGonagall’s naked chariots all swinging low and sweet!) And Kevin Smith looked pretty much how you would expect a naked fat guy to look, except that he had teased out his pubic hair into a sprayed bouffant that bloomed out and covered most of his nakedness. And Dream Weetabix actually made a comb-over joke about his crotchfro that made Kevin Smith laugh and laugh, his Silent Bob peeking up and down out of the thicket, until he started coughing because he’s a smoker.

So not only am I a fucking riot in my dreams, but I also throw in a (pubic) public service announcement. How fun is that!

Today is all sorts of weird. My head is in a weird place because I’ve got big thoughts weighing on my mind, about the meaning of life and also just how badly I want a Kate Spade purse. In a strange twist of events, my skin is absolutely perfect. Clear, somewhat peaches and cream, all one lovely tone with no trace of an off-colored speed bump to ruin the effect. In fact, it’s so good that this morning, I took one look at my Prescriptives Virtual Skin in Real Vanilla and decided that to put foundation on it would actually detract from my natural loveliness. Thus, the powder brush kissed my nose and chin and that, my friends, was that. It was very liberating. It is truly days that I could honestly play myself in the movie about my life. Further supporting the heroine look, my hair is all floofy, like Sarah McLachlan, and I’m wearing very pastel blue v-neck (which does lovely things to my eyes) and baggy jeans with white canvas sneakers, and it’s impossible to have any kind of attitude in this ensemble. I can’t pull off the punk girl sneer nor the cool snobby eyebrow raise. In this outfit, I got nothing but sweetness and light.

I’m having one of those weird ‘not hungry’ days. I don’t even know why. It started last night when Esteban arranged for us to go to dinner with Ward and June at the Olive Garden. I’m sure that my tummy was already awash with trepidation. And even though I avoided red sauces, pasta, and salad (which, if the lettuce is tinged with chemicals, is enough to throw an iffy tummy into complete and utter mutiny), I still ended up having some kind of reaction and had massive yuckiness for the rest of the evening, except one moment of delight when I said ‘Esteban, roll over, you’re snoring, baby’ and he responded ‘I will not be insulted by being associated with those commie red bastards!’. Because apparently, in Esteban’s dreams, it’s 1954 and he’s just gotten an invitation to a dinner party at Julius and Ethel Rosenberg’s. Where I’m certain they won’t be serving ham. Even though we got ham, man. We got lotsa ham.

That is still the best thing I’ve heard all day.

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Thumbelina

Tuesday, April 6, 2004

Folks have been known to comment that I don’t seem as heavy as I am because I tend to move around like a lighter person, very possibly defying the laws of physics and anatomy. I don’t know how that all works, but I do know that I hate it when a fat girl lumbers around, clumping like a draft horse or something.

Also, I’m surprisingly flexible, considering that I don’t really do anything towards that end. One of the weirdest moments of my life was during my sophomore year in phys ed when we were taking the rather torturous President’s Fitness tests and I was one of the first people up to take the flexibility test. After weeks of halfhearted lame scores (run for half an hour? No? Why are we doing this again? To find out if we can? I’ll answer this right now: I can’t. I won’t. In what world does that make sense? Maybe if there were a clown chasing me or something), suddenly there was Weetabix outshining the entire class, even the jocks. The only person who came close to my score was a girl jock who had scored the highest for at least a third of the tests. The gym teacher (Dick Cheney, I so totally hope you google yourself) was perplexed. The fat girl scoring highest in the class? The fat girl who plans her sick days to coincide with phys ed days? The fat girl????

He called my name and made me take it again, while the entire class (including hot junior BOYS) watched. This time, I was able to stretch three inches farther. For all the fat girls everywhere.

But, in exchange for the illusion of grace, I have the yang of being weirdly self-destructive. I don’t really know how that works, exactly. When I played volleyball, I managed to go full seasons without ever taking a header in the sand, but at the same time, I dislocated my shoulder in the midst of a rather spectacular spike. Two weekends ago, while dancing like a mad fool on the Bad Bar’s Windowsill, I jammed my right hand down against something, giving me a nice swollen and purple contusion on my middle finger and I spent the rest of the night keeping ice on it. For further proof, see Evidence #21B: the knee.

At some point in the last several days, I hurt my thumb. I’m not really sure how exactly that happened. I suspect it involved something very non-glamourous, such as slamming my car door or hoisting a hamper of laundry or perhaps transporting our gluttonous cat. Regardless, it hurts. And thus, I whine.

Weetabix : My thumb hurts.
Esteban : What hurts?
Weetabix : My thumb.
Esteban : I know, but what part?
Weetabix : The thumby part! The part that is my thumb!
Esteban : Weetabix’ You’re an English major, perhaps you could be more specific.
Weetabix : From the tip of my thumb down to the part that is NOT MY THUMB!
Esteban: Oh, you are so difficult.
Weetabix : Gah!

Mars, venus, blahety blah blah. Have I had a stroke and my aphasia has replaced the word ‘thumb’ with the word for, say’ Australia? Regardless, apparently whining takes stamina. Which, ironically, makes my thumb hurt.

I keep hurting it myself, quite honestly. I forget that it hurts and then do something with my thumb and then my sore thumb says ‘Hi! Fuck you very much!’. The thumb is more important than one would think. In fact, it’s the very thing that let us evolve. Without thumbs, the world might just be run by giant Lemurs, walking around with cell phones, driving BMWs.

Which makes me laugh, because you just know that even a lemur behind the wheel of a Beemer is going to have an ulcer and also be a bit of a prick.

Originally, I was left-handed but my stepfather conspired with my kindergarten teacher (who was very proud about having taught fewer than 1% left handed children) to send me through life with a pencil firmly embedded in my right hand. Therefore, I use things engineered for right-handed folks (pens, computer mouse, scissors, etc) with my right hand but automatically favor my left for most other things. Suffice to say, this is a very important thumb. It’s the thumb that unbuttons my jeans when I have to pee. It’s the thumb that holds the remote control. It’s the thumb that rocked Cleveland. It’s the thumb that loves you, baby. It’s a great thumb.

I miss my thumb.

Also a bit that serves no real entertainment value, but I want it here to remind myself: I made a trip to the Hundred Dollar Store on Sunday and managed to spend only $21. I know. I’m flabbergasted. I suspect the success was due to the fact that I had complete and utter apathy and also, was heading to the lighting display but instead turned really sudden and checked out at the returns desk. The element of surprise! Quite profitable.

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Laffy Taffy

Friday, April 2, 2004

After I took that shower that I mentioned in this morning’s entry, I wrapped one towel around my bits and then took a second towel off the bar to fluffle my hair. In the process, some towel brushed against my lips.

And that’s when I noticed the coarse hair that was now in my mouth. Correction: coarse kinky black pubic hair.

You just threw up reading that, didn’t you? I’m sorry. If you didn’t, then perhaps you should check to see if you’re a damned robot or something.

For reasons I really don’t want to explain on the internet for God and everyone else to see (because you KNOW that God has got some fat pipe connection, hoo boy), I am reasonably certain that it originated from The Mesopotamia of Esteban. I could say something funny about that or make an incredibly personal revelation, but I’m not going to. You know why? Because there are instances when you know that there is a possibility that a pubic hair will end up in your mouth and you bravely persevere, but you’re prepared for the likelihood. And then when it happens, it still sucks. But half awake, stepping out of the shower soft skinned and lightly perfumed? Let’s just say that it transcends the suck. Let’s just say that it is not the best way to start your day, my friends. Because to say anything else, I may just have to involuntarily gag.

Which reminds me, since it’s all Show and Share day on Dumber than a Box of Rocks, Esteban has had a song of his own invention stuck in his head for two days. He only has one lyric so far and it goes ‘My butt is full of poop’. Perhaps it’s the chorus. I don’t know. So, sometimes he’s sitting there on the sofa, typing away at his laptop, unconsciously softly singing ‘My butt’. Is full of poop! My. Butt. Is. Fuuuuuuuuullll of POOP!’ I for one am waiting breathlessly for the revelation of the second line. What will happen with the poopful butt? What will it do next? The suspense! You have no idea.

I, on the other hand, have had the song ‘Bad Medicine’ stuck in my head. I think it’s by Motley Crue. With the umlauts over the U. Or perhaps a non umlaut band who are now all pool cleaners in Vegas. But apparently bad medicine is what they need. Oh whoa whoa.

I so envy Esteban.

I have had no coffee today. It was a weird day. I ended up wearing a(nother) DKNY t-shirt with Emily the Strange argyle socks that matched my hoodie. I’m already noticing my tendency to be a fashion one-trick pony. Certainly no socks, slept-in hair, and a plain white t-shirt with jeans every day cannot be too far behind.

Tomorrow, I will attempt to get Dave Matthews tickets, except I do so with such a heavy heart. I do not believe that I will get them. I am very suspect of Ticketmiser. I don’t trust them one hair. I think they sell all the good tickets on Ebay for five hundred dollars a piece. They are among the true bastards of the world.

Also, people who make banana shakes with less-than-completely ripe bananas. Because I bought one tonight to have for dinner and it was definitely made with a greenish yellow banana. And that’s just wrong. So now my mouth is all starchy and I’m vaguely irritated that I threw away a $4 shake. It wasn’t a $5 shake because I live in Wisconsin. It’s sad when Pulp Fiction becomes dated, because I know there are $5 shakes out there these days and it ain’t nothing but a thang.

Believe It Or Not Fact #1145: Underripe banana will not eradicate the suspicion that you can still taste pubic hair. Believe it or NOT!

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Correction

Thursday, April 1, 2004

In case the URL on yesterday’s entry wasn’t enough to persuade you that the entry was an April Fool’s entry, let me confirm for you now: I still have a job. My uterus is happily vacant. Esteban and I are still firmly ensconced in the ranks of Double Income No Kids.

Ok, the Flirtista Barista part wasn’t fake. He’s really there. However, I did have to change my order (venti soy chai) to decaf so that it would work with the implied baby thing.

High marks to those of you who remembered that I did just experience my lady time and did just tell you all that my job was safe from the riffings.Actually, if you read it closely, I never actually said that I was pregnant. Just that I wanted to be a mommy. Which, actually, I don’t. Except to fictional children, perhaps, who do not require much maintenance and perhaps have fictional nannies as well.

If you notice that I’m posting this hella early, it’s because I have a business day trip today and likely won’t have access to the internet, but I didn’t want anyone to still be confused about yesterday’s entry. Because I love you guys. Love you enough to mess with your heads and now feel a little bit guilty for people who totally believed it. So anyway, that’s why this is brief. And probably disjointed. Because I need to go take a shower, man. And brush my teeth.

In other news, there’s a pseudo-April Fool’s Non Diaryland edition of Quoted up.Chiara foiled her boss. It’s brilliant!

The comments section wants to hear about other April Fool’s pranks that were played on you (or you played on your friends) yesterday.

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Beginnings

Thursday, April 1, 2004

There’s a new barista at Sbux. He’s a big giant flirty mcflirtsalot. I mean, I can’t quite blame him, as I am undeniably cute, but this guy is an abnormality because he’s really hot too. Like, boy band hot. Normally the hot guys don’t feel the need to compensate by laying on the Big Flirt. They just walk around and we should be pleased that they are gracing us with their hotness. Yesterday morning when he handed me my venti soy decaf latte, he goofed around and then made the window shut on his hand which was holding the cup. I mean, there’s a reason that Charlie Chaplin, Jack Black and Steve Martin chose comedy. Because they just couldn’t skirt by on looks alone. This guy is challenging everything I think I know about hot guys.

He’s actually starting to bug me. Like the Hobbit guy on American Idol, only not, you know, pathetic and somewhat repulsive.

I love irony. You know that, right? Irony is what delights me and keeps me thinking.

But man’ Fuck you, O.Henry. Stop messing with my life.

So, the riffings’

This morning, I skipped into work, perhaps a little perkier in my step because it is in fact Thursday and that means tomorrow is Friday and yay, weekend and unadulterated hours of sleep are to be mine! And also I could get some (fucking) laundry done, as yesterday I ended up dressing rather businesslike out of desperation and this morning, I decided to screw it and wore jeans and a grey DKNY t-shirt with my favorite red hoodie. Because life, she is good. And Thursdays, they are lovely.

After sitting at my desk for about fifteen minutes, slogging through the evening’s email, changing my voicemail message (because I get snarky reprimands from a certain Spoon if I do not), and opening all of the programs I use throughout the day, suddenly an email pops up. The entire department has a meeting. In the big conference room. In ten minutes.

Because I am stupid and clueless I didn’t even think anything about it. I just shrugged, rolled my eyes at how annoying it is to go to these meetings where they don’t tell us anything, just so that they can prove that they’ve been racking up the communication. Thus, we walk into the conference room and then realize’ something’s up. There’s the guy from HR sitting there in his polo shirt, Dockers and black tennis shoes. There’s the big VP. There’s my VP sitting there with a hang dog look on his face. Something’ something is not right.

Fifteen minutes later, I, along with thirty odd stunned people in pairs based upon geographical locations of cubicles, was escorted back to my desk, where a paper box was conveniently waiting for my personal belongings. And all I could think was ‘Man’ who was the box person? Who was out there dragging three dozen big copy paper boxes of death around the department?’

We were given ten minutes to get our stuff together. Under the careful eye of some nameless manager with a comb over from another department, I frantically popped into my email and forwarded all of my writing stuff and personal documents to my personal email account. Over the walls, the cubemates were in various stages of grief. Some people were pissed. I’m pretty sure that I heard the sounds of sniffles from one of the guys. The annoying one with the loud voice spent her ten minutes calling her (mother? Friend? Boyfriend?) and bitching about how she hates the company and they are a bunch of ungrateful assholes treating us like criminals, blargh bleargedy blargh, so that when we were getting ushered out, she still hadn’t wrangled up her Beanie Babies and was whining “My babies! My babies!” I’m certain others were quietly stuffing staplers, mouse pads and whatnot into their boxes too, since we really didn’t have enough supervision to go around. Honestly, I should have cleaned out my stuff when they first started whispering about this stuff, but I guess I believed them when they said that we’d have sixty days notice. What they apparently decided to do was pay us for those sixty days on top of whatever our severance package was.

I’m totally taking this on an up note. I mean, it couldn’t happen at a better time. I’ll have seven months, essentially, of full time pay, which is rather symbolic right there. Then I will have unemployment benefits, I think? Regardless, this will give me time to put together some kind of novel for the agents in New York, and maybe write some new stories and continue to submit stuff like mad to the little literary magazines and pay my dues and stuff. So that’s what I’m going to do. Really, given recent developments, I couldn’t have asked for better timing. It will be a little weird to be without a career, since I’ve had a job in one form or another since I was 19, but I guess I have to remind myself that I do have a job. A good wife and a better writer and, most of all, an excellent mommy.

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